Inspecting Gadgets

On Saturday mornings that I don't go to the aquarium, I can be a bit lazy. I tend to sit around putting off drying my hair while drinking coffee and reading the online edition of the New York Times. Then I sit in front of the computer a little while longer, killing time on Facebook while hoping Chet and Lorraine show up on Skype so I can call them. The one moment of activity in this hour and a half or so of laziness involves going down to the kitchen to actually make said coffee.

My kitchen: my favorite room in our house.

I don't buy coffee that has already been ground, so I am always jolted awake by the sound of my little electric coffee grinder. This morning, I happened to start thinking about how much I love that grinder, and by association other little odds and ends in my kitchen. So...here it is, a list of my favorite everyday kitchen gadgets. This is mainly little stuff - although I love the KitchenAide mixer, it doesn't make this list. These are things I use almost every day. (Ignore the sub par photography - as I said, this was a lazy Saturday morning. I made these black and white in hopes that they'd look a little better.)

#1: Coffee Grinder and French Press


You can have one without the other, but why bother? Freshly ground coffee is always more flavorful, and coffee made in a French press is to die for. I actually asked my mom to buy me a French press as a gift about six or seven years ago after seeing an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy where Ted Allen informed that week's makeover that after-dinner coffee made in a French press was not only super-tasty but looks sophisticated and impresses people. I don't often pull the press out for entertaining, but it is perfect for making one or two cups of morning coffee. And when I have to use my drip coffee maker and make a whole pot, I still grind the beans with my trusty grinder, purchased at the same time as the press.

#2: Kitchen Shears

My kitchen shears came with my first set of knives (a Chicago Cutlery set in a wooden block - thanks, mom!) which I think I got when I moved into my first apartment. Those knives went by the wayside over the years (I moved on to Henkels and am hoping to drastically increase my income so I can continue to advance along the cutlery ladder) but I kept the brown plastic kitchen shears. Until I got these - and for a year or two after - I cut everything with a knife. It wasn't until later that I discovered how much easier it is to snip fresh herbs with a pair of shears. I aslo use them sometimes to cut - rather than chop - bacon if I need small pieces for a pizza topping, etc. I use them all the time. Hopefully whoeve bought my old knife set at Goodwill doesn't notice the empty whole in the front of the block where these used to reside.

#3: Zester

This little and inconspicuous-looking tool is a lifesaver. It wasn't until I graduated from cooking receipes out of the Betty Crocker Cookbook that I realized how many recipes called for lemon zest. This zester, picked up as an impulse purchase either at IKEA or at Cost Plus World Market in A2, allows me to make fine little ribbons of lemon peel to brighten the flavor of any dish.

#4: Mini-Chopper

My little, tiny 1980's Back & Decker mini-chopper might be my all-time favorite kitchen gadget. First of all, it came from one of Aunt Susan's ladies weekend giveaways. It was the first real kitchen gadget I actually owned. Aunt Missy is the one who put the idea of a mini-chopper into my head by introducing me to pesto (I can not believe there was ever a time I did not eat pesto) and telling me you could make it yourself. So when this little guy appeared in Aunt Susan's giveaway pile, a lightbulb went off in my head. I snapped it up and made my first batch of homemade pesto later that summer with a whole bunch of store-bought basil. Now I make pesto with basil I grow myself, along with herb pastes to rub under the skins of chickens, small batches of salad dressing, and more. The blades still chop as well as they ever did. I will use this mini-chopper until it chops no more, and I will be incredibly sad the day I am forced to buy a shiny new one.

#5: Wine Key

I can not open wine with anything other than a waiter's corkscrew, or wine key. I have tried using those fancy openers that are supposed to be easier and end up getting very confused. I started opening wine when I got my first fine-dining job at the Gandy Dancer in Ann Arbor. We did not employ a sommolier and opened our own wine tableside, which was slightly nerve-wracking the first few times. We all had our own wine keys - you could never find one when you neeeded one if you didn't because they kept getting stolen. I had a habit of keeping mine in my purse, which was bad news the first time I took a post-911 flight (confiscated AND had to do the whole search process thing). At the Earle we didn't open our own wine at the table, but we opened many bottles after. I have never bought a fancy wine opener because I think the waiter's corkscrew is the easiest and most direct way to open a bottle, and if it ain't broke, why fix it?

What kitchen implements can you not live without?

Help me make my house my home

Now that we've been here a year, it's finally time to start work on some of those room redecorating projects I've been thinking about.

We were lucky enough to move into a house formerly owned by young cool people. Matt and Kendra took care of a lot of updates, as well as putting in some really awesome light fixtures and appliances (and they picked some amazing paint colors, particularly in the kitchen and upstairs bathroom).

However, Matt and Kendra had one thing that we do not have, nor do I wish to have: a kid. And that kid had a pastel blue and pastel green bedroom with green and white checkered curtains.

This bedroom has since become my office, and quite frankly, I can't stand doing my work and extra-curricular internet usage in a room that looks like Babies R Us exploded in there. The curtains drove me so crazy that I removed those six months ago.

Anyway, now that gross, sticky, hot summer is over, I am finally ready to paint. I am putting my color choices below. Weigh in on your favorite color or offer suggestions. I want to start this in the next couple weeks, so don't hold back the ideas!

A Year in Review

That's right friends - I have now officially lived in CT for an entire year. A lot has changed since we pulled up in Mark Rauckhorst's driveway at 1:00 AM a year ago. For one thing, we were able to close on/move into our own house (luckily within about three days - I am not good at living in other people's houses and my kitties did not like living in the laundry room).

Some highlights of our year:

Finding/Moving In To Our House
We almost didn't get this house and if we hadn't, I honestly don't know that I could have moved here. We had a terrible experience with our realtor - she didn't want to show us anything in New London and we hated everything in our price range in Groton, Gales Ferry, Mystic, and all the other "desirable" places she showed us. I found our house online, had to fight with her to see it, had to fight with her more to get her to write up the offer, and then we almost lost it due to her stalling. A battle hard fought with a great reward.

Noe in front of our new house shortly after we closed

New York Trips
I'll never love NYC the way I love Chicago, but I'll also never complain about having it a (shorter) train ride away. The unexpected perk of moving out here was discovering that Noe's work badge got us into the major museums for free. So far we've hit the American Museum of Natural History (impressive but overwhelming), the Museum of Modern Art (adored it), and my personal favorite, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The great thing about getting in free and being so close is we can leave before we get burned out because we can always come back...although I can hardly imagine getting burned out on the Met.

Van Goh at the MOMA

Egyptian Awesomeness at the Met

Skiing in Vermont
Yes, we only went twice and yes, one of those days was completely warm and awful, but I can not possibly ignore the fact that in the same time it would take to drive to Boyne or Nub's Nob from Ypsi you can get to real mountains from New London. Noe and I were even able to take a bus from a local ski shop and get discounted tickets. Sure, it's no Colorado but I wouldn't know because I've never been out west anyway. Hopefully this year I can make Noe like skiing a little more and we can go more often.

I was trying to show Noe how to "snowplow."
He was more interested in taking pictures.

Making Awesome Friends
It was rough going here for a little while. Once the rush of moving and getting the unpacked was over, Noe and I suddenly found ourselves in a strange town with no friends, no hobbies, and it was more or less the dead of winter. Luckily, around this time we met and started hanging out with the people who would form our core group of friends here. Even better for me, my new friends got just as excited about wine, food, and books as I did. Now I had people to go to restaurants and wine tastings with and who told me where the fabulous Book Barn was located. The nights were suddenly filled with darts playing, rugby games and dinner/theme parties. Like getting the house, hooking up with this group was a real turning point.

Classing it up for the Gatsby Party (best party of the summer)

The Trifecta/Manfecta dinner party

Martha's Vineyard
This is pretty much directly related to the last item, because if we hadn't made friends with the awesome John and Katie, I am not sure that Noe and I ever would have made it out to Martha's Vineyard. But we jumped at the chance to go when Katie invited us (along with Amanda, Kevin, Mini, Doyle, Chad and Sarah) to spend a weekend at her family's house with her and John. I was absolutely enchanted by Martha's Vineyard and I only saw one small portion of it. I can't wait to go back. And although the setting (funky old house, beautiful beaches) was amazing, it was the company that really made the trip. It was our first vacation with our Connecticut friends and hopefully not the last.

The group at Katie's Vineyard house

Of course, there were many other good things about this year in addition to the ones above - great shows and movies at the Garde, for example; seeing concerts at the Dodge Music Center and the MGM Grand (yay Killers!); and volunteering at the aquarium. These are just some of the major highlights and the ones that stick out in my mind as definitive "maybe I don't hate it here" points. I'm still getting used to life on the East Coast, but I have to tell you that September 12, 2008 is gearing up to be a much better day than September 12, 2007.

April Showers...

...bring surprise May flowers. At least, they are surprises to us because we didn't plant them. When things started sprouting up in the flower bed, we had to wait a few weeks to figure out if they were flowers or weeds. Once we determined they were flowers, we had no idea what was going to actually blossom. (OK, I had no idea - Noe, Mr. "good at everything including identifying random green sprouts" knew what kind of plants they were, but he's not psychic so he had no way of knowing the colors.)

Luckily, Matt & Kendra (the former house owners) have as good taste in plants as they do interior paint colors. This is a sampling of what we ended up with: