For years I have used regular wooden spoons while cooking and never though much about them. I usually purchased them at Target or some similar store, but I also didn’t feel they were great quality. Six months ago, however, my cooking spoons improved greatly when I purchased a Berard olivewood spoon from Sur La Table.

I never thought there could be such a difference with wooden cooking utensils, but there is. Berard is a French company that has been making quality wooden cooking utensils since 1892. Their spoon is crafted from a single piece of olivewood and is oil varnished to make it durable and heat resistant.

Not only does this spoon feel good in the hand, but it actually does resist heat a lot better than other wooden spoons I’ve used. Now when I cook, I usually search specifically for my Berard spoon and it gets used much more than other stirring utensils.

You can purchase Barard spoons at Sur La Table or at Amazon.com. They come in 10-inch, 12-inch, and 14-inch sizes and cost between $13-17.

Every now and then I try gadgets even though I pretty much know that I will not like the product or use it. Usually, I have heard good reports on it, the Amazon ratings are high, and the product is relatively cheap. Essentially, I get to satisfy my curiosity and there is no regret if it turns out to be useless.

So I finally gave in and bought one of those cannelloni-shaped garlic peelers by Zak for around $9. I must admit that I didn’t have high hopes for this gadget. Once you know that you can just tap the flat side of a chef’s knife on a garlic clove and the skin will easily come off, a garlic peeler seems redundant. Just search YouTube and you will find many videos showing how to remove garlic skin with a knife or other flat object.

But maybe I am too quick to judge. The Amazon ratings are really high for this simple and cheap gadget, and there are some logical reasons someone would use it. The main arguments for it include:

* It is quick and easy.

* You touch the garlic less, so you hands don’t smell as much.

* It preserves the shape of the clove as it doesn’t crush the clove as the knife method does.

So how did it perform?

Well, first of all it does work. It quickly took away the skin and left a clean clove of garlic on my counter. I must say I was quite impressed. Though that is basically what a gadget does: it wows you with its magic and then you actually start cooking with it and begin to see the real benefits and drawbacks.

Was it faster than doing the knife trick?

That is tough to say.

If you are just skinning one or two cloves and have a chef’s knife handy, then you would likely be done removing the skin with a knife before you could retrieve the garlic peeler from your gadget drawer. So for a small number of cloves, it is probably still best to use a knife if you have one handy. If you don’t, go for the peeler gadget. You’ll just have to wash another kitchen item later on.

For larger amounts of garlic, the peeler makes more sense as it may save you time overall. But that isn’t always true. I tried out 20 cloves and after about 8 of them, garlic skins were stuck to the inside of the cylinder and it took longer to peel each clove. Productivity declines with use. You could wash out the cylinder, but that also takes time and when it becomes wet it also works less effectively, so you need to dry the inside thoroughly.

Essentially, in terms of speed, if you know how to remove garlic skin with a knife, the peeler won’t really save that much time — if any. If you aren’t comfortable with knives and are only doing a moderate amount of cloves, then the peeler could marginally save time.

Other Considerations

The most compelling reason to use the peeler is when you want to retain the garlic clove shape without smashing it. The knife or other flat surface, depending upon how much pressure you use, will crush the garlic to some extent. So if you are using whole cloves for pickling or want neatly sliced garlic to put into the slits of a tenderloin, then the peeler will do a good for such purposes.

Another reason for using the peeler would be to reduce the smell that handling garlic imparts to your hands. When you crush garlic, you start to release its oil and that is what makes your hands smell. But I do find this argument less than persuasive. If you neatly peel the garlic with the gadget and then use your hands to chop or slice the garlic, you still end up handling it — albeit less. Even if you use a garlic press, you still often end up employing your fingers to dig out the pulp remains. Basically, unless you are using only full cloves, you will still end up handling the garlic and have some garlic smell on your hands.

Lastly, I think the peeler is also good if you have children or less-than-foodie relatives or friends helping in the kitchen. It is easy to use, can be fun for children, and the helpers don’t have to worry about hands smelling like garlic. You will be the one chopping and preparing the food.

Overall Evaluation

If you are comfortable with a knife and are already using one to remove garlic skins, this peeler gadget will probably not get used that much. I wouldn’t buy it.

In terms of speed, the peeler can be superior but it depends upon how much garlic you are peeling. If you are doing 4-6 cloves, the peeler may be quicker but after that, the peeler can lose efficiency and become slower. I wouldn’t buy this gadget for the speed.

If you want to reduce garlic contact with your hands; you like to cook a lot with whole cloves; or you want to involve kids in cooking, then this gadget is a small price to pay for those advantages. It does work well; it just depends upon how you cook.

I am finally working on another one of my cooking goals for 2010. I have already made cheese and butter which were on my to-do list, and now I am making the pickled Korean cabbage called kimchi.

So far I have tried a recipe for quick kimchi that was in the late-great Gourmet magazine and featured in March of 2009. I am not trying to take the easy way out with something quick; it just worked out better with my schedule to start off with this recipe.

The kimchi I made was relatively quick at 3.5 hours preparation time, while other recipes call for days of pickling. With that said, I still don’t consider that I have made kimchi until I have tried at least one more recipe to compare it to, but it was a good start and I was very satisfied with the result.

Now for full disclosure: I really love kimchi but I absolutely hate the smell of Asian fish sauce, and I had my concerns about this dish from the second I opened that bottle. The result, however, was extremely good. Once mixed, the aroma of fish sauce blended, faded, and infused the Napa cabbage in a wonderful way — kind of like using anchovies.

After that, I also made kimchi quesadillas which was also a recipe featured in Gourmet last year, and now I am thinking of using it in some fish tacos. It is really amazing how useful it is to have kimchi around to add crunch and spice to dishes.

Anyhow, next week I intend to make my second round of kimchi, and it will be interesting to see how it compares. Regardless, I expect that I will be making more more of this spicy dish in the future. It takes a little bit of time to let the flavors come together, but it is still a really easy dish to make.

I found this recipe for roasted pears on the popular blog La Tartine Gourmande. I fell in love with roasted pears while living in France, but it took this French blogger to give the dessert some flair and really make it amazing. Just look at those pears. The photo is great, and the pears taste even better.

I especially like how the lemon grass, ginger, and vanilla bean seeds give the dish an exotic touch. Then the ground pistachios add a delicate crunchy texture. It was tart, yet smooth, and was almost like a tropical custard.

If I ever wanted to impress anyone with a dessert — and I mean anyone — I would probably make this dish. It is really tasty and I recommend it highly.

This ‘Patrician’ champagne goblet from Lobmeyr is quite possibly one of the most elegant glasses I have ever seen. It was designed in 1917 by Josef Hoffmann for Lobmeyr and has an elegance that makes it stand out. This glass is often used in cooking magazines to display drinks, just as Food & Wine did in the February 2010 issue. See the picture to the right by David Lauridsen.

Lobmeyr is a historical fine glass maker from Austria and their glass does not come cheap. A set of six of these goblets will run you close to $800 and per stem they will cost $148. They are mouth blown in a wooden mold and made from fine muslin glass.

You can purchase these and other Lobmeyr glasses from Unica Home and Kneen & Co.

For a few years I used the Unicorn Magnum Plus Pepper Mill (left), but about five months ago I started using the Oliver Hemming Spice Mill (right). Now that I own both of these grinders, I thought I would have a pepper grinding duel to compare the two products.

I have previously written about the Oliver Hemming and the Unicorn, and both are very good pepper grinders, but there are some differences that set them apart. So after a lot of pepper grinding, here are how the two grinders compare.

Styling

The Oliver Hemming has better styling in my opinion and comes in a range of colors. The body of the Hemming is also made out of acrylic and has a smooth, solid feel to it. But what sets it apart is the unique use of a traditional mortar perched on top of the grinder. There is a reason why the Oliver Hemming spice mill won a Red Dot Design Award.

The Unicorn is less stylish and more utilitarian, and one of the most common points raised about the Unicorn is that it doesn’t look that great. I do agree that it is nothing special, but I also don’t think it is that bad. I just wish they would start making the Unicorn in different colors. I think that would greatly reduce the ‘ugly’ stigma associated with it. Also, the ABS plastic feels a lot cheaper than the Hemming material.

Loading and Storage Capacity

The Hemming’s storage capacity is good compared to other grinders and holds about 3/8 cup but nothing like the Unicorn. The best part of the Hemming, though, is how easy it is to load. The mortar on top acts like a funnel, so loading is extremely easy.

The Unicorn holds almost one cup of peppercorns when filled up to the loading hole, which is an amazing amount. The hole is also large for easy filling, but I must admit that I find the loading of peppercorns awkward on the side of the grinder.

Storage, in my opinion, is a wash between these two products. The ease of loading with the Hemming adequately compensates for its smaller storage, but the Unicorn definitely will need less filling.

Grinding

The Hemming’s grind is very good and the turning is smooth. A nice shower of pepper comes out, and there is also an adjustment knob on the bottom to regulate the grind from fine to coarse. A nice feature of the Hemming is that the grinding mechanism is made out of ceramic and not steel, so you can use it for grinding salt as well as other dry spices that are under the size of a coffee bean.

The Unicorn is a pepper-grinding monster, and it has a very satisfying grind-and-crunch feel. It grinds fast and the shower of corns is fast and plentiful. The grinding mechanism is steel, so though it can be used for pepper, salt will corrode the metal. Unicorn has different products for grinding salt if you are looking for that option. There is also a knob at the bottom for adjusting the grind just as the Hemming has.

For comparison, at a medium-coarse grind the Unicorn produced about 1 3/8 tsp of pepper after 20 turns versus just under 1 1/8 tsp with the Hemming. At finer grinds, the Hemming performed almost as well as the Unicorn, and the Hemming actually allowed for a finer grind at the most extreme setting than the Unicorn. There is no question though that at medium to coarse grinds, the Unicorn is much faster.

Other Considerations

The Unicorn was messier than the Hemming and a fair amount of pepper would leak out of the Unicorn while resting on the counter, especially at coarser grind settings. You will probably notice a lot of peppercorn droppings where you store the Unicorn if you purchase this grinder.

Also of note, the loading hole on the Unicorn can come open accidentally because it is located just under the turning mechanism and regular grinding sometimes opens it. If this happens and the grinder tips over, you may spill peppercorns. This only happened a couple of times to me, but it did happen. The new Unicorn, however, has a tighter fitting ring over the loading hole, so hopefully it will stay closed and be less of a problem. This problem was also noted in Amazon reviews.

Conclusion

All in all they are both very good pepper grinders. If you are looking for grinding speed during hectic cooking sessions, then the Unicorn is probably the best choice. If you can sacrifice a bit of speed and want something that looks better, the Oliver Hemming is an excellent choice.

If you want to purchase the Oliver Hemming Spice Mill, Dream Icons has it for sale for $45, but shipping is $20 from the UK. The Unicorn Magnum Plus Pepper Mill is available from Cooking.com for $45 with $10 shipping. I purchased my Oliver Hemming off of eBay for around $20.

This High & Dry dishrack by Black+Blum has a great design, sleek look, and comes in lime, sage and white.

I hand wash my dishes, so I am usually skeptical about design dishracks, but this one intrigues me. I like how the rack folds down to reduce its profile for storage, which is definitely a nice feature. Check out the company’s website to see how it packs up.

With that said, I wonder how sturdy the prongs are when extended, and it also seems as if the rack is better suited for plates and glasses and less for bowls and odd-shaped dishes. This is a common problem with many designer dishracks.

For small amounts of dishes, however, this looks like a good option. It also has a small/removable utensil holder, and there is a spout for draining that you can open whenever you want. This means you can put the dishrack anywhere in your kitchen and drain it later — a nice feature if your kitchen is not set up for drying dishes right next to the sink.

You can purchase the dishrack for $59 at Emmo Home.

This kitchen system would be perfect for a compact kitchen in an urban area. It is produced by bulthaup and consists of two tool cabinets, a workbench, and a water point. You can see the workbench and one of the storage cabinets to the right.

I admire how compact the b2 system is, and it then folds up when not in use. You can go to the bulthaup website to see it in frame-by-frame action.

I can only imagine how much it costs, but with a small kitchen space, a system like this would be invaluable.

This table manners set comes from Japan, and it won’t necessarily work for other cultures that don’t have that range of utensils, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea.

The set has icons to identify which item is used for what, and it will create some sort of visual model for setting the table when the little ones grow up. Plus kids will love it.

The item is available on Funfam if you can figure out how to buy it.

I ran into this concept on ghigos.com. It is a brilliant way to create a do-it-yourself foodie chess set.

I think I am going to start searching for the pieces to make this reality.