Misono, a Japanese maker of fine cutlery used by many professional chefs, also offers this unique product for children. It is a knife with a rounded tip for safety and made for the hands of a child. Some may question the wisdom of giving a kid a knife at all, but it all depends upon knowing your kids and their motor skills, proper supervision, and determining whether a special knife like this would be worth it.

Foodie kids are getting younger and younger these days, and I could definitely see an kid 8 years old and up possibly using this knife. The cost at $42 is high, but not really that bad. The Misono UX10 chef’s knife that cooks clamor for sells for $210, so it could have been a lot worse.

With that said, there are many options for letting kids do some prep work without cutting those tiny digits. The Zyliss lettuce knife is one option. This plastic knife isn’t made for kids specifically, but it serves the purpose vert well. It also comes in a nice green color that might appeal to kids.

Pampered Chef also has their version of a child’s knife called the My Safe Cutter. It is a dull serrated knife with a blunt end specially suited for kids.

Curious Chef is another new entrant into the kid’s knife arena. They offer a nylon knife set (3 knives) that is very child friendly, and the company also sells a range of other cooking tools for kids. I visited their display at the Chicago Housewares Show, and I was quite impressed with their line of products.

Similarly, the Swiss maker, Kuhn Rikon, has a whole Kinderkitchen line for children, and I personally purchased this dog knife with teeth for my six-year-old. It has ears that act as a bolster to protect little hands, a flexible rubber tail, and the knife is just the right sharpness to be useful — not frustrating — when cutting.

With that said, you don’t really have to go out and buy a special knife at all if you want to introduce your kids to basic kitchen chopping. Sturdier disposable plastic knives and butter knives also work, and when they get old enough, a pairing knife (properly supervised) can be the next step up. But none of the above knives, with the exception of the Misono, will cost that much. The prices range from $7-11, and if your kids is a budding foodie, why limit them to a flimsy plastic disposable knife?

I love the clean styling of Beth Mueller’s ceramics. Each item is hand painted, glazed in white, and usually adorned with some sort of short message or word. If you visit her website, you will see a large selection of items she has to offer, to include vases, dishes, and vessels of all shape and size. She also makes paper and cloth products too.

Beth studied art in college, but also studied print making in Italy and apprenticed to a potter in Detroit. Wherever her training comes from though, the combination is brilliant; she produces strikingly simple yet elegant pieces.

I really like her children’s eating sets, such as the one shown, and her counter-top compost bin and asparagus platter.

Her pieces would make great gifts for almost any occasion and can be found at several sites online. Some places to check out are Uncommon Goods, Zanisa, and Artful Home, and you can even purchase her milk bottle vases through Amazon.

My pantry has a lot of smells in it: spices, oil, garlic, and a lot of others to include even dog food. But now I have decided to get a deodorizer to neutralize the air a bit, and after some research I am going to purchase some activated charcoal.

The Chikuno Cube of bamboo charcoal to the right has a honeycomb structure to give it more surface area to collect all of those unwanted odors. The cube supposedly lasts for a year and can be recharged by leaving it out in the sun for six hours.

The second option is a similar charcoal cube made from Korean oak called the Kuro Cube. It doesn’t have the micro-hive structure, but it basically does the same thing and can also be recharged outside. This product supposedly lasts for ‘years,’ though I am not exactly sure how long that is in product life.

Both cubes are billed as being green products as they can be crushed up and put in the garden once they are finished. They can also be used for a year or more so you will avoid buying all those other products to freshen your house.

Some people comment on the price being too high, but at $25+ I think it is a bargain considering how long these products last. As for using baking soda, that odor solution is over-hyped. Yes, it does absorb some odors, but it is not nearly as effective as claimed and doesn’t last as long. Food Network’s Ted Allen did a test a while back and found that baking soda does work but activated charcoal works better.

With that said, there are many different charcoal deodorizers on the market. One cheaper option is Fridge-It. The colorful cubes cost about $4 and are definitely worth a try. I might purchase all three products in this post to see which I like best.

You can order the Chikuno Cube from Delight.com for $28.50 and the Kuro Cube can be purchased at DWR for $25. The Fridge-It can be purchased from Amazon for $3.99.

These metal utensils from the Italian company, Italesse, are stylish, recyclable and pack up well. The aluminum flatware was designed by Tomas Alonso and takes up minimal space while being exceptionally light weight. For some good pictures go to Alonso’s site linked above, click on ’stamp cutlery’, and then click at the bottom to see more images. The story about the design process is pretty interesting to read through too.

These utensils simply stack on top of each other, and there is a little clip that holds the spoon, fork, and knife together for organization. They sort of remind me of the utensils from an old Army mess kit that I have, but these look much nicer. They’d definitely be perfect for camping or some outdoor entertaining. Alonso bills them as reusable/disposable, but the designer also hopes that people will use them more than once. Regardless, this is disposable flatware to be proud of.

Unfortunately, I cannot find these products for sale in the US or Europe, but hopefully Italesse will roll them out soon and some vendor in the US will pick them up.

I really like the simple, elegant look of the Crudo tableware line from Atipico out of Italy. It is the product of five designers in search of simple, honest eating integrated with the grace of earthy materials. ‘Crudo’ means ‘raw’ in Italian and is an apt name for the tableware line. A description in the catalog says, “The strength of invisible fire bakes the matter while leaving its meaning raw and intact.” I kind of like that, and the black clay earthiness of some of the pieces definitely gives that feeling.

I particularly like the covered bowl set and the oblong serving platter with white glaze. As summer is on its way, I could see many uses for the covered bowl and the platter begs to have a grilled side of halibut on it.

Now comes the hard part: waiting. I can’t find this available for sale, and I am not sure if it is in commercial production yet. The line was just introduced in January 2010 and was in this month’s issue of Wallpaper*, so maybe later in the year it will start to come out in Europe and after that in the US.

I have been a fan of Paul Smith’s iconic colorful stripes for a while, and now you can get some expensive bone china to bring that color to the table. To the right is the breakfast cup and saucer of his, and one setting will cost $135. You can check out his coffee and tea service sets at paulsmithusa.com. Just click on the online shop and you will be redirected to the UK online shop. A set of four coffee cups, creamer, and coffee pot will run you $900+.

I’ve come across a few wine chilling products that might be useful as summer approaches. Maybe you have forgotten to chill a bottle and want a quick cold glass of vino or you just need to keep your drink cool. Regardless, there are plenty of products out there, but these struck me as stylish and innovative.

The first is the Vacu Vin Cooling Carafe to the right. This product uses non-ice cold packs that are inserted into a chilling base. You just put the beverage of choice into the carafe and let the cooling packs do their work. The cost is around $33 and it comes in black and white versions.

Unfortunately, the chilling base does not accommodate wine bottles, and the beverages must be used with the carafe provided. That is a bit annoying, but on the other hand it is more flexible for other drinks. If you want one for just wine, there is the elegant Vacu Vin Prestige Stainless-Steel Wine Cooler for just over $25.

Vacu Vin also has a Rapid Ice Wine Cooler, which is a good option if you want something portable and only want to keep your wine at a nice chilled temperature. The wine coolers are basically chilled sleeves that fit over your bottle and come in many colors and patterns. They sell for $12 on Amazon, and I personally like the black and silver varieties.

As for chilling from room temperature, I don’t know if the claim that these wine sleeves can chill bottles in five minutes is accurate. After reading Amazon reviews, it looks as if it takes closer to 10 minutes and even then it doesn’t really get the bottle that cold. These packs are probably better for keeping pre-chilled bottles cold or to just slightly chill a red wine. Yes, red wines should also be served slightly chilled (55 to 65 degrees) depending upon the wine.

The next wine chilling product is the Wine Sceptre out of Germany. This device keeps a pre-chilled wine at the perfect temperature for drinking, but like other products also does not chill from room temperature. To use, you simply insert the chilled stainless steel rod into your wine bottle and it provides a cool core of metal to maintain the wine’s temperature. The product also has a flip-off top so you can pour the wine through the metal tube. It would be rather annoying if you had to take the rod out each time you wanted to pour a glass.

I like the idea of this a lot, as the rod is actually in the wine and doesn’t rely upon chilling from the outside, which means you are chilling the bottle too. Both the Vacu Vin chiller packs and the Wine Sceptre are also nice in that they eliminate the wet bottle. You’ll no longer have to use up your ice before a party for chilling wine, have soggy labels, or have to deal with a dripping bottle while pouring.

With that said, the price is really steep at $135, and a six-pack will run you $600. Ouch. At that price, maybe it is best just to finish the bottle before it gets warm. You can buy the wine sceptres through Mistral Imports.

If you want a cheaper option than the Wine Sceptre, Skybar has a Wine Cool Cover for $40 that will also maintain the temperature of your wine with a hip looking aluminum-finished cover that slips over your bottle. I would probably try this before the sceptre.

And the last product is also from Skybar. The Skybar Wine Chill Drops cost $50 and are made to chill individual glasses of room-temperature wine. They are very stylish and come in a set of two, so while you wait for the rest of your bottle to chill, you and another person can enjoy some cold wine using these individual chillers. You simply put the stainless steel bulbs in your glass, pour the wine, and let the cold metal chill your drink. The Skybar site claims that these chill drops cool a glass in as little as 90 seconds. Once the wine is to the desired temperature, you place the used chiller drops in the convenient stands. It’s a nice set-up if you ask me, and out of all the products, I think this one appeals to me the most.

If you want to chill wine the low-budget way, you can still use ice buckets or the freezer. When using an ice bucket, make sure to use water and ice and also add salt. This will cool the bottle in about 15 minutes.

If you just want to keep a glass of wine cool on a hot day, don’t use ice cubes, but instead freeze grapes and drop a few in your glass. This method won’t dilute the wine, but yet it will give some added cooling.

As for the desired temperature of different wines, Food & Wine has a nice cheat sheet on how long to refrigerate, freeze, or use and ice bucket for different wines. Just keep in mind that it takes over 2 hours in the refrigerator and at least 25 minutes in the freezer to achieve the desired temperature for whites — and sparkling wines will take even longer.

After making colored eggs for Easter, I ran into these interesting egg pillows from Vacu Vin. I don’t know at this point if the jokes about having pillows for eggs would be worth it, but if you have kids it might be a nice way to introduce hard-boiled eggs into their diet

But let’s be honest, if you have kids these pillows will be used for everything else but eggs and most likely be in some dollhouse somewhere. It’s worth a try though and they are dishwasher safe, so once the little ones lose interest, just pop them in the dishwasher, clean them up, and let them serve their intended purpose.

I haven’t been able to find this product on sale in the US, but this site from Germany offers them for 9.95 Euro (about $14). It doesn’t look as if they they ship to the United States since it isn’t even an option during checkout, but maybe if you sweet talk customer service they will find a way to get it to you. With that said, the Egg Pillow is a new product from Vacu Vin, so I am sure it will eventually be sold here; you’ll just have to wait.

Lately I have been going through the last year’s worth of archives for some of the food blogs that I like. I must admit that I find the world of food blogs a bit overwhelming at times. There are just so many, and keeping up can be difficult, but every now and then I just relax and focus on a couple of blogs and start reading.

One of the things I love most about good food bloggers is that they can inspire cooking a lot more than a simple cookbook. Their dish is a story, and it’s fun to tell stories about food. I also like the bloggers that are good photographers, and some of the food photography out there is simply amazing these days.

So with that said, one of the blogs that I do like to read is Eat Make Read written by Kelly Carámbula out of Brooklyn, NY. She started her blog in 2008 and also publishes with some friends a food magazine called Remedy Quarterly. I’ll do another post on this publication once I start my subscription, which will probably be in a month or so.

But what I really like about this blog is that it mixes in both beverages and food. A lot of blogs can get heavy on the baking and desserts, and while Eat Make Read has its share of sweets, it breaks it up nicely with a lot of classic cocktails and seasonal food dishes. Here are some of my favorite recipes from the the site.

Fried Polenta Wedges with Thyme

Spicy Corn Cakes with Fresh Salsa

Haricot Verts with Cinnamon, Yogurt, and Shallots

Grilled Cheese and Apple Sandwich

Rhubarb Johnny

Fresh Corn Bites with Thyme

Candied Sweet Potatoes with Bourbon

Granted, Kelly’s dishes can be on the simpler side, but I also like that. She is a professed picky eater who is now branching out, so simple, good flavors are a great way to break out of old eating habits. I think the two recipes I am going to try first are the apple grilled cheese and the rhubarb johnny. You can’t go wrong with hot cheese and rhubarb dessert.

As camping season approaches, I thought this outdoor cookware set would be perfect. The MSR Flex 4 System Cookset provides enough cookware for four people, and the dishes nest nicely within each other so that they don’t use up valuable space.

Another nice feature is that two of the plates are smaller and made to fit inside the smaller pot if you just want to go double (or solo). This way you don’t have to take all the pans for smaller outings. The plates also protect the interior of the pots from scratching as the smaller pot has a non-stick surface.

The set also has strainers built into the pot lids, which is handy, and includes one 5.3 liter anodized aluminum pot along with a smaller 3.2 liter non-stick aluminum pot. For eating and drinking, there are four deep dish plates/bowls and four insulated mugs with removable cozies. The set also comes with removable Talon handles for the pots that will clamp nicely to the lid to secure the dishes when all packed up.

You can buy the MSR Flex 4 Cooking System at Amazon for $128 (free shipping). And if four settings is too much for you there is also a smaller MSR Flex 3 System for $104 and an MSR Quick 2 System for $100, built for three and two persons respectively. These sets also have smaller cooking pots by the way.

All in all, I think these are well-designed sets for the outdoors. They are very functional and flexible — and look great too.