Another stop I made yesterday was at Crate&Barrel, and they had some neat cookware for kids. With that said, it was more expensive than IKEA, but that is to be expected I guess.

The first item was this set of mini cupcake spatulas. You can find similar items from Le Creuset and Williams-Sonoma, but they are more expensive. I paid $9.95 for the two (a bit spendy), but even at Amazon the cheapest set will cost you around $9 once shipping is factored in. I wouldn’t use these for heavy duty, but they would be perfect for little hands and small jobs.

I also picked up a strawberry huller for $7.95. It is a cute little gadget from Chef’n that gets very good reviews. It is actually cheaper at Crate&Barrel than at Amazon where it costs $9.

Another handy gadget I picked up was the Oxo Mini Angled Measuring Cup for $3.95. It’s useful because it allows for kids to measure tablespoons without the mess of a spoon measure. Just pour the liquid in with the cup on the counter. This item is also available from Amazon for $4 with free shipping.

As I have a kids-sized knife coming in from Korin, I also picked up a small, non-slip cutting board for $7.95. It is 7×10 inches, which is a nice size for kids, and it is also reversible. The end rubber grips are also very sticky to prevent sliding. I looked at specially made kids cutting boards too, but I didn’t like the cutesy shapes. They seem less functional and have a lot of wasted board space. This board, however, can be used long after your kid grows up.

The last couple of items I purchased were a mini silicone cookie spatula for $7.95 and some non-slip mini prep bowls for $2.95 a piece. Those last items were probably not necessary, but they were rather neat looking and matched my larger mixing bowls.

The picture above is of all the equipment from Crate&Barrel. I think if I were going to narrow my purchases down, I would go for the cutting board, Oxo measuring cup, and possibly the strawberry huller. Total cost would be $20.

A couple of weeks ago I was at Kitchen Window in Minneapolis and saw for the first time that Epicurean, which is normally associated with cutting boards, is now producing kitchen utensils. They have a series of spoons, ladles, turner spatulas, pasta servers, and saute tools that come in two lines and colors. The Kitchen Series is completely made out of their trademark composite wood and comes in natural and slate, just like their cutting boards. The Gourmet Series also comes in natural and slate but incorporates a high-temperature nylon head.

I ended up purchasing the Gourmet Series slate-colored spoon and large spatula to try them out (shown above), and though I haven’t used them that much, so far I like them a lot. The handles are very comfortable, the construction is stiff and sturdy, and the nylon heads seem to be firmly attached. The utensils do feel as if they will be durable – though it is hard to tell at this point. As for heat resistance, the wood handle can manage up to 350 degrees and the nylon head up to 400 degrees, and they are also dishwasher safe.

Additionally, I think they look better than other plastic utensils, and the spoon has measuring ridges on the interior for 1 tbs, 1/8 cup, and 1/4 cup. It isn’t something that you would use for precise measuring as you need to have the spoon very steady and level to get exact amounts, but this feature may come in handy for a quick-and-dirty measure if you need it. I could see myself using this feature when adding olive oil to a dish, broth to some risotto, or if you need to add some pasta water back into a dish.

The price is also reasonable at about $9.50 per utensil from the Epicurean website, or you can buy selected items at Amazon for $7.95, but at time of writing there was only one vendor selling through Amazon and the shipping cost was really high. I am sure that will change in the coming months, but for now if you purchase directly through Epicurean, you can get free shipping on orders over $75 through December 15th.

I was trolling through The Kitchen blog which I highly recommend. It is part of the Apartment Therapy website and has a nice mix of kitchen equipment finds, store reviews, and food and recipe advice. 

One store that The Kitchn wrote about back in 2007 is Fante’s Kitchen Wares Shop out of Philadelphia, PA. The physical store is over 100 years old, and there is also an online shop, but what sets this kitchen store apart from others is its bewildering amount of kitchen items. Just look at the rolling pin page as an example.

But Fante’s goes even further. On the product category pages, they also put helpful kitchen tips and information on how to make better shopping choices and even go so far as to put recipes and public service announcements. For instance, the ‘honey’ page warns that honey should not be fed to infants under one year of age. They even have pages dedicated to informing about plastics, coffee beans, how to choose cookware and many other topics. This kitchen store has truly gone the extra mile, and after seeing how many pages there are with unique content, I can truly appreciate the effort that went into this online store.

With that said, even though Fante’s offers a wide range of products, the site is pretty basic and cluttered. It is not so much navigation as it is exploration, and their store directions, privacy policy and contact pages are buried along with all the kitchen products. However, there is some charm to the simple chaos too, and browsing through Fante’s is akin to rummaging through an antique store or used-book shop. Just reading through the categories will beg you to click and see what is offered: ‘patriotic cookie cutters’ and ‘Mongolian fire pot’ were two that piqued my curiosity. Then again, some categories are so basic that they make one curious for other reasons such as ‘banana‘. What I found was a selection of amusing and probably not-so-useful banana gadgets such as the slicer pictured above.

Regardless of the site’s shortcomings, Fante’s Kitchen Wares Shop is a useful resource. It might not be the site where you end up purchasing an item online, but it could very well be that place where you start looking for something that is hard to find. And even if you don’t find it, chances are you will see something else of interest.

1850 Map of Minneapolis

As I have recently moved to Minnesota, I thought I would take a tour of the kitchen stores in Minneapolis. Once I reviewed Chowhound, I identified most of the better kitchen stores, and there are several good options in the city. I also identified a couple of wine/cheese shops and a knife sharpening place too.

First Stop: Surdyk’s. This excellent wine and cheese shop was having their thrice-a-year sale, so that was good luck. I was able to get some good deals on their great selection of wines and their cheese shop was the best I came across all day. As for cheese, I picked up some Minnesota award-winning cheese. I will be back.

Second Stop: Let’s Cook. This kitchenware and cooking class establishment was no longer ‘established’ and out of business. Of all the kitchen stores, this was the one I had the lowest expectation for, so I wasn’t that disappointed. Move on.

Third Stop: Eversharp. This business used to be part of the Wusthof knife empire when the knife company had one of its main import/distribution warehouses located next door. It has since moved to New York state, but the Wusthof tradition has continued. The shop claims to have the largest selection of Wusthof knives in the United States, and I believe it. Eversharp is also one of the only stores to have refurbished Wusthof knives, and they are probably the best knife sharpening service in Minneapolis. I highly recommend this place if you want to buy or you already have Wusthof knives. And they also have a good selection of Epicurean cutting boards and the prices are really good. I found this Epicurean Recycled Cardboard Cutting Board for $13, and it is more expensive in other stores and online.

Fourth Stop: Hockenberg’s Food Service and Restaurant Supply Company. This store is open to the public, but is mostly geared towards restaurants — obviously. They did have good deals on wine glasses, and I also picked up some Cambro containers/brining buckets and a Lincoln Foodservice rimmed baking pan. Both were very good deals, and the Cambro was much cheaper than the exact same product in a kitchen store I later visited. The cutlery was comparable to what you can find on the internet though.

Fifth Stop: Kitchen Window. I have heard good reports on this store, and it didn’t disappoint. The range of products is vast, and it feels as much like a good hardware store as a kitchen store. They seem to have almost everything one would need to cook any dish, and they clearly are reading cooking magazines and knowledgeable about cookware. The knife selection is large, and they even had some other kitchen-related items I have featured on this site. In December the store will be moving just up the block into a larger location, so I will have to go back in a couple of months as the store did look a bit crowded. They also offer cooking classes that are very popular, but I haven’t taken one as of yet.

Fifth Stop: Kowalski’s Market in Uptown. It is a very good, higher-end grocery. I picked up some Cowgirl Creamery cheese (hard to find in Minnesota) and some nice imported butter from Italy. (Note: my car smelled of stinky cheese from this point on.)

Sixth Stop: France 44 Wine & Spirits. This was a very good wine store and probably had one of the best selections of French and Italian wines I have seen in Minnesota. It was very well organized and displayed wine information in an orderly way with ratings and staff recommendations. There is also a good cheese shop connected to it that also had Cowgirl Creamery cheese. Maybe it is easier to find than I first thought. I picked up a few bottles of wine and some Comté cheese and moved on.

Seventh Stop: Cook’s of Crocus Hill. This is another independent kitchen store in the city that has been around for a long time. It had fewer products than Kitchen Window, but it was very well organized and less overwhelming. They also carried Iittala glass and cookware there, which was a nice surprise. The Iittala skillets were beautiful and they even had the Finnish casserole I wrote about on this site. I haven’t tried the cooking classes offered, but I hope to in the future.

Eighth Stop: Sur La Table. This is a high-end boutique chain store out of Seattle and is right down the street from Cook’s of Crocus Hill. The store was predictably well-organized and they had some very good sales. All-Clad and their bistro dishes were on sale, but I only picked up some smaller items. It was also great to see the Bob Kramer Shun knife series in person. These knives were stunningly beautiful, and the picture doesn’t do it justice in the link.  

Last Stop: Williams-Sonoma in Maple Grove. Ok, I admit that I know what these stores mostly carry, so I didn’t really check it out for that, but it was the closest store to where I live. It is located in a mall-like town on the west side of Minneapolis in the burbs — think Disney Mall Land. Compared to the other stores, this one just didn’t cut it. The other stores attracted foodies and were filled with people who cared about food and cooking, and this one had a mall browsing clientele. Now with that said, I have been to very nice Williams-Sonoma stores in other urban areas, so they do carry some good items and it is worth checking out if a store is convenient.