If you don’t cook a lot, you might not realize how important it is to have the right tools. I have been suffering for almost two years now with bad graters, and it’s about to kill me. Here’s the one I want: the Microplane Extra-Coarse Grater. If you don’t own any Microplane, you are cooking without gas, so to speak. I have one, and I love it dearly. Mine is fine — good for zest, nutmeg and parmesan. But ever since my other favorite grater was lost in a Bermuda-triangle incident, I’ve struggled with one box grater after another, and I hate them all.
Here’s another piece of inferior equipment: A wire-loop pastry blender. I have no idea who thought this was a good idea, but when you’re blending butter into the dry ingredients for pastry, you need blades, not loops. Try telling that to your local big-box retailer. You’ll be lucky to find any pastry blender at Target, never mind one with blades.
Just added both those items to my wish list. The dumb thing is, they’re both really cheap on Amazon. Cheaper even than some of the inferior substitutes. I don’t understand why you’d sell something that’s more expensive, but more likely to break or not do the job, than the cheap, effective version. Oh wait. It’s a profit deal, isn’t it?
-
Flickr Photos
More Photos
November 17, 2008 at 8:50 am
You need this: http://us.microplane.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=178
I helped Nicki Wood test box graters last yeat when this little guy was still a prototype I think and I fell in love with it. It is a thing of beauty. It’s on my Christmas list.