Five Favorite Kitchen Tools Meme

Carrie, the Ginger Lemon Girl (tasty Southern-style gluten-free cooking), also blogs about frugal living and homemaking over at the Heart of a Servant, and tagged me for an interesting meme last month about my five favorite kitchen tools. Carrie loves her whisk, silicone spatulas, her heirloom cast iron skillet, a collection of recycled glass jars and a large metal mixing bowl. Great picks!

I have had some time to ruminate over this and so I present to you my five favorites. I also almost picked my huge cast iron skillet, alias "Big Mama", because cast iron always makes things so delightfully CRISPY, but instead went with this hard working quintet:


1. My Aloe Plant - It looks a little scraggly now because I put it outside for its annual summer hiatus to soak up the sun and flesh out a bit. We've had daily rainshowers for the last six weeks, punctuated by torrential thunderstorms, so this succulent has suffered from severe waterlogging. I keep it in the kitchen and break off parts of the fleshy leaves and squeeze out the slimy aloe juice to put on any burns I might get from cooking. It takes out the sting and there is usually no blistering later.



2. Measuring Glass - Dan spied this great measuring glass at the Dollar Store and so we stocked up on a half-dozen. We drink out of them, we cook with them daily and they are very sturdy, having survived many clonks in our enameled iron sink. Metric measurements are on one side, English measurements are on the other.



3. Swivel Peeler - It's a simple design, but I've found nothing better for peeling carrots, apples, cucumbers and other members of the Plant Kingdom. I had a swivel peeler for about twenty years and it finally rusted out at the base, so I replaced it with some fancier designer peeler from the supermarket that turned out to be a dud. It looked pretty but it didn't easily peel. Another designer peeler followed, because I couldn't find another basic swivel peeler, and that was another lemon. Finally, I was able to replace my beloved swiveler and we haven't been parted since.



4. Orange frying pan - This is a well-seasoned and well-loved little number that sautes most of my peppers and onions in preparation for many a family supper. I love it because it not only cooks things beautifully and evenly, but was one of my first new kitchen things when I was in my first apartment. My friend Marie often used to stay overnight on my couch when she was in town on business and would bring me little hostess presents: a jar of imported pesto, a paring knife, my first jar of sun-dried tomatoes. Best of all, and totally an extravagance, was this heavy, lovely orange frying pan which I have wielded for over twenty years now. I smile and thing of Marie every time.


5. Beloved Wooden Spoon - Saving my favorite for last, here is my all-time favorite kitchen implement, my wooden stirring spoon/spatula thingy. I love its lines, and the way it moves food around my pans without scraping the metal surface. It's gotten fuzzy around the edges and will no doubt crack one day and cause me great anguish, because I have so many great culinary memories bound up in that little wooden guy.

I am tagging a few other bloggers I thought might enjoy this exercise, including:

Gluten Free Kay
Maureen at Hold the Gluten
Tiffany at Make Mine Gluten Free

So, what are your five favorite kitchen tools?