I recently purchased some new cooking gadgets that shold hopefully save me some space and make me feel way, way cooler while cooking.
The green bowls up there are Mario Batali Prep Bowls. These are destined to make you feel like a TV chef when you are cooking. They are nice looking prep bowls and have measurements inside for the whole bowl or 1/2 bowl so you don't have to wash a measuring cup and a prep dish. The bowls are made of melamine rather than glass. I wouldn't go looking for too much information about melamine. It's not dangerous or anything, but I just found out what it's made from and, ew. Don't put these in the microwave, and don't clean them with abrasives. But you can put them in the dishwasher.
The measurements go from 1/8 cup up to 2 cups. And they nest inside of each other to be compact.
And then we've got the collapsible silicone measuring cups. It's a set of 1, 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 cup measuring cups made of silicone. They collapse into flatness when you're not using them and hang on a little peg, so you can throw them in a utensil drawer, or hang them on the wall.
The only thing that gets me through the day is having a sort of fabulous fantasy life, so almost my favorite part of cooking is when I get out my fancy instruments pictured above and sort of set them out and pretend that cooking really is as organized and pretty and simple as TV chefs make it, and that I am about to do exactly that kind of organized, pretty, and simple cooking with ingredients all neat in their little bowls and the timing will be perfect and it will all fly by in no time! It never happens that way, of course, but I dare to dream.
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Have I mentioned that Mario Batali is one of my culinary idols? That he's actually part of the reason I am so into coffee?
I'm torn on Mario Batali ... his food always looks great on Iron Chef America and he seems to have a good philosophy of cooking, but I read an interview with him in the L.A. Times, and he just came across as such an asshole. Like he maybe doesn't get customer service.
Basically he saw no problem with people in his restaurant waiting an hour for a table even though they have a reservation, and he flat-out scoffed at people with food allergies, as if it were this silly trend, and not an actual life-threatening condition. I admit that it's only one article but these wer his direct quotes and they left a bad taste in my mouth.
I will still go to his/Nancy Silverton's restaurant whenever it opens here. Since I have no food allergies.
...he's like a male martha stewart in that sense.