The Blendered Kitchen

While these may be trying times for many of us, for others, it is a welcome time to reflect seriously on the value of everything in a home kitchen that could be called “useless crap.”

A few weeks ago, the New York Times Cooking Community (an on-line chat/support/recipe-exchange site), posted an article from an issue of Food & Wine magazine from a few years ago. The article was an interview with Alton Brown, a television chef and host, asserting that “ninety-nine percent of things that people buy [for] the kitchen they don’t need. The kitchen is the room most full of useless crap.”

Obviously, Mr. Brown has never ventured into my office.

Brown’s assertions became fighting words to a “positive community” with a “nurturing nature” that likes to talk about food. At a place where there’s incessant bantering about the various qualities of mayonnaise (Blue Plate Real) and yellow mustard (Plochman’s), and questions about how best to prepare huitlacoche, a rare fungus which randomly grows on organic corn, Brown’s words led to many indignant defenses of owning a blender.

In the interview, Brown complained that while people were unwilling to spend $400 for a knife, they had no problem buying “six blenders in the last year.”

I take issue with Brown only because I would doubt that anybody knows anybody who has bought six blenders in their entire lifetimes, let alone last year. And if somebody did buy six blenders last year, then that person must live on margaritas and so there would be no point to buying a $400 knife just because it might prove seriously dangerous.

We have a blender. I don’t recall the last time I used it. However, Geri used it just yesterday to make a batch of hummus. I think it’s one of those appliances that gets pushed to the back of a lower cabinet, although I didn’t ask her where she located it. I also think it might be only the second one we have owned in 42 years of marriage—far off Brown’s accusatory remark.

Brown also has no use for the Instant Pot, an appliance that apparently can do everything short of operating a backhoe. But he does admit that his aversion is spurred by his unwillingness to adapt to new things. He, like I, has a pressure cooker—the Instant Pot of the 1950s. Also from that era came the predecessor to sous vide cooking—Green Giant Boil-in-a-Bag frozen vegetables, which have gone the way of something-or-other to be replaced by microwaved Steamables.

One might wonder what ever happened to cooking fresh vegetables in a pot or a pan..

I do agree, however, that there is a lot of kitchen equipment that is useless. We’ve got a drawerful of such stuff and I have little recollection of how much of it came into our possession.

For instance, we’ve got four different devices meant to deal with garlic. One is a silicone sleeve that I bought in Gilroy, California, the “garlic capital of the world.” This garlic-peeling sleeve was being demonstrated and as I watched, I picked up a clove and peeled it by rubbing it between my hands. I felt bad about having done that, stealing a bit of his thunder, as it were, so I bought one of the sleeves.

Another of the devices is a plastic thing called the “Garlic Cube” that can both slice and mince garlic with guillotine precision, depending on which end of the gadget you choose; the second is the “Garlic Twist” that can only mince garlic, but that Geri found useful for the two cloves she added to the hummus; the fourth is a garlic press, a gadget Marcella Hazan found to be vile for reasons I can’t remember but that might have something to do with the device turning a plump clove into an acrid mush, which it does. They each appear difficult to clean. Typically, I smash garlic under the side of my 8-inch chef’s knife and cut it as I need. If I need a paste, I use a mortar and pestle.

I recently came across a small pot (maybe a cup’s capacity) with a fourteen-inch handle. I neither know where it came from nor what its use might be. I also found a utensil with a tiny cone (maybe a teaspoon) attached to an elaborately decorated ceramic handle. No idea what it’s for.

Six graters live in our kitchen: box, flat, three Microplanes. I only use three of them. But I love the wood-handled, funnel-shaped Todo large parmesan cheese grater that Richard Sapper designed for Alessi, the Italian design company. It is a much-cherished gift from a much-cherished friend.

Somewhere I have a mandoline. We have enough metal spatulas to open a diner.

I use two of the seven whisks we have, but more often than not I use a fork, which is decidedly easier to clean. When whipping cream, I power up and use a hand-held Waring mixer. I’ve had it since forever, and it is down to having only three of its six speeds still working. While I identify with the loss of three speeds, I believe it will still outlast me, provided I don’t need too much whipped cream in the near future.

We have a Sunbeam food processor that we’ve had for forty-one years. It was a gift from Geri’s mother. During a bad spell early in our marriage when the worst seemed to loom on the horizon, the food processor became of a point of contention. Geri complained to her mother that I thought I should get custody of the appliance should push come to shove. Her mother sided with me, asking her daughter, “Sure, now, what would you be needing such a thing for?”

Although a cook’s hands remain the most useful tools in any kitchen, I have a wide assortment of wooden spoons, of which two are my favorites. (I will actually rummage around looking for either of them when, in fact, any of the others I’ve rejected would do the job. And yes, I have never stepped on a ballfield’s base line.) I also find useful the many heat-resistant silicone spatulas we have.

My favorite kitchen tool of all time is a Braun immersion blender. It’s easy to use and to clean, and it is more efficient than the aforementioned blender or food processor. I think I paid around $25 for it fifteen years ago. A great investment. Next in line is an Ecko vegetable peeler that I’ve had for 52 years. I bought it the day I moved into my first apartment in Cleveland.

Beyond some of these considerations, I’m with Alton Brown on his sense of kitchen minimalism. I believe that three good knives (which can be had for far less than $400), a handful of heavy-bottomed pots and pans of different sizes, a Dutch oven, a stock pot, mixing bowls, and few cutting boards are about all that’s needed to outfit a great kitchen.

I learned early on as a restaurant chef that prep is the most vital part of cooking. Though I only cook now for family and friends, I use any number of ramekins, jars and bowls to host all the ingredients I might need for any given dish.

But none of this really matters.

There’s an Irish expression that says, “’Tis a poor workman who blames his tools.”

I agree, and I will add that cooking is first and foremost an act of love.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Potatoes Lyonnaise

1 large onion, sliced
2 Tbs. olive oil
3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into ¼-inch slices
2 Tbs. butter
½ cup beef stock
1 small bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped

Cover potatoes with 2” cold water. Bring to a boil and let simmer until crisp tender, about 4 minutes. Drain completely.
Heat 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet until shimmering, add 1/2 potatoes and 1/2 of the onions. Let cook until potatoes are starting to crisp, and the onions are golden, about 5 minutes. Add the rest of the butter, oil, potatoes, and onions and continue to cook, mixing until all onions are softened and browned, about 15 minutes. Add beef stock and cook until evaporated.
Remove from heat and stir in parsley. Season with salt and pepper before serving.