Kitchen Gifts Tips

Stovetop? Oven? No Problem.

One of the items every chef needs is a good cast iron skillet. These are the kind of cooking basics that are incredible useful because they can go from stove top straight into the oven. How to make this unique?

* Season it *before* you give it to your chef. Seasoning cast iron skillets is a pain, so get one that is pre-seasoned or take care of the chore yourself so your giftee doesn't have to deal with the aggravation.

Also, find an old school cook book with old fashioned, yummy recipes that use cast iron to show them how to use their new toy. You can also tap into a lot of old school techniques with today's cookbooks - especially guys like Alton Brown and his show Good Eats, which combines old school techniques with new school technology.

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The Cleaning Solution for the Messy Chef

Is there a messy chef in your life? We all know a great cook out there who just can't keep a kitchen tidy while they are in creation mode to save their life. You can give them the gift of easy clean up with a wet dry cordless vac!

No, we are not talking about the huge and cumbersome shop vac that you use for utility cleaning around your house, garage and yard, this is a nifty, small and cordless wet dry vacuum that is perfect for the kitchen.

It's also perfect if you have a dog or small children, but that is just an added benefit! Although this gift is decidedly unromantic, it is unerringly practical and they make them look pretty good, so it won't interrupt the kitchen decor too much. Think of the peace and order you'll bring to their kitchen when cleanup is this easy - well, maybe not peace and order, but at least it will be cleaner!

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Know Thy Chef

Selecting a kitchen gift can be overwhelming due to the wide range of choices and options available to you.

Our recommendation is to know thy chef.

For instance, is your kitchen giftee a specific kind of person who is very interested in grams, ounces and measurements? If this is the case, a kitchen scale might be just the thing. Some cooks need the specificity of weights and specific measurements in their cooking - especially if they bake or make candy or chocolate.

Kitchen scales are also great gifts for the Weight Watcher enthusiast in your life and although you may be uncomfortable giving them a gift that has to do with weight loss, this is just the kind of support that most dieters are looking for!

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The Ice Cream Gift Set

Ice Cream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream! Ice Cream is the kind of yummy food you can really build a gift around.

* First, there is the classic ice cream maker. Nowadays these are SO easy to use, that everyone should have one.
* Next, grab a recipe book - Williams Sonoma makes a terrific one with all the basics, and for fun you can throw in the Ben and Jerry's ice cream cook book which has tons of wacky flavors their humorous flare.
* Finally, consider a marble slab - it doesn't have to be huge and enormously cumbersome, but this is an awesome multi purpose kitchen gift since you can use it for dough as well as mixing in ice cream ingredients. Yum!

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Introduce Unique Flavor

When you think kitchen gift, you may automatically jump to the idea of kitchen gadgets and accessories, but in reality, food is just as appropriate. Have some fun with it - go ethnic or go gourmet, just don't go boring!

Maybe your in home chef loves Wolfgang Puck but can never find the ingredients to make his recipes - go online and look around for different Asian foods that will dovetail with his or her interests.

You can also go French - get your home cooking expert a Julia Child vintage cookbook and order some phenomenal ingredients online like fois gras, french or Italian truffles or specialty cooking oils. When you give the gift of fine food, you are letting your chef stretch their cooking legs, so to speak.

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Décor That Makes Food Good

How about some edible décor for your home chef?

* Run out to your local antique mall or flea market and look for some cool antique glass bottles - they can be clear or colored, just make them varied and interesting.
* Hop online and look up recipes for flavored vinegars and oils - not only making them but using them as well.
* Grab some of the herbs they will need, try to get living ones in a pot, rather than cut, since the flavor will be better, and then your favorite chef can add them to his or her herb garden.
* Make a mini cookbook (you can even take something like this to your local kinkos or copy shop to be bound) and artfully arrange your gift (with new corks and such) in a basket for your favorite cook.

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Decorate the Fridge

Is the cook in your family creative in other ways? One way to create a fun kitchen gift is to create some art for your refrigerator. There are so many cool magnetized options these days - grab a selection of the following:

• Magnetic Poetry (match your choice to your chef – you will probably have tons to choose from if you but look, from city specific to romantic, huge words, wedding related, kid friendly – really the choices are endless)
• Magnetic paper dolls (these are really funny – pick out one that is either silly, or looks like your family cook so you can all dress him/her up as ridiculously as you like)
• Recipe holder (find a fridge magnet that can hold the recipe of the day during cooking time. This way, the recipe doesn't get messy as the dinner gets made)
• Kid Art (get your kids involved - help them get creative and make some food related pictures for your kitchen – have them say thank you to your family cook for making all those delicious meals)

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Grater: The Unsung Kitchen Gift

There are few things more aggravating than grating, be it cheese, lemon zest or carrots if you don't have the right grater. They have come a long way since the old days, and now you can get top knotch graters that make a perfect and unique kitchen gift - after all - helping someone avoid knuckle catastrophes is a wonderful thing.

* Look for a grater with a microplane blade, they make these in varying sizes (course, fine, zester, ribbon) and they are strong and effective.
* Also grab one with a handle - they make them without, but give your friend or loved on the added luxury of a handle, they will appreciate it.
* If you want to go with a multi sided single grater instead of several individual graters, make sure you choose a quality grater made of stainless steel that won't bend or warp when using it on harder items.

Pair a great grater with a recipe for potato pancakes, and a top quality peeler and you may be in for a treat!

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Choosing a Knife Set

Knives are a tool of the trade for most cooks and chefs, and if your favorite cook doesn't have a proper knife set, you may have stumbled onto the perfect gift. Be wary though, great knives are like great shoes and great golf clubs - look and feel are both important and pretty much subjective to the user. To begin, you need to think of what kind of knife you may want to purchase:

• Chef (6 to 12 inches – multi-purpose)
• Paring (2 to 4 inches – fruits, veggies and spuds)
• Slicer (8 to 12 inches – slicing meats and other soft foods)
• Cleaver (Cutting bones, ribs and heavier jobs)
• Boning (5 to 6 inches, good for boning meats)
• Fillet (6 to 9 inches, good for filleting meats and chicken)

You also need to consider the construction of the knives you choose. If you want high quality and good balance, you want a forged blade knife. These are heavier and hand crafted for the right weight – additionally, most forged knives have a full shank, or tang (the metal of the blade is carried all the way through the handle so you can see from the back of the knife) which means that the construction is solid (i.e. you won't have an escaping blade on your hands!). You can get a knife set if you want to go all out, or you can buy great knives piecemeal. Either way, this is a terrific kitchen gift.

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