Happy New Year everyone!
Kicking off 2017 with a quick gear rundown. Over the years I have definitely trimmed down the amount of gear I carry with me to my clients’ homes on cookdates, but there are still some items that I consider essential. Some are very useful; others are just a real pain to work around if you can’t find one in the client’s kitchen (I’m looking at you, potato masher). The short list:
- My knives
- My favorite wood & silicone spatulas
- Vegetable peeler and brush (everyone has a peeler; they are usually very dull/worthless)
- Corkscrew (digging the cork out of a bottle of wine for a great beef bourguignon without one is a giant pain)
- The aforementioned potato masher (lately considering swapping it out for my ricer, but that is much heavier…)
- Half a dozen sheet pans, for roasting and cooling
- Small fan for cooling food
- Grease spatter guard – minimizes mess when searing and frying
- My Squish collapsible bowl
The Squish bowl is a great addition to a personal chef’s kit because it collapses down to fit much more easily among your gear. Here’s my 5 quart Squish bowl, unSquished:
It’s big enough for mixing up all sorts of things – meatloaf, meatballs, crab cakes, all manner of doughs and batters…
And here it is, squished:
It collapses down to about 2 1/2″, and slides neatly into the bag where I carry my sheet pans and spatter guard.
I got mine here at Amazon; definitely worth checking out for a very portable option!