For most of us, Memorial Day weekend marks the launch of the outdoor dining season, marshalling in a summer of picnics, barbecues, and pool and beach parties. As I find the standard gear marketed specifically for such occasions (folding picnic tables, special baskets and packs for tableware and flatware, enormous tong/spatula/fork sets, etc.) to be flimsy, fussy and/or cumbersome, I turn to camping suppliers when I’m looking for tools to get my outdoor eat on. There I tend to find equipment that is robust enough to withstand the elements and a good bit of jostling, lightweight and compact enough to be easily transported on foot, and just plain sensible for outdoor/remote usage. Now, I appreciate the simplicity necessitated by al...
Continue reading »
I've long been a fan of Regina Schrambling's Gastropoda, which is refreshingly acidic when many food blogs are nothing but saccharine, so I got an extra big kick out of reading what is essentially a paean to her newly-purchased immersion blender in the LA Times. She cops to immediately "going as crazy as a Martha Stewart groupie who has just discovered the glue gun"—she "[whips] through pesto, tapenade, asparagus soup, red pepper purée and hummus, while also grinding walnuts into flour and converting a hard roll into fluffy bread crumbs" in a mere forty-five minutes after ripping her blender out of its box! Schrambling points out that you can easily drop a few hundred dollars on blenders graded for...
Continue reading »
