Showing posts with label Cooking Tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cooking Tools. Show all posts

Friday, April 11, 2014

Made in the USA: Lodge

Lodge has been manufacturing cast iron cookware for over 100 years. Their products are not just for kitchen use; every camping gear store I have visited have at least one Lodge cookware in the store.


Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven


About a year ago, I tasted a great pistachio cherry bread and got a recipe for the bread. The recipe requires a heavy-duty cast iron Dutch Oven, so I purchased a Lodge Dutch oven. I don't know why, but I have not been motivated enough to bake the bread since the recipes not requiring a heavy Dutch oven are easier to make. How can I stop being lazy and bake that tasty pistachio cherry bread?


Lodge Cactus Baking Pan

This cactus baking pan is on my wish list. Living in Arizona, this pan should have plenty of chances to show off what it is designed to do: make cute cactus corn bread, scones, or whatever. The only reason it is not yet in my kitchen is I have to get rid of things I don't need to make some room for new kitchen toys. Time to donate unused items to a thrift store.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Made in the USA: William Bounds

It is only natural that my "made in America" obsession started in my kitchen. I love food, and I love to cook. Once the wooden pepper mills and salt shaker were old and faded after ten years of abuse, it was time to replace them with pepper and salt mills made in America.


It's been probably five years since I purchased William Bounds' HM Twist Chrome Pepper Mill and Salt Mill, and I have been very satisfied with the mills.  I noticed some negative comments on Williams-Sonoma page how some users experienced their mills falling a part and corroded, but my mills are still working well. I guess I was one of the luckier purchasers.  

One down side of these mills is what applies to all manual mills: it cannot beat the speed and volume capacity of electric mills. The electric mills also have a problem: they are usually made overseas (I cannot find a single model made in the US). I took the preferred product origin and nice design. 

There is one more America-made William Bounds product in my kitchen, and that is the nutmeg grinder.


Nutmeg is one of many spices I cannot tolerate buying pre-ground. Why? What is the point? All the nice flavor is gone so quick! I was using hand held grinder for nutmeg, but clumsy people like me could end up grinding own finger someday. The first time I saw this grinder on a website, my reaction was the same as when I glanced at an avocado slicer. Why buy a tool that does another tool in my kitchen already does? Then, I saw the nutmeg grinder at a store and tested it, and I was standing in the checkout line in the next few minutes. I have been pretty happy with the grinder. If I must rate this item, I would give four out of five stars for the lid being tricky to close sometimes.

Looking at William Bounds' website, the company seems to sell products made in the USA and overseas. Having multiple manufacturing location is common nowadays. Never buy an item without reading product description.