Kitchen and Christmas

Growing up I always liked to cook. People that know me well know I like to cook and I like to eat as well (a good thing I also like to run). Since I have known Laura we have always found kitchen things under our tree at Christmas. It may be a beautiful knife or it may be gift cards to Crate & Barrel or Williams-Sonoma which we then use to buy more wonderful things for our kitchen but it is always wonderful and always appreciated.

Our mortar & pestle

This year was no exception - and trust me when I say we are not complaining - as I mentioned I love to cook and I did not mention it but Laura loves it when I cook. So this year Leslie, Andrew and the kids sent us a beautiful bowl that looks wooden but is actually ceramic and is ideal for warming bread or, when it is cool, for storing fruit. They also send a beautiful olive wood salt keeper. Well we really like the salt keeper. I liked it so much I had bought one for Laura last year so we did the debate - two salt keepers? Two kinds of salt on the table? Something else that we could use? Well one day I was in Williams-Sonoma (aka Wood- a funny Sam story) and I saw something that I had thought about before but was not quite sure how much I would use it. This version however was GORGEOUS. When I got home I chatted with La about it and we decided it was something we had talked about before and it would literally be a direct exchange. So the next time we were at W-S we picked it up - a beautiful mortar and pestle. From the picture you can see some of the other things we have gotten from our gift cards - the acacia chopping board and the rug in the background and on the board is the beautiful Shun Ken Onion knife that Laura got for me.

So the big question was how useful this mortar and pestle would be - well so far I have made pastes with it and two different home-made dressing, one blueberry based and the other strawberry based. It is a wonderfully useful tool to have in the kitchen and in this case beautiful as well.

Now I want to cook :-)