I got the Bella Cucina Rocket Blender at Macy's a couple of months ago. It was on sale for $20 with a $10 rebate, so, after tax, I only ended up paying $12 for it (score!). Right now it's $30+ shipping at Macy's, and $27 at Amazon - quite a bit more.

I'd seen the ads for the Magic Bullet on TV, and this one seemed to work on the same principles, just at a much cheaper price. The reviews at Amazon were mixed, according to them the little blender works well, until it stops working altogether, sometimes after a few months. The parts are somewhat delicate, so it's probably a good thing that we have to hand wash it anyway (as we don't have a dishwasher).

I've used it for smoothies quite successfully, it crushes ice quite well. Recently I used it to make pesto sauce, also quite successfully. But it wasn't until yesterday that I had an opportunity to try it for grinding spices - and I'm happy to say it ground cumin and fennel seeds beautifully. This is very important for me, as I haven't had a way to easily grind spices. The mini chopper won't do it, a simple pepper mill doesn't do it either (at least with any ease), and a mortar and pestle are too hard to use, IMHO. So I'm thrilled. I finally can use whole spices and grind them as I need them.

A couple of years ago I asked for metal measuring cups & spoons for Christmas. Mike, my mom and a friend all heeded my call - I ended up with three sets. I decided to keep the one my mother gave me - because it had 3/4 and 2/3 cups in addition to the regular ones - and the one my friend Regina gave me - because it had more measuring spoons - and to return the one Mike got me. That was the most expensive one and he'd gotten it at Sur la Table.

Well, two years have passed and I haven't returned them, so I thought I might as well start using them as well - not that I need 3 sets of measuring cups. It's a good thing I didn't put them to use before because they suck! The handles on the cups are so thin, that they easily bend! And I know that Mike spent a lot of $ on them (I think about $30).

I don't see them in Sur la Table's website now, so perhaps they stopped selling them. They are marked with the Sur la Table name, so if you see them in a store, avoid buying them.

In previous years I got all the hardcore kitchen equipment I needed - a good quality food processor (though I came to discover, while I was cooking Xmas dinner, that it has a crappy lid), a good quality blender and a good quality mixer - so my cooking items request for this year was much less greedy. And alas, I got the most important things I wanted.

My mother gave me her old (but barely used) toaster oven. It's a Black & Decker and small enough to fit in our very limited counter space. It's great because our old one is probably over 10 years old and had not been working well (i.e. burning toast) for quite a while. Now I can finally get rid of it! The only problem with this toaster oven is that it doesn't come with a baking sheet - and I doubt I can find one small enough for it. That doesn't matter for toast - but it makes it hard to use for things like toasting nuts. Hmmm - perhaps I could find a very small aluminum pan to put there? Or use tin foil to make a little mold? Any ideas?

Also from my mother, a set of pyrex mixing bowls I had asked for. All my mixing bowls are plastic and old - and I wanted something better quality (so, at least I can feel more luxurious when I cook) that had lids - so I can put whatever it is directly in the fridge. I haven't opened these yet, but they look very nice and got good reviews.

Mom also got me a small (10" x 14") cookie sheet that comes with a matching silicone mat. It's Cooking with Calphalon brand. I've never used a baking mat, and I'm hoping it'll be good - it'd beat having to use expensive parchment paper or cleaning baking sheets. The cookie sheet is on the small size, but I think it'll fit in the oven along side my regular large baking sheets.

Finally, my sister Kathy got me a set of CorningWare. It includes a 2.5qt casserole, a 1.5 qt one and a 16 oz one. Only the bigger one comes with a glass lid, which makes it appropriate for baking in the oven - but that's the one I really needed. Alas, CorningWare has the weird pricing scheme in that it's often cheaper to buy a set of dishes than just one. I'm not sure what I'll use the little ones for. The little one would work for hot artichoke-spinach dip (I made some last night for Xmas dinner, and as I didn't have one that size I divided it into smaller ramekins). Any ideas what the 1.5 qt one (which only has a plastic lid) could be used for?

And that's it - not many food gifts this year, but then I didn't ask for many :-) I did ask for a dutch oven, but I'm not really disappointed that I didn't get one, as I'm not sure that I'd use it very often.

Could it really be true that I don't need/want anything else for the kitchen? Nah - I did notice while cooking Xmas dinner that I do need more wooden spoons.

Oh, and I forgot, I need a butcher's knife, a carving knife and kitchen shears.

Mike got me a Hamilton Beach Liquid Blu 5 Speed Blender for my birthday and I tried it yesterday for the first time. It was OK. It did do a good job of blending and crushing the ice - a godsend after my old blender which took forever to crush ice and would start to smell after trying. But adjusting the bottom to the top seems tricky, apparently it needs to be adjusted really tightly, and my blender dripped all over the place. I'm hoping that next time it won't be as bad.

I'm a little concerned because I only found two reviews of the blender online, one by an Amazon customer and another by the never-to-be-trusted Consumers' Guide. But I'm not a particularly heavy user and only time will tell if the blender will perform. As it does, I'll comment here :)

Last Xmas I got a KitchenAid K45SS Classic 250-Watt 4-1/2-Quart Stand Mixer from Mike. It's the lowest KitchenAid model, but I'm not a big baker and it got pretty good reviews. It was also VERY CHEAP ($110, it's currently selling for about $200). I hadn't used it until now, however, because I needed a three prong adapter for my kitchen. Apparently we had one, but I couldn't find it when I looked for it.

In any case, it's been found and yesterday I used the mixer for the first time. Now, keep in mind that this is my first stand mixer - I've been using cheap mixers that you have to hold until now. But I loved it, it was so great to leave the mixer to do its job while I could prepare the next step in the recipe. And I thought it did quite a good job of mixing things. Anyway, for the time being at least, I'm happy with it.

I got Mika an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas. She'd seen it, wanted one, and I figured it would be a cool thing to have. So far, it hasn't.

The problem may be that Mika may be too young for it - it's designed for kids 8 and over, though it still says kids should be supervised while using it. It may be that once she can read the instructions, and do the baking all by herself, it'll be a blass. But at this age I still have to premeasure the water that goes into the easy bake mixes, which is really no different than premeasuring the water that goes into a grown up cake mix. And for a grown up cake she gets to break eggs, which is exciting. And then, it's all a matter of putting it into the oven, whether it's the kids one or the adult one, she needs my help to do it (though today she took the cake out of the oven all by herself - while I was on the phone - and managed to only burn herself slightly). So I don't see much of an advantage *at this age* between using the easy bake oven and using a regular mix and the regular oven. Maybe that will change.

My Christmas list is full of food items, so it's no surprise that I got quite a few food gifts. These included:

-A 11-cup Cuisinart Food Processor. I've wanted one for a long, long time (a decade even), so I was quite happy to get it. Of course, I knew it was coming - I'd asked Mike to not get it given our financial situation, but he said he'd done all the research and was committed to buying it. Well, I can't really complain. As soon as I have the house clean and ready - and all the dishes done - I'm going to use it. Come to think of it, my friend Paz is having us over to her house for a cooking lesson at the end of the week. I may just make some stuffed kibbeh to bring anyway.

-Balsamic Vinegar. It was the 12-year-old kind and I can't believe just how wonderful it is. Beautiful, delicious, with the strongest imaginable flavor. I can only imagine what older and more expensive vinegar can taste like. But this, really, is good enough for me. Now I need to figure out how I will consume it, other than in drops directly from the bottle.

-Metal measuring cups and spoons. Last year, when I went to Argentina, I saw my aunts cups and measuring spoons and almost started crying. I could remember perfectly using them and having my grandma use them so many years in the past. Just by looking at them, I could think of my granny. So I wanted to have my own measuring cups and spoons that one day I could give to my children and to my grandchildren. So, of course, I wanted the quality stuff. I must have wanted it really hard, because I got three sets of them. One from my mother, another from Mike, and another from my friends Regina and Boris. I couldn't be happier, though clearly I can't keep them all. I'll probably return the one Mike got me and get something else at Sur la Table instead. So much to chose from :)

-Food storage containers. The Sharper Image version of Tupperware. My mother swears by them. I'm somewhat suspicious of the drawings on the cover (which have grapes going rancid after a week in the fridge in the "other" containers - which definitely does not happen to me), and I'm not sure if I need them, but I probably can put them to use. I should actually transfer the leftovers to them.

-Cookies and candies from our friends Aamani, Victoria and Carla and Astrid.

That's all I can remember now.

I saw these little bowls in the window of a Japanese restaurant on East 14th and I fell in love with them. Fortunately they were for sale ($17 for the set). They are made in Japan and they're sooo cute. Now I need to figure out what to serve on them. I figure I'll debut them at my salon in a couple of weeks. I'm planning to serve just wine and cheese, what can I put in the bowls? Some olives? Some almonds? They're pretty small, bear in mind.

I just bought a new ice cream maker, a Cuisinart ICE-20 on sale at Amazon for $50. It had gotten mixed reviews, many people were complaining that the ice cream didn't really get too thick and was more like soft-serve. But most of them liked it and the complaints seemed generalized to all ice cream makers.

It arrived last night and I quickly put the bowl in the freezer and couldn't wait to make ice cream. I made some today following the most simple recipe from its manual, and so far so good. The ice cream (cookies n'cream) was soft but firmer than I expected it to be. It's now firming up in the fridge. It tasted very much like Dreyer's. I bet Mika will be happy to have some when she gets home.

I'm already re-freezing the bowl to make some more tomorrow, I'm thinking of strawberry sorbet!