Xmas presents

Most of what I asked for in my Christmas list was cooking stuff, so it’s no wonder that lots of my presents (from both DH and my mom) was kitchen stuff.
Mike got me a Wüstholf Classic Ikon 6′ cook’s knife. It’s small because he didn’t trust me with something bigger. I can also tell you it’s very sharp – I cut my finger just trying to get it out of the box. I’m now deadly afraid of it. And I need a sheath! I don’t know where Mike thought I’d store it!
He also got me a 250w Kitchen Aid mixer. I saw it as a deal in Amazon.com (it was $110, I think) and he said to go and buy it. I still have it unwrapped it as I know what it is, and I would prefer to clean the kitchen and figure out where I’m going to put it first. Meanwhile it looks nice as a present 🙂
My mother got me a Nonstick Aluminum 5Q Tools of the Trade “Chef’s Pan”. It sort of looks like a paella pan, but with a long handle. I’m not big in nonstick or aluminum. Well, I’m not big on cheap pans in general, but I guess I should find some use for it. Not sure for what, given that it’s not too different from a pan I already have and love – but we’ll see.
She also got me a cheapy nonstick aluminum skillet. That should be more useful, though what I really wanted was a good quality frying pan. But my mother believes one shouldn’t buy good quality pans because their bottom will turn dark anyway, so it’s better to buy cheap ones and then replace them. I don’t agree, but you can’t look at a gift horse in the mouth.
I’ve been looking for a spice mill, and she said she couldn’t find one so she bought me a salt and pepper set instead. And she got me a huge bottle of black pepper. I can’t imagine I’ll ever run out of pepper in this life time – specially considering that the children don’t like spicy food. But I think my mother may have been confused when she bought it and thought the flimsy plastic container of pepper was actually a pepper mill.
She did better with a very nice set of mixing tools from Kitchen Aid. There is a heavy plastic bowl, a whisk, measuring cups and spoons, and a spatula. I did need a spatula, and a mixing bowl is useful (though what I wanted was a set of larger mixing bowls with lids) – but I got set of whisks last year and THREE sets of measuring cups/spoons. Now I have four.
On the plus side, she did get me a tureen before Xmas, which I really wanted and was really useful for serving soup at Xmas dinner.
So that was it for this year, next I think I’m asking /Mike/ for a good quality blender 🙂