Testing Underway

As I mentioned earlier, my upcoming newspaper column will discuss food-related gifts. Here's an update on the proceedings.

Thanks to the kind folks at Kitchenworks and A Southern Season (two fine, locally owned stores that also sell by the web) I'm now in possession of a slew of potential gifts. Now comes the fun part: testing them out.

If I had to summarize my testing in one word, I'd say..."Plastics." That's right, Ben (think The Graduate), silicone is everywhere again this year. In addition to the familiar pot holders, there's an assortment of ice cube trays, expanding cookware and egg poachers. On the egg front, the PoachPod is a particularly neat item. Just after Kitchenworks' affable owner Martha demonstrated this lily pad-like poacher to me, a customer snapped up the last one. That's just how hot these are, folks.

My favorite contraption so far is this neat collapsible strainer. It expands in segments, which is useful, and it's a real space saver. Wow, that sounded really dorky.

Moving along...there's the Banana Guard, which shelters bananas like an overprotective parent. While more testing is required, all indications are positive. There haven't been any Letterman-like twenty story drops, as a few readers have requested. I'm still planning that stunt, but I need to find a house that's not a ranch (like mine). But today the Spoonstress is giving it the all-day-in-your-backpack beating. If only I had the budget for a backpack cam. There's always next year...