RSVP Onion Goggles

There's no More Tears with a Pair of Onion Goggles

I'm the kind of macho dude who's not prone to tears, except perhaps when it comes to chopping onions. We share kitchen duties at our house, and most of my favorite recipes start with onions - and garlic, too. So a few nights a week you'll find me crying like a baby while I chop and mince. I've heard all the folk remedies - cut onions under running water, breathe through your mouth - but I just sucked it up and chopped away without a crutch. Without, that is, until someone gave me some RSVP Onion Goggles.

Onion goggles look a lot like Eurotrash safety glasses or fancy racquetball goggles in thick plastic wraparound frames. RSVP sells them in a boatload of colors, though mine are basic black with bright green trim. The no-fog lenses are slightly polycarbonate, with folding earpieces like conventional glasses. The noticeable difference is the thick layer of soft foam that rims the eyepieces and seals the goggles to your face. The combination of lenses and foam seals out the gases that onions give off; just like Johnson's Baby Shampoo, no more tears!

Thai Beef Tacos with Lime Cilantro Slaw Recipe

Tacos with a Southeast Asian Sensibility

Here's an Asian version of the humble taco that doesn't taste like anything you get at the Bell (or the Cabana). There's neither beans nor cheese; instead it's seasoned with southeast Asian flavors like ginger and fish sauce. If you're in a hurry, you can use the packaged versions of slaw and carrots in the recipe, or you could be more hand-on and pull out your mandoline to shred your own carrots and cabbage.

Sur La Table Prep Bowls

Minimize Cooking Drama with the handy Sur La Table Prep Bowls

Busy cooks appreciate the value of tasty, fast-cooking meals although the trade-off often involves 30 to 40 minutes of chopping. Small prep bowls ease us through the advance preparation making it easier to cook with the confidence of knowing the meal will consistently possess the expected flavors. A household favorite is a red curry fish recipe that cooks within 10 minutes providing a combination of bold complementary flavors but involves at least 20 to 30 minutes of measuring, chopping and assembling. This curry fish recipe cooks in a flash and while truly delicious (in my humble opinion), the mess left behind had been challenging for cleanup.

Sur La Table's Set of Five Prep Bowls saves grief for the dish washer and simplifies preparation. The bowls are BPA-free melamine and are available in four fashionable colors, they nest for easy storage, they're top-shelf dishwasher safe and microwave safe. Each bowl has two volume indicators inside for measuring chopped items. 

Red Curry Tilapia with Coconut Sauce Recipe

Spice up Tilapia with Red Curry

When wanting a slightly less healthy, but fragrantly delicious version of tilapia the answer is always easy. Red curry, combined with fresh basil and coconut milk always wins. Reduce the calories by using light coconut milk without sacrificing flavor. Serve over brown rice rather than white rice to experience an interesting combination of flavors. Tilapia with Coconut Red Curry Sauce
Serves 4

Fusionbrands Silicone Food Pod

There are Food Pod People at My House

We love silicone! Not least because of the loads of fun silicone products showing up in kitchens these days. There is more than variations on hotpads and trivets, too: we also find gadgets we’d never even dreamed of. One such product is the Fusionbrands Food Pod sold by HIC (Harold Imports Company).

Mac & Cheese, by Ellen Brown

Who Says Macaroni and Cheese Has to Come from a Blue Box?

The Baby Boomer generation got stiffed when it came to food while growing up. If you don't remember how, consider these two words: TV Dinner! Many of us didn’t even know until just recently that macaroni and cheese doesn’t always come in a blue box. Ahhh, that humble casserole of yellow cheese melted over pasta: my mouth waters.

There are probably very few dishes more closely associated with “comfort food” than macaroni and cheese; which is probably why, the upturned nose of many a self-styled gourmand, it's made a hearty comeback recentl. It's on the menu of gastropubs and chichi restaurants alike, and I even tried a bacon and spinach version from Tucson’s Eclectic Café recently. That's probably because just before we left on vacation, I cooked my first batch of mac-cheese from Ellen Brown’s Mac & Cheese, “Philly Cheesesteak Mac & Cheese” (p. 138). I found it in a section of "Hearty Macs"; and it is definitely yummy in the tummy!

KitchenAid Utility Whisk

Whisk it Away with your KitchenAid Utility Whisk

The well-equipped kitchen must have at least one whisk, and probably several. Because we like to think ours is a  well-equipped kitchen, we have two. Possibly three. Maybe even four... Our previous utility whisk had a wooden handle, which lasted something like a year before splitting. It still functioned, though, after I wrapped the split handle with some bright copper wire I found around the shop. It even looked better than the bare wood, if you ask me. That lasted for fourteen or fifteen years before we had to replace it with a new KitchenAid Utility Whisk.

Year of the Snake Noodles

Here's a tasty dish made with spaghetti noodles that's not in the least Italian. It comes from a 1989 cookbook published by a Denver-based health company. 1989 was the Year of the Snake, hence the name. We often substitute jerusalem artichoke spaghetti for the whole wheat variety, which reduces the fiber content but improves on whole wheat spaghetti's somewhat lackluster flavor.

Proctor Silex 48350 Coffee Maker

The 1961 VW Beetle of Automatic Drip Coffeemakers

Not all of us stop at the local Starbucks for a tall half-caff no-foam skinny vanilla latte every morning. I mean, some neighborhoods don't even have a Starbucks, plus some people find doing that inconvenient, expensive or both. For them, there’s a whole world of coffeemakers out there to let you do it yourself before breakfast.

Ever since Joe Garagiola started selling Mr. Coffee back in the ‘70s, an automatic drip pot has been the country's favorite coffee pot. There are zillions of variations: built-in grinders, timers, cleaning sensor, auto-off… or there’s your basic sixteen-dollar pot. That would be the Proctor-Silex 48350. If this appliancewere a car, it would be the so-called "key and a heater” model without chrome, radio, tinted glass, anything fancy. But the, the great thing about a basic model like this is that there’s not much to go wrong; and when something does the item's so cheap it’s basically disposable.

The Original Muffin Top Pan, Chicago Metallic

Muffin Tops or Buns, Chicago Metallic's Got Your Number

Maybe it's because I'm male, but I never heard of a “muffin tops” before seeing the movie Eat, Pray, Love. Maybe it's 'cause we guys call them things Dunlops (meaning that my spare tire has done lopped over my belt), a motorhead thing instead of a food thing. In reality, I don't use The Original Muffin Top Pan™ to make muffin tops, and don't intended to make them: I make homemade hamburger buns instead, and it does it well.

Anadama Bread Recipe

There's an old wive's tale about this bread. Seems that one grumpy old New Englander and his old wife, Anna, got into a more contentious squabble than usual; so she went home to mother (or perhaps to their daughter). That left the curmudgeon to fend for himself in the kitchen. When he ran out of bread, the man figured he could do it himself as well as his wife. He scrounged around in the pantry, and devised his own recipe from whatever he found. It turned out to be a recipe that makes some darned good bread. When he tasted his first slice, the old man smacked his lips and chortled, "This is for Anna, damn her!" And that's why we call it Anadama Bread.

Aroma Housewares ARC-150SB Rice Cooker

The Rice is Nice from Our Aroma Rice Cooker

Our aging Oster rice cooker still works, though it's just a matter of time. In an unusual fit of anticipation, we replaced it with a cooker several generations newer. The Aroma Rice Cooker ARC-150SB has features unheard of in the Oster's day, which cooks white rice. Period. The new one cooks white or brown rice, has a timer that lets us start our rice up to 15 hours in advance, and came with a steamer tray. The owner's manual has recipes for dishes like soup and stew to make in the pot. Haven't tried them; probably won't...

The Recipe Rock Rocks!

Architec Recipe Rock

Like many other household cooks, ever-increasing numbers of our recipes come not from cookbooks and magazines but from emails and websites. I don't trust myself to leave my precious laptop next to a hot burner with a pot of boiling water, though, so I print my recipes and keep them in a big folder. That's why many family favorites are covered with burn marks and splatters. A letter-size sheet of paper takes up more counter space than I can spare, though; so I was quite pleased to find an Architec Recipe Rock in my stocking one holiday season.

OXO Good Grips 1/4-Cup Angled Measuring Cup

You Don't Need to Bend Over to Read Liquid Measures with an OXO Angled Measuring Cup

Sure, some celebrity chefs like to prattle about their kitchens bare minimum of gadgetry, we all know that they really spend most of their time squalling like a colicky infant at their sycophants while they preen for the camera. The whole world buys kitchen gadgets like they were going out of style, and why should my house be any different? In truth, we have more gadgets than you can shake a stick at, and one of them is an OXO Good Grips Angled ¼-cup Measuring Cup. Alton Brown can kiss my grits (quick-cooking, of course), thanks.