More Good Stuff

This week's gift guide is about pots, pans, plates, glasses.... all manner of gorgeous goods. A few very fine foods. And a cool multi-chef vintage menu.

You find old copper pots in antique stores all the time. You stand looking at them, coveting their heft, their color, their sheer coolness in the kitchen. Then you look at their battered state and know you’ll never bother to have them re-tinned…which pretty much makes them useless. In the end you buy a new copper pot – which doesn’t make you nearly as happy.

If you want a vintage copper pot, one filled with both beauty and history, go to East Coast Tinning. Jim Hamann not only finds breathtakingly beautiful cookware, he also re-tins it.  So your friends can start cooking on copper right away.

I love this little covered gratin pan so much that I’ve suggested Jim copy it and sell it new.

Jim makes his own line of astonishing hand-made copper pans.  Some are lined in sterling silver – which is an even better conductor of heat than copper. Now, in an extremely bold move, he’s making a line of solid sterling pans with leather-covered handles.  They’re sexy and gorgeous – kind of like jewelry for the stove – and if you have a lot of money and want to give someone a gift they will never forget, consider this solid sterling saute pan.

A PAN OF A DIFFERENT COLOR

I love my hand-hammered carbon steel pan from Blanc Creatives. I love the way it feels in my hand, and I love how evenly it cooks. I use it almost every day. It may be expensive… but it’s guaranteed for life.

PORCELAIN PERFECTION

My neighbor, Mary Anne Davis, makes the most beautiful plates. I’ve been using them every day for almost thirty years, and although they’re egg-shell thin, these porcelain plates have survived the depredations of the dishwasher. Just looking at these colors makes me happy. However, if pale is your preference, Mary Anne does beautiful work in white.

A GORGEOUS GADGET

A friend came to dinner the other night, and as I was opening the first bottle of wine she exclaimed, “Where did you get that wine opener? I must have one.”

It’s a fairly typical reaction, and I have to say, I’ve had this Chefman electric wine opener for over a year and it has never let me down. Even the foil cutter is still in great shape. I also love the way it sits, quietly glowing, on my counter; a $25 piece of kitchen sculpture.

SNIP IN STYLE

I’ve read many odes to Joyce Chen’s Kitchen Scissors, but until I bought a pair of my own, I never quite got it. Now I can’t imagine how I ever lived without them.

CUTE CUTTERS

Knives are so personal they’re hard to give as gifts; you have to use one for a while before you know if it’s the right one for you. But these Victorinex paring knives are different: pretty, perky and without pretensions, they’re useful little workhorses. Nobody doesn’t like them.

TERRIFIC TOWELS

Have you every thought about how useful your tea towels are - or how much they say about you? There they are, sitting in the kitchen, for all the world to see. Mine were pretty dull until I discovered Artist Series Tea Towels: created by women in Maine they are lovely to look at. The perfect present for people unwilling to waste a single opportunity to display art. There’s even a tea-towel-of-the-month club.

GREAT GLASSES

These were a housewarming gift when we moved in twenty years ago, and they’ve given me pleasure every day. I use them for juice, for wine, for a simple glass of water. Hirota glasses have been made in Japan for more than a hundred years. Founded in 1899, the Hirota Company aims to preserve the traditional art of Japanese glass-making. Hold one in your hand, and you’ll understand why this tradition is worth preserving. And while you’re on the Sara site, take a look at the other beautiful objects they sell. It’s a beautifully curated collection.

UNBREAKABLE GLASSES

Have you ever walked into a store, liked everything so much you couldn't decide what you wanted, and ended up buying nothing? That was my experience at Mario Lucca Giusti, a store in Florence that sells "crystal" made of plastic: glasses, vases and pitchers as elegant as glass. They also have a line of beautiful plastic plates and platters; you'd never know they're not ceramic.

Turns out you can find many of their products in the United States. Two good sources are here, and here. If you know someone clumsy (me, for instance), who's constantly breaking things, just about anything Giusti makes would be a wonderful gift.

COLORFUL CUTTING BOARDS

I walk into the kitchen every morning, still not quite in the real world. But one sight of my beautiful Fredericks and Mae cutting board wakes me right up. I’m very happy to have it; you probably have a friend who would be equally elated. These beautiful boards come in many cheerful colors.

AND FINALLY SOMETHING TO EAT

I recently discovered Dandelion large chocolate chips. Serious chocolate, barely sweet, they come in three varieties and make the most wonderful chocolate chip cookies. (There’s a recipe on their website.)

My father moved to New York from Berlin in 1926.  He was twenty-six years old and fairly set in his food ways.  Which is to say that he didn’t consider anything that wasn’t German to be worth eating.

He thought cereal was a strange American invention, had very little use for salad (or anything green, to be completely honest), and wouldn’t think dinner a real meal unless there was a basket of bread on the table. When I wanted to make him happy all I had to do was bake a Sacher Torte.

The one thing I never could figure out was Lebkuchen. Partly because I didn’t know where to buy the strangely innocent wafers on the bottom (I always imagined they were large communion wafers).  Happily, Dad knew someone who kept us supplied with the classic German Christmas cookies.

For years I dreamed about finding another great source for Lebkuchen; there are plenty of commercial brands, but none tasted right to me.  Then I discovered Leckerlee - and it was like being a child again.

These are the real thing. Chewy, gingery, spicy, nutty – with that completely tasteless but compelling wafer on the bottom. It is, for me at least, Christmas in a single bite.

I’ve just found a whole new trove of old menus down in the basement. Many wonderful memories. This one seems like the right one to offer up today (look at the date).