You can easily read my treatise on kitchen equipment and blog posts and photos. I do have a lot of necessary kitchen equipment. Nothing goes on my countertop unless it is used nearly every day. Even my knives are on the wall, spices in our “tech center.”
Starting with favorite things, yes, I induced my parents to see The Sound of Music three times the year it debuted. I love My Favorite Things.
I do have a food processor, hand-cranked food mill from the hardware store with three blades, and a potato ricer (never try to put a cooked rutabaga through a ricer).
The tamis. Just call it Tammy. Wooden sides, fine mesh sieve. Scraper. I was an intern after cooking school for a month having spent nearly all my life savings on that endeavor. I left enough for a rental car for a month and $400 for a place to live. I didn’t know I’d have to pay $5 per day for wood to at least get me through until 3 a.m. They left me wood but it was too huge to work in the stove and I was out in a cabin in the middle of no-where when I almost cut my legs off with the axe.
The restaurant had a system, 57 guests, two seatings. Cooks got a plate fee for every table. Every paid cook, I was an unpaid intern. Nada.
The restaurant cold-smoked corn and made it into smoked corn soup in the fall. I got to push it through a tamis over a huge bowl. Do you know how hard it is to get corn essence through fine grates with only a scraper and how much chaff is left behind? Let me tell you something. If you’re at a hybrid hardware/cooking shop and see this cute little thing (like a pup or kitten) called a tamis, beware. You may be required to use it one day. It’s like trying to put rutabagas through a ricer for a Christmas root veg puree.
If Monty Python and the Holy Grail is any indication, a tamis might chew your arms off. Or give you arthritis. Dee
Cooking with Dee 