GASTRONORMOUS

I received a gift certificate from Sur la Table for Christmas, and can’t decide how to use it. Here are some of the many options I found on their website:

I don’t have a a proper sauté pan, and really want one (I do all my sautéing in a, gasp!, skillet! How gastronomically gauche!). Most of our cookware is by Bodum, and we love it, but unfortunately, Bodum has discontinued their line of stove-top cookware.  So, it sounds simple: buy a sauté pan. But gumming up the works is the Hubs specifications as to handle form and placement in all our future cookware purchases—one of the few things about which he is a bit persnickity. The handles on Caphalon pans are too curved and too high. All-Clad handles aren’t substantial enough. But this sauté pan by Demeyere might just fill the bill, although it will also exceed the amount of the gift certificate!

I was also thinking I could get a mandoline, which would require valiantly brushing past fears that I might not actually use it. Most of the less expensive plastic models available at SLT received bad reviews on Amazon, so I’ll avoid those. Then there is the $400 Japanese number. I am sure it works like a charm—like the Germans, the Japanese know their blades—but I would just as soon risk slicing off my fingertips at a lower price point. In between is all-stainless French model, which looks sturdier, and more serious, than the plastic mandolines available. Downside: it might be heavy, so heavy as to discourage actual use, ya know.

Though I dislike one-use tools, I equally dislike unevenly sliced mozzarella in my caprese salad. I mean, don’t you? That is where this Mario Batali mozzarella slicer comes in. I am totally not kidding. Actually, come to think of it, this might be a multiple-use tool after all. I could replace my egg slicer with this, which I also use to slice mushrooms. And hey, I wonder if you could slice tomatoes with this mozarella jobby? Just imagine what a rapturously uniform caprese that would be!

I had an electric juicer once, but I almost never used it because I didn’t have the counter space to leave it out, and only had storage space for it above the refrigerator, a/k/a the small appliance graveyard. But this little hand juicer is compact enough for a respectable place among the Tupperware in an accessible cupboard. But the question is: can it possibly work? It almost looks too cute to actually work.

Or perhaps I could get a cornichon slicer. You know, just so I can say I have one.

Any other suggestions?