My favorite kitchen items

I am not an influencer! This is not an ad! I just genuinely love these things!

My mom cooked amazing meals for our family when I was growing up, and then I went to St. Olaf, which had one of the top five collegiate food services in the country. After that, I married a man who enjoys cooking, so while I have always whole-heartedly enjoyed food, I never really learned to cook.

I started baking in earnest a few months after my son was born, and slowly, very slowly, I have begun to enjoy cooking. Baking is where it’s at for me, though, and most of my favorite kitchen items are with baking in mind.

In no particular order…

1. Silpats. Say goodbye to burned cookies! Throw your Silpat on a baking tray, throw your cookie dough balls on top of that, pop it all in the oven, and then once they’ve cooled slightly, slide them right off with a rubber spatula. Thanks, Silpat!

   

   Thanks, Google, for this cute image! I personally do not have the patience for cut-out cookies!

2. My cobalt blue Kitchenaid mixer. My mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and grandma-in-law all got together on this generous gift for one of my bridal showers. At the time, I didn’t know what to do with it! What were all these attachments for? What could I possibly do with this hook thing? I barely stepped foot in the kitchen except to grab a pre-made snack! Well, let me tell you, I now use alllll of the attachments (the hook thing is for kneading bread!) and my Kitchenaid is probably my most used item. And the blue! I absolutely adore the blue. It’s the perfect blue, the blue of my dreams. I mean, look at it:

   

   This is not my kitchen. This is a William Sonoma advertisement.

   Enjoying this publication? Subscribe for free to get it delivered straight to your inbox.

3. My glass measuring cup. I love this thing. I use it most often to melt butter. I have tender-little-twinkle-fingertips and the handle never gets too hot for me to grab straight out of the microwave.

   

   The humble measuring cup.

4. The thing about getting married when you’re a baby is that you have no idea what you should register for. One thing we didn’t register for but probably should have? A cast iron skillet. Thankfully, my aunt went registry-rogue and gifted us this beautiful Finex cast iron skillet. Did you know that you can cook on the stove top with your cast iron skillet and then PUT IT IN THE OVEN?? The first time I realized this, it was like magic. Please note: this skillet is basically a weapon out of Game of Thrones. It is approximately fifty-five pounds. Is it worth lifting a few weights in your downtime so you can heft it from oven to stove easily? Yes, yes it is.

   

   My dream skillet. Also doubles as a paper weight for giants.

5. Our water glasses. One thing I knew I wanted when we registered were large drinking glasses. I absolutely detest tiny water glasses that you have to fill up a million times to quench your thirst. Give me a two-hander bucket of a glass, please! These glasses we got from Crate and Barrel are called “the working glass” and let me tell you, they do their work! For being glass, they are remarkably break-proof, too.

   

   Image via Crate and Barrel

   Share With Love From My Kitchen Table with a friend!

6. The hand-embroidered tea towels given to us by Michael’s Great Aunt Jean. Aunt Jean gave us a stack of tea towels with threaded kittens doing various things on them, like singing hymns and baking cakes. I think she got them at a community church sale. They came to us in a large ziplock and I knew immediately it was the perfect gift. There is nothing so good at drying dishes, cleaning spills, or covering rising dough as a tea towel. We have used them daily for eight years and they are just now getting a bit holey and ratty at the edges. I also think that a tea towel is the perfect gift for any occasion. It will get used.

   

   Photo by Maite Oñate on Unsplash

What are your favorite kitchen items? What are the stories behind those items? Sound off in the comments or reply to this email if you’d like to let me know.

With love from my kitchen table,

Kaia