A little shopping for the kitchen

A $50 gift card for Sur La Table was burning a whole in my purse, and my Cuisinart food processor had recently bought the farm. So while Sophie was whiling away the morning in her ceramics class, I headed around the corner for a little shopping.

And a most unprecendented thing occurred. I went in to buy the large version of something but left with the small (and—I might add—considerably less expensive) version. This probably wouldn't have happened if I had not had along a thrifty, level-headed girlfriend. We decided that it would be worth it for me to try life with the small version. If that worked out, fine. Money and counter space saved. But if it really didn't work out, I could come back and get the large one as well. Genius, no? Because there are some things (like herbs) that really do not work well in a large machine, so if I ended up with one of each size, the small one could be the herb processor.
The big test will come in the spring, during pesto season, and next winter during fruit cake season. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I got to visit my dishes. They're not really my dishes, but I would like them to be. Aren't they lovely? I think they would look very nice against my kitchen's vintage butter yellow tile.


I also admired these, which is where the gift card might have gone if I didn't need a new food processor.


The Things Cooks Love line features beautiful French utensiles with wood handles, sealed so you can run them through the dishwasher. Very pretty but completely unnecessary, unlike the food processor, the absence of which was becoming an emergency.