Nutmeg Grinder

Memories of Mom in the kitchen over the stove with a nutmeg in one hand and a small grater in the other.
Years later, I received this Nutmeg Grinder from one of my sister & a dear friend and it has been a favorite kitchen tool of mine since.

The mill has razor-sharp blades that finely grate whole nutmeg as you turn the crank. The acrylic top doubles as a storage vessel, holding whole nutmegs in reserve.

Try some in your pancake or waffle batter. Nutmeg is also great for ground meat dishes like meat loaf or meatballs. A little goes a long way.

Side note: The base of it reads, "Made on the Third Planet From the Sun Torrance CA US"...gotta love whoever made that statement happen.
This blog post goes to my favorite Las Vegas flair bartenders who turned me on to this...thanks Little C and B.

Melon Scoop

Not much explanation needed here.
Melon scoopers are great to use this time of year.

Summer Sunflower Dessert idea.
Make a melon & ice cream sunflower dish by scooping 1 scoop of vanilla ice cream on a plate and place smaller melon balls around the ice cream.

The Melon Scoop is also good for creating neatly formed cookie dough balls that baked into consistently shaped cookies.

Other uses: Butter balls, cream cheese

Here's an after thought: I'm joansing something savory and sweet...I might wrap the melon balls with thinly sliced Prosciutto for a quick summer time friendly appetizer or snack later on tonight.

If you have ever notice the tendency for your baster brush to fall out of your sauce bowl, this tool will end that frustration.

The stainless-steel pot comes with a brush built right into its lid. The brush is made from silicone and is heatproof to 550° F. It has a long handle and guard to protect hands from heat.

It comes with two brush heads one that is thick and round the other is flat and thin.

Priced at $29.95 and is dishwasher friendly.

The wallet friendly version comes with a mug and standard kitchen spatula, hand guard not included. ;)

If you follow Bravo's Top Chef and LOVE Padma Lakshmi you should check out KCRW Guest DJ Project. Padma is one of the listed guest DJ and she tells DJ Garth Trinidad about the music that inspires the creation of her culinary masterpieces.

It's only 09:12 minutes and in the end, you might catch yourself replaying it again hoping to hear more from Padma.

Here's a transcript quote about cooking to Led Zepplin's "Ramble on".

"I love this song because it never ceases to make me happy, happy as a dog’s tail. You know, in the kitchen, barefoot, with the music up, with a big, wide wok in front me and all my spices. I think of my spice box as a painter’s palate, and I often I just go to the market and buy vegetables or some protein. I usually have tomatoes or coconut milk or something like that, and then I just do what I refer to in the book as “MacGyvering” in the kitchen. And what I mean by that is just taking what you have and really creating something spontaneously. And I love the kind of tooling, rambling on, you know, attitude of this song. It just makes me want to keep humming, keep on my path, and really inspires me to kind of just keep creating -- whatever form that creativity takes shape in is fine".

To listen to the entire show go to:
http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/gd/gd080618padma_lakshmi