musings of an epicurean… » on life, food, and random thoughts

I briefly mentioned the bonus gifts in my last post when blogging about the off sized All-Clad measuring spoons. Most stores such as Crate and Barrel, WS, and Macy’s offer incentive gifts through some of the brands they carry. I can’t figure out why, but I guess it is to entice brides to register for entire sets of knives/pans/utensils/items that looked amazing in the store but you end up not using and takes up a ton of space at home. Sam and I registered at two places, technically three. Our main registries were at Williams-Sonoma and our china was registered at Crate and Barrel. Since I worked at WS years ago and wracked up practically a whole kitchen’s worth of goodies there on my employee discount, there were a few things that were still lacking; aka I couldn’t afford it myself in the past.

One of the things I really really coveted and lusted after was the KitchenAid stand mixer. I didn’t do much baking since I hated the clean up and it was a hassle trying to get dough off the measly little beaters on my $20 hand mixer from Albertson’s that I rarely ever baked. When I did, I’d end up mixing everything by hand and hating myself even more. With that said, I didn’t start this odd obsession until I hung out with my friend Becky and she was making chocolate chip cookies. Everything went into her shiny red KitchenAid. Clean up was a breeze and we sat around chatting while the little KitchenAid mixed away! At the end, we scooped out the dough and popped everything in the oven and we were done! No sore arms, no gazillion dishes to wash, everything was so simple.

It dawned on me:

Baking w/out KitchenAid = measure out ingredients + dig out hand mixer + hand mixer not working + looking for the wooden spoon+ sore arms + tons of dishes + big mess + baking.

Baking w/ KitchenAid = measure out ingredients + baking. WOW.

This revelation dawned on me as I was packing up my condo in La Jolla to move so buying a stand mixer was probably not the best idea. So I kept telling myself… I’ll register for one for my wedding. That appeased me for the time being except I was boyfriend-less and the furthest away from getting married. Over the years, I was so tempted to buy it for myself but stuck to the fact that I was going to register for it. In the end, it made it so much sweeter to get the box in the mail at work knowing that my future in-laws had ordered it for me.

Totally going off track, there were only a few items that we wanted, certain appliances to update when we combined our households. I joke that Sam got a good deal out of me since I came with All-Clad, Shun Knife set, Emile Henry cookware, a professional Belgian Waffle maker, and all sorts of random stuff including two fish silicone spatulas and an ebelskiver pan. (Google ebelskiver or go to WS. I kid you not… I bought nearly EVERYTHING in that store.) And seriously… I’m sure you’re thinking “Spatula is a spatula!! There’s a difference!?”  Oh yeah did I mention I also had enough dinner and serving ware to seat and serve 8 at once?! This was the kitchen I stocked up with for COLLEGE. And no… I did not go to culinary school. Although in retrospect I think I would have had more fun going to culinary school.

When it came time to register, we picked out a few things, Le Creuset, a countertop convection oven/toaster (best thing EVER!!). In the end, we had a good collection of things and certain brands offered goodies for hitting certain dollar marks. All-Clad was one, and I sent in for a set of odd sized measuring cups. Le Creuset was another and they sent me a mini stoneware coquette. Totally adorable, it sits completely useless since it is so small on our countertop but it dawned on me to use it as a salt holder. It is probably one of the cutest most expensive salt holders out there.  I think the Le Creuset magnets get more usage out there than these little coquettes… I guess I can use it to serve a sauce in but it would be too much of a hassle to clean and wash out. Salt holder it is!

With that said, if you’re ever registering, look around and see if there are any goodies out there… Sometimes these stores offer incentive gifts for you to stock up on – and the gifts range from awesome to adorable but useless. Cause I mean… I use my 1 1/2 c. measuring up all the time!! Yeah… totally.