Sunday, December 28, 2008

Merry Christmas to me: new measuring tools!


New tools. I won't show you my old measuring ones.

I had a wonderful Christmas in snowy Vancouver: family, food, drinks, movies, games and so on. And presents: chocolate, Drambuie, gloves, books, among other things.

After spending so much time baking, though, I realized that I wasn't at all happy with my measuring and mixing tools. They are plastic, ugly, and have started to deteriorate. Today, after the soup and biscuits, we went to look at some kitchen/housewares at Boxing Day sales. The offerings at nood weren't particularly good, so bidding our friends adieu we wandered over to Ming Wo in Chinatown. (Great store; not a great site.)

I love Ming Wo. Love love. All the essential cookware, good prices, and friendly Chinese ladies eager to help. I've only been to the original one in Chinatown, so I can't speak for the other locations, but every time I go in I spend more than I should and I have a great time.

At home I had checked out the Cookworks site, hoping to find measuring tools on sale. Booooo. Cookworks may be a great store but everything is overpriced. At Ming Wo I found similar or identical products for 1/2 or 3/4 the price. And here is what we bought:

1 set stainless steel oval measuring cups
1 set stainless steel measuring spoons
1 large stainless steel mixing bowl
1 plastic spatula-like scraping tool (for getting muffins out of cursed non-stick tins)
1 handheld electric mixer (no more egg beater mishaps for me)

We looked at paring knives but couldn't decide which one to get. Next visit. We also need muffin tins, a 9" x 9" pan, and.... ack, I'll wait till I get there so I can enjoy the browsing.

Edit: Nina wanted me to clarify: she bought everything. So when I say "we bought", I mean "Nina bought".

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is nothing like a nice set of measuring tools to make the baking/cooking experience even better. I'm glad you found new supplies and happy new year!

Anonymous said...

I heard about Ming Wo on the CBC sometime before Christmas - a show about kitchen gadgets to give as gifts, I think. Ever since then I have been dreaming of visiting myself. What I am really looking for, are big, nice, counter top storage containers for baking ingredients. Did ya see anything like that?

Brenton said...

Thanks, Ari. I've already put them to good use. I've added your site to my blog list, and look forward to your concoctions.

Zoe: Was it Don Genova on the CBC? He's been posting a list of gifts in four installments, one of which was cooking/baking supplies.

I wasn't looking, though I saw some OXO containers. They're plastic though, and we've been trying to wean our home of plastic for a while now. I'll keep my eyes open.