It's New Year's Day, and All the Restaurants are Closed -- (Utensibility Meme)

This is part of a meme called "Utensibility" started by Sam over at Becks and Posh, who, lucky girl, is trying to decide how to spend a $300 gift certificate at Sur La Table.

From time to time, a whore needs a night off from the bright lights and big city. When that happens, I spend the time in my own kitchen. And the one tool I cannot live without is the Asian skimmer. You can find it just about anywhere these days, from the aforementioned SLT down to the kickin' Kamei household wares store on Clement Street. Side note: Kamei rocks my world.

Anyway, this will replace the strainers and colanders in your house. We use it to drain fried items (like squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta or french fries) before we set them on a cookie rack above newspaper to drain some more. We use it to drain small pasta, such as ravioli, without dumping the whole pot of water. We also do this with blanched vegetables. This is very handy when you need to reserve the water for another use later in the recipe. You can practice this same technique in reverse, dropping your goods into boiling water or fat, using the skimmer so you don't burn yourself. And, I guess, you can also use it as a skimmer.

At around $8 a pop on the high end, Sam can buy 35 of them and still have money left over to buy me dessert at Aziza. Awesome.

Happy spending, love!

xoxo
Joy