Small Knives

Paring knives are best for cutting most vegetables. They have narrow straight-edge blades that range between 1 1/2 and 4 inches in length and small handles that make them easy to control when peeling, slicing and dicing onions, carrots, small potatoes, celery, and mushrooms. The light weight of paring knives makes them good choices for lengthy cutting and chopping tasks and their triangular blades have tips that easily remove blemishes on fruits and vegetables.

Medium Size Knives

A utility knife looks like a grown-up paring knife and usually has a narrow 5- or 6-inch, straight-edge triangular blade. It’s a good tool for cutting up large potatoes, carrots, cabbage and head lettuce. A tomato knife has about the same length blade with a serrated edge to easily cut through tomato skin without putting pressure on the delicate interior. Tomato knife blades are usually narrower than those on utility knives.

Large Knife Types

The best all-purpose large knife is the chef knife. Its large, heavy triangular blade ranges in length between 6 and 12 inches. It has a big handle that should be heavy enough to balance the blade so you can rest the tip of the blade on a cutting board and use the back of the blade for chopping or slicing with a rolling motion.

Miscellaneous Knives

If you butcher a lot of meat and poultry in your kitchen, a boning knife is a great tool as its thin, straight-edge slightly flexible blade makes removing bones, fat, and gristle easy. A set of steak knives with serrated edges not only cuts beef steak but also neatly slices pork and boneless chicken without tearing the flesh.

Space and Style

Nothing is worse than sitting down to a meal and feeling so cramped you can hardly manipulate your knife and fork to eat. For optimum guest comfort, make each place setting space 24 to 30 inches wide and place the dishes and flatware about one inch from the edge of the table. If your table is small, leave coffee cups and dessert plates in the kitchen and bring them out as needed, when you can free up space by removing other items. Don’t fret over mismatched plates and flatware; mixing and matching pieces is considered very chic in many circles. Keep flower arrangements and centerpieces short enough for people to see each other across the table.

Lunch and Brunch Set-Ups

These typically casual meals usually need minimal plates, glasses and flatware, so there is plenty of free space on the tables for cell phones and small purses. Place a salad and dinner fork on the left of the singular dinner plate, with the salad fork in the outermost position, and place the dinner knife and spoon to the right of the plate, with the spoon placed furthest right. If wine is being served, position the goblet at the tip of the knife with the water goblet left of it. Paper or cloth napkins are placed to the left of the forks or cloth varieties can be nicely folded and displayed in the middle of the dinner plate.

Dinner Table Settings

To transform the casual setting to a formal one, place the teaspoon to the left of the knife and a soup spoon on the right side. Add a smaller white wine goblet to the glassware, positioned at the top right of the larger wine goblet. At the top of the plate, arrange the dessert fork and dessert knife. Place the bread and butter plate above the forks with the butter knife laid in the plate’s center. The obligatory folded cloth napkin should be centered on the dinner plate.

Pistachio Varieties

Like ballpark or circus peanuts, pistachios are traditionally roasted and salted in the shell. The salt easily coats the nuts as the shell splits when the pistachio nut is mature. In recent years, pistachios have become available in assorted flavors including black pepper, jalapeno pepper, chile-lemon, and garlic-onion. For convenience, you can buy them shelled or enjoy the tradition of separating the gaping shell to get your nutty treat.

More Nuts Per Serving

If you delight in eating nuts, with pistachios you get more nuts per serving than many other popular varieties. A 1-ounce serving of pistachios has 49 nuts, compared to 22 almonds, 18 cashews, 21 hazelnuts, 11 macadamia nuts, 19 pecans, and 14 walnuts, so you can munch more nuts at a sitting without overdoing it.

Calorie Considerations

Calorie counters often choose pistachios and cashews for snacking as they have 160 calories per 1-ounce serving, a dieting delight compared to the 170 calories in the same size serving of almonds, 180 in hazelnuts, 200 in macadamias and pecans, and 190 in walnuts.

Nutritional Value

Pistachios are rich in Vitamin E, which helps skin cell and mucous membrane maintenance. They are also full of B-complex vitamins and minerals such as zinc, calcium, selenium, magnesium, potassium, manganese, and iron and copper. The oleic acids in pistachios have been linked to the prevention of coronary artery disease and strokes and consumption of the nuts has also been associated with reducing bad cholesterol (LDL), elevating good cholesterol (HDL), and providing antioxidants that improve immunity to cancer, disease, and infections.

Cracking Up

Claw crackers can be used to get inside the lobster’s body as well as crack the claws to get the tasty morsels inside. They look like sophisticated pliers and are made of sturdy metal that lets you easily master the meal. Claw crackers are especially helpful in breaking the shells of lobsters caught in May or June when their shells are hardest, right before molting.

Extracting the Meat

Once you’ve cracked the claws and body of the lobster, you’ll see meat hiding in little nooks that are too small to be accessed by fingers. To get every last piece of lobster, use a seafood fork or lobster pick to dig out the flesh hidden in the legs, knuckles, flippers, and joints of the crustacean. Avoid using toothpicks as they will splinter under the pressure and render the tiny bits of meat inedible.

Other Handy Tools

Many lobster aficionados believe the best part of the creature is not the meat but the tomalley, the grey liver of the lobster located it its head. Its rich taste is used by many top chefs to flavor seafood sauces. Another lobster delicacy is the roe or eggs in female lobsters, also called spawn, coral, or caviar. The roe is black before the lobster is cooked and turns deep red when cooked. Both the tomalley and roe can be removed with a flatware teaspoon. To keep the dinner table neat, it’s a good idea to provide large shallow bowls or dinner plates in the center of the table to hold the discarded shells and other inedible lobster parts.

Fresh vs. Concentrate

If the label states the juice is not-from-concentrate or fresh, it cannot contain anything but pure juice. This type is as close as you’ll get to juice made at home, as it goes straight from the fruit into the package, with some types being pasteurized to kill harmful bacteria and give them longer shelf lives. Labels that say the juice is from-concentrate are made in the processing plant like you prepare frozen juice at home, by adding water to juice concentrated by removing the natural water from it.

Juicing Process

Juice made in commercial operations is prepared much like you make it at home with a juicer. The fruit is peeled, cored, and put through machines that remove pits, seeds, and stems, and the remaining flesh is squeezed and smashed to remove all the juice. Some of it is processed with pieces of pulp still in it and some has all the fiber removed. Many juice manufactures produce varieties enhanced with extra vitamins and minerals.

Benefits of Different Types

Fresh juice typically has more visual appeal because it is free of artificial colors. It is healthier than concentrates that usually contain added sugar and flavorings and tastes more like homemade juice. However, fresh juice goes bad more quickly than frozen concentrate, so it can’t be purchased way ahead of time. Properly frozen juice concentrate lasts for months in the freezer and can be made in new batches as needed.

Watch Out For…

Many beverages have the word juice in their names but actually contain very little real juice. Carefully read labels to determine the percentage of juice in questionable products so you consume the proper amount of nutrients and avoid the additives in watered-down pretenders.

Sweet and Luscious

Fresh apples and bananas are good stirred into hot oatmeal but more exotic fresh and dried fruit transforms your breakfast into a spa-type treat. Mix in chunks of fresh pears, mango, and papaya or sprinkle some chopped dates or toasted coconut on top. If you crave sugary sweetness, mix in a big spoonful of fruit jam or preserves or stir a scoop of apple butter into the mix. For a sweet late night snack, stir a bit of instant pudding mix into oatmeal – butterscotch, chocolate fudge, banana, and cheesecake flavors work great.

Texturizers

The consistency of oatmeal is smooth, so it benefits from crunchy contrasting food additions. Toasted and roasted peanuts, cashews, pecans, or walnuts are tasty and healthy stir-ins, as are chunky peanut, cashew or almond butter. Crushed up shredded wheat adds a distinct flavor and texture to oatmeal.

Dairy Delights

Although milk, cream, and half-and-half are conventional oatmeal accompaniments, other dairy products can add depth to the dish. Plain or flavored yogurt adds richness and a scoop of cottage cheese or ricotta mixed with honey transforms oatmeal into a whole new category of tastiness.

Gourmet Toppings

If you are inspired to transform your bowl of oats into a culinary masterpiece, mix and match assorted toppings and mix-ins. You can make it taste like pie with fresh berries, toasted nuts and a crushed, cinnamon-sugar graham cracker. Bread pudding oatmeal is easy to make with cubed raisin bread mixed in during cooking and topped with cinnamon, brown sugar and heavy whipping cream. A chocolaty whole grain dessert is made by mixing cooked oatmeal with cocoa powder, white sugar, slivered almonds, shredded coconut, and chocolate chips. For savory oatmeal, crumble a strip of crisp bacon into the bowl and stir in goat or cream cheese and a light swirl of real maple syrup.