Lifestyle Choices

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT

Pressure cookers are a useful aid to the good cook, since they make it possible to cook inexpensive cuts of meat in a very short time. They are a form of high-pressure steamer, so you get the benefits of steaming instead of boiling as well. With today’s interest in food gardening, pressure cookers are also useful for preserving bottled fruits and vegetables, and sterilizing jam and marmalade jars. Buy a good solid model, and follow directions carefully.

For the cook who develops an interest in herbs and spices, one of the oldest pieces of equipment in the world is still unbeatable-a pestle and mortar. There is just no better way to crush peppercorns and seeds at the last minute, so all the aroma is still there when you add the spice to the food. Antique wooden sets are lovely to look at, but modern ones made of composition or glass are actually better, because the wood absorbs oils and odors from the spice, and may transfer a bit of your crushed ginger to the next night’s cummin or coriander seed.

When you have a pestle, then buy your spices in small quantities so that they are as fresh as possible – this is one case where economy- size packets are for restaurants only. And buy whole spices when you can – you’ll never really appreciate what they can do for your cooking until you try the difference between dried-out bits of tasteless garlic and freshly- crushed cloves prepared a moment or two before being used. And a moment or two is all it takes.

There are dozens of new appliances ‘available today, as modern as the pestle and mortar are old. Some are passing fancies, ‘more gimmicky than useful, some are limited to one kind of usefulness, and whether you buy them or not depends very much on your individual family. But there are two electric cooking aids which are so important to the health-minded cook that they are worth considering as basic as a set of good knives, and better for your over-all nutrition than any frying pan; a blender or liquidizer, and one of the new food processors. Both are worth saving up for.

The blender has been around for a few years, and with it comes the perfect way to get every bit of taste and nourishment from fresh fruits and vegetables. It will make purées and juices from raw food, whip up healthy delicious drinks from milk and other ingredients, make gravies and sauces from cooked vegetables so that you don’t need to add flour or thickenings, and do a hundred and one other jobs quickly and easily. Buy the biggest you can afford, so you can handle food in largish batches, and try to find one that unscrews at the base so that you can get out every last bit of mixture.

Food processors are quite new, and still expensive, but they have literally revolutionized home preparation, especially of salads and fresh vegetables. They are a combination of blender and mixer, with powerful motors that whirl the blades around so fast an entire cabbage can be shredded in literally seconds. The makings of a mixed salad for twenty people would take a few minutes as most, including evenly sliced raw mushrooms, rings of green pepper, slivered onions and shredded carrots.

Fresh nuts and seeds are ground to powder in seconds, indigestable cabbage hearts turn into tender shreds for steaming, raw meat becomes a light and fluffy pate you can almost eat without cooking, and all in a single bowl easy to wash out, self-contained in a small unit so it fits into even miniature kitchens. Practically all of the tedious preparation that makes busy cooks reach for convenience foods has been eliminated. It will help you change your ideas and your menus in a way hard to believe until you own one.

Freezers

Freezing is a boon to the good cook no matter what sort of diet the family is used to — it preserves fresh food more quickly than any other form of storage, and keeps as much of the vitamins as possible in the original state. Meat, vegetables, bread, desserts — almost everything can be prepared for freezing, and it makes it possible to plan ahead whenever the garden is overflowing with fresh food. But do use your freezer properly — get a good instruction book to remind you about blanching and storage time — not all freezers have the same temperature control, and a freezer thermometer is a good extra to make sure it is working properly.

Above all, label whatever you put in — you may think that it’s easy to see that spinach is green, and lamb chops are pink, but in two or three months both will be shapeless white bundles.

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