When Martha Stewart began her new show many years ago, she did a series of shows featuring the 20 things every kitchen needed. One was a spatula. She asked the audience if they owned spatulas and about half of the audience raised their hands. Only half? Seriously, the audience was full of women screaming about how much they loved Martha and they didn't own spatulas? You can't make fish sticks and tater tots without a spatula. In the end, Martha gave everyone a spatula (which was a good thing for all those poseurs who said they loved Martha and yet failed to find time to buy a spatula. Remember when Oprah gave everyone in her audience cars? Well I must say, Martha's audience was just as excited to get a spatula, but I digress...)
I felt that the better show would have been the 20 things no kitchen needs but are really cool to have. Here is one of the items I would feature -- a cheese safe. Back in the day, before those nifty
pre-grated,
pre-measured bags, cheese came in a wheel. Cheese, being a living organism, needed a bio dynamic environment to stay fresh and -- safe. Not to mention cheese is a prized food item for the rodent population. So you kept your cheese in a cheese safe. The bottom of the glass has ridges to allow for airflow around the cheese. A bit of vinegar and water in the bottom keeps the cheese fresh and moist.
I own a cheese safe or two, but rarely do I get a nice wheel of cheese. This Christmas, however, I received a lovely wheel of Vermont Cheddar from my friend Catherine. I was excited about the cheese but even more excited that I would get to use my cheese safe. I set it out and proudly admired it.
Over at
Cookbook Of The Day, I wrote about another of my Christmas presents, a new 9 X 13 pan. So I managed to combine these two Christmas presents into this lovely item. In this 9 X 13 the cheese was not safe! Not at all. It was, however, delicious.
