I drink a lot of coffee. One could even argue that I drink too much coffee.

During the week I stop at a coffee shop on my way in to work to grab a nice cinnamon pecan coffee, or I make do with the swill that they pass off as coffee in the office. But now that we’ve moved out to the ‘burbs, there just isn’t a convenient place to grab a cup of coffee on weekends.

I have a really nice coffee maker that grinds up the beans before it brews the coffee. But it is big, and clunky, and I need to drag it out of the pantry on weekends just to make myself a cup. For some reason I have it in my mind that it takes too much work, and it isn’t worth it.

So I’ve been eyeing up this French Coffee Press at the coffee shop, and the other day I splurged and bought it. It is wonderful!

To make your coffee, you put the grounds in the bottom of the glass pot, and then steep the coarsely ground coffee directly in hot water. Once steeped, you slowly plunge the fine screen filter down into the pot. It works like a charm!

I liked it so much, I went back and bought another one to use in the office!

Popularity: 7% [?]

Some of the long time readers of Cuisine Capers may recall my very unfortunate pizza escapade of last July. No? Ah, well, take a look at it if you dare. It wasn’t pretty.

So while working away on a few online projects this weekend, I had the Food TV Network on in the background. There seemed to be a weekend theme - PIZZA. Not just pizza, but lucious, wonderous pizzas made in New York pizzerias and around the world, often recreated in the Food TV kitchens.

I’ve often mentioned that while I seldom lift a recipe off of the Food Network, I do watch it for tips and techniques (Rachel Ray’s Garbage Bowl is a prime example of this….).

So I watched, and I decided that my problem was that I just didn’t have the right equipment required to make a real homemade thin, crispy crusted pizza. Sure, I had the pizza stone, but I did not have a pizza paddle.

So off I headed to my neighborhood Italian deli to hunt down said paddle. While there I also picked up a tidy wad of frozen pizza dough. And tonight, after work, I gave it a test:

And the end result? A picture speaks a thousand words… and it tasted even better than it looks!

A nice thin, crisp crust, flavored with a layer of pancetta, green peppers, red onions, kalamata olives, pesto, garlic, and mozzarella cheese, this was a resounding succes.

Now perhaps I can sleep better at night, having overcome this challenge.

Popularity: 7% [?]

It’s such a simple thing really…

It’s a salt pig. You put, well, salt in it. And then it sits on your counter and you use it to… salt things. I want this.

I don’t know why salt pigs aren’t very common. It seems like such a practical gadget.

And I don’t know why I don’t have one. It’s not like it is outrageously expensive.

Yet every so often I look at a picture of one and say, gee, one day I’m going to buy one of those.

Popularity: 5% [?]

It’s always dangerous going into a kitchen store. There are so many cool gadgets, and I never leave without spending too much money.

My latest cool gadget is this silicone Rubbermade grabber. It’s very cool - it goes over your hand like a sock puppet, and there is no way heat is going to get to your fingers. It’s a really simple gadget, but for some reason I saw it and I just had to have it.

Of course, I’d be able to take it much more seriously if Greg wouldn’t walk around with it on his hand, while he talked like Senor Wences.

Popularity: 6% [?]