Cuisinart Ice Cream maker.

The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter. I was a little suprised that the recipies were so accessible. Some of his other cookbooks have mind numbingly complex preparations and long lists of semi-inaccessible ingredients (i.e. things he serves at the restaurant), but this one actually has recipies you could make at home and some nice bits of advice on food preparations.

Lemon and Rasberry Vincotto Vinegar.

20+ bottles of wine. (Our friends know us well). One used on XMAS day Coq a Vin. We'll be enjoying them all year long, or at least for the next month or two.

A microplane grater from my mom.

"Culinaria: European Specialties" from myself.

Oh, I got a sweet lookin' S&P shaker combo, as well as a new burr grinder. Coffee tomorrow should be excellent. (And now I can take our old grinder to work and avoid their swill.)

The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter. I was a little suprised that the recipies were so accessible. Some of his other cookbooks have mind numbingly complex preparations and long lists of semi-inaccessible ingredients (i.e. things he serves at the restaurant), but this one actually has recipies you could make at home and some nice bits of advice on food preparations.

Those big coffee table books of his are mainly for show, I think, but Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home is a great little book with recipes that one person can throw together fairly easily, using relatively easy to find ingredients (at least in a city with decent grocery stores), yet clearly express his philosophy about simple, clean flavors shining through a dish. They may be what he whips up informally at home for himself, but I've made several things from it for dinner parties or holidays quite successfully.

Couple of late-arrivals:

"Truffles" (Elizabeth Luard)

A tagine (looks good, though I'm a little leery of its quality):


Accompanied by a book, Tagine: Spicy Stews from Morocco (Ghillie Basan), which has some nice photos, though I'll probably stick with the Wolfert one.

The wife and I made an E-Bay score with a 36" Wolf range including the matching hood. I would have liked the 48" but am glad to have settled for the 36". This person never used the oven at all and the filters on the hood still had the protective wrap on them!( the reason this person got rid of it-- the smell of gas nauseated her!) I believe she is gravitating to the raw food diet anyway.We couldn't be happier with our prize!

Christmas 2.0 brought a glass-bottomed springform pan and a pair of the KitchenAid kitchen shears that can be disjointed into a santoku knife.

Oh, and I forgot about the Trader Joe's GC I got at Christmas 1.0.

abe_froeman wrote:KitchenAid kitchen shears that can be disjointed into a santoku knife.

My curiousity got the better of me: Sheartoku Kitchen Shears

My nearest and dearest have certainly figured out what tickles my fancy: books! I am grateful.

Here is the list of new titles, in no particular order:
Charlemagne's Tablecloth: A Piquant History of Feasting by Nichola Fletcher
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee
The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food by Judith Jones
Don't Try This at Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs, Kimberly Witherspoon & Andrew Friedman, Eds.
Beyond Nose to Tail by Fergus Henderson & Justin Piers Gellatly
My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme
My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals and by Melanie Dunea
The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn
Lidia's Italy by Lidia Bastianich and Tanya Manuali
Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons

After three years of suggestions, hints, and name dropping, I finally sent Mrs. Davooda an Amazon.com hotlink to the KitchenAid Artisan 5-qt mixer I have wanted for a long time (plus an attachment pack) and, by golly, it was under the tree this Christmas!

I am looking forward to years of home-baked whole wheat bread, home-made game sausages and especially making pizza with our boys.

Yippee!!!!!

Davooda

Davooda wrote: ...home-made game sausages
Davooda

This is how I plan to break mine in. I have several lbs of U.P. deer I gotta do SOMETHING with. I have the grinder, but gotta get the stuffer. The other thing I look forward to is not beating tamale masa for twenty minutes with the hand mixer any more!!!

My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme
My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals and by Melanie Dunea

I received the former last Xmas, the latter this year. Good stuff! The pictures in both are great, in totally different ways.