Kitchen Deals -> Small Appliances

Not too much romance here, but essential for any functional kitchen. Buy the heaviest pans possible. Also, you should consider buying a non-stick silicon sheet: they make baking very easy!

There seems to be little difference between hard wood and plastic cutting boards from a safety standpoint, as long as they are properly washed and sanitized after each use. Personally, I like the feel of solid wood. One piece of advice--buy large cutting boards. Don't bother with these tiny boards that everyone seems to have in his or her kitchen. They are not user friendly. Once you get down to serious cutting or chopping, the small boards are always woefully inadequate and downright maddening!

When it is desirable to remove the white membrane from a peeled orange, the process can be simplified by first placing the unpeeled orange in boiling water for 5 minutes