yuletide goodies

i got some really awesome culinary gifts for christmas this year...so you may have noticed that my sidebar has less "wish list" items in it! my very dearest friend katie got me this beautiful olive wood salt cellar from williams sonoma and i'm smitten. besides being utterly beautiful, it has a nice swivel top that i really appreciate.

my friend tony gave me a beautiful copy of jamie oliver's "jamie at home", but i already had one in my cookbook library, so i brought it back and exhanged it for the new bon appetit "fast easy fresh" which has already turned out to be a wonderful addition to my repetoire. it's chock full of easy recipes that require only a few ingredients. and seems to have recipes for classics that can be made faster and with fresher ingredients. i like it a lot.

my mom got me this awesome spider for cooking, which is great. this photo does it no justice...this thing is huge. i could grab a kid out of the bathtub with it. i'm really looking forward to using it for gnocchi and other delicate pastas. she also got me cooking chopsticks and of course, salt. (she has given me a bottle of sea salt every year in my stocking for as long as i can remember.)

and, though they aren't pictured here, i also got an aerogrow herb garden from my mother in law which is awesome and our friends nikki and mike gave us the most awesome sushi making set! my garden is already well under way and i promise photos when there is something to show. i'm so excited to use the sushi set, and can't wait to come up with fun sushi roll ingredients. she put together a basket with the rice, nori, wasabi powder, soy sauce, chopsticks, and rollers...perfect! look for some sushi rolls here soon! thanks nikki and mike!