Gourmandise
Garlic times two
Little things can mean a lot when it comes to kitchen gadgets. Case in point: the Garlic Duo, manufactured by Trudeau, takes care of all your garlic needs. It has a press function on one side and a slicer on the other; it has soft, colorful handles so it won’t get lost in a drawer. And, best of all, it’s dishwasher safe. Suggested retail price is $19.99. In kitchen shops all over or go to trudeaucorp.com.
Party by the numbers
Just in time for your holiday entertaining, here are some basic party food guidelines from a Web site called reasontoparty.com:
• 5 to 6 ounces of meat, poultry or seafood per person
• One pound of pasta serves 4 to 6 people at a sit-down dinner and 8 to 10 at a buffet
• One handful of pre-mixed salad per person
• 10 to 12 appetizer items per person
• One full portion of dessert per person (If cake is the only option, one cake will serve 10, but 15 can be served if you’re also offering pie.)
• Drinks: In general, plan for two drinks per person for the first hour, and one drink per hour per person for every hour after that.
• One gallon of coffee serves 20 cups.
• One fifth of vodka serves 25
drinks (one shot per drink). • One liter of vodka serves 33 drinks (one shot per drink).
Baking primers
Science and savvy — here are two books that provide a little of both for the holidays. “BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking” by Shirley Corriher (Scribner, $40) is for those who want a little science with their scones.
In this follow-up to her award-winning “Cookwise,” Corriher applies her biochemistry degree to cakes, popovers, cookies and pastries. She explains the proportions in cakey and fudgy brownies and shares an ice-water technique for the flakiest puff pastry. More than 200 recipes are included.
The second find is “The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book” (Boston Common Press, $34.95). The numbers are impressive: 700 recipes, 800 photos and 7 billion hours of testing, more or less.
This ring-binder cookbook (so convenient) casts a Betty Crocker vibe across a range of recipes like butter- horn dinner rolls, pinwheel icebox cookies and angel food cake. Photos illustrate the process. It’s like having a dozen really smart grandmas at your elbow.
Quotable …
“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ‘till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.
“What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
— Dr. Seuss
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