A Few of My Favorite Things

We have a wedding this weekend (9/10/11 -- isn't that a brilliant date? I mean it's not my favorite date, but a close third). Lately Amazon's 4 for 3 has served me well by letting it appear we paid mildly more for the gifts we've given than we did (or the nice way to spin it is we've been able to stretch our wedding gift budget a little farther so that the bride and groom get a little extra-- total aside within an aside but do you think it was Freudian that I had trouble spelling groom and it came out as goon?). It's not terribly difficult to purchase the items off the registry that qualify for 4 for 3 and then call the place where the couple actually registered to have the items removed. So the bride and groom don't get multiples and we get the satisfaction of free two day shipping and the price of one item less.

I've been sort of putting off purchasing a gift for the wedding this weekend though. I put a lot of items from their registry in my cart for my husband to look at before purchasing (it's for his niece I figure he should get some veto power). It's sat in my cart about a month. This past weekend I decided that since she was family maybe to make her feel more loved we should buy her some of our favorite kitchen items, items she didn't necessarily register for but which might prove useful in her kitchen. She and her husband are just starting out, she's lived at home for the last 20+ years without a kitchen of her own and, as far as I know, has not done much of the cooking there.

I'm torn, in my head I hear my friend from Other Pieces of Me telling me to "Just go with the registry, that's why people make registries it's WHAT THEY WANT!!!" on the other hand I like to think I give good gifts, couldn't we come up with a gift she didn't know she wanted?! I hope I come to a decision before this posts. . . .

Below are some kitchen items I love, some I've blogged about before, some I have not. They are all items I would totally replace if we had some kind of horrific kitchen fire destroying our beloved kitchen items. It turns out picking my top 10 kitchen items is almost impossible, these items have taken a LONG time to narrow down. Far longer than a blog post should really take :). If you gave us a wedding gift and it's not featured here, just refer back to the last two sentences and assume that it's number 11 on our list!!

When you look below you'll see why I don't post pictures. I tried to put them in a different file all nicely together and then when I uploaded it, it was all too small. I am no good at embedding them polyvore-style straight into the blog though. I read enough blogs to know I did a really shoddy job but I don't have the knowledge or the time to change it.

Cow Image from Here, Microplane Image from Here, LeCreuset Whisk Image from Here, L'econome knives, Chicken Image My Own, OXO angled measuring cup Image from Here, Dexter knife Image from here, Browne-Halco 11 inch Pan Image From Here, flexible cutting boards Image from Here, Silpat Baking Liner Image from Here