Kitchenware News • November 2020

KITCHENWARE Housewares NEWS& Review Vol. 26 • Issue 6 November 2020 • $7.00

A Little Black Among All the Gray

See page 8

A New Cook to Buss at Kiss the Cook

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

Veteran chef Dean Chambers has joined Kiss the Cook in Wimberley, Texas, as its new Store Manager. Owner Bren Isgitt says she’s not retiring, merely taking some of the load off her shoulders so that she won’t have to continue running the store with only her husband’s help. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, Isgitt ran the store with three part-time staff who’ve been unable to continue working in the midst of the pandemic because they’re part of the at-risk population for whom it’s still not safe to be mingling with the public even though Isgitt’s store has been allowed to reopen.

One bright spot amid all this is that business has actually improved since Kiss the Cook was allowed to reopen in midApril after six weeks of economic shut-down. “It was a real slow start, but May, June and July have been really good,” Isgitt said.

“Usually August is not a good month because of school starting, but because the kids are at home, they’re not spending money on school clothes and school Cont. on page 10

Food Containers for the Plastic Purgers

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

News.....................................6 Ad Index.............................26 Ownership Statement ......26

www.kitchenwarenews.com

Solving the Problems of the Wood Cutting Board

See page 11

Under its Minimal brand, Nexten Pro offers a range of products that provide eco-friendly options for avoiding school cafeteria lines and company break rooms without contributing to the problem of plastic waste. The United States is among the countries with the highest per capita levels of plastic waste generation in the world, according to a study published in Science magazine in 2015.

According to National Geographic, quoting a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, only about 9 percent of all the plastic that’s been manufactured in the last six decades has ever been recycled.

Plastic takes more than 400 years to degrade, so that, of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic that has been manufactured over the last 60 years, the vast majority of it is still in the environment somewhere. In countries with efficient waste management systems, much of it is discarded into landfills. About 12 percent of it has been incinerated. A lot of it’s shipped off to poorer nations to collect along the shorelines and wash into the Cont. on page 10

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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

KITCHENWARE Housewares NEWS & Review

from the

editor

PUBLISHER Kimberly Oser SR. ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jules Denton-Card jules_d@oser.com

My dear friends: Let us give thanks.

We give thanks for those of us who are here.

We give thanks for longer nights ahead with those we love.

We give thanks for those who love us from afar.

We are grateful for their safety and their health.

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lorrie Baumann editor@oser.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Anthony Socci anthony_s@oser.com

We give thanks for the farmer who grows our bread.

And thanks for the cow who gave the milk for the butter.

We give thanks for those with whom we can agree.

And thanks for those with whom we have differences.

We give thanks for the vaccine that is on the horizon.

And for those who work to bring it to us.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jeanie Catron jeanie_c@oser.com ART DIRECTOR Yasmine Brown

We give thanks for what still works.

And for the skills to fix what is broken.

We give thanks for every moment that brings us joy.

We give thanks that this year is nearly over.

CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER Susan Stein customerservice@oser.com

Bless you all for being here with us! I am truly grateful for the very many ways that so many of you have lightened my load this year.

KN

— Lorrie Baumann Editorial Director

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tara Neal CIRCULATION MANAGER Jamie Green jamie_g@oser.com ADVERTISING SALES Joe Bellon Keli Carpenter Alisha Dicochea Deborah Yarbrough EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Heather Albrecht heather_a@oser.com

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FOUNDER Lee M. Oser Periodicals postage paid at Tucson, AZ and additional mailing office. Kitchenware News & Housewares Review (USPS012-625) is published 7 times per year (Jan., March, May, July, Sept., Nov., and Dec.) by Oser Communications Group, 1877 N. Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ, 85715 520.721.1300.

Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material or prices quoted in newspaper. Contributors are responsible for proper release of proprietary classified information. ©2019 by Oser Communications Group. All rights reserved Reproduction, in whole or in part, without written permission of the publisher, is expressly prohibited. Back issues, when available, cost $8 each within the past 12 months. Back issue orders must be paid in advance by check. Kitchenware News & Housewares Review is distributed without charge in North America to qualified professionals in the retail and distribution channels of the upscale kitchenware and tabletop trade.

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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

Taking Gamble

the

on Summer’s Las Vegas Market

As expected, attendance at this year’s Summer Las Vegas Market was light in comparison to previous years, but those who came were there to buy, according to International Market Centers, which owns the West Coast’s most important market for the kitchenware and home goods industries. Later summer dates after the show was postponed from late July due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a showroomonly format that eschewed earlier plans to conduct tradeshow-style temporary exhibits in the brand-new Expo at Market Center in Las Vegas and an educational offering of virtual events proved a success for the exhibitors who reported strong buying during the event, which ran from August 30 through September 3.

The market presented 1,300+ resources to predominately regional buyers sourcing new products for design projects, replenishing needed merchandise and preparing for vital fourth quarter selling reports International Market Centers (IMC).”Although Las Vegas Market was unlike any we’ve ever experienced, we were able to manage and meet buyer and supplier expectations,” said Bob Maricich, Chief Executive Officer of IMC. “From arrival to exit, we delivered a safe and business-focused buying opportunity that best supported market needs during this uncertain time.”

In line with pre-market predictions, IMC reported that 20 percent of the usual summer market buyer attendance was represented, with designers making up a notable 28 percent of the attendees, who were predominantly regional. About three quarters of them came from the western U.S., but in total, the market drew attendance from 44 states with California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Texas rounding out the top five.

Buyers and Sellers Both Reported Successful Experiences Buyers largely reported a safe and wellorganized market experience.

“It’s just extremely efficient and focused so I’m able to get a lot more accomplished in a shorter amount of time,” said Cindy Levine of Intrigue, Design by Cindy LLC in Park City, Utah. “I’m actually buying more than I ever have, and it’s the busiest I’ve ever been.”

“We’re sourcing items for a project we’re doing and upping our inventory for our online store. We’ve met awesome vendors

and made some great relationships. Overall, I feel like it’s safe,” said Freddy Godinez and Alexander Stabler of Fredric Alexander in Las Vegas.

For other buyers, the immediate need for product drew them to the market. “I fully intended to be here to purchase because we need products,” explained Ginger Stroup of Patio Paradise in San Bernardino, California. “We knew it was time to come, see what’s here and get things moving because lead times are a little slower across the board. Our season on the West Coast is starting, and Las Vegas Market is the first step to being prepared.”

Companies across the furniture, home décor and gift spectrum reported robust sales, solid traffic and a safe business environment. “We are very happy with the overall experience,” said Jason Clay, Vice President of North and Central American Sales and Merchandising for Global Home. “We decided to open our showroom because we have product that is in stock and ready to ship.

Immediate delivery is what most buyers are looking for as the demand is high. Several key buyers and top 100 dealers that have never shopped our line were here, and showing gave us the opportunity to connect.”

Ralph Orozco, Principal of Horizon Home, said he felt it was the company’s responsibility to open for summer market. “We had about 30 accounts come through, and 27 of them left orders. People that are coming are here to buy,” he said.

Across the three buildings, exhibitors adhered to IMC’s safety protocols and some went the extra mile to ensure their showroom was safe with added cleaning measures.

To limit showroom traffic, they also set digital appointments and utilized virtual tours. “On the first day, we had 30 customers and two appointments,” said Jackie Moon of Next Steps Reps. “We’ve done a lot of virtual business and on the website, we added two to three-minute videos from vendors giving tours and descriptions of their space and products. We’ve also taken all the necessary steps for safety including hiring a company to sanitize the showroom.”

New Digital Resources Improved Product Discovery and Sourcing For a safer market experience and in line with buyer sentiments, Las Vegas Market suspended in-person events and rolled out a robust lineup of 25+ virtual pre-market webinars addressing a range of topics that included business practices during COVID-19, current market trends, diversity and inclusion, product discovery during market and retail best practices.

The market also introduced a suite of enhanced filters for the LasVegasMarket.com Exhibitor Directory.

The new search capabilities identified showrooms open for summer market, exhibitors with ShopZio-enabled B2B

ecommerce capabilities and those with 3D showroom tours.

Following market, the Market website – LasVegasMarket.com – will continue to maintain connections and commerce.

These post-market resources include video tours from market, product spotlights such as IMC’s Market Snapshot and B2B ecommerce capabilities through IMC_di’s ShopZio platform, which includes 400+ brands and 1.3 million SKUs available for

purchase. The full catalog of pre-market webinar recordings also is accessible through the Market website (www.lasvegasmarket.com/about/recordedwebinars).

The Expo at Market Center Makes Summer Market Debut The Expo at World Market Center Las Vegas, a 315,000-square-foot exposition facility on the World Market Center Las Vegas campus, opened during summer 2020 market. Originally slated to hold Las Vegas Market’s temporary gift and home exhibits, the Expo was used for registration and health screenings. A grand opening of the Expo is planned for Winter 2021 Las Vegas Market, when it will host the return of temporary exhibits.

“IMC’s successful staging of their summer Las Vegas Market strongly signals the return of the convention and tradeshow industry in Las Vegas,” said Chris Meyer, Vice President Global Sales for Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA).

“Tradeshows are a key driver of the southern Nevada economy, and we look forward to welcoming IMC customers back to Las Vegas in January when IMC christens their new tradeshow facility.”

Business Done Together Safely Las Vegas Market’s Together Safely health and safety procedures exceeded all local and state mandates. Enhanced safety measures included contactless pre-registration, temporal monitoring, required use of personal protective equipment (PPE), social distancing, occupancy control, hand sanitizing/cleansing and significantly enhanced housekeeping.

“We have successfully navigated our summer markets coast-to-coast and look forward to building upon these experiences as we plan for 2021,” Maricich said. “The entire ecosystem has shifted because of COVID-19. As recovery continues, IMC will keep its finger on the pulse to continue to adapt to meet the industry’s needs.” KN

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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

Chinese Manufacturer acquires

Baker’s Secret Brand RL Industry, a Chinese bakeware and cookware manufacturer, has acquired the wellknown American nonstick bakeware brand, Baker’s Secret. RL Industry will design, manufacture and market Baker’s Secretbranded products of bakeware, cookware and kitchen gadgets globally, beginning in early October.

“We are proud to have the opportunity to bring new life to the Baker’s Secret brand and bring it to loyal bakers everywhere,” said Aharon Daniel, Chief Executive Officer of

RL Industry. “We love the kitchen – it’s our favorite part of everyday life, and we feel everyone who loves the kitchen should be able to fulfill baking and cooking dreams with style and comfort.”

Known for durable construction and superior design for optimum performance, Bakers Secret products have been crafted for decades from the finest metals and proprietary coatings. “Our experience with metals, particularly cold rolled steel, and nonstick surfaces, coupled with our advanced

manufacturing techniques, makes us uniquely qualified to bring these baking and cooking products to food enthusiasts all over the world. This acquisition will deepen our relationships with our customers, offering them a famous all-American brand in a rapidly growing market,” Daniel said. “We are certain that we will be able to make Baker’s Secret stronger than ever, offer much more exposure and bring consumers a wider selection of products promising the highest quality with competitve prices.”

Baker’s Secret, the original nonstick metal bakeware, was founded in 1972, quickly becoming one of the most famous bakeware brands worldwide, and the number-one brand in the USA. RL Industry was founded in 2003, and since then has become one of the leading bakeware and cookware manufacturers in the industry. The company’s supply chain includes major retailers and multinational brands. For more information about Baker’s Secret and RL Industry, visit the company’s website at www.rlindustry.com. KN

WÜSTHOF

traditions,” Fischer said. “When they’re gone, we will not be remaking this line.”

went to work on solving the problems that COVID-19 presented for the company’s supply chain and production, the company’s sales and marketing team pushed the AEON line’s launch temporarily to the back burner to figure out how they could help their retailing partners stir up some sales.

For the past decade and more, specialty kitchenware retailers had been thinking about ways to compete with online retailers by creating for their customers an in-person experience that the online retailers simply couldn’t offer. Specialty retailing became a combination of salesmanship, customer service and theater. WÜSTHOF was thrilled for the opportunity to participate in the drama – if a retailer wanted to bring customers into the store by offering a knife skills class, a WÜSTHOF representative would come out to the store to teach that class.

Suddenly, though, the theaters had to close.

Even Broadway went dark in New York City.

And there was no saying how long it would be before customers felt safe mingling with each other in hands-on cooking classes or crowding around a counter to see a WÜSTHOF knife slice through a eggplant, no matter how much help they needed with all this cooking they were suddenly doing whether they wanted to or not.

Now that more home cooks were suddenly looking up the directions for how to bake bread on YouTube instead of coming to a class in their local kitchen store, the WÜSTHOF team started thinking about how they could help retailers engage their customers in the virtual marketplace. “The shift to digital has happened. We know that online sales have been growing exponentially year after year. That growth has been exponential,” Fischer said. “I don’t believe those behaviors are going to change. What does that mean for our independent retailers?”

What it has meant is that sales brochures, updates on promotions and news about product launches that had been produced in print to be handed to retailers when WÜSTHOF’s sales representatives visited their stores were turned into digital materials that could be communicated online.

WÜSTHOF invested in new product photography – something that the company had never emphasized before. And WÜSTHOF sales representatives learned to use Zoom to get together with retailers. They

even figured out that they could use Zoom as a way for retailers to continue offering knife skills demonstrations to their customers.

“What we’re trying to do, with each customer, is recognize that their comfort with technology is different,” Fischer said. “We are creating a much more robust photo library to support social media activity. We’re also creating educational materials for the retailers and staff, as opposed to the old coming in and doing classes. We’re trying to give them the tools so they can do more on their own.”

The WÜSTHOF sales team quickly found that some retailers were much further ahead than others in their transition to digital marketing, and those retailers were able to adapt more quickly to the necessities of the pandemic. The team started collecting ideas from those who had started figuring out how to adapt and passing them along to retailers who were still at more of a loss. “We’re trying to do the best we can in this completely unorthodox situation so they know that we’re still very focused on those brick and mortar retailers – they’re our core customer, and they will continue to be a main focus of ours,” Fischer said. “We try to come up with strategies to keep the stores open. It’s not just about selling WÜSTHOF; it’s about keeping stores open. Just to let them know that we’re in it with them.”

Continued from page 1 The launch of WÜSTHOF’s new limited edition AEON knives was more than two years in the making. The knives were designed as a blend of space-age technology and ancient beauty that only 3,249 years under the care of Mother Nature could create, and they were, from the start, intended to appeal to a select market of very passionate cooks and knife collectors.

“This is a departure from anything we’ve ever done before,” said Adam Fischer, WÜSTHOF’s Vice President of Marketing, who’s been with the company for the past 17 years and involved in its sales efforts for 10 of those. “It’s a very striking knife with a black blade that has a diamond-like carbon coating. It’s a material used in automotive and aerospace industries for durability, and aside from its striking black appearance, it makes it impervious to scratching and corrosion.” In addition to corrosion and scratch resistance, the diamond-like coating reduces drag on the knife blade as it slices through food. “Aside from being really goodlooking, it does still have practical applications as well,” Fischer said. Despite the knives’ durability, WÜSTHOF recommends that they be treated with the care that one would ordinarily bestow on a collectors’ item.

The black blades are married to handles made from bog oak excavated in Finland, where the wood has lain submerged in the bog for more than 3,000 years. Since the trees were not exposed to oxygen as they lay in the bog, the wood has hardened and become extremely strong. Each knife handle made from the wood has a unique grain – it’s the kind of wood that’s ordinarily used to make objets d’art, and its dark color is a perfect complement to the beauty of the black blades, Fischer said.

WÜSTHOF is making only 1,500 of the knives in each of three blade shapes, an 8inch Cook’s Knife, a 10-inch Super Slicer and a 7-inch Hollow Edge Santoku, which combines the benefits of a cook’s knife and cleaver. Each will come with a numbered certificate of authenticity and a certificate from Klaus-Tschira-Archäometrie-Zentrum, a radiocarbon dating laboratory in Mannheim, Germany, that will attest to the age of the wood. “It is a unique collector’s piece that combines the future of manufacturing, with the diamond-like coating, and the ancient

And Then Came the Coronavirus The COVID-19 pandemic was not part of the plans for this launch, and when it struck in March of this year, the team at WÜSTHOF, a family-owned and operated company based in Solingen, Germany, had to ask themselves if the time was right for the launch of this high-end product. They had to wonder if this was a time when consumers would be interested in a $600 collector’s-quality knife, and if the specialty kitchenware retailers who are the lifeblood of WÜSTHOF’s business would be able to sell it. Then those questions rapidly took second place to thoughts about how to help those retailers stay around at all. “In March when the pandemic hit, we were obviously very alarmed and uncertain about what the future was going to look like. We thought that the economy might come to a complete stop,” Fischer said. “What we saw was that in the first weeks, our business was robust. It really picked up quite a bit because all of us, nationwide, we were at home, with so few outlets. What to do with all this time together? We got creative; we spent a lot of our time together cooking. Our business really did not suffer in the way we thought, but there were some pain points.”

Among those pain points, the impact of the pandemic on specialty kitchenware retailers, who had to figure out in a flash how to keep their businesses as well as themselves alive while their customers – and their employees – either couldn’t come into the stores at all or could come only once they were assured that the store’s health and safety precautions were adequate or weren’t willing to venture out of their homes at all even after mandatory stay-at-home orders had expired.

“Our concern for them was profound and still is. Our specialty food accounts, many of them have been with us for years and years – these are our friends,” Fischer said. “We’re a small organization. This brand, often perceived as a wonderful, international, highend brand – we are, but we’re family-run, and we’re quite small. Our specialty accounts, they’re truly friends. That’s how we view our customer base; they’re more than customers....

There was real fear about their longevity.”

Responding to the Pandemic While some in the WÜSTHOF organization

We Have a Go. Clear for Launch.

Fischer also is hoping that nurturing those relationships with retailers will provide some extra fuel to propel the launch of a knife that he admits is not for the average consumer, even if the shadow of the pandemic were not clouding the atmosphere. “We do not think that AEON is the knife for everyone – it is not. It is for those who are passionate about cooking, the collector. Those people are still out there,” he said. “We just felt that while the time is not what we planned, our consumers are still out there. They are still interested. They are absolutely still bringing cutlery and other kitchenware products into the home actively.”

“I’m fiscally conservative. I don’t waste money,” he added. “But in times like this, we all want to make sure that when we are spending our money, we want to do it with brands we trust and that we know we will truly enjoy. Life has not stopped. It certainly felt like that for a while. It feels kind of good, putting something new and exciting out there.” KN

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FOOD CONTAINERS Continued from page 1 ocean in the next storm.

According to a report by The Guardian last year, hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic are being shipped every year from the U.S. to poorly regulated developing countries around the globe in more than 68,000 shipping containers. That plastic is going to some of the world’s poorest countries, including Bangladesh, Laos, Ethiopia and Senegal, which have limited environmental regulation and little in the way of a waste management system to deal with the mess any other way than to let it pile up until the next storm carries it away into an ocean that will soon have more plastic in it than fish.

Before it reaches that point, though, some of that plastic waste goes to school and work each day in Americans’ lunch boxes and lunch bags, either as single-use sandwich bags or plastic films or as plastic food containers adopted by consumers because they’re inexpensive, lightweight, durable and, importantly, able to hold liquids. Nexten Pro has its eye on that segment of consumers who are among those concerned about this problem, which tends to bob to the surface every now and then when something happens to direct Americans’ attention to the size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, their city proposes a ban on plastic straws or an environmental group calls once again for volunteers to clean the plastic trash out of Chattanooga Creek, which was designated as a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site in 1995.

When Nexten Pro was founded about seven years ago, the company looked for a gap in the marketplace and noticed that there weren’t many food containers and hydration products on the market that didn’t contain plastic, said Lucy Lu, the company’s co-

KISS THE COOK Continued from page 1 supplies, so they’ve got the dollars to keep investing in their cookware and their knives.”

In addition to cookware, especially Lodge cast iron cookware, Wimberley’s cooks have been buying cutlery and food such as Stonewall Kitchen products, local jams and jellies and other Texas-made products like rubs and seasonings. “I don’t sell yeast,” Isgitt noted as a possible missed opportunity in light of her community’s new interest in baking their own bread.

“They all want that bread form from Frieling,” she said. “Talisman makes the plastic one for making their bread rise.

They’re looking for bread machines and anything to do their own baking.”

When Isgitt decided that she really needed help to run the store, she didn’t have to look further than her existing network, since Chambers, as a rep for Dallas, Texas-based gift and housewares sales representatives, Martin & Associates, had been selling her kitchenware for years.

“He had the perfect background,” Isgitt said. “He’s sold me OXO, Nordic Ware, Crow Canyon, HIC, Pampa Bay and many other lines... We had a pretty good catalog in housewares.”

KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

Founder. Through its Minimal brand, the company addresses this problem with stainless steel hydration bottles and tumblers, stainless steel vacuum insulated flasks and food jars, silicone food containers and bento boxes made from discarded rice husks, which offer benefits beyond those offered by similar boxes made from bamboo, Lu said. “It’s very innovative and a durable material,” she said.

“The rice husks can go into the microwave and dishwasher, unlike the bamboo.”

The rice husk bento boxes are offered in three different models. The Bento has a 1,000ml capacity, with two removable dividers and a small sauce container.

Bento Box + holds 1,200ml in a doubledecker design, with two large containers, a small sauce container and a cutlery set, and Bento V2 holds 1,000ml, with two removable dividers, a small sauce container and a cutlery set. They’re chip and crack resistant, designed to last for years of normal use, and at the end of their useful lives, they’re compostable.

Minimal also offers a cutlery set made of the same material.

For those who want a lunch bag rather than a bento box, Minimal offers totes made of an eco-felt fabric in an unobtrusive style that will fit into a wide range of environments, whether that’s the professional environment of the office, the coat hook at the back of the classroom or carried along with the picnic cooler. They’re available in two sizes: 3.75 liters and 6.75 liters, and in Blue, Limpet, Rose, Grey, Lavender and Light Grey – colors that are designed to coordinate with the Minimal Bottle, Flask and Food Jars.

Minimal hydration products include Stainless Steel Insulated Tumblers in two sizes: 350ml and 430ml. The tumblers are made of food grade 18/8 stainless steel with double-wall construction and copper thermal technologies. They are available in Classic,

“Bren always had the best store,” Chambers added. “I figured if I could ever work in a store, I wanted to work in one like this.”

Before joining Martin & Associates, Chambers had been trained as a chef and had topped out his career in the restaurant industry as a chef and kitchen manager at Siena Ristorante Toscana, a fine-dining Italian restaurant in Austin, Texas. “I worked in restaurants for 20 years, most of that time doing Italian food,” he said.

“Back then it was a fun way to make a dollar.... I worked in kitchens until I had kids – that’s what changed everything. I had to figure out a way to be with them, and the restaurant business doesn’t let you do that. I became a sales rep and learned a lot about retail, vendor selling. It was a good experience for me; I learned a lot.”

Along with the obvious culinary expertise he acquired as a working chef, Chambers’ enthusiasm and personality make him an asset for Kiss the Cook, Isgitt said. “He can talk recipes with customers that I can’t. He can talk knives with them because he used knives

White and Gunmetal. The Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Wine Bottle is offered in 350ml and 600ml sizes that will keep a cold beverage cold up to 24 hours or a hot beverage hot for up to 12 hours. They’re also made from food grade 18/8 stainless steel and BPAfree parts. A wide mouth opening is capped with a leak-proof silicone seal, and the bottles come with a silicone hanger and carabiner.

They’re also available in Classic, White and Gunmetal color options.

A wider range of color options is available for Minimal Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Flasks, which are offered in 500ml, 750ml and 1-liter sizes. They’re made of the same food-safe stainless steel as the Insulated Wine Bottle, and the most noticeable difference between them is the wider range of colors and the long, narrow neck of the wine bottle.

The Insulated Flasks are offered in Blue, Lavender, Limpet, White, Rose, Echo-Peach, Orange, Yellow, Gunmetal and Classic.

Minimal Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Food Jar V2 is offered in 500ml and 700ml sizes in eight colors: Champagne, White, Rose, Limpet, Gunmetal, Classic, Chocolate and Valentine. They’ll keep food cold for up to nine hours or hot up to seven hours. Seals are leak-proof, each comes with a folding

in the industry,” she said. “And he can sell – he can sell; that’s the point.”

With his energy and enthusiasm for his new job as the store’s manager, Chambers has plans that exceed just selling on Kiss the Cook’s sales floor. He’s already added a YouTube channel to the store’s social media marketing resources, and he’s in the process of producing a series of weekly product demonstrations that will run on Instagram as well as YouTube. “We’re getting them uploaded. We just need to

streamline it so they’re visible on all our platforms,” he said. “I’d like to do weekly videos. Once we really get cooking, we’ll do them.”

“That’s something I never had time to

spoon that nestles into the jar’s cap, and the lid is fitted with a silicone handle strap and serves as a bowl. “All the hydration and food containers are leak-proof,” Lu said.

The Minimal Airtight Stainless Steel Food Containers are offered in three different sizes in square and rectangle shapes. The lightweight containers are built from durable food grade 304 stainless steel and have BPAfree lids with silicone seals. They’re safe for the refrigerator or freezer and can go into the dishwasher on the top rack.

Easy-latching lids are airtight and liquid-proof.

Minimal All Stainless Steel Lunch Boxes are available in four sizes: 780ml, 1000ml, 1260ml and 1,560ml. They’re made in Korea and contain no plastic, according to Lu. silicone food Minimal’s containers are ideal for those intent on living without plastic. They come in two styles. The Minimal 100% Natural Silicone Foldable Food Containers are offered in five different sizes from condiment cups that are sold as a pair up to an 1,160ml size. They’re made entirely of natural food grade silicone and feature a patented leak-proof design.

They fold when they’re empty for easy storage, and they’re safe in the freezer, the oven, the dishwasher and the microwave.

The second style, Minimal’s 100% Natural Silicone Food Container with Divider, is offered in two sizes: 700ml and 900ml. These are rigid and transparent, and they’re also built with Minimal’s patented leak-proof design. They’re also safe in the freezer, the oven, the dishwasher and the microwave.

For more information, email sales@nextenpro.com or sales@minimal bottle.com or visit www.nextenpro.com or www.minimalbottle.com. KN

do,” Isgitt added. “He’ll do cooking classes, too.”

Figuring out how to do cooking classes in a store that doesn’t have a kitchen is going to take some doing, but Isgitt and Chambers are up for the challenge, and Isgitt’s been considering the resources that are available in the community. “From my background as a chef, I want to keep cooking,” Chambers said. “Taking a job like this is perfect because we can have them [cooking classes]. To me, that stuff is fun.”

Until they figure that out, they’re also bending their mind to how they can reintroduce live demonstrations into the store once it’s safe to encourage people once again to gather around each other, since showing customers how easy it is to use a piece of kitchenware is key to selling it, Isgitt said.

“You look at something you’ve never seen before – you might not know what that is at all,” Chambers added. “I find that happens a lot – almost daily here. I may not know a lot about a product, but I know what it’s used for.”

“Customers need information,” he continued. “They basically need information, so they know what they’re buying. I’m following Bren’s lead. She takes good care of her customers.” KN

www.kitchenwarenews.com • NOVEMBER 2020 • KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW

THE DECENT CO. Continued from page 1

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

Matt Adams has done a lot of thinking about all the problems he’s had with cutting boards over his years as an avid home cook. Some of his expensive wooden cutting boards warped after a few years.

“I’ve had quite a few wood cutting boards that have broken,” he said. “They’ve started out beautiful, but they warped and split – even some of the high-end cutting boards.

Any wooden cutting board kind of naturally does that, but cutting boards shouldn’t be disposable. A cutting board can be engineered to be a robust thing that can stand the test of time.”

He tried plastic cutting boards but decided that he wouldn’t be using those.

“They always get scratched up and become difficult to clean, and the scratches are a perfect harbor for food-borne diseases to thrive,” he said.

He gave some thought to end-grain butcher blocks.

“I was excited about that because the end-grain orientation self-heals,” he said. “But most

end-grain butcher blocks are set directly on the counter top because, if you put feet on them, the boards typically bow in the middle. Sitting flat on the counter top, inherently, there’s going to be moisture trapped under there, and it eventually destroys the product.”

“If you drop an end-grain butcher block, it’s going to snap along those grains very easily,” he added.

After thinking about all that for quite a while, Adams decided to put his engineering skills and the hands-on knowhow he’s developed as a farmer to work to come up with a solution and a company to stand behind it, which he calls The Decent Co. His idea was to take a basic butcher block and then rout channels with specially-shaped router heads at every seam between pieces of the wood. Then he added structural supports inside those channels and another ring around the board to belt the whole block together.

Then he put together a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to bring his better butcher block

into production.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign and development of an upgraded version of the Decent Block that adds a silicone juice groove that fits around the board and catches juice as it flows off the board, he’s ready for commercial production of a butcher block that he’s proud to introduce into the wholesale marketplace. “We’re ready to pivot to ongoing e-commerce and retailer agreements,” he said. “A few retailers have approached us already.”

“When I was developing the product, I was focused on strength and durability,” he added. “I, personally, don’t like juice grooves dug out of the top of the board because it constricts the usable surface. As someone who doesn’t like staying in the lines, that bothered me.”

After hearing people tell him that he wasn’t going to be able to sell a butcher block without a juice groove, he decided to put his engineering skills back to work to figure out how to build in a juice groove that wouldn’t make his carving feel constricted. The solution he came up with is a silicone gutter that belts the board, so that juice flows over the side of the board and down into the silicone channel. “It just kind of snaps into place like a rubber band. Then it’s nice and snug,” Adams said. The silicone juice groove is also easy to remove for cleaning, and it’ll go into the dishwasher, he added.

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The Decent Co. Butcher Block should be ready to ship in time to retail during the first quarter of 2020 at a suggested retail price of $499 for the board itself and $599 for the upgraded model with the silicone juice groove. The boards measure 22-3/4 inches by 14-5/8 inches by 3 inches high, including the 1/2-inch feet beneath the block itself. “For the upgrade model, that’s 1/2 inch wider on each dimension because the silicone lip protrudes a little bit,” Adams said.

The guiding principle for the company is do things the right way, Adams said.

The board is made from northern hard maple sourced from sustainable forest stock in the U.S. The product is hand-made in the U.S. by highly skilled, equitably compensated Amish craftsmen, and the company plans to undergo audits and receive certification verifying that these standards are upheld.

For more information, email hello@thedecent.co or visit www.thedecent.co. KN

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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

at-home

entertaining Glass Domes Collection from Casafina

Casafina’s new range of Glass Domes are perfect to feature and protect a freshly baked cake, a cheese selection or a small assortment of snacks. Available in four sizes, these glass domes are sized to fit Casafina’s cake stands and a new collection of oak wood boards. Each dome is mouth-blown glass, a fascinating handmade process which ensures that each piece is one-of-a-kind. Made in Portugal. Visit www.casafinagifts.com.

Novelty Heart Mini Gift Set

The Novelty Heart Mini Gift Set from JK Adams plays right into COVID-inspired fears of sharing food too closely with people whose exposure risk is uncertain. Measuring 5.75 inches by 6 inches by 0.625 inches, it’s a cute heart-shaped maple serving board that’s just big enough for one or two and a rustic stainless steel spreader for the dab of jam or honey that makes a sweet pairing for a small cheese board. The set is made in Vermont and carries a lifetime warranty. It retails for $23. For more information, visit www.jkadams.com.

Dinamica Cappuccino by De’Longhi

With only a touch of a button, the new, sleek and compact automatic bean-to-cup espresso machine Dinamica Cappuccino offers easy to brew beverages: latte, espresso, cappuccino, drip style coffee, cafe latté, and TrueBrew Over Ice™. With an integrated Latte Crema System™ automatic frother, espresso with milk classics like lattes and cappuccinos come complete with rich, long-lasting foam whether you use soy, almond, rice or cow’s milk. Dinamica features an adjustable steel burr grinder with 13 settings to control the grind and strength depending on the coffee beans origin. A button helps you to customize your favorite drink and additional beverages can also be accessed quickly and easily via another button. For more information, visit De’Longhi at www.delonghi.com/en-us.

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www.kitchenwarenews.com • NOVEMBER 2020 • KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW

OLIVIA RIEGEL Quatrefoil Mirrored Coaster

OLIVIA RIEGEL Quatrefoil Mirrored Coaster with dozens of hand-set European crystals and hand-enameling in gold (shown) or silver tone metal finish. A timeless symmetrical shape is decorated with four foils or “leaves” of equal size for a presentation that calls to mind the glittering elegance of the French palace of Versailles. It arrives in a signature gift box. For more information, call 867.267.6787, email orders@oliviariegel.com or visit www.oliviariegel.com.

Shun Classic Blonde Chef Knife

A New Take on a Decorative Tradition

A new collection of blue and white and green and white handpainted stoneware plates from Abigail’s Marketing is influenced by the beautiful antique Portuguese and Spanish Talevera. The dishes are safe for microwave ovens and dishwashers. Made in Portugal, the plates measure 10.25 inches in diameter. They retail for $60 and wholesale with a minimum of two. For more information, visit www.abigails.net.

Prodyne Cocktail Picks

Prodyne has broadened its signature executive stainless steel cocktail pick assortment with two new styles for 2020. The Palm Tree and Winning Hand cocktail picks are sure to please the tropical inclined or poker enthusiast. The sets of six 3.75-inch shafts are packaged in a sleek PVC open display box.

The MP-2 set of six Palm Tree Stainless Steel Cocktail Picks retails for $12.99 for the set. The MP-10 set of six Winning Hand Stainless Steel Cocktail Picks also retails for $12.99. For more information, visit www.prodyne.com.

Rabbit Wooden Muddler + Reamer

The Rabbit Wooden Muddler + Reamer is the optimal tool for a mojito, caipirinha or other refreshing cocktail. This solid Acacia wood muddler with a rounded base is perfect for muddling herbs, citrus and other ingredients. Unscrew the cap on the opposite end to use the built-in citrus reamer. Suggested retail price is $15.00. For more information, visit Lifetime Brands at www.rabbitwine.com.

The Shun Classic Blonde 8-inch Chef’s Knife is an all-purpose knife ideal for a full range of cutting tasks. This new blonde-handled version of Shun’s Classic Chef’s knife features an 8-inch blade ideal for preparing fruits, vegetables and proteins. The wide blade keeps knuckles off the cutting board and is exceptionally handy when transferring cut food from board to pan.

With its curved belly, this chef’s knife can be gently “rocked” through fresh herbs or spices to produce a very fine mince. Shun Classic Blonde’s thin, sharp blades makes it lighter and less tiring to use than comparable Europeanstyle chef’s knives. The knife retails for $188.

For more information, go to shun.kaiusa.com.

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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

Drinkmate Drinkmate has doubled its manufacturing and warehouse facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan to support the company’s continued domestic and international growth. Expansion efforts in the domestic market and internationally throughout the United Kingdom, Canada and Asia position Drinkmate as the second-largest brand in the global home carbonation category.

The new facility in the United States

streamlines efforts and accommodates increased demand for machines and CO2 gas supplies. Drinkmate is also implementing next level management of warehouse and operational processes to increase overall efficiencies. Other warehouse locations in the United Kingdom and Canada, and a branch office in Taiwan position Drinkmate to continue to increase reach throughout North America, Europe and the Asian markets.

Expands as Consumers Embrace Home Carbonation

“Drinkmate’s growth is attributed to continuing product innovations and the patented technology that allows consumers to carbonate any beverage,” said Douglas Wang, Chief Executive Officer of Drinkmate.

“Even prior to the pandemic, consumers were asking for ways to increase overall health and reduce bottle waste, and this is the foundation on which the Drinkmate brand is developed.

Covid has only accelerated demand for our

products. We have now leveraged our technology to develop the first personal carbonating bottle, the stainless steel InstaFizz water bottle, that lets you carbonate beverages while on the go. As we increase our research and development, manufacturing and distribution capabilities throughout the world, we are actively expanding our reach to support future and increasing growth for years to come.” KN

Pampa Bay Get Gifty Sets Pampa Bay’s Get Gifty Collection offers great solutions for holiday or hostess gifts or for dressing up the appetizer spread at a family celebration. There are 18 designs to choose from, with each set including a themed bowl with matching spoon or spreader.

They’re beautifully packaged in gift boxes with a printed post card that’s ready to personalize. Sets are sold individually to make it almost effortless to curate the perfect assortment for your merchandising plans. Each retails for $30. Available sets include those pictured here, the Ice Cream Set, the Silver Leaf Set, the Wavy Gold Set, the Pomegranate Gold Set and the Round Handles Set. For more information, call 973.784.4933, email info@pampabay.com or visit www.pampabay.com.

Fusion Reclaimed Granite Tape Dispenser

Holiday Tablescapes from Carole Shiber Designs Carole Shiber Designs’ hand-painted placemats with luxurious fabric napkins and functional Napkin-Ring-to-Coasters™ will spark conversation around the holiday table.

Available in a variety of shapes and with coordinating design elements like Sculpted Pea Pod Baskets, fabric table cloths and Everlasting Rose Bloom Bouquets. For wholesale inquiries, contact Carole Shiber Designs at 845.339.4646.

The Fusion Reclaimed Granite Tape Dispenser from Sea Stones is a charming upgrade from ordinary or outdated plastic dispensers. Handsome enough for the most distinguished desk and functional enough for the most productive tapers around, Fusion is the office essential that will stick around for generations, and it’s an ideal gift item, especially for the person who works at home.

By working with recycled granite, sustainably sourced hardwood cherry, and smooth beach stones, Fusion brings these fundamental natural elements to the workstation. The sturdy, reclaimed granite is finished with a special process that smooths the rough stone and gives it a polished look. The heavy granite will never move while you dispense tape, making Fusion a truly one-handed dispenser – talk about form and function! The custom-made cherry hardwood keeps tape and cutter at the perfect angle and promotes ethical forestry practices to boot.

For more information, call Anne Johnson at 206.202.1092, email anne@sea-stones.com or visit www.sea-stones.com.

NOVEMBER 2020

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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

CAST IRON CAMPER DUTCH OVEN FROM COOK PRO

TUCKAHOE HARDWOODS LIVE EDGE COLLECTION

This 6-quart cast iron Dutch Oven was built to boil, bake, stew, fry and roast campfire flavor to perfection. With sturdy and durable cast iron construction, a handle to hang over a fire, a leg base for added stability while cooking and a well-fitted lid to lock in flavor, this Dutch Oven offers every feature for the campfire culinarian who's cooking for outdoor adventurers. The Dutch oven should be seasoned and re-oiled regularly to lock in flavor and prevent rust.

The Live Edge Collection from Tuckahoe Hardwoods is a curated collection of charcuterie boards, cutting boards, serving boards, rustic bowls, coasters and utensils all made from teak and East Indian walnut. Each piece is a unique work of art with intricate grain and a rustic feel.

With list pricing starting at just $29 for both bowls and boards, there is a hand-crafted board for every budget and gift-giving occasion. Pictures truly do not do justice to these elegant and sturdy pieces. These will make great additions for gourmet shops, kitchenware retailers, restaurant distributors, cheese and wine shops and everything in between.

Tuckahoe Hardwoods also has customization and personalization capabilities to make drink paddles and engrave logos on these boards.

Cook Pro Inc. 951.686.8282 www.cook-pro.com

WINE BOTTLE ELECTRIC CORKSCREW Wine Bottle Rechargeable Electric Corkscrew is the latest corkscrew innovation from Franmara, which has been a leader in selling corkscrews for more than 50 years. This light but powerful electric corkscrew comes in the shape of a small wine bottle (10-1/4 inches high) with an elegant French wine label.

An “up/down” switch makes operation easy – “down” to insert the spiral into the cork and extract the cork; “up” to remove the cork from the spiral. A small window below the label shows the position of the cork. The set includes a compact electric adapter with small plug that inserts into the back of the corkscrew. A single charge will open 30 wine bottles. A foil cutter is included.

The corkscrew is packaged in a beautiful four-color box with bar code and instructions. It’s 10-1/4 inches high and 2-1/2 inches in diameter, and custom decorating is available. It retails for $49.99. .zoomcatalog.com/franmara-2020-no-pricing.

THE SPYDERCO MURRAY CARTER WAKIITA SERIES OF KITCHEN KNIVES

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Franmara Inc. 800.423.5855 www.franmara.com

OLIPAC STAINLESS STEEL OLIVE OIL DISPENSERS FROM ITALY

Based in Tuscany, Italy, with its centuries-old tradition of olive oil production, Olipac utilizes four generations of stainless steel kitchenware craftmanship to produce world-class olive oil cruets for this precious commodity. Stainless steel containers have been scientifically proven to increase the shelf-life of the olive oil. Stainless steel is the most effective material for keeping out light, air and bacteria that will degrade the quality of the oil over time. Light affects extra virgin olive oil due to oxidation; using Olipac cruets ensure that the extra virgin olive oil retains its flavor and antioxidant characteristics longer.

Olipac offers a wide variety of olive oil cruets, from simple to complex forms. The olive oil dispensers also come in a variety of colors, including copper, gunmetal black and the trending satin gold colors in addition to polished stainless steel. Gourmet Kitchenworks is proud to have been selected to be Olipac’s exclusive distributor in the United States.

Gourmet Kitchenworks LLC 417.736.9619 info@gourmetkitchenworks.com www.gourmetkitchenworks.com

Tuckahoe Hardwoods 410.822.7051 gdent@tuckahoehardwoods.com www.tuckahoehardwoods.com

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Based on the coveted handmade kitchen knives of master craftsman Murray Carter and a 420-year-old Japanese bladesmithing tradition, Spyderco’s Wakiita Series sets a new standard in high-performance kitchen cutlery.

Literally meaning “near the cutting board,” Wakiita is a term used to refer to senior apprentices with status equivalent to sous chefs or journeyman chefs in Western kitchens.

It also represents the second tier of Spyderco’s elite Murray Carter™ Collection. The blades of Wakiita Series knives are meticulously crafted from CTS® BD1N, a high-carbon, nitrogen-enriched stainless steel that provides a superior balance of hardness, edge-holding and corrosion resistance. Like all knives in the Murray Carter Collection, they are ground exceptionally thin and straight for superior cutting performance and are paired with traditional wa -style (octagonal) handles. Painstakingly crafted from solid black G-10, a durable fiberglass and epoxy laminate, the polished handles of the Wakiita Series ensure comfort, precise control, and an unmistakably classic look.

Manufactured in Japan to exacting quality standards, the Wakiita Series includes Petty, Funayuki, Nakiri, Bunka Bocho and Gyuto patterns suited to every cutting chore and personal cooking style.

Spyderco www.spyderco.com/culinary

PLAN ON WINTER 2021 LAS VEGAS MARKET

Las Vegas Market is the leading home furnishings and gift market in the western U.S., presenting more than 4,300 furniture, home décor and gift resources in an unrivaled market destination. Las Vegas Market features thousands of furniture, home décor and gift lines, allowing for cross-category commerce among these industries. The Winter 2021 Las Vegas Market runs January 24-28, 2021, at World Market Center Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Market 702.599.9621 www.lasvegasmarket.com

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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

THE GENUINE NEXTREND GARLICTWISTER G4

America’s most-loved culinary tool quickly preps garlic, ginger, herbs, chili peppers, olives, nuts, shallots and more. The NexTrend GarlicTwister G4 is a consistent best-seller at cooking schools, oil and vinegar stores and kitchen specialty stores.

With 19 cross-cutting mincing teeth, this six-time industry award winner turns the tedious chore of mincing into fun. The home cook hits the garlic clove with the GarlicTwister to loosen its skin and then pops a couple of peeled cloves inside to twist, twist, twist to mince.

Done in no time, garlic is minced to an ideal texture, from coarse to fine and gathered into two neat triangular piles that can be easily scooped straight into a pan. No garlic is wasted, and clean-up is just a quick rinse under the faucet.

Made in the USA, GarlicTwister is dishwasher safe and has a factory lifetime warranty. With more than 1 million units sold, it's America's most-loved culinary tool. It retails for $21.99.

NexTrend will provide a full refund if this product is properly displayed so your customers can see it and it fails to become the best-seller among similar products in the store.

NexTrend Products 916.635.3882 www.nextrendproducts.com

PAESANA’S NEW CHAMPAGNE PASTA SAUCE

Introducing Paesana’s new Champagne Pasta Sauce. Marrying the fizzy, bursting bubbles and acidity of champagne to classic Italian flavors gives consumers a sense of celebration and fun with every bite. Like all Paesana tomatobased sauces, this new flavor is made with 100 percent imported Italian tomatoes. To complement this original taste, the sauce also includes rich heavy cream, champagne and decadent white truffle-infused extra virgin olive oil.

The product also features a newly designed label that maintains the instantly recognizable Paesana logo.

L&S Packing Company Inc. 631.845.1717 www.paesana.com

IRRESISTIBLE FLAVOR FROM BONE SUCKIN' SAUCE

As a first-place winner in the Battle of Sauces and best in sales in Winners Circle, Bone Suckin Sauce® is the serious barbecue, grilling and marinating sauce for land and sea. Bone Suckin’ Sauce is a western North Carolina tomato-based sauce sweetened with honey and molasses for an irresistible flavor. Bone Suckin’ Sauce is non-GMO, gluten free, kosher, dairy free and contains no high fructose corn syrup. The perfect addition to wings, ribs, chicken, fish, beef, pork and much more, it's available in Original, Hot, Thicker Style and Hot Thick. It's a best seller in specialty stores, health food stores, grocery stores and restaurants.

Ford's Gourmet Foods www.bonesuckin.com

NESCO 6 QUART ROASTER OVEN

Serve up and celebrate with the NESCO 6 Quart Roaster Oven. This versatile appliance is designed to roast, bake, cook, steam and serve all in one. The 750 watt roaster base features Circle of Heat technology that provides moist and even cooking. The removable 6-quart cook well serves up to six people, convenient for entertaining and small families. Whether you're baking Cornish game hens, serving chili or slow-roasting brisket, the full-range temperature control, from 200 to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, provides the versatility needed for a wide variety of cooking options.

The durable porcelain enamel finish is easy to clean and ensures years of enjoyment.

This roaster also includes a cooking rack with lift-out handles for baking and oil-free roasting. Set it to satisfy and bring that delicious flavor anywhere. Multiple color options are available to match any style or occasion. The portable and convenient NESCO 6 Quart Roaster is perfect for those special occasions and compact enough for every day use.

The Metal Ware Corporation www.nesco.com

LINENLESS ACTION STATIONS

Southern Aluminum designed the GL Table specifically for creative action stations and buffets that inspire employees and patrons alike. Available in an array of color combinations, the GL’s aluminum top is cloaked in a scratch-resistant laminate to perfectly coordinate linenless service setups to match the décor. The GL Table is extremely sturdy and allows for easy mobility with multiple leg options and casters that make it useful in many unique ways.

Accessories available for the GL Table, such as enclosure panels, speed rails and shelves make it possible to activate event spaces to fit any operational need for food or beverage service. It will enhance any buffet, banquet or event while providing a multi-use piece of equipment for staff.

Southern Aluminum 800.221.0408 sales@southernaluminum.com www.southernaluminum.com

PARCHMENT PAPER GRAPE LEAVES

Inspired by the French tradition of turning to nature for decoration, these fine parchment paper leaves can be used under cheese, fresh fruit or home-baked breads or as coasters under glasses and bottles. They are fanciful enough to be used in a table decoration, written on, used as place markers or in any way or place imagination may lead.

Packaging is updated with natural, unbleached Kraft paper for an attractive and eco-friendly product. These parchment leaves have been sold to North American markets under both the Sisson Imports and EuroQuest brand names for more than 33 years; now they're known as Harvest, which is the sole provider of parchment paper grape leaves in the United States. Both the leaves and packaging are printed in the USA. Sisson Distribution 541.879.0969 www.harvestleaves.com

ARCTIC ZONE DEBUTS SUPER CHUG WITH MICROBAN PROTECTION

Arctic Zone by California Innovations, the world’s leading provider of soft-sided insulated coolers and lunch packs, is debuting Super Chug™, the first stackable, space-saving tumbler and lid combination.

The advanced new tumbler has an easy to use flip-cap and a leak proof, removable drinking spout that features Microban® protection against bacterial odors and stains.

The “no glug” Arctic Zone Super Chug also has a vented lid design that delivers a smooth liquid flow and a wide mouth opening that makes it easy to fill and clean. It comes in two stackable sizes, 16 and 20 ounces, and two finishes, silicone or stainless steel. The dishwasher safe tumbler is available at select retailers nationwide and on www.arctic zone.com. The suggested retail price is $9.99 to $14.99.

Arctic Zone products are high performance and feature rich. The portfolio includes Titan coolers and lunch packs, Food Pro food transport products, and Interlockers Food Storage Solutions. Sister products include Columbia and Dabney Lee. Arctic Zone enjoys vast penetration in all retail channels with a strong presence in big box retailers ranging from Costco and Target to Kohl’s, Kroger and Walgreens.

California Innovations www.californiainnovations.com

www.kitchenwarenews.com • NOVEMBER 2020

SIMIX CLEANERS EFFECTIVE ON CORONAVIRUS

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A new study done by Situ Biosciences Microbial Product Test Laboratory shows that Simix Cleaner/Degreaser/Sanitizer removes 99.94 percent of coronavirus and 99.74 percent of norovirus from non-porous surfaces. Simix Cleaner/Degreaser/Sanitizer is non-toxic, inexpensive and easy to use in commercial kitchens. It can be used to clean floors, ovens, stainless steel, tables, walls, laundry, carpets and all restroom surfaces. It is a superior option when it comes to protecting the public and your employees from the spread of coronavirus. Simix leaves surfaces squeaky clean.

In the newly released study, glazed ceramic tiles were coated with Simix Ceramic Coatings, then contaminated with coronavirus FIPV-1146, P20 (VR 2126) and norovirus surrogate Feline Calicivirus (F-9). Then the surfaces were sprayed with Simix Cleaner/Degreaser/ Sanitizer, wiped once, then sprayed and wiped once more after a 10-minute interval.

Simix Cleaner/Degreaser/Sanitizer is a powder that dissolves easily in water to create more than 136 gallons of cleaner and degreaser per $64 bag. Simix is non-toxic and has no volatile organic compounds. It is safe for people and pets. It is proven to be hypoallergenic and does not irritate the hands or lungs.

In all the tests on Simix-coated surfaces, Simix Cleaner/Degreaser/Sanitizer also removed more than 99 percent of the viruses. Simix Cleaner/Degreaser/Sanitizer was also used on a glazed tile that had not been coated with a Simix Ceramic Coating, and the surface proved to be more than 99 percent effective in removing coronavirus and norovirus.

Simix 262.705.2585 www.simixusa.com

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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

Ultimate Bento Box Packing Bento Lunches that Both Adults and Kids will Love

Hosts of popular NHK World cooking show “Bento Expo,” Marc Matsumoto and Maki Ogawa share their bento-making expertise on the pages of this stunningly photographed cookbook. As a Japanese-American, Marc is ideally placed to help Western readers add Japanese touches to their lunches with easy-to-find ingredients. As a Japanese mom of teenage boys, Maki is an expert at creating simple yet delicious bento box combinations that can be put together easily every morning. Together they have created an accessible, authentic bento cookbook that everyone will enjoy.

“Ultimate Bento” is packed with practical techniques, step-by-step instructions, and useful tips for 85 recipes that can be mixed-and-matched for 25 nutritionally balanced bento box lunches. Each bento in this book costs under $3 per serving, so home cooks can save money while also helping their families eat healthier lunchtime meals. “Ultimate Bento” is published by Tuttle Publishing. Learn more at www.tuttlepublishing.com.

Tri Bento (Mandala)

For the Mandala version of its Tri Bento lunch box, ECOlunchbox has etched a lovely pear mandala on the lid of its three-level ECOlunchbox Tri Bento that clips together.

The shape of the Tri Bento lunchbox is classic of the round stainless steel “tiffins” that have been used for generations throughout India. This metal lunchbox, though, is a stand-out due to the exceptional quality of the steel, its workmanship as well as ECOlunchbox’s easy-to-use clips that won’t pinch little hands. It retails for $36 and will hold 4.5 cups of food. For more information, visit www.ecolunchboxes.com.

HOTLOGIC: for When Lunch Needs to Be Hot

HOTLOGIC® food warming totes and appliances provide a healthier, more convenient way to warm and cook food. Through its Smart Shelf heating platform, HOTLOGIC brings food to an ideal temperature and holds it there for hours without overcooking. Users can simply put food in and eat whenever they’re ready. HOTLOGIC Mini, the individual lunch box size, retails for $39.95.

For further information, contact Kristie Burns at 616.268.2211, email kburns@ hot-logic.com or visit www.heathappier.com.

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www.kitchenwarenews.com • NOVEMBER 2020 • KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW

Minimal Silicone Food Containers

Made of 100 percent natural, non-toxic food grade premium silicone, these containers are highly transparent, lightweight and unbreakable, with a wide range of temperature resistance that makes them safe for the freezer, dishwasher, microwave and the oven.

Visit www.minimalbottle.com.

MB Original from monbento

With its two-tiered food compartments, the MB Original lunch box is perfect to enjoy on-the-go meals, whether they’re taken at the office, in the park or at the gym. monbento, the French brand specialized in bento boxes and accessories, uses highquality materials to ensure a long-lasting and completely safe use of its products.

Microwave and dishwasher-safe, this lunch box was designed to make its user’s everyday life easier. Available in many colors and patterns so everyone can find the bento that suits them. For more information, contact monbento sales team at pro@monbento.com.

Seal Cup Trio for Wet Components

Plastic-free and leak-proof, the Seal Cup™ Trio from ECOlunchbox is a three-piece nesting lunch container set ideal for packing a variety of foods and keeping them separate.

The steel-and-silicone lunch and snack containers are nesting, so they’ll contain a total of five cups of food in the morning and then nest one inside the other when they’re empty.

The Seal Cup Trio is part of ECOlunchbox’s Blue Water Bento collection of containers inspired by the beauty of the oceans as well as their need for protection from plastic waste.

The set retails for $33. For more information, visit www.ecolunchboxes.com.

Bar Birds Cocktail Picks

While Prodyne had martinis in mind with its Bar Birds Cocktail Picks, they’re also great for adding a cute touch to an adult’s bento box meal. The set of six stainless steel picks retails for $12.99. For more information, visit www.prodyne.com.

Shun Classic Paring Knife

The Shun Classic Paring Knife retails for $113, and with its 3.5-inch blade, is just right for peeling and cutting fruits and vegetables to fit into the bento box or for carving small details. Visit shun.kaiusa.com for more information.

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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

The Pantry

RUT BUSTERS

DEBRAND FINE CHOCOLATES TRUFFLES IN 12 FLAVORS

The Caramel Truffle is one of the most popular flavors from among the 12 offered by DeBrand Fine Chocolates. This Truffle contains milk chocolate with a soft, liquid caramel inside, covered in a creamy milk chocolate shell.

DeBrand offers several varieties of chocolates so that there is always the perfect size and price-point for any occasion. It’s included in DeBrand’s Classic Collection, the ideal gift for people who appreciate quality and tradition. Timeless favorites make up DeBrand’s most popular collection, including luscious caramel variations, pure fruit creams bursting with wonderfully intense flavors, as well as re-inspired traditional selections such as Gourmet PB&J, Toffee Crush and Orange Cream.

DeBrand Fine Chocolates 260.969.8331 www.debrand.com

ENDANGERED SPECIES OAT MILK CHOCOLATE CHIPS

Endangered Species has launched the first plant-based milk chocolate chip with its Oat Milk + Dark Chocolate Premium Baking Chips. Made with gluten-free oats and 55 percent cocoa, the Oat Milk + Dark Chocolate Premium Baking Chips contain half the sugar of standard baking chips.

Endangered Species Chocolate www.chocolatebar.com

SNACKABLE CHEESE BITES FROM WISCONSIN

Just the Cheese® is 100 percent Wisconsin cheese baked into bars and mini bites. They are naturally low in carbs, gluten-free and only 75 calories per bar. While most “cheese crisps” are air-dried, Just the Cheese is oven baked, caramelizing the cheese which results in a cheesier flavor and crunchier texture. Perfect for a portable snack on the go, which all ages will love. Just the Cheese is available as bars and as mini bites.

The bars are available in Aged Cheddar, Grilled Cheese, Jalapeno Cheese and Mild Cheddar flavors. Just the Cheese Minis are available in White Cheddar, Grilled Cheese, Jalapeno Cheese and Garlic & Chive flavors as well as Wisconsin Cheddar flavor, which was a first-place winner at the 2020 World Championship Cheese Contest.

Just the Cheese 800.367.1711 www.justthecheese.com

INBRU COFFEE FLAVORS

Introducing Inbru Coffee Flavors, the greatest thing to happen to coffee since, well, the grinder! With 24 delightful flavors to choose from, you can enjoy a different coffee experience every day of the week with the coffee beans you already have at home. The secret is in the organic rice hulls. They are flavored perfectly using a patented method, so you can flavor your coffee any way you’d like.

Inbru is crafted without adding any sugar, calories, fat, gluten or carbohydrates. Just add Inbru along with freshly ground coffee, brew and enjoy. The 24 flavors include Vanilla Hazelnut, Southern Pecan, Cookie Butter, Celtic Mocha and Banana Brulee. Gluten free, sugar free and fat free, Inbru contains no peanuts, tree nuts, soy or dairy.

Each 30g container, (scoop included) flavors 80 6-ounce servings of coffee. Also available in 120g size, which flavors 320 6-ounce servings of coffee.

Inbru www.inbru.com

J&M FOODS OFFERS FAMILY TRADITION OF QUALITY

J&M Foods proudly continues its family tradition and passion for good food by providing its customers with the best-tasting cheese straws and cookies in the market. J&M currently offers 21 products as well as additional seasonal offerings. In addition, new products to tickle the taste buds and provide something new for customers’ enjoyment are always being tested in the kitchen.

Like its other products, J&M Foods’ Original Cheese Straws are made from the finest ingredients available and are free of trans fats and baked with care.

J&M Foods 800.264.2278 www.janis-melanie.com

KETO-FRIENDLY SOFT BAKED BREAKFAST BISCUITS

HighKey’s Soft Baked Breakfast Biscuits are the first and only keto-friendly, ready-to-eat breakfast biscuits. These soft, individually wrapped biscuits provide a wholesome pick-me-up full of real ingredients like chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, bananas, cranberries and chocolate chips. Every biscuit has 1-2 grams of net carbohydrates, is gluten free and grain free. Low in carbohydrates and sugar, they’re the perfect solution for busy mornings or grab-and-go fuel.

They’re available in two flavors: Mixed Berry and Banana Bread. The suggested retail price is $14.97.

HighKey Snacks 816.674.3422 www.highkey.com

CANNED BLUEBERRIES IN 100% BLUEBERRY JUICE

Oregon Specialty Fruits added to its range of canned fruit offerings with the release of Blueberries in 100% Blueberry Juice. Packed in 100 percent unsweetened, not-from-concentrate blueberry juice, the new Blueberries in Juice contain no added sugar and are a healthy and delicious way to get the daily requirements of fruit by eating the berries and drinking the juice.

Oregon Fruit Products LLC www.oregonfruit.com

ZOUP! SPICY CHICKEN BONE BROTH

Zoup! is bringing the heat to the broth aisle with its introduction of Zoup! Good, Really Good® Spicy Chicken Bone Broth, which features the brand’s best-selling chicken bone broth as its base, plus a variety of roasted peppers to give it kick. The skillfully crafted recipe includes red bell, ancho, chili, chipotle, and cayenne peppers plus onion and garlic.

Kettle-cooked in small batches, the broth is also low in calories, paleofriendly and completely free of artificial ingredients, preservatives, gluten, GMOs, fat, trans-fat and saturated fat. Packaged in 32-ounce recyclable glass jars to showcase its rich, golden color, Zoup! Good, Really Good Spicy Chicken Bone Broth has a suggested retail price of $6.99 per jar.

Zoup! www.zoup.com

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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com

Thoughtful Sauces with a Long, Slow Kiss of Heat

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

oo'mämē is a line of products that present consumers with one of those, “Is it a bird?

Is it a plane?” moments. The labels for oo'mämē Mexican Chile Infusion and oo'mämē Chinese Chile Infusion both promise “1001 Uses. One Spoon,” and a look past the label and through the glass to the product itself automatically begins suggesting some of those uses to the savvy home cook. Visible through the glass are flakes immediately identifiable as chiles along with ingredients like pieces of dried fruits and whole seeds that are meticulously listed in the product’s ingredient label.

Clearly, oo'mämē Founder Mark Engel is not a proponent of the five-ingredientsor-less school of thought, since these 14ingredient lists eschew simplicity in favor of complexity and depth, a promise that’s redeemed in full once the jar is opened and the spicy aromas of culinary traditions developed through eons of experience waft into the atmosphere. “These recipes are hacks to make great food easily,” Engel said. “You can do anything with it, but everyone has his own way.”

Salute Santé! Grapeseed Oil One of Oprah’s Favorite Things

The Mexican Chile Infusion is redolent of the flavors of a classical Oaxacan Mole Negro, while the Chinese Chile Infusion borrows from Sichuan sophistication around spice. These sauces were designed with organoleptic properties to work like mise en place in a jar, an assemblage of ingredients all ready for either a beginner in the kitchen or a home cook with advanced skills to create flavor and complexity in a dish with a simple counterclockwise twist of a jar lid. The chiles are crispy to add texture as well as spice; the seeds are toasted for crunch as well as depth of flavor; bits of dried fruit are chewy; and the ginger is sweet. “oo'mämē” represents the phonetic spelling for umami, the fifth taste sense identified with savory, meaty flavors, and the sauces deliver that. But each also offers an Cont. on page 26

But What About the Tea? And What Do We Drink Now?

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

The crime committed on December 16, 1773 by the Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams, divided those who learned about it into opposing camps. There were those who came out in favor of law and order; there were those who sided with the Sons of Liberty and their revulsion against paying taxes to support a government with which they had fundamental disagreements. Those were, of course, the two parties who ended up fighting a war over their differences of opinion that ultimately gave birth to a nation “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition

that all men are created equal.”

And then there were undoubtedly those less tendentious types who, having read about it in their newspapers, merely pursed their

lips and speculated that the rowdies who’d committed the act were probably more accustomed to seeking their refreshment in the public house rather than the parlor – and then wondered, What about the tea? And what are we supposed to drink now?

Two hundred years later, Kyle Brown also wondered about the tea. What was it, exactly, that went into the Boston Harbor that night, and what did the Sons of Liberty drink afterwards?

He did some research into the matter, and, as it turns out, there are things we can know about those matters today, because the tea that went overboard that night was listed on the ships’ manifests. We can even know how it would have tasted, properly brewed in a civilized China teapot, because the company he founded, Oliver Pluff & Co., is selling today those same varieties, imported from the same region in China.

The Sons of Liberty drowned five varieties of tea in their casks that night in 1773, according to Darren Hartford, who bought the company from Brown in 2018.

Those five varieties included Bohea, Lapsang souchong, Congou, Singlo and Young Hyson, Cont. on page 26

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

Food & Vine, the makers of Salute Santé!

Grapeseed Oil, has put together a gift set that’s been named for the second time to Oprah Winfrey’s list of her “Favorite Things.” The set contains five of Salute Santé!’s most popular infused grapeseed oils – Roasted Garlic, Lemon, Basil, Chili and White Truffle grapeseed oils to dip, drizzle and marinate, plus Salute Santé Original Grapeseed Oil. The set comes with a wooden crate for display on the home kitchen countertop.

Salute Santé!

Grapeseed Oil is made from cold pressing the seeds left over after wine grapes have been crushed to produce an oil high in linoleic acid, an Omega 6 fatty acid that’s been shown to elevate high density lipoprotein cholesterol, the good cholesterol, and to decrease triglycerides and low density lipoprotein cholesterol, the bad

cholesterol.

The oil, Food & Vine’s Salute Santé!

Grapeseed Oil, is also certified green and verified non-GMO, and it has other valuable culinary characteristics – mild flavors that don’t compete with other foods and a high smoke point for frying. Salute Santé!

Grapeseed Oil has almost 10 times more linoleic acid than olive oil, according to Valentin Humer, the coFounder of Salute Santé! along with his wife, Nanette.”It’s the only food that can effectively raise HDL cholesterol without a change in diet or lifestyle,” he said. “It lowers LDL and triglycerides.”

“This is a fruit oil. It’s not a vegetable oil,” adds Nanette. “It has its own amazing health benefits.”

Valentin Humer, an Austrian-trained chef and hotelier, came to the U.S. in 1988 with the intention of bringing to the American market the grapeseed oil that Cont. on page 26

Experience Culinary Richness Without Jet Lag

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

Verve Culture offers consumers the opportunity to participate in a foreign culture with a rich culinary tradition without the necessity of a passport, the discomforts of international air travel, the disorientation of culture shock or even the danger of being trapped overseas by a pandemic.

The items offered for sale in each of three collections – one for Mexico, one for Thailand and one for Morocco – aren't just things; they're artifacts invested with cultural values and history. They'll appeal to consumers looking for an experience of connection with a specific place and its people.

Verve Culture was founded by a mother and daughter duo, Jules Vertrees, the daughter, and Jacquie Lewis, who started the company four years ago after selling their previous company. The two decided that, for their next endeavor, they wanted to offer goods that were more than just

commodities – they were looking for meaning and for products that would appeal to consumers who'd moved beyond conspicuous consumption. “We're not a company that's about products. We're a company that's about culture,” Vertrees said.

“We're catering to the environmentally and socially conscious buyer as well as the buyer that doesn't want to buy mass-produced.”

Verve Culture launched its first collection of items from Mexico in 2017. The star of the collection is a citrus press that's modeled on a device that Vertrees and her mother saw in markets when they visited the country a few years ago.

“You see the citrus juicers in markets all over Mexico,” Vertrees said. “I was thirsty.

I ordered an orange juice, and the guy was squeezing the oranges on this amazing contraption.”

Vertrees and Lewis found a Mexican source for the juicers they'd seen in the markets and worked with the maker on a design that was slightly smaller, painted Cont. on page 25

www.kitchenwarenews.com • NOVEMBER 2020 • KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW

VERVE CULTURE Continued from page 24 in a beautiful gold color and finely polished into a juicer that American consumers would be proud to display on their counter tops. They worked with other artisans to design packaging that would tell the story of the device. “It's made of recycled aluminum and is a slice of the culture that you can have on your counter-top at home,” Vertrees said. “And they're beautiful.”

The juicer is now Verve Culture's best seller from a collection that also includes a pair of tortilla presses, hand-blown glassware and a molcajete, the traditional mortar and pestle used by Mexican cooks to grind spices and herbs. The Verve Culture Molcajete is made of roughtextured volcanic stone that will pick up flavors over time. Like a cast iron pan, a molcajete needs to be seasoned, and Verve Culture recommends that the home cook do that by grinding white rice in the bowl a few times until the powdered rice remains white. Once that happens, the Molcajete is ready to grind seasonings, smash avocados for guacamole or pulverize vegetables for a salsa. “Everything in the Mexican range, including the packaging,

is made in Mexico,” Vertrees said. “We could definitely make a beautiful, traditional Mexican tortilla press a lot cheaper in China or Turkey, but then it's not authentic.... Consumers today are really looking for authenticity, not one of 20,000 off the production line. There is a desire for experiential purchasing. That is the reason we started Verve Culture.”

The Mexico collection also includes a line of the traditional products for making Mexican hot chocolate, including the traditional Molinillo Whisk, as well as the Villa Real Mexican Hot Chocolate mix.

The hot chocolate items are sold individually and packaged as a gift set that contains the Molinillo Whisk, a Red Clay Hot Chocolate Jug and a bag of five tablets of Villa Real Mexican Hot Chocolate with Almonds.

The gift set retails for $80, and both the whisk and the jug should be hand-washed only.

The second collection to be added to the Verve Culture range comes from Thailand and, in addition to a line of chef 's knives made in Thailand in authentic blade shapes, it includes Thai for Two meal kits for Thai curries that provide the home

cook who's curious about Thai cuisine with all the hard-to-find ingredients needed to make either an Organic Red Curry, Organic Green Curry, Organic Panang Curry or Organic Tom Kha Soup and Organic Pad Thai. Each of the meal kits, which are packaged in giftable fabric pouches, takes just a few steps and a few minutes to produce an organic and gluten free meal. The kits themselves are vegan – consumers add their own fresh vegetables and protein to make it their own. Everything that's not easy to find in a standard supermarket, including the authentic curry paste, is packaged in the kit. “We give lots of recommendations,” Vertrees said. “Panang curry is fabulous over chicken – or you can just add whatever protein you have in the fridge or freezer.”

“Our background is very much in the gift industry, which is why our bags are so giftable,” Vertrees said. “The kits are also consumable. Consumers fall in love, and they come back and buy more and more and more. People will try the Thai Green Curry, and they'll love it and come back and buy two more.”

The newest Verve Culture collection represents Morocco. “This is a very exciting range for us,” Vertrees said. “It's the biggest one.”

The product range represents Morocco's diverse cultures in a country that spans vast deserts as well as seaside ports of call and French influences as well as Arabic

25 traditions. “We are doing tagines, couscous platters, a phenomenal range of blown

glassware,” Vertrees said.

The collection includes Moroccan poufs made of either vintage Kilim rugs or leather. The Moroccan pouf is traditionally stuffed with out-of-season clothing to make a soft footrest.

The collection also includes ceramic bowls and cups as well as the tagines, which are the Moroccan slow-cooking vessel with a conical top that contains steamy juices until the lid is lifted at the table when the meal is served, as well as personal care products, including Argan Oil, which is rich in Vitamin E and CoQ10, which have antioxidant properties.

“It is the Moroccan women's beauty secret for sure,” Vertrees said. “We're packaging these in beautiful artisan bottles, and there's a lip balm to go with that.”

For more information, visit www.verveculture.com or email Vertrees at jules@verveculture.com. KN

26

OO'MÄMĒ

Continued from page 24 assertive, but not overwhelming, kick of spice with long-lasting heat that the infused oil in which the spices are suspended disperses across the lips and throughout the mouth, not as a smack across the face but in a vivid reminder of exactly why chile peppers have long been thought to be aphrodisiacal.

The oil is high-oleic sunflower oil. It

SALUTE SANTÉ!

Continued from page 24 he and other European chefs already loved.

“I put my career on the hook because I was so excited about this product,” he said.

“I wanted to make it here in California and wanted to make it cold-press.... It took us 15 years to create a press that was strong enough to cold press the grapeseed oil, which we have now running 24/7 in Napa.

Grape seeds are hard as a rock.”

Food & Vine has been pressing California grape seeds for Salute Santé! Extra Virgin Cold Press Grapeseed Oil since 2010.

Before that, the company had only been

OLIVER PLUFF Continued from page 24 he said. Bohea was a black tea so popular in colonial America that colonists used “Bohea” and “tea” interchangeably, much as today, we might say “Coke” to signify any carbonated cola beverage. It fell out of favor by the 1820s and disappeared into obscurity. Lapsang souchong is a smoked black tea that outlived Bohea in public favor and went on to become Winston Churchill’s favorite tea. Young Hyson was a green tea popular in colonial days. “There are journal entries of John Adams going to visit someone and drinking this tea, which he thoroughly enjoyed,” Hartford said. “Singlo was another blend of green tea that’s a little heavier than Young Hyson.”

You’ll recall, along with anyone else who ever attended an American elementary school, that the reason that all that tea got dumped overboard was that the British government had decided to levy a tax on tea. Once the

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has a high smoke point, so it withstands the heat of cooking, but it also has a low melting point, so it doesn’t solidify in the refrigerator, where it should be stored after the jar is opened. The oil can be spooned out and used either with or without the inclusions as an oil for stir-frying, as a finishing oil, as the spice for a vegetable dip, to stir into mayonnaise for a sandwich spread, to spoon over scrambled eggs or to add zip to a soup or a stew. The Mexican Chile Infusion transforms an ordinary bean

burrito into a gastronomic delight or tops a cracker spread with almond butter with enough zest to dress it up into a sumptuous cocktail-hour snack. “I created these chile sauces to make cooking easier for me and my family,” Engel said. “I wanted to have great-tasting food, but I didn’t want to spend an hour prepping every night.”

Engel’s own favorite uses for the sauces include mixing them into nut butters to use as a dressing for grilled meats, rice or noodles. “When you put it on top of a

runny egg, it’s nothing short of heaven,” he added. oo'mämē sauces are made in the U.S., and they’re plant-based, with low sodium and gluten free. Two new flavors will be out this summer: Indian Chile Infusion and Moroccan Chile Infusion. “Chile is always the backbone, because that’s what we do,” Engel said. The sauces are packaged in 9.2-ounce wide-mouth glass jars that retail for $16 each. For more information, visit www.oomame.net. KN

importing grapeseed oil from the key wineproducing countries in Europe since 1994 and selling it on the American market, where it was enthusiastically embraced by classically trained chefs, who valued it for its light flavor, its 485-degree smoke point that allows high-temperature frying and the emulsifying power that means that it incorporates easily into salad dressings that can be stored in the refrigerator and then used directly from cold storage because the oil doesn’t begin to solidify at normal refrigerator temperatures. “Grapeseed oil makes dressings that don’t congeal in the refrigerator. It stays nice and creamy,” Valentin said.

All of the Salute Santé! oils are 100 percent grapeseed oil rather than a blend of oils, which guarantees that the Salute Santé! oils have the linoleic acid content that’s a key to their health benefits. “We have third-party certification to show that what comes out of the grape seed is what’s in the can,” Nanette said.

“I need to be able to sleep,” Valentin added. “My quality level is always the best.”

While he developed the American market for his imported Salute Santé! grapeseed oil in the years since 1994, Humer kept working on the designs for his presses until he developed a new press that could extract the oil from very hard

grape seeds with a cold-press. By 2010, he’d finally cracked that seed in time to introduce Salute Santé! Extra Virgin Cold Press Grapeseed Oil, made in Napa, California, in 2010.

The oils are made from the seeds that are left over after wine grapes are crushed.

“We don’t use new land or new water to get our products, so we’re not contributing to waste,” Nanette said. “Why ship this stuff all over the world when we can make it here?”

The 2019 Oprah’s Favorite Things Infused Grapeseed Oil Gift Set retails for $95. For more information, visit www.grapeseedoil.com. KN

Sons of Liberty had registered their displeasure, though, there was still the matter of that other question proffered by the pursed-lipped, What were the colonists going to drink when alcoholic beverages weren’t appropriate to the occasion, particularly since it wasn’t the tea itself that was at issue, but the tax? There’s an answer to that question too. “The most popular tea in colonial America was really smuggled tea,” Hartford said.

Colonial Americans drank coffee in addition to their illicit tea, although the tea remained their hot beverage of choice for some time to come. “Coffee didn’t really become popular in America until the Civil War era – that’s when coffee really took off,” Hartford said.

Coffee blends authentic to that Revolutionary War period of American history are among the products that Oliver Pluff & Company purveys today, along with teas sourced from tea gardens in Fujian Province in China, the same area from which teas were harvested in the 18th century and transported to the docks for shipment to

America. Oliver Pluff also offers spice mixtures for mulling wines and for flavoring whiskey for hot toddies. The coffee blends include Colonial and Green Dragon Tavern, named for the Boston tavern where the Sons of Liberty embarked on their careers as political activists.

The hot toddy spices originally came to us by way of Dutch merchants rather than the English, according to Hartford. “As the Dutch explorers found the people of India, they discovered that India had rich and beautiful spices,” he said. “The Dutch and Scottish brought back toddies, which is spice in boiled water plus honey plus a spirit, and it just becomes a wonderful evening drink with a great aroma to it.”

product with tea bags,” Hartford said. “Then they connect with the product and want to try more and discover the true joy and peace that you can get with a cup of tea.”

Oliver Pluff & Co. teas, coffee blends and spice blends for beverages are sold in specialty grocers and gift shops across the country.

Among more than 500 other retail locations, they’re sold in gift shops in Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Parks and at other historic sites, including the Biltmore Mansion and at Mount Vernon. The teas retail for $13.50 to $15.00 for a 3-ounce tin of loose tea, while the coffee blends retail for $15 for a 5-ounce package. A variety of package sizes and gift packs are available. The tins are labeled with information about the historic significance of the product inside. “We try and tell the stories of these products and try to reconnect modern America with these historic teas,” Hartford said. “People want to connect with the teas and what they’re consuming. People enjoy the story.”

For more information, visit www.oliverpluff.com. KN

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Oliver Pluff & Company offers its teas both as loose leaves and in tea bags, which may be less intimidating to consumers who are interested in trying a new tea without committing to the paraphernalia and the ritual of brewing the beverage from loose leaves. “It’s easy for stores to introduce a

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ADVERTISER INDEX California Innovations Inc. . . . . . . . . . .27 Cook Pro Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Ford’s Gourmet Foods . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Franmara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Gourmet Kitchenworks LLC . . . . . . . .23 HDS Trading Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 International Market Centers . . . . . . . .3 Jaz Innovations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 Mel’s Toffee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 NexTrend Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Paesana Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Sisson Distribution LLC . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Southern Aluminum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Technivorm-Moccamaster USA Inc. . .28 Tuckahoe Hardwoods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5