So, the Czarina loves her fashion, and her interior design. In the past, anything smacking of Progressive values was also synonymous with looking (and feeling, in the case of clothes) “crunchy.” I don’t want to dress like a Green Beret in stalk mode.

Luckily, some people are starting to get it. For instance, as we are all becoming more conscious of plastic bag waste, more people are carrying canvas bags to the grocery. Envirosax is a company working to design such bags – and they’re cute to boot.

From the Envirosax website:

Envirosax is proud to help protect the environment for tomorrow’s offspring by providing an eco-friendly alternative to plastic shopping bags that threaten a healthy eco-system. Envirosax bags are lightweight, portable, waterproof and each one holds the equivalent of two supermarket plastic bags thanks to reinforced seams.

Envirosax, in addition to having a graphic design series, also has a bamboo and hemp series.

As testament to the demand, both of these are currently sold out, but you can preorder them. Prices range from about $8.50 for the graphic designs like the one featured here, to $25 for the hemp.

Another company, ReusableBags.com, has a list of plastic bag facts and other bag ideas. We are all inundated on a daily basis about how terrible plastic bags for shopping are. However, the fact sheet on their site is really eye opening. A sample of their bullet items:

* Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.

* According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.

* According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)

* In 2001, Ireland consumed 1.2 billion plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%. Approximately 18,000,000 liters of oil have been saved due to this reduced production. Governments around the world are considering implementing similar measures.

Their Pack-N-Tote is also very cute and functional.

Without question, someone always gets on me about leaving out the World Food Programme Feed Bag as an option. How could I possibly overlook this amazing item?

This is Lauren Bush’s project. From the Amazon.com description:

“The FEED bag is a sturdy, reversible bag made out of natural burlap and cotton materials. The design of the bag was inspired by the big bags of food that I have seen being distributed to schools around the world. Besides being a cool bag, it is a tangible way to make a difference in the fight against child hunger! Every FEED bag sold will feed a child for a whole year in school! Thank you for your support of the FEED project! With your help we will be making a big difference in children’s lives around the world, one child at a time. So wear your bag with pride!”

OK, so ignoring the overuse! of ! exclamation points!!!!!, the thing is just hideous. I guess you are just supposed to ignore that small fact, and feel good about feeding!!! children!!! while you shell out SIXTY DOLLARS! What?! (Note to Lauren Bush: This is when you use exclamation points.)

An Amazon customer summed up the very next question that popped into my head:

When I first saw this, I thought it was such a wonderful idea! I’m disappointed in the price though-when I received it, it stated that only $20.00 of my dollars would be going to the fund. Top it off, made in China. Where does the rest of the $$ go? It’s better to give directly so that MORE OF YOUR DOLLARS GO WHERE THEY ARE DESPERATELY NEEDED!!

In the Czarina’s opinion, here’s an even better idea: just go straight to a pressing and local problem and use reusable bags to help minimize the US dependence on oil. Such purchases will also help generate demand for eco-friendly garb and accessories that aren’t as BUTT-UGLY as this Caliban-like genetic mutant of a tote.

Yes, I’m a liberal, I admit it. But, apparently paradoxically, I do have fashion sense. And carrying around some burlap sack that mostly pays for the administrative and PR costs of a charity deflects from the beauty of my Louboutins.

Just sayin’.

The DeLonghi DSM 5 5-Quart stainless steel stand mixer has lived in the Czarina’s kitchen for a few months now, and she thought she would share her impressions with her Citizens in case they were looking for a stand mixer.

The Czarina chose this mixer after extensive research. She toasted her KitchenAid Classic 4-1/2-Quart mixer after…um…well, it wasn’t my fault really. Okay, so the block of chocolate should have been softer, my bad. But hey, what kind of mixer doesn’t have an automatic shut off if the motor starts straining? I mean, us Americans have warning labels on ridiculous things, like coffee (it’s hot, I’ll bet you didn’t know that), so you’d think the makers of KitchenAid would protect me from my own stupidity – and from my own torquemada tendencies.

So rule #1 was that the next mixer had to have an automatic shut off mechanism if the motor was straining too much. The lower end KitchenAids don’t have that feature. So the best contender in the KitchenAid world was the KitchenAid Professional 600 6-Quart Mixer. I admit I was biased towards KitchenAid because my last one was pretty good and was made at the time when Hobart was making them, although towards the end of its life it started bleeding lube out of its nose. Now, they’re made by Whirlpool.

After reading several of the comments on Amazon about the KitchenAid, the Czarina noticed several complaints, including some from engineers, about plastic gears. The gears were a weak point in this particular model, and, it appeared, in most of them.

Here’s my rant for today, directed towards Whirlpool and anyone who has the same mindset: Come on, people. You are talking about the difference of a dollar or two in manufacturing. Make these important gears out of metal, and stop with the crappy plastic gears already. People that buy these larger mixers are looking for workhorses that actually work, rather than one just stands there and looks pretty. We are going to BEAT these products. The animosity you generate in your consumers with cheaping out on something so dumb will come back to bite you eventually. I have no interest in calling your stupid consumer hotline only to be told that I have to SEND THE WHOLE THING IN for a replacement. I want it to work the FIRST TIME. JUST SHUT UP AND WHIP MY MERENGUE, KITCHEN ELF.

Anyway.

The other option was the DeLonghi. Being of Italian descent, it certainly has design panache. The other thing I like about it is that the attachments are non-stick, so they’re easy to clean. It’s also larger than my KitchenAid Classic, so that was good. It has a splash guard, which, depending on what I’m doing, can be great or annoying.

Here’s what I don’t like about it: I had to epoxy one rubber foot in because it kept popping out. And because it also has no neck, it is relatively difficult to fold in dry ingredients without spilling some. Otherwise, you have to raise the top, pause, fold in, and start again. Also, if you read the booklet, you do have to be sure to knead bread on a very low setting, otherwise you run the risk of burning out the motor, just like the KitchenAid.

That’s the worst of it, though. It is VERY easy to clean and I love that. It looks cool. There were fewer complaints about things burning out on the DeLonghi than on the KitchenAid, but who knows…that could just be a function of KitchenAid’s popularity. More units = more possibilities of malfunction. So ultimately, I’m sure you’d be fine with either…it just depends on what’s important to you. I just couldn’t go into a new purchase knowing that I was running the risk of having the same thing happen. I can handle kneading bread slowly, but I can’t handle my mixer getting all pissy about chocolate. Because that’s just wrong.

Product grade: B

Everyone knows that you need tongs, a spatula or two, a decent knife set, yadda yadda yadda.

But what do you do when you’ve reached that intermediate stage of cooking – that no-man’s land of not a n00b but not a professional either? Such lost and wandering souls go to Williams-Sonoma and boggle over all of the slots holding items in the Tools wall, and stare vacuously at the mounted and labeled samples like one would at butterflies skewered by pins in the Natural History Museum.

Fear not! The Czarina has compiled a list of kitchen tools that you now need, you cute graduate you! Alternatively, you can “suggest” your significant other buy them for you this holiday season. And by suggest, I mean that you should buy a bunch of them for yourself and proclaim proudly to your partner, “Look what you bought me! Aren’t you nice?”

On to the goodies:

Read more »

The Czarina is selling pies now – and she had approximately ten pounds of apples to peel this weekend in preparation for Thanksgiving pies. Peeling apples, in the Czarina’s humble opinion, is by far the most annoying and fatiguing part of the whole operation.

I found the Rösle Crosswise Swivel Peeler while taking Chopping Block cooking classes. The Chopping Block had recently acquired the Rösle line in their retail store and staff were selling the tools fairly aggressively. At the time, I was thinking that: 1) Wow, this tool is expensive at $20, but 2) it’s a German company, and as a rule Germans know how to make things work.

This product has saved both my sanity and my wrist. It has preserved my sanity because, as a way to entertain myself, I attempt to peel each apple in one long strip – that magical ability so exhorted in Sleepless in Seattle. (Oh, don’t give me that, you know you’ve tried it at least once.) This tool makes horribly romantic apple peeling seem attainable.

Rösle has saved my wrist because even after ten pounds of apples, my wrist wasn’t sore at all; when I’ve used more traditional peelers I start feeling the strain after only a couple of apples. It’s stainless steel, so you can throw it in the dishwasher with impunity.

Therefore, if you peel potatoes, apples, carrots, or any other foodstuff, you need this product. There is a left handed version as well. The Rösle Crosswise Swivel Peeler gets a solid A from the Czarina, and she’s stingy with the As.

Sleepless in Seattle gets a C+ for screwing me up when I was single.