Gadgets/Trucs/Accessori

I'm obssessed with kitchen gadgets! Should I color coordinate them or go with the flow? Should they be all the same brand or are different brands good for different purposes?

Since I love to eat it's no surprise that I also love to cook!

I'm currently in the market for the perfect lime green lime juice squeezer. I've seen them in the Mexican markets. I just bought a mandoline today for the perfect grilling slice or shredded veggie.

My mother gifted me a meat tenderizer as a gift after the birth of my daughter ( very strange! )

I have an olive wood and a bamboo cutting board which I both use.

My knives must be sharp at all times! My quiche pans are from France and my pistal and mortar set is from Mexico....I've got a pan for every occasion! So on my next trip to Rome, wish me luck while visiting the C.U.C.I.N.A. store which sells an item I'm convinced that I truly need (as pictured above).

The name for it in Italian sums up how I feel right now at the start of the New Year:

"Con Beccuccio Salvagoccia" which translates as "a spout that saves every drop"......

I feel both overflowing with abundance but yet needing to savor what I have and use it all before I deserve to acquire more.

So I think I'll buy myself one of the beautiful glass olive oil dispensers and savor every drop of the fabulous Italian olive oil that I put in it! Just as I now savor the time I have with my gorgeous daughter, the lovely hand cream from a hotel I'll never get to visit again, the beautiful scent of the Diptyque Thé candle that my dear friend gifted to me for my birthday and so on.

La Vineria and Zena- Milano

La Vineria is a quaint wine and olive oil shop offering 1 euro glasses and 3 euro bottles of wine that can be consumed while using the wine barrels as tables. A place where comingling with the locals is expected and welcomed.

I met 3 local milanese who 'adopted' me for the evening and dragged me ( oh poor me ) to a wonderful dinner of exquisite ravioli and coniglio ( rabbit ) with a large consumption of vino rosso at Zena also a place I would highly recommend.

Did I forget to mention that I had already had a yummy ravioli dinner Trattoria alla Vecchia Maniera (via Alzaia Naviglio Grande, 62) and was heading back to the hotel for the night when I stumbled into this fine establishment and new friends.

This small wine boutique and bar is quintessential of the Naviglio area: convivial, local and typically Italian, a locale where many unique wine bars and restaurants fill the area. Most tourists and even people I travel with who have been to Milan countless times, don't make it to this area.

This is, what I consider to be, one of the best neighborhoods of Milan.

There are numerous pasty shops and small artsy boutiques that you pass as you walk to this area or you can ride a tram that dates from 1928 right to the canals. Called the Venice of Milan, Naviglio Grande never ceases to please.

La Vineria

via Casale 4 Milano

Naviglio Grande

Zena

Ripa di Porta Ticinese, 37 Milano