Gift guides — are you tired of 'em yet? We love rounding up the best things for your kitchen, but we promise we're drawing near to the end of our holiday gifting. Here's just one more list of things that may be useful now or later: our picks for long-lasting, lifetime gifts. These are the big gifts, the ones that won't fit in a stocking (or a stocking-stuffer budget). But sometimes it's just right to give something that will last a long time.
These are all things that I either own or covet! They are also things that, if I own them, I treasure and use all the time; and, if I don't own them yet, I would really like to. Each of these items have the potential to become a backbone of the cook's kitchen, and if you're in the position to give someone a really big gift this year, one of these might be the thing.
TOP ROW
• 1 Staub 6-quart Coq au Vin Pot, $220 at Sur La Table - A big, beautiful Dutch oven is always on my wishlist.
• 2 6-quart All-Clad sauté pan, $170 at Cookware & More - I love this pan. I use it all the time. (See more about it here.)
• 3 OVOPUR Water Filter System, $700 at from Aquaovo - I am pretty smitten by these water filters, but they are definitely a splurge. Gorgeous design!
• 4 The Element Grill by Fuego, $449-$649 at Fuego - I've had this grill all summer and fall and it's been a pure joy to use. It's slim, stylish, and very powerful for such a compact appliance.
• 5 KitchenAid Professional 600 Series 6-Quart Stand Mixers, $323.99 at Amazon - Where would this list be without a KitchenAid mixer? I use mine almost every day, and I am always grateful that I bought the largest bowl and strongest motor they have.
BOTTOM ROW
• 6 Copper Mixing Bowls, $200-$2000 (!!) at French Copper Studio - A copper bowl seems to be as much of a status symbol as a really functional accessory in modern kitchens, where the KitchenAid is usually whipping the egg whites anyway. But these are just so lovely they made the list. For, you know, when you win the lottery.
• 7 Custom-made chef's knife, starting at $600 at Jay Fisher - I love my inexpensive Forschner knives, but someday I would also love to have just one unique knife made by a craftsman. This is a truly special gift (although you have to avoid the superstition about giving knives as gifts!)...
• 8 Big clay pot, $138 at Bram Cookware - I am totally enamored of clay pots these days, and while this one is over $100, it's still dramatically cheaper than enameled Dutch ovens its size.
• 9 Vita-Mix blender, $500 at Amazon - Sara Kate has raved about the Vita-Mix. There aren't many appliances worth this price tag, but the Vita-Mix is a classic workhorse of the professional kitchen.
• 10 Cast-iron skillet, 10-inch skillet $18.95 at Lodge - Ah ha! One sleeper on the list. Yes, everything else here is pretty expensive. But here's one more shoutout to the cast iron pan: it will seriously last a lifetime and beyond but it's much less expensive than everything else here.
Overall, as we've demonstrated in most of our other gift guides, the simple essentials in the kitchen don't have to cost a lot of money. A good knife, a couple good pots, and you're set. But there are a few things here and there that are worth some premium cash.
If you had a few hundred dollars to spend on one kitchen item, how would you spend it?
See more 2009 Gift Guides from The Kitchn
• Wine and Accessories for Wine-Lovers
• Kitchen Gifts Under $10
• 10 Kitchen Basics Under $25
• 15 Small Luxuries for Home Cooks
• Cool Green Cleaning Products
• Homemade Edible Presents for Mailing
• Gifts for Good Causes
• For The Outdoor Cook
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You can also find KitchenAids at Costco. I got mine for about $300.
Electrolux Assistent dough maker/mixer http://www.electroluxassistant.com/
I love my Staub 6 qt cocotte --- altho I only paid $125.00 bucks for it - it was featured on one of Amazon's Friday sales.
Always worth checking :-)
kitchenaid, absolutely. every kitchen should have a cast iron skillet in it. if you're insanely lucky/spoiled - an old one. like your 101 year old great grandmother's! whee!
most of the rest are, to me, status and pretty things. not that i have anything against pretty things! far from it. there are items i will spend some coin on and some that i won't.
things i will spend money on: kitchenaid, once; food processor, likely once; all but non-stick or cast iron pans; toss up on knives - i'm flexible on everything but my go-to eight inch chef's. it has to fit my hand and style. if that costs coin, okay. if not, even better!
things i will not spend a lot on: non-stick - it all wears out; get the restaurant stuff; enameled cast iron - hard to mess up and tramontina makes a fine dutch oven for about a quarter to a third of a le creuset. both will last forever; cast iron in general is hard to mess up and garage sales are cheap.
The OVUPUR is so expensive! We have an epic water systems ceramic water filtering crock that was about $200 and we've been using it for 10 years! And their customer service is excellent-- highly recommended!
The main things I would like in my kitchen are that stand mixer (the exact one listed above), good baking sheets, and a nice set of pots. I already have a pretty nice cast iron skillet, but I would like a smaller one - the one I currently own is a 12" which is nice when I am cooking for lots of hungry boys, but not just for me.
I would love a new Staub crockpot for Christmas. My current cheapo one has a chip in the enamel. :(
I also would love new Wusthof or Henckels knives.
Do people really give gifts like this? I need some different friends, I think! Seriously though, its lovely to see how beautiful some of this stuff is, but I'm way too practical for these kinds of things. Although I long in my dreams for a KitchenAid (and for the cabinet space to store it), the rest of this list was pretty over the top for most of us. Anything that I'm scared to use for fear of breaking it shouldn't be in my kitchen. I refer to the America's Test Kitchen "equipment corner" for many of my tools (most anything spending more than about $25 on). Even in the instances they recommend the expensive items in their testing, they usually try to select a "best buy" item that was a solid performer in their testing that doesn't cost a fortune.
The Forschner Victorinox Fibrox chef's knife that they recommend $29 for is absolutely the best value around. Feels great and works fantastic. I gifted this knife to my mom, sis and aunts a while back and they all still rave about it.
I also don't get the deal with enameled cookware. My Lodge cast iron skillet and dutch oven (another ATK recommendation - available at Target for about $20-30 each) do a great job. Also the lid for the dutch oven fits my skillet. Bonus. Yes, I would love for them to be a pretty color, but for a fraction of the price of decent enamelware with similar performance, (safe) non-stick properties that last a lifetime and no risk of damaging the enamel finish - I can deal with the black iron color.
The OXO V-style mandolin slicer is on my list for Santa... we will see if I have been naughty or nice. I thank ATK for not letting me have junky kitchen equipment! I blame you for giving me the idea to lust after copper bowls!
I bought my sister and her husband a Le Creuset dutch oven for their wedding, but that was a (hopefully) once in a lifetime occasion.
These are all lovely items, but (excepting the skillet) way above what I usually spend on Christmas gifts.
I got my early christmas present lodge cast iron skillet yesterday - woohoo! and I used it last night to make dinner :-)
If I had several hundred bucks to spend and I didn't rent, I would get a dishwasher. I miss having a dishwasher SO much.
Cast iron is essential.
Deirdre, enamel cast iron is great because you get the benefits of cast iron (even heating, heat retention, etc) with the added advantage of non-reactivity. I don't know about you, but I can really taste the metallic aftertaste if I cook anything acidic in my cast iron. With the enamel, it's not a problem anymore.
Just when I thought that The Kitchn wasn't going to get all pretentious and I was starting to trust the opinions expressed... Wham! It's not the existence of this list, nor the items on it that I find offenseive, but the way they're written about. I wish all the entries had been written about in the style of the Vita-mix or the All-Clad.
It seems to me the writer is confused: Is she writing about items that "Long-last, lifetime" gifts or items that "worth spending some premium cash"? As her inclusion of the Lodge pan demonstrates, a tool that lasts a lifetime doesn't have to be spendy. On the other hand, I've been offered and rejected the oval Staub with the painful-to-the-touch "Coq" knob, and I instead opted to buy one that was 80% less. Her own writing suggests that professionals don't even think its worth spending on the copper pots! And please, pelase stop shilling for Bram. Is the 11-quart-pot that won't fit in your oven and will be difficult to lift when full really worth the $ or the real estate it'll occupy? This post really makes me scratch my head and want to look up those recent FTC regs!
kushkush, you are absolutely ridiculous with your carping about FTC regulations because this post doesn't correspond with your personal estimation of how the items on a "tools to last a lifetime" list ought to be described. How your comment could be more self-centered, I can't imagine.
For most people, a "gift of a lifetime" requires not only that something be functional but that it be aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes, you want something more for its function than its aesthetics (a Lodge pan). Other times you want something almost purely for its aesthetics (the copper bowls). There's nothing wrong with either, and there's nothing wrong with a fantasy wishlist.
I get so tired of the juvenile carping on this site.
While there's nothing wrong with a fantasy wishlist, there is something very wrong with not revealing receipt of in-kind goodies to compensate for inclusion in a post like this. My "personal estimation" of what should/not be on the list nothing to do with it. I'm suggesting that when I see a list like this it raises suspicions and that I hope that it's only the result of poor drafting.
I'd respond to your personal attack, but I (also?) hate the "juvenile carping" that passes for commentary on these pages.
kushkush, there were ABSOLUTELY no gifts or payment received in kind in return for writing this post, just as there were no gifts or payment received for the "Gifts under $10" post. That is against our editorial policy here at The Kitchn.
Why did you assume that there were? If there is something that I need to adjust in my writing to make that clear please let me know.
Otherwise, yes, this is a list of splurges that are worth their higher price tags. Some for functionality and some for beauty, which are both valuable in the kitchen.
(And yes! I would love to have an 11-quart clay pot; it would be substantially lighter than a cast-iron Dutch oven, and so more practical for large batches for parties and potlucks.)