Marble Quad Tray 18Karat - Doris Cheung

Go, Go {Kitchen} Gadget: 2 Top Products

Sweet solutions for ripening and peeling your favourite fruits and veggies.

Marble Quad Tray 18Karat - Doris CheungMONEY WELL SPENT | With so many kitchen gizmos out there, you’d have thought that someone, somewhere would have long ago designed an attractive receptacle for ripening market-hard fruit on a windowsill. You can find clear plastic fruit ripening bowls, of course, dome-lidded containers that sweeten up a pile of fruits simultaneously (doubly quick when you add a banana to the mix), but I find these products cumbersome counter hogs. What I want is something that will tuck up out of the way on my windowsill and ripen just a few fruits—pears, tomatoes, avocados, the occasional cantaloupe or pineapple—in natural sunlight; something that looks attractive empty.

I was well on my way to designing my own contraption made of stainless steel with the guys down at Quest Metalworks when I discovered this marble quad tray at 18Karat (shown above). I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be used for but certainly not ripening fruit. Just four inches deep, it fits perfectly on the windowsill in my kitchen and does exactly what I need it to do.

When I checked Maynard’s 18Karat liquidation sale last week, they still had a few marble quad trays left. Good value at $29.60.

Peel Me A Grape—Or Whatever

Swissmar PeelerYou can find more expensive interpre- tations of the iconic Swissmar peeler, but unless you’re an absolute label slave, why waste the money? At just $4.95 (at Dirty Apron Delicatessen), the Swissmar is pretty much state-of-the-art as vegetable peelers go. The blade is scalpel sharp ,and that means, as the literature says, it takes less effort to peel stuff and you get a very thin peel with every stroke. The Swissmar peels hard fruits and vegetables and shaves hard cheeses and chocolate. The company also makes a serrated model for peeling softer fruits. —Olivia Pittman

In Vancouver, find the marble quad tray at Maynard’s 18Karat, 3039 Granville St., Vancouver, 604-742-1880; find the Swissmar peeler at Dirty Apron Delicatessen, 540 Beatty St., 604-879-8588.

Photos, top to bottom: Marble quad tray, Doris Cheung; peelers courtesy Swissmar

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