It's not too late to fill stockings with gifts foodies will love

It's that time of the year. The greenery is beswagged and the old family recipes are coming out, ready for exuberant overeating. And of course, it's time to buy gifts — which in my household usually means a kitchen item.

I love cooking, and gadgets to cook with, so here are (more than) a few of my favorite things.

Microplane zester

The lemon zester is a little thing that makes such a big difference, because lemon zest is the key to making so many things delicious, and the normal procedure for removing it involves removing the skin from your knuckles with a box grater. You can also use this for coarse-grating nutmeg over eggnog, chocolate over whipped cream or mousse, or cheese over pasta or salad.

High-quality, jar-shaped measuring spoons

You wouldn't think there'd be much to say about measuring spoons — at least unless you've spent time hunting for your spoons, trying to divine the size of a cheap plastic one that has had its printing wash off in the dishwasher, or gently tapping spices out into the bowl of a round tablespoon that won't fit into your jar. What to look for in a set of measuring spoons: solid stainless steel, markings that are etched rather than printed on the handles, bowls that are long rather than round, and spoons that are attached to a ring so they can be hung on a hook rather than get lost in a utensil drawer.

Extra-large spatula

I hate cooked fish, but a very big fish spatula is extremely handy. I now also have a pancake turner and a grill spatula. I almost never use my regular spatulas because the wide ones are so much more handy.

Locking tongs

These are useful for a number of things, from turning bits of meat for browning, to fishing pasta out of boiling water to check doneness, to tossing salads. I have metal tongs for steel pans and silicone-head tongs for nonstick pans. If you're buying for someone who owns nonstick pans, remember that longer is generally more useful, and silicone heads can be used in metal pans but metal heads cannot be used on nonstick pans.

Egg separator

Especially good for beginning but aspirational cooks, who will need separated egg whites but may be intimidated by the prospect of producing them.

Umai dry bags

These folks contacted me early in the year to ask me if I was interested in trying their system for dry-aging steak in your fridge. Home dry aging is hard to do, because plastic-wrapped meat will funk up, and meat left exposed will absorb smells from your fridge and funk up everything else nearby it. I was skeptical, but the bags work.

Pizza mesh

Moisture is the enemy of crispiness. A pizza mesh exposes the bottom of what you're cooking to air so that it can't be softened by steam trapped between the food and the metal pan. I also use it for oven-baked quesadillas, breaded chicken, and anything else that typically comes out inadequately crispy in a home oven. (Put a cookie sheet on the rack underneath if you're worried about dripping cheese.) The metal ones are prettier, but the nonstick mesh has stood me in good stead.

OXO silicone brush

For a while, it was seemingly impossible to get a decent brush; the traditional brushes were so cheaply made that one newly purchased item actually left clumps of hair all over my turkey. The silicone brushes didn't shed but didn't usefully convey liquids to their appointed destinations. Finally, OXO solved the problem with a small size that's good for pastry and a large size that's excellent for baking.

Silicone pie-making equipment

I recently had dinner with a friend who said: “I finally tried a silicone pastry mat, and it makes a huge difference! Suddenly it's so easy, I just want to make pie all the time.” I went home and moped, because I seem to have been speaking into a vacuum all these years. You don't want a silicone pie pan — “floppy” is not a desirable quality in your bakeware. But everything else you use should be silicone: silicone rolling pin, silicone pastry mat, silicone pie shield. Silicone is very not-sticky, so it's much easier to roll out your crust and move it from mat to pan. It's also incredibly easy to store because it can be crushed into any old shape.

POURfect mixing bowls

These bowls are not the best thing to beat up a cake in because of their funny shape, but they're the cleverest prep bowls on the market. The pouring lip is cleverly shaped to let you dispense one egg at a time, the sides have a built-in shield to guide the contents of the bowl out the spout instead of over the sides, and there's even a handy little ledge under the pouring lip that grips the edge of your mixer bowl to help you pour. They also have measuring lines inside the edge — very handy for wet ingredients. I mix almost everything in these bowls before it goes into my stand mixer, and I am evangelical about their usefulness.

Pen thermometer

I am basically the 13-year-old girl of digital thermometer consumers. And much like 13-year-old boys, these sorts of thermometers come in two varieties: those that stop performing shortly after you commit to them, and those that are never any good at all. I had returned to the old analog models that you can purchase in a supermarket for $5, which work very well. They still work very well, but if you want something that reads a little faster and gives you a precise number, I can now happily recommend the Lavatools digital pen thermometer.

Lodge cast iron pans

Nonstick and cast iron are the extremes of cookware; nonstick is only useful for moderate-temperature cooking (because it won't sear your food, and the manufacturers usually advise against using them on high temperatures), while traditional cast iron is at its best when you're trying to cook something at a very hot temperature. Oh, you can cook other things in it, but these pans are the killer apps for searing meat and baking no-knead bread, because they get very, very hot and stay hot for a good long while. They're also cheap compared to something like an All-Clad stainless steel pan.

Mandoline

I have a love-hate relationship with mandolines. On the one hand, they quickly make beautifully even slices. On the other hand, they're a little awkward to use, and they're a good way to slice off a fingertip if you're not very careful. But for people who have trouble holding a knife or must produce large quantities of perfectly sized vegetable chips, it's either a mandoline or one of those super-fancy food processor setups.

Zojirushi rice cooker

I was skeptical about rice cookers, and if you've experimented with cheap models you've probably given up, as I had. But the Zojirushis really make excellent rice — and keep it warm for hours, even days. It's a great present for someone going gluten-free. You can spend a fortune on these machines, but I find that any of their fuzzy-logic models, often available at Costco, do an excellent job.

Sous vide

Sous vide has now gotten to the price point where there's almost no excuse not to have one if you eat meat. Sous vide cooks things in a water bath, so instead of applying high heat to the outside until the inside reaches the desired temperature, the whole piece of meat is cooked in a water bath — cooked perfectly evenly to the exact target temperature. It is literally impossible to overcook.

Induction burner

If you've ever wished you had a spare burner, a portable induction cooktop comes in handy. It's also great for bringing to the table to make your steak Diane or bananas Foster. Induction is safe for kids because it uses magnets, not a heated surface — you can touch the burner when it's on, and it's completely cool. But because it uses magnets, it works only with cast iron and certain stainless steel alloys.

Larchwood cutting boards

I long for one of these boards. Cutting boards should be wood, which protects your knives and can be sanded down periodically to keep bacteria from breeding in the cut marks. But my inexpensive bamboo boards work just fine. But if you're looking for something fancy to give the cook who seems to have everything, consider upgrading their cutting board.

Amazon Echo

This is not, strictly speaking, a kitchen gadget. But it streams your music from Pandora and Amazon music, delivers news and podcasts, will perform simple conversions — how many pounds in 500 grams, for example — and makes a pretty good Bluetooth speaker And it does all of this at voice command when your hands are covered in gunk.

Thermomix

Just as I always begin with the humble lemon zester, I always end the guide with this machine, which is the opposite: a hypertrophied kitchen appliance that chops, stirs and even cooks the food for you. Being able to cook and stir at once reduces a lot of tedious kitchen tasks, from sauce-making to caramelizing onions for bacon jam to a few seconds of prep work. No other appliance in my kitchen has done so much to save me time and effort in the kitchen, making it easy to produce great food even when I don't feel I have time to cook.

The sticking point is the price.

The new TM5 comes in around $1,800. They are incredibly constructed and seem to last forever, but it is a lot of money to spend on kitchen candy.

The good news is that they are now being distributed in the U.S., so you no longer have to skulk off to Canada to order one.