Gadgets Schmadgets - Kitchen Towel Salad Spinner

When I taught cooking classes, I had a super cool regular client named Kathy with a fabulously tricked out kitchen overlooking the water that I absolutely LOVED cooking in. Kathy was a retired attorney turned budding fiction writer who discovered a love of cooking, and kitchen gadgets, later in life.

I have fond memories of showing her how to steam a whole fish, grill a perfectly medium rare butterflied leg of lamb and cook a Vietnamese dinner for 10, me armed with my apron and a 5 dollar Kiwi cleaver, and she with an armory of gadgets to fill her own little corner of Williams-Sonoma. 

One of the things I loved about cooking with Kathy is that while she thoroughly enjoyed utilizing her kitchen gadgets, she clearly did not believe they were necessary for good cooking (or she certainly wouldn't have kept hiring me). It's almost as if they fulfilled a separate interest for doodads and mechanisms that was happily coincidental with the making of a meal.

I would roll a lime and cut 4 flat pieces of it around the core before squeezing (because that cut gets more juice out of the fruit than a wedge cut), while she would reach into the drawer for her citrus reamer. I would smash the garlic clove on the cutting board with my cleaver to remove the skin while she would roll it around in her garlic peeler tube thingamajig. I would then mince the garlic with the same cleaver while she worked it through a garlic press.

We had a peaceful coexistence and cooperation in that kitchen despite our diametrically opposed views on the usefulness of most kitchen gadgets. But I have a feeling Kathy might be thoroughly unhappy to cook in my comparatively Spartan kitchen. This is not to say I don't have a handful of gadgets whose purpose I deem unique or efficient but essential and otherwise irreplaceable enough to warrant their purchase (think microplane, food processor, vegetable peeler...). I just steer very clear of single purpose gadgets, particularly those that take lots of room. (Wait, I think I've mentioned this before.)

So while Kathy would break out her futuristic looking stainless steel salad spinner to dry the arugula that was going to top our Delmonico steak, I would be reaching for a clean kitchen towel. Because a clean kitchen towel, in addition to drying hands and dishes, holding a cutting board in place and acting as a makeshift potholder among other things, also makes a most excellent salad spinner which also happens not to take up a whole cubic foot of space in anyone's kitchen.

How To Spin Your Salad In A Dishrag...

1) Place your washed greens in the center of a clean kitchen towel.

spring greens on kitchen towel

2) Gather the sides and corners of the towel and hold them together in your fist so it looks like a beggar's purse. (The fisted technique is essential as any other hold will likely result in airborne salad.)

3) Take that puppy outside, away from windows, and give it a good 50 consecutive whirls in the same direction or until beads of water are no longer flying about your perimeter. This creates the same centrifugal force that a salad spinner would and dries your greens without jostling and damaging them.

4) !Voila! Spun salad, $30+ bucks happily spent (or saved) elsewhere, and a whole cubic foot of storage/counter space better left to things like a blender or your cat.

Did I mention I was...

...ridiculous???

shinae