My new knife is a 10 1/2 inch MAC Bread/Roast knife, purchased from The Epicurean Edge. Carol works with a guy that buys so many knives that he’s on a first name basis with the people who run the Epicurean Edge. Knowing that Carol was looking for a new bread knife, he called them up and they suggested the MAC.

It’s a great knife: sharp, well-balanced, and it cuts through a loaf of bread like, well, a hot knife through butter. Our old bread knife–part of a set of cheap Farberware knives that I bought from Target when I moved into my first apartment–was not a great knife. Cutting through a crusty loaf of the Macrina Bakery’s Guiseppe bread we pick up at the Metropolitan Market would require considerable and rather forceful sawing, resulting in a crushed, misshapen bread slice. The new knife practically cuts the loaf just by looking at it, intimidating the bread into falling into even slices. I like it.

One of my favorite pieces of cookware in my kitchen is my red Le Crueset cast-iron round oven. It’s heavy as heck, but it sure can make a great pot of stew. This past weekend I made a big batch of chili–I’ll post the recipe soon–and my heavy red pot did its job nicely, evenly heating the chili with a constant low heat. It’s a great size, too, especially for just the two of us. We’ve been eating left-over chili for three days now. If you don’t have one of these things, you should pick one up. They’re not cheap, but it’s something that could stay in your family for generations.