Gifts for Dads

Shopping for your father or partner? Of course there are always going to be something new and gimmicky out depending on the season, but I have compiled a list of tried-and-true ideas for gifts for the special guy in your life that you should be able to find at a regular kitchen store. Shop locally, if you can!! ;)

BBQ Tools

Who doesn’t love to grill? And giving more grill utensils equals more delicious summer BBQs for you, right?! ;) Check out whatever is new for the season! Brands tend to change at even the big-name stores season-to-season, so keep that in mind.

Probe Thermometers - CDN, Polder, and Maverick Redi-Chek are all good brand names in probe thermometers and there’s quite a variety, so pay attention to what he grumbles about when cooking! The Maverick Redi-Chek probes are actually remote so you can take the receiver piece with you as you walk around the party and not have to stand by the grill to keep checking the temperatures. There are some that have multiple probes so you can measure different types of meat at the same time.

Maverick Redi-Chek dual-probe remote thermometer

Usually you can use probe thermometers in smokers, but they also make specific thermometers for smoking, too, like this Redi-Chek remote smoker thermometer.

Grill Lights - Make evening grilling easier! A huge seller is this kind of cool, little light that is attached to a magnet that you can attach to your metal spatula to get an even closer look at your burgers! (**Be careful - the ones I have utilized had a little plastic tube around the batteries that most people assumed was to ensure no battery power was wasted prior to purchase, but it actually required the plastic in order to work!)

Magnetic mini LED grill light attaches to any metal utensil!

Smoker Box - A smoker box is something you put pre-soaked wood chips into to infuse flavor into the meat you are grilling. Some are large enough and have a liquid compartment to pour water, beer, wine or whatever you want to infuse them with. There are now even “platform” smoker boxes that are large enough for the meat to sit directly on top of them.

Weber cast iron smoker box

Himalayan Salt Block - Another cool thing to infuse flavor into your meats or veggies when you grill. You can cook on these multiple times, and some people use them to serve on, as well. And how about a Salt Block Cooking cookbook to go with it?

Himalayan sea salt block

Grilling Planks - Yet another way to infuse flavor into your meat or veggies on the grill. Put them right on top of the plank to get the wood flavor directly in. These are single-use only, but you can add it to the fire afterwards to infuse a little flavor into whatever else you are grilling. You can usually find them in the same 'flavors' as other wood chips, like cedar, alder, and hickory.

Cedar grilling planks

Grill Gloves - High heat resistant gloves are a must-have if your guy owns a smoker or uses a really large charcoal grill. They are long to protect your arms, as well.

A variety of different grill gloves

BBQ Apron - Find a fun apron that says “Kiss the Cook” or “King of the Grill” or something else fun and cheeky. There are a lot of websites that will personalize an apron for you, too. Keep in mind most standard aprons are about $25-35 unless you are getting really serious about fabric and design, which obviously ups the price. You can also go the other way if your guy is more of an indoor chef and find him a nice chef’s coat.

Fun apron for dad!

Great Grilling Cookbooks

Steven Raichlen - www.barbequebible.com

Steven has several books now since his first, the Barbecue Bible, as well as hosting TV shows on PBS and teaching his Barbecue University classes.

Steven Raichlen's 'The Barbecue! Bible'

**Personal favorite!!** Elizabeth Karmel’s Soaked, Slathered, & Seasoned: A Complete Guide to Flavoring Food for the Grill. She has two other books, as well, but I am partial to this one because it’s smaller than Steven Raichlen’s book for one, and it is seriously a complete compendium for how to put meat on the grill, even with just oil, pepper and salt!

Elizabeth is the Executive Chef at Hill Country Barbecue in central Texas and has also leant her grilling prowess into a line of grilling tools under the name Grill Friends that can be found in a lot of kitchen stores.

Elizabeth Karmel's 'Soaked Slathered & Seasoned'

Bar Accouterments

Riedel Single-Malt Whisky/Whiskey Glass - For the serious whiskey drinker in your life, grab a set of these beautiful glasses, which bring out the full flavor of that expensive bottle of liquor he enjoys. Approved by a panel of Scotch whisky experts and master distillers in Scotland!

Riedel Single-Malt Whiskey Glass

…or just find some really fun cocktail glasses like these ones that look like ice from Bormioli Rocco or these ones that look like they are toppling over!

Sagaform wobbly whiskey glasses

Whiskey Stones - milled from a particular type of soapstone found in Vermont, this is a centuries-old Scandinavian way of keeping your liquor cool while avoiding watering down your beverage as normal ice would.

Whiskey Stones

Other Kitchen Goodies

My dad loves to make soups and stews in the winter, so another personal favorite is the cookbookThe Big Book of Soups and Stews. Pretty much any recipe you can think of is in this book, and I ended up buying it for myself, too, and use it very regularly!

Bacon/Grill Press - A heavy cast iron grill press will help eliminate the curl from back or ham when cooking on the stovetop or grilling. Works great as a sandwich press, too!

Lodge cast iron grill press

Food Dehydrator - Know someone who hunts and likes to make their own jerky? Or just loves appliances that are fun to play with. ;) For the serious, I recommend L’Equip’s 6-tray dehydrator. For the less serious (read: less expensive) you can probably find one starting at around $40-$50 price range, like this Ronco model.

Ronco food dehydrator

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I will try to think of more goodies, but this is a solid list of staples to think about year-to-year. The more tools you arm him with, the more delicious food you might receive in return!! What are your favorite gifts for Dads? I would love to add more to this list to help people out!

Cast Iron Cookware

Since we started talking about these guys with enamel, we now have to discuss in depth. For regular cast iron with no enamel coating:

Pros:

• All natural!
• Adds iron to your food
• Gets better with age – the more you season it, the more nonstick it will become. Make sure grandma leaves hers to you in her will! I met a man whose family had passed theirs down for over 100 years – he couldn’t believe how “rough” new cast iron feels!
• Hard to kill – if you accidentally wash it with soap, just re-season it! My friend found some badly treated cast iron second-hand and happened to be an art student with access to a sandblaster, so she sandblasted it and re-seasoned it – good as new!
• Lodge – the original cast iron, still made in the USA! 

Cons:

• Heavy
• Not supposed to wash with soap (but if you do, just re-season) or dishwasher
• This leads most people to have specific pans for specific things, and then they just don’t ever wash them, or rarely, at least.
• You can use a mild soap but make sure to dry and season immediately!

Nowadays, brand new cast iron pans will come “pre-seasoned”. This means that they put a bunch of pans in a giant oven and blasted them with vegetable oil. You’re still going to need to season it! Like I already said, the older the better, so you’re going to need to break this baby in. Lodge’s website has great use and care tips that I direct everyone to.

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Porcelain & Enamel Cookware

Chantal 1.5Qt. Saucepan

As I've mentioned before, enamel becomes glass. (This will come up again when we discuss dinnerware.) Glass is non-porous, meaning nothing gets in or out. So any of you thinking that all these funky colors they put on enamel cookware are going to leech into your food, fear not! Glass is also pretty tough, meaning you can be a little harder on these like you would with stainless. This also means you can use metal utensils! You will get surface scratching, but nothing that will damage the cookware.*

Chantal 10" Frypan w/ Helper Handle

Chantal has a patented enamel-on-steel product that really can’t be matched! They’ve been doing this for years—I actually met a girl who said her German grandmother had owned these pans for decades and passed them on to her. (They’re made in Germany!) Their newer line actually has a copper core and was created specifically for induction cook tops, but works well on all types of stoves. The drawback is it’s quite a bit heavier than their older lines, but they put “helper handles” on most pieces to assist. That would be a second short handle on the opposite side of the regular handle so you can grab with both hands.

Le Creuset 6.75Qt. Oval Oven

Porcelain enamel would be what you normally see on enameled cast iron, like Le Creuset, Staub, Lodge, and other brands of enameled dutch ovens.

Some enamels are cheaply made in places like China and I’ve heard negative things in the past about potential issues, but I can’t find anything about it now, so it must not be a problem. This would include the cheaper brands like Rachel Ray, Martha Stewart, and now even Lodge, which is made in the USA, but the enamel comes from China. This lowers the price so they can compete with the more expensive French brands Le Creuset & Staub.

Another great thing about Le Creuset and Staub is that they destroy the molds for everything they create so each piece is unique and well-crafted. If a mold goes in and out of the heat repeatedly, it's quality will break down over time and the end product will not be as good, either. So you're getting your money's worth!

Don’t confuse porcelain enamel cooking surface with the pans that are porcelain enamel with a nonstick cooking surface. Those pans are just nonstick with an enamel exterior. I have a Paula Deen grill pan that is porcelain enamel, and it’s just like any other nonstick—I’ve had it for a couple of years and use it frequently, so it’s starting to die. The exterior has held up really well, though, I must say. I’ve read mixed reviews on other brands holding up as well on the exterior, as well.

 

Paula Deen 11" Grill Pan

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*To clarify to the less graceful ones (like myself), if you drop the pan really hard, you can chip the exterior, which does not affect the cooking of the food, so no worries.  (Actually, if it's REALLY hard, you can damage the whole dang thing, which isn't covered in the lifetime warranty, kids!)