The seemingly endless zucchini jokes reached their zenith about a month ago. (When do country folks lock their car doors? In August, for fear someone might slip a bag of zucchini in there.) Gardens were overrun with the stuff and guests wielded big lumpy specimens the size of baseball bats as "hostess gifts." Talk abounded of zucchini bread, zucchini carpaccio, zucchini gazpacho, zucchini pickles, fried zucchini sticks...you get the idea. This chatter has died down, and yet I have only just pulled the last few summer squash from my garden. If you, too, are still searching for quick and delicious ways to dispense with a surfeit of this green goodness, look no further than these crispy, gooey, mint-spiked fritters. Bonus: they can even be frozen for future enjoyment, when summer is just a twinkle in your eye.
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There's nothing especially hi-tech about any of these tools. In fact, most of them are quite rudimentary and have been around for ages. It's surprising how little you really need to get by in the kitchen. With a sharp knife, a good pair of tongs, a wooden spoon and the will to succeed, there's not much you can't accomplish. And yet people accrue all manner of nonsense: garlic presses, panini machines, immersion blenders. Just visit a Williams-Sonoma if you don't know what I'm talking about. Even the 5 pieces above—tiny whisk, mezzaluna, reamer, shears and microplane grater—might be seen as superfluous by some kitchen minimalists, and could probably be replaced by a fork and the aforementioned tongs and sharp knife. Still, these are some of my staunchest allies, helping me make short work of countless tedious prep tasks. If you don't own them all, perhaps you should.
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