Holiday Spirits
Some of the most memorable gifts I’ve received have been small bottles of liqueur wrapped in bows, jam jars stuffed with sweet and savory concoctions, bottles of cordials infused for months or obscure...
Culinary Style
Drive down U.S. 6 in St. Joseph County, Indiana, and you’ll see a lot of the things you’d expect on an Indiana highway: woods, corn, cows. But just east of downtown Walkerton, you probably wouldn’t be expecting a pair of giant whisks and a spatula.
When you walk through the whisks flanking the door to the New Kitchen Store, you see a range of high-end cookware and supplies more likely to be found in Indianapolis or Chicago than small-town, rural Indiana.
This is the second location for the store since owners Phyllis and Charles Wille opened it downtown in 2006, growing out of their original business, Triple Cross Antiques & Collectibles. The store has been at its current location since 2012.
Conversation is key to what the store does. “They get educated on what they’re fixing to buy,” Phyllis says of their customers. The store also offers an in-house warranty. “That’s why we consider ourselves a service business,” she says, and not just one of many other retail stores.
Whether it’s pots and pans, very cool and stylishly designed kitchenware, coffee, tea or spices—or even a cooking class or demonstration in the soon-to-be operational kitchen—there is something for every cook here.
Tassen Dishware, FIFTYEIGHT Products
These cereal bowls, coffee cups, flower vases and more each have their own personality. German-made, each is designed with its own silly or serious expressive face.
Hestan Culinary Cookware
Italian-made Hestan offers stainless steel, titanium and copper-bond cookware. Rated tops by food media and chefs around the world, these pans are lauded as versatile, durable and elegant.
Alessi Aldo Rossi Kettle
Alessi is known for its stylish kettles and barware, among many other things. Their Aldo Rossi–designed Il Conico is a work of art, one that will make you seriously consider cranking up the water softener before you put water with the slightest bit of hardness in it.
Zwilling Double Wall Glass
The company famous for knives, cookware, gadgets and tools also has a line of double-walled, mouth-blown borosilicate glass that keeps your drink hot and your hand cool. The insulation goes both ways, too, so look for the tumbler for your next Old Fashioned.
EVA Solo Tea Maker
For the serious tea drinker, this tea maker consists of a borosilicate glass flask and a filter/plunger insert. Teas that can steep for longer go into the flask and stay there when the tea is poured out through the lidded filter. Shorter-steeping teas go right in the filter and then the plunger separates them from the tea, like a French press does for coffee grounds. It also comes with an insulating neoprene sleeve.
Bredemeijer Tea Sets
Serious tea drinkers will love these teapots and tea sets, made of glass, clay or cast iron. The 1.2-liter Umea pot has a coordinating warmer and mugs.
JIA Fudo Bowl
This classic bone china noodle bowl fits in your palms, with simple chopsticks to boot. If you have a ramen fan who likes to slurp in style, these would be a great fit.
Petrified Wood Boards
Made from petrified trees found in Thailand when builders were digging the basement for a high-rise tower, these limited-edition slices of mineralized wood have been polished and refined for use at home.
The New Kitchen Store
1100 Roosevelt Rd.
Walkerton, IN
574.586.2475
newkitchenstore.com
Mike Petrucelli is a former food editor for the South Bend Tribune who now works in nonprofit communications. He and his wife live in Plymouth, Indiana.
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