When visiting a vacation home, what do you bring from your kitchen?

Can’t figure how to edit that post, but I forgot something else.

I always pack my micro plane graters. A large for cheese and one for zesting.

It might sound a lot, all the small stuff gets wrapped in dish towels and packed in a shoebox. The biggest thing is the bbq, but it has earned it’s place in the boot. If I could add a le creuset pot, I would, but that would really try my husbands patience. We always say we are one holiday away from buying a roof rack!! x

We have a car top carrier :slight_smile:

After many years of my family laughing at me for often having a decent knife stashed behind the driver’s seat of my car I just bought a “travelers set” of knives. They aren’t wonderful, the low end Wusthof, but the whole set was only $85 and I won’t be broken hearted if I misplace part of it. I plan to leave it in the car for driving vacations as well as those frustrating times when you’re cooking at someone else’s house and trying to hack through the vegetables with what feels like a butter knife. By the way, the next grade up in Wusthof is also available for $149.

http://www.cutleryandmore.com/wusthof-gourmet/travelers-cutlery-set-p132146?gclid=CNKnstS73MgCFc5efgodM4YChg

I take three knives - medium sized “chefs knife”, small paring knife and a small serrated edge one. We don’t do much cooking - we’re on holiday from normal life. In fact, during our three week trip to Spain in February, I don’t think we cooked any dinners, so even the knives didnt get used much. When we do cook, I find that we’re usually OK with whatever is there in the kitchen although, occasionally, we’ve had to buy an item such as a chopping board when the one there hasnt seemed particularly hygienic (although it takes a lot for me to be concerned about kitchen hygiene).

The Maine cottage we visit is less than 2 hours away so no worries about luggage. I agree that knives are paramount, and bring my favorite carbon steel chef knife and a sharpening steel, plus a more random collection of paring knives. A rabbit-type corkscrew extractor is vital, and some years I even bring an ancient Wear-Ever manual juice press if the demand for fresh lime juice is expected to be high. Bringing the Thermapen is never wrong, either. The cottage is well-equipped for cutting boards and lobster cooking, but I also bring corn holders, silicone mittens, and tongs for grilling and bonfires. Full tea kit is important. I did wise up about bringing my waffle iron, as we never end up making any there.

I take a lot. I have done both house swaps and rental apartment/houses, and not one of them has been well-equipped. Rentals are particularly bad, but just because someone lives in a house, doesn’t mean that their kitchen is well stocked.

chef knife
paring knife
bread knife
knife steel
medium microplane
rubber spatula (2) one medium, one small
fish spatula
12" tongs
very small strainer
black pepper grinder with pepper
kosher salt [not too much]
5 dishtowels
coffee grinder and some starter beans

This past trip we had to buy a cutting board [not one place had one bigger than about 3"x5"] and a citrus reamer [really, in Spain your are renting houses with no way to juice that lovely citrus that grows right there?] I will probably add these things to my list of things to carry.

A knife and cutting board
I pick up fresh ground coffee beans on the way
Manual can opener, I keep one in the glove box anyway
Last trip I brought the wooden reamer because I knew we would be making cocktails and shopping for citrus

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It’s an interesting question but answerable without presuming some circumstances–travel mode and length of time, chiefly.

People have already said much I agree with. But I’ll add that even with a short stay, provided I don’t fly (because I never check bags), I’d take a chef’s knife, honer, herbs and spices in ziplock bags, and (often overlooked) a filled pepper mill (rental places generally have that pre-ground pepper, which is often worthless).

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