cute and cheeky CHOW

CHOW's toothpicks and spatula

I was excited to win CHOW’s best vegetarian recipe honours, and as if that weren’t enough, their lovely editor, Jill Santopietro (I’m a fan of her former cooking videos for the New York Times and her current CHOW videos), sent me a prize.

I wasn’t surprised, but I was impressed at how well their branded pieces matched CHOW’s kitchen persona: useful and fun, informative but not too serious. I smiled at the t-shirt print: a descending line of kitchen knives ending, cheekily, with a bandage. My favourite piece was the tiny toothpick package printed with both practical uses like checking the doneness of a cake, and less expected suggestions, like, um, eating them (click on the image above for a larger view.) The branding appealed to the inner-marketing nerd in me even more than the cook–it comes from working in magazines for a decade. Still, don’t think I wasn’t excited about using that cheery, crimson spatula in the kitchen.

ouch!