The Kitchen Plastic Wrap Ina Garten Swears By
Spending a few hours in the kitchen can be a fun and creative way to calm down after a long day, but the satisfaction of whipping up the perfect meal quickly disappears when you realize the cleanup job that awaits you once the oven has been turned off. Ingredients need to be returned to their rightful places in the refrigerator, pantry, or spice cabinet, countertops need to get wiped down, and there's a pile of dishes in the sink that need to get loaded into the dishwasher. Great.
Oh, and don't forget to put away your leftovers, which means having to pull out that pesky box of plastic wrap that comes with its own set of problems — why is it so difficult to tear a piece off, and why does it always ball up before you can get it over your plate? Maybe it would just be better to polish off the rest of your meal so you don't have to deal with the stuff, but then again, that means another dish you'll have to scrub.
Fortunately, this is the 21st century and kitchen technology has advanced in many ways, including in the realm of cling wrap. There's a tool out there that will ease all your anxieties about using the thin, see-through plastic covering, and it's a good one — it is backed by the one and only Ina Garten, after all.
Ina Garten loves Stretch-Tite plastic wrap and its ingenious dispenser
Is there any kitchen issue that Garten doesn't have a solution for? She's got a trick to make fresh herbs last longer, can tell you how to get the crunchy caramelized sugar topping on crème brûlée without a blow torch, and has the perfect solution to take the hassle out of cutting a piece of plastic wrap. The "Barefoot Contessa" recently revealed her secret tool after a fan wrote into her website inquiring about what it was she was using. "I have used the Stretch-Tite 7500 plastic wrap dispenser for years and absolutely love it," she said, noting it can be purchased from Cassandra's Kitchen.
The device is made to fit rolls of her favorite Stretch-Tite Premium Plastic Wrap and simply takes a gentle tap on the lid to seamlessly cut a piece of plastic every time (via Cassandra's Kitchen). Garten's stamp of approval on the Stretch-Tite 7500 plastic wrap dispenser certainly holds some weight, as she has said a number of times that she doesn't like to clutter her kitchen with unnecessary gadgets. "I don't have a lot of fancy equipment; I have just things that anybody else would have in their kitchen," she explained to NYT Cooking. "Maybe a few more, but not a lot, nothing that anybody can't have themselves." Clearly, this plastic wrap dispenser is worth a buy!