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At Home With Patricia Wells - Cooking classes in Paris and Provence, Cookbooks and Restaurant Reviews.

Taste of the Week: Unsung star of the kitchen

Emily Buchanan September 25, 2015

I am not one for cluttering my kitchen with unnecessary kitchen gadgets. I prize my counter top and storage space, so every piece of equipment has to earn it's place. For me, the electric spice mill is an unsung star of the kitchen and has to rate among my top five favorite kitchen tools. It's of course essential for making my own spice mixes, but is also a dependable little machine for grinding, mixing and blending quantities too small for a blender or food processor, such as kaffir lime powder, dressings, sauces and pastes. It saves on the cleaning up too! A clever trick for cleaning after grinding spices is to grind a small quantity of rice, empty, and then wipe clean with paper towel.

What's your favorite kitchen gadget?

Patricia Wells is a journalist, cookbook author and cooking school instructor living between her homes in Paris + Provence.

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Patricia Wells

Patricia Wells – journalist, author, and cooking teacher – is an American who has lived in Paris since 1980. She is the author of 13 books, including The French Kitchen Cookbook, Simply Truffles, Vegetable Harvest, We've Always Had Paris...and Provence, Bistro Cooking, Simply French, and Trattoria. Her first book, The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris, was a landmark work that "cracked the code" to the Paris food world. (The Food Lovers Guide iPhone app is available from the iTunes store, and an all new version of the print edition is scheduled for March publication.) She is the only woman and only foreigner to serve as restaurant critic of a major French publication, the newsweekly L’Express. From 1980 to 2007 she served as restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune. Previously, she was a writer and editor for The Washington Post and The New York Times.

She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her contributions to French culture, and received an honorary doctorate from Muhlenberg College in 2013 and another in gastronomic journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2007. Several of her books have received the James Beard and IACP awards, and most of them have been translated into several languages. At certain times of the year, she conducts week-long cooking classes both in her cooking studio in Paris and at her farmhouse in Provence. She is married to Walter Wells, retired executive editor of the International Herald Tribune and now her enthusiastic sous-chef.