Everywhere & Anywhere: Passepartout

John's thoughts and commentary

Forget Art Galleries, Take Me To A Kitchen Store

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I just go nuts in gadget places and can waste hours in hardware and cooking supply stores. Especially fun are the restaurant supply places with their giant mixers and mongo aluminum cookware. IKEA, Home Goods and Bed, Bath and Beyond can transfix me, too.

But the high-end kitchen stores are above even those wonderful places. With their colorful crockery stacked on steel rollaway carts, they are the art galleries of housewares.

One of my faves is the Chef's Gallery in Stillwater, MN. Yesterday we stopped there on our quest for the perfect kitchen compost pail. I was easily distracted by all the shiny stuff: All-Clad pans, Roseli utensils, Le Creuset pots, Wusthoff knives ... sigh.

I whipped out my iPhone and snapped these photos. An employee asked me to stop -- it's against store policy. Sorry, ma'am, but your store is just too gorgeous to deny me. And so I share with you, dear readers.

Flood pictures, Stillwater, MN

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The Saint Croix flooded its banks this month. The bridge spanning the river from Stillwater, MN, to Houlton, WI, was closed this week but reopened on Friday.

The riverside promenade was entirely submerged. The river is normally 10-15 feet below the bridge. Today it was lapping at the base.