Best Place to Score Kitchen Widgets

Anyone who's obsessed with cooking and culinary presentation will be pawing the plate-glass front window of Sur La Table to get at the extravagant display of high-tech pots, pans and steamers designed to reel in the addicted, hook, line and sinker. Stuffed into 5,000 square feet of retail space is virtually everything ever conceived for roasting, toasting, poaching and/or hosting.

There are pans and electric rice cookers here big enough for a potlatch, as well as pricey copper stockpots and a complete line of Le Creuset enameled cookware. You'll even find a chic sauté setup for creating cherries jubilee among at least 11 different chafing and fondue (yep, it's baaaack!) dishes. Not to mention a myriad of melon ballers, microplane graters and citrus zesters. And real Moroccan couscous steamers and tagines.

The equivalent of a fun shop for kitchen magicians, this culinary hardware store also carries related non-cooking items, like candles for intimate dining à deux or products to clean those pesky red wine stains some uncultured slob unceremoniously deposited on that favorite antique tablecloth.