Salad: The Dry Look

Here’s a slick, generous-sized salad spinner from OXO Good Grips, the company which makes our favorite potato peelers and can openers. You just press down the knob on top to set the basket inside the nonslip, dishwasher-safe bowl spinning and, bingo, your lettuce is dried. It even has a black button to stop the spinning.

OXO Good Grips Salad Spinner, $24.99, from major retailers and specialty stores.

Leaf Bowls

In India, these little bowls, about 4 inches across, are used for serving street snacks and then are thrown away, because they’re biodegradable--in fact, compostable. They’re made from the dried leaves of Butea frondosa (a tree also known as flame-of-the-forest because of its bright red-orange flowers). We can use them over here in place of paper plates at parties and picnics, and get conversational value out of them to boot.

Botanika Leaf Bowls, set of 10 for $12, from Soolip, West Hollywood.

Lobster Made Easy

Lobster, tasty though it may be, does not come in a user-friendly form. Here are some high-carbon stainless steel shears especially designed to crack that shell and those claws. It has cushioned handles and locks closed for easy storage.

Lobster Shears, $49.95, from Sur La Table, Pasadena, or (800) 243-0852.

Our Favorite Marsh Salt

Sea salt is made by evaporating seawater with minimal subsequent refining, so it retains a real tang of the sea. This brand comes from a town in southern France where salt-making is the traditional industry (the town’s name, Aigues-Mortes--literally, “dead waters”--refers to the salt marshes that surround it). Baleine Sea Salt, iodized and available as either fine or coarse crystals, is a brand that goes back to 1856--and it’s at a very good price.

Baleine Sea Salt, 26 ounces for $2.50 to $2.95, at supermarkets, including Vons Pavilions, and gourmet retailers such as HomeChef, Pasadena and Newport Beach; Bristol Kitchens, South Pasadena, Palos Verdes Estates and Westlake Villae ; and Surfas, Culver City.