The “Pasta & Parmesan” tool from Swedish housewares design firm Sagaform combines one not-that-necessary kitchen tool, the pasta serving measurement guide, and one nearly essential one, the grater. It also has an open edge of one side for cutting larger hunks of cheese, which seems like a good idea unless it makes the grating surface too unstable to use without an annoying spring. Oh, and you can flip it over to use as a teethed ladle for pulling the pasta out of the water.
Not a bad multi-tasker all around, but it’s exactly the sort of “one sheet of stamped metal” design that should cost five bucks but will probably end up being more like thirty since it’s Scandinavian. Wait for the IKEA clone—but if you can’t, the Sagaform model should be in store as soon as next month.
Pasta & Parmesan all-in-one tool [Core77.com]
So, you get to grate the cheese with the wet thing you just scooped the pasta out with? No, thanks.
Those grater holes don’t look sharp to me, either. Once you’ve tried one of the Microplane laser-cut graters, you’ll never look at anything else.
I second the vote for Microplane graters. In fact, the number 1 kitchen gadget I want would be a Cuisinart grater disc with Microplane style teeth. Too bad they don’t seem to make them.
Also, I find pasta measurement thingies unnecessary; my rule of thumb is a cross-sectional area of about the size of a quarter is one person’s worth. I cut the end of the pasta packet to leave a hole of that size.
Oh, and the ‘toothed ladle’ pasta scoops are pretty worthless. Tongs work better.