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A New You in the New Year


As we say good-bye to the holiday season and look toward a new year, many of us start thinking about how to change ourselves for the better.  That’s where the New Year’s resolution comes in.  One consistently popular resolution across the years: to lose weight.  This is reality for the over 60 percent of Americans who are classified as overweight or obese.

For many, diet is a major contributor to weight gain.  It’s not always easy to eat the 5–9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day suggested by the USDA food pyramid, or to cut back on fats and oils.  For those people who want to improve their eating habits, starting with small steps can go a long way toward overall improvement.  Follow William Bounds as we demonstrate a few ways our products can help make a new you in the New Year.

Instead of adding fats like butter or mayonnaise to foods, why not try a fresher approach with ground pepper or salt?  Spices are a great way to add a pop of flavor to foods without added fat and calories.  To try a new twist on traditional pepper, William Bounds offers a number of tantalizing peppercorns, from the spicy and rich Tellicherry black peppercorns, to the slightly fruity Brazilian green peppercorns, to the hot and musky Muntok white peppercorns.  Like pepper, many varieties of salt exist beyond the typical fine-grain table salt.  To explore the possibilities, check out our recent blog post on William Bounds’ nontraditional salts.

Spices other than salt and pepper can also be added with the help of William Bounds’ Multi-Use Mill.  Whether it’s shaved garlic, ginger, or even dried chili peppers, this durable mill is ideal for adding an extra kick to foods.  As extra incentive to use the mill again and again, this multipurpose kitchen tool is easily disassembled for easy cleaning.

Another small way to improve dietary health is to add flaxseed to foods.  Flaxseed is a tiny wonder plant that can help reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes, and can ease the symptoms of inflammation and hot flashes.  Its healthfulness comes from its richness in Omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, and lignans, known for their antioxidant qualities.  Since its recent rediscovery as a wonder food, flaxseed can be found in a number of commercial products, including tortilla chips, oatmeal, and frozen waffles; however, many experts agree the most health benefits are gained from freshly ground flaxseed.  William Bounds’ Flax Seed Mill can help you get your daily 1–2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed.  Flaxseed blends seamlessly into many foods, from salads to cereal to smoothies.

William Bounds celebrates your commitment to a new you in the New Year, and we hope our tips and products can help you achieve your weight-loss goals.

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A New Seasoning this Season: A Nontraditional Take on Salt


Since ancient times, people have treasured salt for its useful applications.  Perhaps most notably, salt allowed people to preserve foods, eliminating their dependence on seasonal food growth and allowing for long voyages.  But salt was a difficult-to-obtain commodity; wars were fought over it, and kingdoms were created and destroyed because of it.  Salt was once so valuable, it was used as currency.  Today, table salt is cheap and readily available, and it is used in many modern applications, from deicing driveways to putting out fires.  Most people know salt best as a traditional cooking seasoning.  But many people might not know that salt varieties extend well beyond the traditional grains in the everyday shaker.

Balinese Hollow Pyramid Sea Salt

William Bounds partners with Bali producer Big Tree Farms to provide coarse grain Balinese sea salt in a unique hollow pyramid shape.  These curious crystals appear nowhere else in the world, as they are naturally produced by cool, windy days at the end of Bali’s monsoon season.  Balinese Hollow Pyramid Sea Salt features a delicate salty flavor with a slight sweetness and a bright finish.  This salt brings a fun visual accent to any dish.

Flower of Bali Sea Salt

Once again, William Bounds partners with Big Tree Farms to offer this Balinese version of fleur de sel, characterized by fluffy, snowflake-like crystals. This salt’s naturally high levels of magnesium produce a slightly sweet flavor, and low moisture content makes the crystals easy to pour.  Fleur de sel has been prized since ancient times for its ability to intensify the flavor of foods.

Kosher Salt

Unlike traditional table salt, kosher salt typically contains no additives, like iodide, and it features a much larger, flatter grain.  Kosher salt gets its name from its usefulness in “koshering” meats, or coating meats in a thin layer of salt to absorb surface blood.  Many fine chefs substitute kosher salt for table salt in their cooking.  To make the substitution, it’s most efficient to measure each salt in equal weights, because kosher salt has greater volume than table salt.

California Garlic Coarse Sea Salt

This fresh blend combines the crisp flavor of coarse sea salt with garlic from Gilroy, California, nicknamed “The Garlic Capital of the World.”  This flavorful salt makes a great addition to salt-encrusted foods like baked potato skins.

Celtic Grey Onion Salt

This blend features light grey Celtic salt combined with minced onion.  Unlike most salts, Celtic grey onion salt is not dried when harvested, so it retains moisture.  Because of its moisture, this salt can be used as is or ground with a mortar and pestle set or a non-metallic spice mill; it should not be used in a conventional salt grinder unless it is dried first.  If quick-dried in a frying pan, this savory salt produces a rich toasted flavor.

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Deck the Halls With Holiday Cocktails


Whether you’re celebrating the holidays with wine, mixed drinks, or just plain soda, did you know William Bounds offers barware and accessories to make your holiday cocktails a hit?

To chill your bottle of bubbly in style, ice it in the Grainware Regal Wine Cooler.  The Grainware Regal Wine Cooler features the durability of acrylic and the sophisticated look of glass.  Its elegant fluted rim adds a touch of class to any home bar.  For larger events, the Grainware Party Tub keeps six bottles of wine or champagne comfortably cool for hours, so the party never has to stop!

Of course, some revelers prefer mixed drinks to wine or champagne.  What better way to celebrate the holidays and ring in the New Year than with an old fashioned or a mint julep?  These potentially tricky drinks are made simple with the Sili Muddler—a must-have accessory for any drink cart or home bar.  The curvaceous Sili Muddler is stylish and durable, thanks to its silicone and stainless steel design.  Unlike traditional wooden muddlers, the Sili Muddler won’t split or splinter during the most enthusiastic muddling.  Because the head is silicone, it also resists odors, stains, and bacteria.

Don’t forget the tool everyone can use, whether they’re drinking an old fashioned or a soda—a sturdy and attractive ice bucket.  William Bounds’ Grainware line offers a variety of fun and fashionable ice buckets.  The Grainware Ice Bucket with Tongs provides a simple, yet elegant way to display ice.

To add an extra holiday “pop” to sweet drinks like cosmopolitans and cape cods, dust the rims with an eye-catching colored sugar, like green gourmet sugar.  Red and green sugars bring festive flair to even the simplest drinking glasses.

Those are just a few ways William Bounds can make your holiday cocktails memorable.  It’s up to you to provide the drinks!

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Sweet Tooth for Holiday Sugar Cookies


This time of year, it seems no one can resist that classic holiday staple: the sugar cookie. The best thing about sugar cookies, besides the great taste? Each cookie is a sweet palette waiting to be decorated!

Decorating cookies is also a great way to include kids in the kitchen. Use your favorite holiday cookie cutters to cut the dough into merry shapes like snowmen, stars, and Christmas trees. Don’t forget to flex your culinary creativity by topping your cookies with William Bounds’ gourmet sugars in fun colors! There’s white sugar for snowmen, yellow and blue sugars for stars—even green sugar for Christmas trees. Your holiday sugar cookies are limited only by your imagination.

While William Bounds’ gourmet sugars will help make your cookies fun and festive, our Sili Gourmet Measuring Cups and Measuring Spoons will help make your holiday cooking easy. The flexible cups and spoons are color coded to easily identify the measurements you need. They’re also non-stick and non-staining. Quality materials like dishwasher-safe, heat-resistant silicone and stainless steel handles come together in these durable baking accessories you’ll love for many holiday seasons to come. Give them a try this year with this easy and delicious recipe for rolled sugar cookies.

ROLLED SUGAR COOKIES

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

DIRECTIONS:

In a mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover bowl and chill for at least one hour to firm dough.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400°F. Sprinkle flour on a flat surface and roll out dough to a thickness of 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

Here’s where your creativity comes in! Use cookie cutters and William Bounds’ sugars to give these sugar cookies your own special touch. When finished decorating, place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 6–8 minutes. Cool completely before serving.

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Season’s Grindings from William Bounds: Gift Guide #5


Grainware Diamond Ice Bucket

What do you get the wine and spirits enthusiast or entertainer who has everything?  Look no further than William Bounds’ Grainware, a line of high-end acrylic barware so stunning and chic, party guests will think it’s art.  At second glance, guests will notice Grainware’s practical side as functional barware.  What an easy way to add style and promote conversation with the same product!  Two items that are sure to make unique gifts: Grainware Grand Stemware and Grainware ice buckets.

Grainware Grand Stemware provides the ultimately stylish portable bar—in an oversized drinking glass.  Grand Stemware offers four acrylic “glass” styles: champagne, white wine, red wine, and the ultimate party server—martini.  Each of these giant beauties measures 36–47 inches high and can hold several bottles of wine or liquor on ice.  The wide-brimmed martini server can keep everything from the gin, the vermouth, the glasses—even the olives—on ice.  The uses for Grand Stemware are limited only by the imagination!  One thing is certain, Grand Stemware will add a unique touch of style to any holiday event.

Not to be outdone by the grand scale of Grand Stemware, Grainware ice buckets offer eye-catching elegance in a compact package.  These ice buckets blend the beauty of cut crystal and the durability of acrylic into several fun and attractive designs.  The intriguing Diamond Ice Bucket, fashioned to look like a diamond resting on its side, offers all the cut, color, and clarity of a fine gem—in an acrylic ice bucket!  For the golf enthusiast, there’s the Golf Ball Ice Bucket, shaped like an oversized golf ball, complete with dimples.  Perhaps the most innovative design is the best-selling Planet Earth Ice Bucket, a square ice bucket that features a delicate globe inside—an interesting and sophisticated centerpiece guests are sure to enjoy.  With so many smart and modern varieties, Grainware ice buckets are perfect for adding that unique touch of style to any holiday event.

This stylish, quality acrylic art can only be found in William Bounds’ Grainware line of serveware and barware.  Visit our website to see other exciting Grainware gifts!

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Season’s Grindings from William Bounds: Gift Guide #4


As seen on the Today Show

In our last gift guide, we shared our favorite ideas for stocking stuffers.  In today’s guide, we’ll show you a gift that, at just $20, would also make a great stocking stuffer, but we think it’s fabulous enough to deserve its own gift wrap.  After all, it revolutionizes two cooking actions in one easy-to-use product!

Introducing one of our best-selling items: the William Bounds Sili Gourmet Baster/Injector Set, featured on The Today Show.  Flavor will never be far from your grasp with this multipurpose tool!  This set features a 15-inch stainless steel tube crowned by a flat-topped silicone bulb, which allows the unit to stand upright on the counter and eliminates drippy messes.  From there, this tool does double duty.  A state-of-the-art basting attachment features widely spaced, ball-headed silicone bristles that will evenly distribute butters, oils, and sauces, and will never shed on to your food.  Because the bristles are silicone, they’re dishwasher safe and easy to clean, unlike traditional basting brushes that can get food wedged in the bristles.  When you’re ready to take a break from basting, there’s also a needle attachment to inject flavor directly into foods.  The Sili Gourmet Baster/Injector set is heat resistant up to 500 degrees and is ideal for use in the oven, on the range, or on the barbecue.

This set is a dream for anyone who loves working with meats—just be sure this gift gets opened before cooking that holiday ham or turkey!

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Season’s Grindings from William Bounds: Gift Guide #3


Follow William Bounds as we show you some of our amazing stocking stuffer ideas!

Sharp Shooter Mill in Black

Let gravity crush your spices with the William Bounds Sharp Shooter Battery Mill, available in black or red.  This battery-powered mill springs into action when tilted over your plate, dispensing pepper without knobs or cranks.  Simply stand the mill upright to stop the flow.  Like all William Bounds mills, the Sharp Shooter Battery Mill is fully adjustable, providing coarse to very fine pepper.  The mill’s soft-touch exterior provides a comfortable, easy place to hold.  Lightweight and convenient, at just $30, this mill makes a great gift for anyone who loves freshly ground spices.

If you’re giving the gift of a William Bounds pepper mill this season, why not include some peppercorns, as well?  Our wide selection of gourmet peppercorns, from the rich and spicy Tellicherry black peppercorns to the light and fruity Brazilian green peppercorns, is sure to please any palette.

William Bounds’ Sili 9 Square Bake Liners easily fold into stockings!  Say good-bye to wax paper and line your baking pans with these handy silicone liners.  Sili Bake Liners separate food from the pan, preventing sticking and overbrowning.  Unlike wax paper, Sili Bake Liners are reusable and easy to clean, thanks to their nonporous, stain-resistant silicone construction.  At just $10 for a 2-pack, these liners are sure to impress even the casual baker!

Another Sili Gourmet item perfect for the stocking: the Sili Gourmet Tea Ball, ideal for preparing single cups of perfectly steeped loose-leaf tea.  A silicone cap makes adding and removing tea leaves simple, and smaller holes keep leaves inside the tea ball.  When you’re ready to remove the tea ball, grab the silicone bulb, which will always be cool to the touch.  The Sili Gourmet Tea Ball is constructed with quality stainless steel and silicone, making it nonstaining, heat resistant, dishwasher safe, and most important, durable.  As a fun bonus, the $10 Sili Gourmet Tea Ball offers a color to complement every kitchen: aqua, orange, pink, or green.

These are just a few William Bounds gifts perfect for stocking stuffers.  For more gift ideas, like flavored sugars and Sili Gourmet baking tools, visit our website.

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Season’s Grindings from William Bounds: Gift Guide #2


In our first gift guide, we showcased the William Bounds cinnamon mill and chocolate/multi-use mill gift set.  Our next great gift idea combines William Bounds’ lifetime-guaranteed milling mechanism with the sophistication and elegance of a little “bling”—because every cook deserves to feel like a celebrity!

Willam Bounds' Bling Pepper Mill

Beauty meets state-of-the-art functionality in our Bling pepper mill and Bling salt mill, two of our newest products making a statement on dining tables everywhere.  Each attractive mill features a clear acrylic body and a matte black base and top, accented with five diamond-like gems.  These shiny gems conceal a practical purpose: Each gem’s size corresponds to one of the mill’s five different grating settings, from coarse to very fine.  This visual cue makes it easy to get the setting right every time!

How does William Bounds make it so easy to grind fresh pepper and salt?  The secret is in the milling mechanism that sets our mills apart from traditional grinders.  In a traditional grinder, the twisting motion rotates a rod that turns metal wheels at the bottom of the grinder.  Whole peppercorns are drawn into the wheels and are ground between them, causing flecks of pepper to shave off.  In a William Bounds mill, peppercorns aren’t ground—they’re crushed.  This innovative design eliminates the metal-on-metal grinding that wears down competitors’ mills.  That means William Bounds’ milling mechanisms will not jam or wear out.   We trust our products so much, we offer a lifetime warranty on all our materials and workmanship.

Experience the William Bounds difference this year with the Bling pepper and salt mills.  At just $25 each, we make glamour affordable in a kitchen heirloom sure to be treasured for years to come.  Don’t forget to visit our website, which has some terrific stocking stuffer ideas to go along with our Bling mills!

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Season’s Grindings from William Bounds: Gift Ideas


December is upon us and minds are wandering toward eggnog, tinsel, and of course, holiday gifts!  This December, the William Bounds Gift Guide makes your holiday shopping easy by introducing some of our most popular gifts.

The first great gift from William Bounds: our popular cinnamon mill and chocolate/multi-use mill gift set, perfect for the avid baker or coffee aficionado in your life.

William Bounds' Cinnamon and Chocolate Mill Set

A consistent best seller in our online store, our chocolate/multi-use mill is a truly versatile kitchen tool.  Use it with chocolate morsels or chunks to create delicious and decorative shavings, ideal for adding a stylish touch to mochas, milkshakes, and desserts.  Simply add your favorite chocolate and turn the crank.  The milling mechanism is fully adjustable, so you get the right size of shavings for every project, every time.  This multi-use mill not only creates perfect chocolate shavings, it also works great on nuts and garlic.  And it’s easily disassembled for cleaning!

To add extra pizzazz to desserts  and warm beverages, William Bounds’ cinnamon mill pairs perfectly with the chocolate mill.  A fresh burst of ground cinnamon “pops” desserts like tiramisu and apple pie, and adds a warm seasonal touch to lattes, cappuccinos, and espressos—even hot chocolate.  Made with the same durable acrylic body and milling mechanism as the chocolate mill, your William Bounds cinnamon mill will produce freshly ground cinnamon for many holidays to come.

As part of William Bounds’ extensive pepper and spice mill collection, this gift set features our unique milling mechanism.  This stainless steel milling mechanism eliminates the metal-on-metal grinding that wears down competitors’ mills.  That means William Bounds’ milling mechanisms will not jam or wear out.   William Bounds trusts its products so much, it offers a lifetime warranty on all its materials and workmanship.  Even with this extensive warranty, in its more than 40-year history, William Bounds has never had to replace a single mill due to wear.

William Bounds’ cinnamon mill and chocolate/multi-use mill work great with our cinnamon chips and chunky chocolate.  For other great gift ideas from William Bounds, visit our website.

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William Bounds’ Four Quick Fixes for Thanksgiving Blunders


Whether Dad ate all the marshmallows or Auntie cooked the turkey with the giblet bag still inside, Thanksgiving dinner never turns out quite as planned.  Too many hours of preparation go into this special dinner to have it fall to a Thanksgiving blunder!  Follow William Bounds as we help guide you to a (mostly) perfect Thanksgiving dinner with these quick fixes for common holiday woes.

The problem: My turkey isn’t cooked!

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