Jessica Harlan in her Food for Thought blog talks about how essential parchment paper is in her kitchen duties. That’s a new kitchen item to me. She lists it as one of the seven tools she can’t live without:

I am constantly finding new uses for parchment paper. I use it to line sheet pans to prevent cookies or roasted vegetables from sticking. I sift flour onto a sheet of it, then roll it like a funnel to pour it into a mixing bowl. I use strips of it to skim grease off the surface of a pot of soup. I wrap fine cheeses in it to store in the refrigerator. It’s like the Duct Tape of the kitchen.

She goes for color-coded flexible plastic cutting mats, too.