Restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila discovers cookware bargains on the way to Las Vegas
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We’d been driving for five hours, stuck for almost an hour behind an accident on the 15 Freeway going north to Las Vegas, when Primm and the Fashion Outlets of Vegas loomed in the distance. Should I remind my husband that the Williams-Sonoma outlet is there? I wavered, but in the end decided to do the right thing and told him.
Of course he wanted to stop. The discounts that day were deep -- 40% to 60% off the outlet prices in some categories. (They usually run for a week, Monday to Sunday.) The husband added to our collection of crystal glassware by Schott Zweisel with more hi-ball and gin-and-tonic glasses for $3.99 (normally several times that). He also picked up a nonstick silicon oven liner.
I vetoed the Cuisinart slow cooker (too big), ditto for the All-Clad version, and watched him reluctantly put down a graniteware lobster pot and a Breville panini press, before adding a heavyweight cookie sheet and two professional grade cake pans to his basket instead.
“Only what we really need,” I cautioned him.
Meanwhile, I picked up several volumes of the charming Canal House cookbooks discounted from $22.95 to $6.95, feeling a bit guilty. But I couldn’t just leave them there. I kept browsing, tempted, inexplicably, by the set of Star Wars cookie cutters and a silicon mat marked with concentric circles for rolling out pastry dough. Old-fashioned pasta machines and tomato presses were 40% off. So were pizza stones and wooden pizza peels. No, don’t need it.
But maybe some plain white melamine dinnerware for summer picnics?
In the end, we didn’t do so much damage. Discipline counts.
Oh no, scratch that. I just heard the husband call Williams-Sonoma to ask how early they open in the morning. I see another stop in my future on the way back.
Memorial Day weekend will feature special discounts and a sidewalk sale.
Williams-Sonoma Outlet at Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, 32100 S. Las Vegas Blvd, Primm, Nev.; (702) 874-1780
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-- S. Irene Virbila