Cooking & Baking
Related: About this forumAll Those Kitchen Gadgets, but a Sharp Knife Just Might Do.
'Berries are hot this year, Scott Goldsmith was saying on a recent rain-flecked Friday, brandishing a bright red plastic, wagon wheel-shaped gizmo called a PushBerry, which aims to hull and slice your strawberries in one go.
Avocados, still hot, he added, gesturing at the Flexicado and the Avoquado two of the many slicers and pitters for sale in his store, all rendered in acid green plastic (designers of kitchen gadgets seem to go in for biomimicry). As for tenacious kale, this decades celebrity green, its grooming aids now include the Looseleaf and the Swiftstrip, otherwise known as kale leaf strippers, the solution to a problem you might not know you had.
Mr. Goldsmith, 61, is the third-generation owner of S. Feldman Housewares a glittering bazaar on Manhattans Upper East Side and an impresario of kitchen gadgetry. On this April morning, his shelves were bursting with esoterica like the billowy yellow silicone Food Pod (a combination steamer and colander that looks like vegetation imagined by the production designers of Star Trek, $14.99); the SpreadTHAT titanium butter knife (Its pretty cool, Mr. Goldsmith said. It uses the heat of your hands. I dont eat much butter, but I dont discriminate, $19.95); onion goggles ($19.95); and sequined aprons ($120) that were a big hit last Christmas.
How do you wash the aprons? I have no idea, he said.
Mr. Goldsmiths long retail career spans decades of gadgetry including truffle shavers and cherry pitters, Salad Shooters and spiralizers and traces a history of ingenuity, optimism and sheer whimsy. If the invention of defoliating devices for cruciferous vegetables causes you to think the makers of kitchen gadgets have finally and collectively lost their minds, Mr. Goldsmith will remind you that his store has been in business since 1929.
Between you and me, he said, most of these things you can do with a knife. . .
As she wrote, the birth of a new gadget often gives rise to zealous overuse, until the novelty wears off.
She continued, To the woman who has just acquired an electric blender, the whole world looks like soup. . .
Christopher Kimball, the determinedly skeptical cooking program host and co-founder of two food networks based in Boston, Americas Test Kitchen and Milk Street, identified three categories of kitchen gadgets: Completely Idiotic Useless Objects, Things That Are Not Worth the Storage Space, and Things That Seem Practical But You Could Actually Do Better With a Knife.
A well-designed tool is immensely valuable, Mr. Kimball said. But for the specialty items youre only going to use once a month, how much more work is it not to use it?'
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/style/kitchen-gadgets.html?
CrispyQ
(36,224 posts)Love, love, love my Samurai knife! That's what my husband calls it. I bought a Vitamix & it sits in a cabinet in my basement.
elleng
(130,126 posts)I buy virtually nothing, just watch my friend buying and then storing! I'm still using my set of Vanadium (Japan) knives I bought 40? years ago!!!
MANative
(4,105 posts)My mom (81 years old and doesn't cook anymore - lives with my brother who takes care of her) bought one last year at the hefty price of $450. It's unpacked and on the kitchen counter, but hasn't been used even once. SMH. Just grateful that she has the money to afford doing that kind of thing.
Demovictory9
(32,320 posts)Demovictory9
(32,320 posts)One thing I kept is the mandolin.
shraby
(21,946 posts)Great for chopping onions for hotdogs, brats, etc. I chop those small carrots up for soup. If I use it for nothing else, those two things make quick work out of an unpleasant chore.
Also bought a meat slicer to slice cucumbers for bread and butter pickles.
sir pball
(4,726 posts)..whereas gadgets work well enough and are generally simple and safe enough for a child to use.
Yeah, I can probably dice avocados or clean strawberries faster with a knife than you can with a tool, but I've been doing it for 20 years (with some of the same knives the whole time, natch) - try and work as quick without the almost instinctual feel and it's going to end in blood, tears and possibly stitches!
Mike Rows His Boat
(389 posts)Some five years ago.
No more store bought breads, pastas, pie crusts, deserts, etc.
Now, we are in control of the sugar, salt, fats, etc, that are in our food.
One of the best kitchen purchases Ive made. Paid for itself many times over, and we eat better and cleaner food too.
packman
(16,296 posts)Well, to be honest- used it twice. Once to cut ribbon potatoes for frying (quite good) and another for zucchini. But it's going on the table at the next garage sale.
Most totally useless thing - hot dog maker (to cook them, not make them)