Kitchen Gadget Regrets

Today the NY Times posted a fabulous article about the kitchen tools you never needed. It mentioned one female chef who bought a salmon poacher, a weirdly elongated pot that covers two burners. It interviewed another chef who purchased an electric polenta maker in Italy, something that apparently Italians use daily but lived forever in his cupboard. It then moved on to a coffee connoisseur who went through several iterations of milk steamers and professional grade espresso makers to find a perfect cup of coffee.

I mean, seriously. Who on earth buys an asparagus peeler? Or does one really need an automatic butter slicer? Who buys these stupid, useless, pointless, unnecessary items??

The article then concluded by asking readers to submit their never used kitchen gadgets and sad stories of abandoned appliances. Apparently, the top 'never used' gadgets included: rice makers, slow cookers, garlic presses, food processors, and pizza stones. Smugly, I would like to note that I use every single one of these gadgets, and I use them quite often. I snorted at the idiocy of someone who hasn't yet discovered the wonder that is a crockpot meal after seventeen hours at church on Sunday, or the miracle that is a food processor slicing up apples for an apple pie. Or the magic of a garlic press when you have to 'finely mince' about eight thousand cloves of garlic for cooking copious amounts of Chinese food. Surely, ye novices simply don't understand the magic of culinary convenience.

However... as I applauded myself for not owning pretty much anything from Williams and Sonoma, I also sheepishly took mental stock of the completely useless gadgets I DO own. Most of them came from overzealous wedding registering. I've kept them all, because I did, after all, ask for them, and bless you friends and family for purchasing them for me. I do still have lofty aspirations for each and every single one. But here, in no particular order, is my own #gadgetregretslist:

• The Griddler. Lovingly purchased for me by my wonderful Census coworkers. It was going to be so multifunctional! I was going to make panini sandwiches, AND griddle pancakes, AND grill chicken safely and humanely with no extra carbon monoxide burning from lighting coal! Turns out, I never eat panini sandwiches ever, pancakes turn out perfectly fine on the frying pan, and Matt grills our chicken on his manly portable baby Weber grill. Hmm.
• The Spice Grinder. I even made sure to look up all reviews and find the best reviewed one. I read all about the wonders and superior flavors of whole, toasted spices, and how cumin powder was just so inferior to toasted cumin seeds that were then freshly ground, preferably with some whole coriander and possibly garam masala tossed in. Yeah.
• Mortar and pestle. See Spice Grinder.
• Sushi block/dishes from Crate and Barrel. They were so cute. They were so not useful for just about anything.
• Cheesecake springform pans. I know there are people out there who swear by those. I bought them thinking that I would finally master the art of cheesecake, but as soon as I saw that they involve three blocks of cream cheese, I gave up.
• Cheesecloth. This was supposed to be used for a multitude of things - straining regular yogurt to turn into Greek yogurt, keeping damp over rising bread (what rising bread?), wrapping around herbs to make a bouquet garni, blah blah. None of that has happened.
• Mini bundt pans. I blame Williams and Sonoma for this one.
• Pressure cooker. My mom uses hers ALL the time, and very effectively, and bought like six of them to bequeath upon my sister and me. But all I remember from her lesson on how to use it was "but if you do this, it'll blow up. And if you're not careful to do this, it'll explode. And if you don't wait for it to cool down enough, you'll burn yourself to death." So I'm too scared to actually use it.

Yeesh. I think I could go on and on... but I'll stop. It's your turn now... I KNOW you all have that 'one' thing you never use but can't get rid of. Fess up!