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| WINNER - DOM Contest for March | Login/Join |
| Foregoing Practicing to Post Minor Deity  |
Tell us about one of your kitchen tools or utensils that you find interesting in that it is unusual or wonderful or confounding or because it has a story behind it. Could even be something electric. Not something purely decorative like a wall hanging or apron. Something useful in food preparation, serving or eating. Pictures welcome but not essential. I’ve been meaning to start a whole thread on this subject (because I have several candidates myself) but it could be an interesting contest as well.
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana  |
I have a pair of herb mincing scissors that I find invaluable. They have several parallel blades so you can cut up herbs without a knife. I'll see if I can find it online... Here you go: https://www.amazon.com/Herb-sc...rs/s?k=Herb+scissors
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| Foregoing Practicing to Post Minor Deity |
By the way, if anyone wants to write in about more than one item, that's fine. I'm going to pick the winner based on the one item I find most interesting or intriguing.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
Have to admit that I've been gradually getting rid of all kinds of kitchen gadgets and single use tools and just keeping the basics. But I absolutely love my orange/citrus peeler. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBzI1P_oXJE The little blade at one end lets you cut through the skin without having to dig around with your fingers. I take out the stem, then use the tool to go around the fruit from the top to the bottom and back around. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat. Then you slide the curved end under the skin to remove it. There's also a little scraper to help get off any of the bitter white pith. Much easier to peel oranges and grapefruits without having to fight the fruit...
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Gadfly |
My mom has a tendency to buy me all sorts of random odd kitchen gadgets as stocking stuffers at Christmas. I have tried to get her to stop - my kitchen has limited cabinet space, so most of them go directly to the goodwill (a pasta roller? A pineapple peeler/corer?). However, one oddball gadget has turned out to be one of the most used things in my kitchen - to the point that when LL#1 went off to college, she requested I buy her one for her dorm room. Ready for it? https://www.amazon.com/Chefn-2...2Q82Z0HMXVRGPEFKZBT3 Not sure why, since it's really not that hard to eat strawberries by biting them off from the leaf end. But this is so much neater and when preparing a fruit tray for a party, for example, I can blow through a colander full of strawberries in way less time than it would take me to make them presentable using a knife. It gets the whole core out and leaves a nice hole if you want to get fancy and fill them with cream cheese or somesuch but 99% of the time we just eat the strawberries plain after hulling them. Anyhow, best $7.95 my mom ever spent! | |||
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| Foregoing Practicing to Post Minor Deity |
I think I'm going to post a few of my own, just to stimulate the rest of you. Of course, my own pics are not part of the contest...just for your amusement. My father was a dentist, so these stainless steel pieces were part of his office equipment that became part of our kitchen equipment. The clamp is something I use all the time for tasks like flipping hot tortillas in a skillet. The instrument tray is for serving or holding foods for later steps in cooking. 
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| Foregoing Practicing to Post Minor Deity |
Here's another. Two carved utensils I bought from a hippie woodworker at a street fair in coastal Oregon. The paddle was carved from a fence post, and the hole in it was from a nail in its previous life! The wooden spoon is of Madrone, a tree species native to the Pacific Northwest. 
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| Pinta & the Santa Maria Has Achieved Nirvana  |
My two favorite kitchen utensils are a microplane and a set of slip-joint pliers. Microplanes are now de rigueur for kitchens, but my first came from my dad's work bench. I can't live without it--perfect for zesting, but also for anything that you want to be teeny-tiny, like mincing garlic. Pliers are just the thing for the final deboning of stuff, particularly those little needle bones from fish. | |||
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| knitterati Beatification Candidate  |
I use both of these things, too! Very handy.
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| Unrepentant Dork Gadfly  |
I have an antique bone-handled knife that belonged to my grandmother. Its sole purpose is checking to see if boiled potatoes are done. My mother also has one that she uses for the same purpose. I have no idea where this tradition came from, but it is the ONLY way I check to see if potatoes are done, and I have never used it for anything else.
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| Foregoing Practicing to Post Minor Deity |
I have an antique two-pronged fork that I use pretty much for the same purpose!
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| Foregoing Practicing to Post Minor Deity |
The winner is NINA, for her creative use of slip-joint pliers in the kitchen. Being a vegetarian, I don't de-bone anything myself, but I'll take her word for it!
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| Pinta & the Santa Maria Has Achieved Nirvana |
Wow, I'm honored! I'll find a good photo and pass it to Matt asap. | |||
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
Is it March yet?
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
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