I was just thinking about some of the things that I use regularly that I thought at first were stupid, useless, or gimmicky, but now I'd have a hard time living without.
Prime example is my microwave. When I first heard about them, I thought they were insane. Why bother? Okay, I don't actually "cook": much in the mw, but I use it all the time for reheating things, and sometimes for thawing. Some veggies get cooked in there, just because I run out of burner space. And I'll admit to cooking winter squash in there. I'd miss it if it disappeared.
Gloves are another thing. Rubber gloves, latex gloves; whatever. I don't think food is "icky" and I never saw the sense in using rubber gloves for washing dishes or handling food, but lately I've been battling a little rash on my hands, and I've taken to wearing gloves when I'm working in the kitchen. Seems to be helping while I narrow down the exact cause. Using gloves while handling dough is kind of weird, so I just bought some fabric "dough gloves" which I never would have bought otherwise. They work. I don't know if I'll continue using them forever, but for now, they're a keeper.
Electric meat slicer. Yeah, who needs a meat slicer if you have a sharp knife? This isn't something I use every day, but when I have a beef roast and I want thin slices for sandwiches or Italian beef this thing is great. Or for nice even slices of anything. Bread, cheese....Yes, I still slice things by hand a lot of the time, especially when it's small quanbreasties, but this is a nice thing to have on hand when I need it.
On the other hand, I've gone though so many cheese grating devices in my time...this must be my major impulse-buy weakness. I was cleaning out kitchen gadgets a while back, and I got rid of quite a few grating devices that just didn't do the job. I had rotary graters and box graters, and all sorts of stupid gadgets. For big jobs, my kitchenaid has a grater device which does a good job, but I went through a lot of hand graters before I figured out what I liked for the small jobs.
So...what things to you have that you found out were really wonderful and-or terrible?
Donna
-- D.Currie
