Dumbest Item in Your Kitchen

[David A. Goldfarb]

It's not in my kitchen anymore, because I threw it out, but once I bought a french fry cutter that had a grid of metal blades in mounted in a plastic frame with handles on each end, and you were supposed to push this down over the potato to make fries. Of course the hole was too small for any reasonable-sized potatoes, and it wasn't particularly sharp or easy to use. Totally worthless.

[Rico]

It's not in my kitchen anymore, because I threw it out, but once I bought a french fry cutter that had a grid of metal blades in mounted in a plastic frame with handles on each end, and you were supposed to push this down over the potato to make fries. Of course the hole was too small for any reasonable-sized potatoes, and it wasn't particularly sharp or easy to use. Totally worthless.

Yup. I've had one of these in my drawer for several years now. I've used it (or tried to use it, rather) once.

And that makes me a dumb kitchen item for not throwing it out already (hat tip to Angevin and Porthos for that one-liner).

[phatj]

A food mill. Or possibly me, since I can't get a food mill to work.

[Darienne]

I have a food mill and it is great. Don't use it a lot, but when you need one...you need one.

Truth is, I don't have anything dumb in my kitchen. No room. Even the dumb Magic Bullet is not in the kitchen but in the garage. So sad. Maybe my too small kitchen is the dumbest thing in my kitchen because I asked for it to be that way. That was 15 years ago when I could have had it made larger but I was still in my long term hating to cook mode with no idea that a whole new life lay ahead of me in my late 60s.

BTW, the food mill is in the breezeway.

[GregW]

I'm wondering if the automatic stirrers I've been seeing on TV will be another dumbest item. I just don't see them working well, if at all.

[andiesenji]

I'm wondering if the automatic stirrers I've been seeing on TV will be another dumbest item. I just don't see them working well, if at all.

I have two of the Stir-Chef stirrers which I have had for several years and I use them all the time for everything from lemon curd to cream soups and some sauces that require constant stirring.

I have a couple of other appliances that incorporate a stirring system (besides my Thermomix).

They are "dumb" if you don't have a use for them, as is anything that costs money and takes up space. A lot of people have and use things that I think are dumb, but that's personal preference.

At one time I bought a vertical broiler at considerable expense and for me it was incredibly dumb purchase because I used it only once and it sat gathering dust for several years before I sold it to someone who really needed it.

[GregW]

Andie,

The Stir-chef's are not really what I was referring to. I can't find a link, but there is an "as seen on TV" stirrer, probably $19.95 "but wait there's more", battery powered stirrer that does not attach to the pot. It looks great on TV but I have my doubts.

[andiesenji]

Andie,

The Stir-chef's are not really what I was referring to. I can't find a link, but there is an "as seen on TV" stirrer, probably $19.95 "but wait there's more", battery powered stirrer that does not attach to the pot. It looks great on TV but I have my doubts.

I don't watch those infomercials so haven't seen that. I can't see that anything like that would be of much use.

I have tools with rechargeable batteries that are tough, sturdy and strong but have never seen a kitchen appliance with enough battery power.

[Special K]

One of those stainless steel mushroom things for smashing garlic. I always forget I have it.

Amco Stainless Garlic Smash

A lot of us are attached to our stainless steel mushrooms because we associate them with our dear, departed eGulleteer fifi (Linda LaRose), who had an ongoing quest to find (and give as gifts) as many as she could. I rarely use mine, but there it sits on the counter, and I smile and think of fifi every time I see it.

[haresfur]

Right now I'd have to say the dumbest thing in my kitchen is the deep drawers. That means a lot of stuff gets piled willy-nilly into one place. My best baking sheet ended up on top of a bunch of stuff (not naming names or anything...) and proceeded to get caught under the front lip when everything shifted. By the time I got the drawer open it ended up shaped like a skate-park.

[cbread]

... the dumbest thing in my kitchen is the deep drawers ...

In any kitchen, one or two deep drawers may have a place, but more than that are probably, ummm, sub-optimal. There, that was diplomatically put.

I advocate a series of different depth drawers to accommodate varying height items, from shallow at the top to deeper at the bottom. That's what I did in my new kitchen, and it has worked out very well.

I believe there exist yet dumber things than "all deep drawer disease". My number one pet peeve (of many) for residential kitchen design is base cabinets with no drawers - deep or shallow - just a door on the front hiding a big confused pile of kitchen miscellany. Little else makes my day like having to get down on my knees to retrieve something at the back under a pile of other items. My last kitchen had those idiotic deep cabinets with doors. In my dreams I would have liked to have a little back alley "chat" with the contractor who put those in. I think that was the very first thing I declared would NOT be repeated in my current kitchen.

Has there ever been a thread devoted expressly to kitchen design in general rather than as a response to an individual's particular kitchen conundrum?

[qrn]

The last kitchen I built,(from scratch, including all the cabinets) has only one pair of lower cabinet doors, and those were for the cabinet where the sink was above, all the others were drawers , including the lower cabinet in the corner where most folks put those dumb things with the rotary shelves or somthing equally as useless...(the corner cab is 36"deep and is at a45deg angleinto the corner)..Works very well...

Bud

[Wholemeal Crank]

Not a lot of dumb stuff left in the kitchen, as it gets winnowed through pretty regularly. Lots of trips to goodwill recently.

There was the electric donut 'baker' which actually did get used a couple of times to entertain nieces and nephews, but made an odd little cakey thing not remotely like a proper yeast donut; or the dinky ice cream maker that promised to chill and freeze a cup of iced treat with just a bit of stirring, but was utterly useless without a deep freeze to chill things enough; but they're gone now. Nothing quite that dumb left. Probably the current champ for dumbest would be a small set of 'collapsable' bowls I bought for a travel kitchen set, but which fit more neatly in the travel bag open and nested than collapsed and stacked.

[abooja]

I was given this Hershey's Silver Kiss Fondue Maker a few years back, and never even opened it. Maybe it works alright, but I'll probably never find out.

My mother once gave me a pear-shaped covered casserole dish that strongly resembled a baby's butt. I'm kind of sorry I got rid of it when I did, because she's not around to give me any more wacky gifts like that from Amazing Savings.