Jump to content

  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Unusual & mysterious kitchen gadgets

andiesenji

By andiesenji
in Kitchen Consumer

 Share

Recommended Posts

dcarch

dcarch

Posted
Posted
44 minutes ago, gfweb said:

@dcarch Is there a suction cup on the base?

Which post you are referring to?

The scissors looking thing does not have a suction cup.

 

dcarch

gfweb

gfweb

Posted
Posted
42 minutes ago, dcarch said:

Which post you are referring to?

The scissors looking thing does not have a suction cup.

 

dcarch

the other one

dcarch

dcarch

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, gfweb said:

the other one

 

I don't know. I am guessing myself. The OP has not come back to tell us. But I think the base looks like this:

200L-Drum-Cap-Sealing-Tool-Barrel-Cap-Cr

 

It has jaws to crimp bottle caps when the two levers are pushed down.

 

dcarch

  • Like 1
natasha1270

natasha1270

Posted
Posted

grape shears

  • Like 1
"The main thing to remember about Italian food is that when you put your groceries in the car, the quality of your dinner has already been decided." – Mario Batali
dcarch

dcarch

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, natasha1270 said:

grape shears

 

Bingo!

I have no idea why anyone would need one, but grape shears they are.

 

dcarch

Bernadry

Bernadry

Posted
Posted

By the way, I got this multicooker, I bought it here.  And I should tell that I was impressed with amount of recipes for it.  It was quite unusual for me. Now I can cook a lot of tasty dishes without spending a lot of time for this process. It seems to be a dream and I hardly believe in the fact that I can cook fast my beloved vegetables and soups and in general everything I want. Fantastic

  • Like 1
blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
Posted (edited)
26 minutes ago, Bernadry said:

By the way, I got this multicooker, I bought it here.  And I should tell that I was impressed with amount of recipes for it.  It was quite unusual for me. Now I can cook a lot of tasty dishes without spending a lot of time for this process. It seems to be a dream and I hardly believe in the fact that I can cook fast my beloved vegetables and soups and in general everything I want. Fantastic

 

Please do share some of your multicooker adventures with us, @Bernadry.  Maybe in the Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner threads.  Or the Soup topic, since you mention soup specifically.  Or maybe start a Multicooker thread so you can go into more detail about how you are using it.  Edited to add:  Pictures would be great :D!

Edited by blue_dolphin (log)
  • Like 3
Marigene

Marigene

Posted
Posted

Can anyone tell me what this kitchen gadget is? The lighter is for comparison size. Thanks for any help.

 

 

Kitchen gadget.jpg

DesertTinker

DesertTinker

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Marigene said:

Can anyone tell me what this kitchen gadget is? The lighter is for comparison size. Thanks for any help.

 

 

Kitchen gadget.jpg

Tuna press. Open can, leave lid in place, insert in press and squeeze.

  • Like 3
ElainaA

ElainaA

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, DesertTinker said:

Tuna press. Open can, leave lid in place, insert in press and squeeze.

Now I want one.

  • Like 1

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. Cicero

But the library must contain cookbooks. Elaina

Bernadry

Bernadry

Posted
Posted
On 18.01.2017 at 7:38 PM, blue_dolphin said:

 

Please do share some of your multicooker adventures with us, @Bernadry.  Maybe in the Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner threads.  Or the Soup topic, since you mention soup specifically.  Or maybe start a Multicooker thread so you can go into more detail about how you are using it.  Edited to add:  Pictures would be great :D!

i'm just doing this

 

Toliver

Toliver

Posted
Posted

I have a tuna can/can strainer thingy that achieves the same end: Can Strainer (click)

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

dcarch

dcarch

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, DesertTinker said:

Tuna press. Open can, leave lid in place, insert in press and squeeze.

 

Form does not seem to follow that function.

 

dcarch

  • Like 3
  • 3 months later...
pastrygirl

pastrygirl

Posted
Posted

Ok here's one - I'm not even sure it's a kitchen tool. It looks like it would crack nuts, but I didn't see anything similar in 8 pages of cast iron nut crackers on eBay. So two questions:  what is it really, and if I  try to sell it should it be $5 at a garage sale or $50 online?  

 

The wheel part that moves is about 1 or 1-1/2" wide. 

 

Thanks!

 

IMG_6301.thumb.JPG.200ba43dd104081ee60135101c5cc2a3.JPGIMG_6302.thumb.JPG.aa05f218288b90e75e503a34e9f95b94.JPGIMG_6303.thumb.JPG.d5564d313a2ede2ee069d2519e0f8540.JPG

  • Like 1
boilsover

boilsover

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, pastrygirl said:

what is it really, and if I  try to sell it should it be $5 at a garage sale or $50 online?

 

It is a vintage pharmacist's cork press, from the day when drugs and tinctures were locally bottled in glass and then stoppered with real cork.  The operator rolls a slightly oversized cork between the wheel and anvil, working it down to a size that will fit his/her bottles.

 

How do I know this?  Well, these old machines also work quite well at working modern large-format wine corks down to the point you can get them in a wine bottle.  The alternative is a $1500 unitasker.

 

Definitely closer to $50 resale than $5.  People collect these things.

Edited by boilsover
Gender Neutrality! (log)
  • Like 5
gfweb

gfweb

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, pastrygirl said:

Ok here's one - I'm not even sure it's a kitchen tool. It looks like it would crack nuts, but I didn't see anything similar in 8 pages of cast iron nut crackers on eBay. So two questions:  what is it really, and if I  try to sell it should it be $5 at a garage sale or $50 online?  

 

The wheel part that moves is about 1 or 1-1/2" wide. 

 

Thanks!

 

IMG_6301.thumb.JPG.200ba43dd104081ee60135101c5cc2a3.JPGIMG_6302.thumb.JPG.aa05f218288b90e75e503a34e9f95b94.JPGIMG_6303.thumb.JPG.d5564d313a2ede2ee069d2519e0f8540.JPG

 

$50 sounds cheap...for whatever it is

 

  • Like 1
pastrygirl

pastrygirl

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, gfweb said:

 

$50 sounds cheap...for whatever it is

 

 

You're right, the few on eBay are listed for more.  Glad I asked!

 

boilsover

boilsover

Posted
Posted (edited)
11 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

Cool!  Sort of kitchen-y :)

 

 

Sure.  If you think a little retro, there are plenty of uses.  Bottle/reseal your limoncello or May wine, verjus or whatever.

 

Aside from bottling the occasional 6L bottles of wine, I use mine to cork my wicker-covered water bottle so it won't leak.  Works a lot better than a trial cork. 

Edited by boilsover (log)
  • Like 2
  • 4 weeks later...
rarerollingobject

rarerollingobject

Posted
Posted

I have to share this with people who I know will appreciate it...

 

About 18 months ago, I was telling a colleague at work that I really wanted a proper ‘tamper’ – a flat-bottomed implement with which to tamp down buttery crumbs to make cheesecake bases, or flatten Korean dough pancakes on the griddle, that kind of thing. A coffee tamper was too small, I felt, and the bottom of a glass or mug not quite fit for purpose. He insisted that he’d make me one. THAT WAS 18 MONTHS AGO.
 
I've whinged to him a couple of times since then about how long he was taking, to which he'd simply say, "I'm still working on it." And I'd huff and puff and roll my eyes and bitch about how I "could've just bought one on eBay by now, for f***'s sake."
 
Today, he presented me this, with this description of the process: “The handle is a family heirloom piece of wood I cut and polished from my grandpa’s 1930s bullet-making press. He’d made the press himself from an old farm tool belonging to HIS father, so the wood is definitely 1800s.
 
At the base of the handle is an opal my father and I scavenged together when I was 7. I cut and honed it myself to use for this. It serves four purposes; it’s beautiful; it reminds me of your eye makeup; opal is your birth month’s gemstone, you know, because your birthday is in October; and it serves as a tactile guide for your fat little fingers so when you’re stamping out a cheesecake base or whatever, you know you’re holding the base in the same place each time so the pressure is consistent and the surface stays even.
 
The tamper circle itself is aircraft-grade aluminium. I had to contact seven different places before I could find the right kind that I could buy in a small quantity. In the end, I had to deputise that bit to my dad, since he’s retired and has time to drive to these manufacturers during the day. That’s the only bit I didn’t do myself. The aluminium is nearly black in colour when you first buy it and you have to polish it. The top and bottom are polished to slightly different grades, a difference of 2/200ths, so that you can enjoy a different patination rate and it will age naturally as you use it, because I know you like that. It will show your finger tip marks and the stains from the butter and smudges from use, like a proper heirloom kitchen tool should.
 
Without specialist machinery, you can only polish that aluminium with a fingertip wrapped in a rag, dipped in aluminium-cutting paste and going over it in circles and circles and circles, so that bit took me 2 months alone. I did it while I was watching TV and stuff. And then another three months of sanding the rim manually with diamond sandpaper so it was smooth.
 
There is a SLIGHT bevel of the edge, half a millimetre or so – not enough so that the top side feels sharp, but enough to JUST see it with the naked eye so that as you’re standing over the cake base, you can visually sense where the outer edge is against the inside perimeter of the cake tin or whatever.
 
Also, the handle itself is 9mm off centre from the circle – since you’re always going to be standing effectively BEHIND the tamper as you use it on the bench in front of you, if it’s not off centre slightly, you can’t know where the far edge exactly is. You could only visually know that if you were always standing directly vertically over the thing and it being perfectly perpendicular beneath you, and I’m pretty sure you can barely see over your boobs at the best of times.
 
It IS a perfect circle, too. I made a guide of the circle out of a piece of wood first and then I used a pencil and a dremel tool I had to buy to mark the circle circumference. I thought I could use the same dremel tool to engrave the words, but then I realised I didn’t know how to engrave text, so I took a course. The words are one of the first things you said to me when we first met – you dropped a pithy quote in front of all these people at the pub, and then leaned back and laughed at your own wit and smugly said, “THAT’S SHAKESPEARE, BITCHES.” It made me laugh then and it still does, because it’s so you.
 
The only thing I’m really unhappy with is the acrylic you can see at the base. I decided to use that because I was trying to waterproof the joint, because if water got in, it might ruin the wood and if the wood rots and breaks, the steel shaft underneath is very sharp and you might cut your hand. So that’s a bit of a mess. I’m sorry.
 
I also had to make four entire versions of the whole thing before I thought it was good enough.
 
I hope you like it.”
 
SPEECHLESS. :x
 
tamper1.thumb.jpg.6e3c74bf3864d18d83903cc1e2210386.jpg
tamper2.thumb.jpg.a8170c4960b946c0c00b1275f0baec33.jpg
tamper3.thumb.jpg.cfa205889f76e324a0e45b33ec5f1c11.jpg
  • Like 25
chromedome

chromedome

Posted
Posted

An amazing piece of work, and an even better story. 

  • Like 8

“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...