The kitchen gadget/utensil hall of shame...

[Gaelen]

Yesterday I was browsing one of my favorite thrift stores (they had a set of three barely-used Calphalon skillets and a working professional waffle iron--can you tell why I like this place?)

Along the back wall, mixed in with the treasures, was the kitchen gadget/utensil hall of shame. You've seen them...the Presto salad shooters, the array of never-used breadmakers and badly designed graters with a dozen attachments you can never find when you need them. I started thinking about the things I'd edited out of my own cupboards over the years and donated to other thrift stores--the big blender that I never used, the iced-tea maker, the hot-air corn popper, the sandwich maker, the electric knife. In my case, the blender was outclassed by other appliances, the iced-tea maker lost out to a covered glass pitcher I use to make sun tea, I make oil-free popcorn in a brown bag in the microwave, the sandwich maker has nothing on a George Foreman grill, and I don't like knives I have to assemble. ;)

We've all talked about the appliances and gadgets we can't live without...but what appliances and gadgets DON'T earn a place in your kitchen? What would be the first things donated to a thrift store?

[LisaS]

hot air corn poppers are GOLDEN!!! I've been scouring the thrift stores looking for an Air Popper II --- not for popcorn -- but for home roasting COFFEE !!

[Gaelen]

hot air corn poppers are GOLDEN!!! I've been scouring the thrift stores looking for an Air Popper II --- not for popcorn -- but for home roasting COFFEE !!

omigod...Lisa, that is a brilliant idea! I never thought of that one.
Around here, there is always at least one hot-air corn popper in every thrift store. Have you tried eBay?

[LisaS]

I learned about it here:
http://www.sweetmarias.com/instructions.html

scroll down to Air Popper instructions - and then there are people all over the 'net who have documented their mods to the system to refine their home roast experience
like the Home Roast forum here:
http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums

[cmcole]

A fry pan with an air vent in the centre that was supposed to make fat-free just about everything.

A Braun juicer that had a honeycomb-like screen in it to filter out the pulp. It was the most horrible thing to clean.

A little hand roller/chopper - never worked

Another chopper - round with a plunger handle - got stuck every time - despite all the ads that showed it was the best gadget around.

Tupperwear stack a meal dishes. I still use the dishes separately on occasion, but never make stacked meals. I am not sure they EVER turned out as expected (and I even tried to sell other people on them during my stint as a Tupperwear Lady)

I'm not sure I even remember how many things I've donated that just didn't live up to expectations.

[Temptd2]

Boy, this one hits home - I am the BIGGEST gadget junkie! LOL!

The one that went out immediately was the Eggstractor - it worked ONCE and then I couldn't ever get another egg to come out of it shell-less....I put it in the recycle bin!

I have several to get rid of now because I no longer use them - like my soymilk maker, my yogurt maker, my huge GF grill (I love my NEWER one with removable plates better than the giant 2 lidded one!) etc.

DH made a rule a long time ago, because my kitchen is tiny - new gadget IN, old, unused gadget OUT! I brought IN a snow-cone iceshaver so the soymilk maker is OUT! ;)

T2

[LisaS]

I once got as a present a "ronco-type" device to scramble an egg in the shell - it was a curvy needle thing with a small motor - you poked it in the "fat" end, it whirred around inside, and then when you cracked open the egg - it was more or less already beaten. its true purpose might have been for blowing out the egg to have empty whole eggshells - but since I didn't do that - I'm not sure what the gifter was thinking of ...

[Gaelen]

LOL...the very first time I was on disability six summers ago, I bought the "Egg Wave"--four two-part plastic eggs in which you can microwave scrambled eggs. I do not know WHAT I was thinking...but that one got donated after awhile of clogging up cupboards. T2, I also have a tiny kitchen. It's 7x10, with a five foot patio door on one 10-ft. side, and an open doorway into the living area on the other 10-ft. side. So while hoping Cat Cora and her friends on 'Kitchen Accomplished' will fly in and create a new space for me, I am also living the dream of 'if something comes in, something else has to come out.' Oh, Cat, Cat Cora...have I got a kitchen to make over for you! :cool:

[cmcole]

I could have used that egg blower/extractor.
I used to teach Ukrainian Egg classes, and had to blow out numerous eggs (just couldn't bear to take whole eggs for people to waste, and if you blow them after the dying process, they are non-edible, anyway)

Guess that's why "one man's junk is another one's treasure".

[gitfiddle]

Hey, I never thought of donating old appliances! Great idea. I have some in the cellar, wrapped in plastic, waiting for...just in case!

I have the sandwich-maker, the old mixer, the percolator coffee pot, at least one old blender, and probably a few more that I'll remember when I see them.

I also have a small kitchen. My upper cupboards are all open and it's very easy to look cluttered. Someday I'm going to remedy that, but there's never enough money for the whole enchilada.

[Tortoise]

I got rid of a whole bunch of stuff about a year ago, including a bread maker I hadn't used in a very long time. And an electic citrus fruit juicer.

One thing I had a bunch of - for some reason people kept giving me these little porcelin thingies that were supposed to grate ginger. I never used them because I like my technique of keeping it in the freezer and grating it with a regular grater (don't even have to peel it).

Also I tossed my garlic press because my Microplane grater with the hopper can do several cloves in about 5-10 seconds.

[Zuleika]

I got rid of my coffee pot. I am single and live in an apartment so small that I rarely have guests. Why do I need to make twelve cups of coffee all at once? Ditched it and now I just use the espresso machine to make one glorious strong cup of coffee at a time.

These days, as much as I love coffee, I rarely have more than one. Some weekends when I'm lolling around the house, I go for a second. But then it's a second perfect fresh cup, not something that's been sitting around for two hours.

I've always been pretty good at avoiding gadgets -- tiny kitchen syndrome again. They really have to be multi-tasking and useful to earn a space.