primitives discuss superfluous kitchen gadgets

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x82352

Oh my.

By the way, since hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer's mother recently passed away, because franksolich is a nice guy and a gentleman with good manners, the story "Mrs. Alfred Packer does Christmas" is on hold until a decent interval of mourning has passed, when she can enjoy it better.

Denninmi  (308 posts)      Sat Dec-04-10 11:02 PM
Original message
 
Who has a kitchen gadget/small appliance graveyard?

I do. It's kind of depressing. I've bought so many different gadgets over the years, plus received many more as gifts. And, for the most part, while they are always fun and interesting, I almost never use any of them.

Maybe it's just me, but I often find it more work to 1) hunt it up; 2) drag it out of the closet or cupboard or pantry; 3) clean it and prep it for use; and 4) clean it up after use and put it away again, than I do just to do the task BY HAND.

So, I have a TON of kitchen things I really never use -- the bread machine, the pasta maker, the rice cooker, the indoor electric grill, the rotisserie oven, the donut maker, the ice cream maker, the smoothie maker, the electric panini maker, the .... well, you get the idea. Plus the dozens of specialty pans, tools, and utensils I hardly ever use.

I really need to dig all of this stuff out, and part with 90% of it. What is wrong with this picture. I'm coming to the conclusion that less is more, and all I really need are some good basic pans, utensils, a few select appliances, and manual labor.

housewolf  (1000+ posts)        Sat Dec-04-10 11:48 PM
Response to Original message

1. I'll bet some folks here would be happy recipients of some of those items and you might even make a buck or two on some of them, depending...

pengillian101  (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 12:31 AM
Response to Original message
 
2. I hear ya!

Maybe wait till spring and have a garage sale - or donate to Goodwill?

I know what you mean, those ads are enticing. I have a spare kitchen in the basement that is FULL OF CRAP I DON'T USE.

Before you think it's strange to have a spare kitchen, it's only because the family who built this home lived in the basement until the upper section was built.

Once something is relegated to the basement - it's forgotten and rarely missed.

noamnety  (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 12:00 PM
Response to Original message
 
3. I have a stockpile of coffee pots.

We combined two households, and each managed to acquire small appliances and then we upgraded as well. When I did the tally this summer we had 7 working coffee pots for two people!

Some I have as backups for occasional use. I use a small one cup pot at work, we have our regular pot at home and a backup for company so we can make two pots at once, and a french press that doesn't make enough for the two of us, but I prefer the taste so I use that in the summers when I'm off work. The others I gave away free on craigslist this summer, along with some other spare things we don't need (couple hand mixers now that I have the kitchen aid and a stick blender).

Most of my appliances were goodwill purchases - fruit dehydrator that I use a few times a year ($6), a small ice cream maker - the kind with the tub that goes in the freezer the night before, no electricity required, I spent about $3 for that.

If I have the storage space and know that I occasionally use something I keep it, but I am trying to give back to CL since I've received things from there that I use daily.

Lucinda  (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 12:11 PM
Response to Original message
 
4. I never used my ice cream maker until I started making sorbets but now that I do, I really don't have unused appliances.

For a LONG time I only had one small box of things that weren't in every day, and it was papers, but once I got sick that sort of got away from me. Now I have lots of clutter everywhere except for my kitchen

The empressof all   (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 12:17 PM
Response to Original message
 
5. I have issues...

I haven't met a small kitchen appliance that I haven't coveted or purchased. I have seem to gotten the gadget issue under control however. When I purchased the avocado scoopie thingie I realized I went over the edge. The last great gadget that I bought though was the pineapple thingie. That works really well.

I find I use my electric pressure cooker, my rice cooker, my large Food Processor and smaller electric processor, my kitchen aid and my coffee maker routinely enough to leave on the counter. My electric grill (s), breadmaker, fryer, pastamaker, ice cream machine live in the pantry and rarely see the light of day now.

I find I generally go to the same two or three pans for everyday use. It's harder to look for the "best" pan rather than just make do with what's handy.

I'm going to need to downsize the kitchen in the next few years as well. It will be bittersweet. 

I think I really need one of those donut maker thingies now.

Phentex  (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 01:58 PM
Response to Reply #5
 
8. I'm thinking about it as a gift for my son...he loves his belgian waffle maker and I think donuts are his second love.

We need therapy!

hippywife  (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 12:33 PM
MRS. ALFRED PACKER
Response to Original message

6. My house is too small for that.

Everything that comes into my kitchen has to be useful, with no single purpose appliances.*

There are just one or two very non-electric retro appliances that I bought strictly for decoration. They sit on shelves or on the space above my cabinets strictly for ambiance.

*this of course is in response to franksolich's constant unrelenting ceaseless pointing-out that the idea of something having more than one use is generally incomprehensible to the cooking and baking primitives; I was really on a roll about this, a year and a half ago.  It's nice to see that at least one primitive took franksolich's well-intended counsel.

Phentex  (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 01:57 PM
Response to Original message
 
7. I have an area called Tupperware Death Valley...

where containers go to die or live in the witness protection program. I cannot organize it but my husband will take on the task after items begin to fall out. My food pantry is very organized, as are my spices.

I don't have any of the items you listed but I have considered a bread machine. I mainly have pans and platters that take up space. And then there's the smores maker and hot chocolate pot that were gifts. UGH!

housewolf  (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 04:39 PM
Response to Reply #7
 
11. I love my breadmaker!

I use it almost every time I make bread to knead the dough, it does such a great job. I don't bake in it, though - I always take the dough out, shape it, let it rise and bake in the oven. It may seem excessive to have a machine just to knead dough but honestly, it does a much better job than any of the stand mixers I've used (and I currentlly own 4 so I've experienced a variety of stand mixers). Bread machines were designed and manufactured for one purpose only and that to mix, knead and bake bread dough and they succeed magnificently on at least the first two counts. I guess some of the newer machines do a better job of baking than the old machine I have, but I like to retard tha kneaded dough to enhance the flavor and then bake later.

I highly recommend a bread machine to you if you're interested in baking breads. They're great machines!

Paper Roses  (1000+ posts)      Sun Dec-05-10 02:41 PM
Response to Original message
 
9. I agree with you 100%. I have cleaned out all the fun(?) appliances and given them to the local recycle shop. Same items as you. I even gave my big food processor. Little one works for what I need. Sold the pain in the neck to clean waffle makers, immersion blender.

I will give my large George Forman Grill if I can find a small one. It is just me now and that big one is too large for 1 burger.

housewolf  (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 04:30 PM
Response to Original message
 
10. I have a few of those things that don't get used

Hmmm... the pasta maker went to someone else a couple years ago, unused rice cooker sits on a shelf, the 1-used fryer sits in the garage along with the juicer. The bread machine, though, sits in the hallway on a shelf waiting to be called into action - it's staying. Two stand mixers boxed in the garage, along with the FoodSaver, a box of pans I haven't used in a while but was reluctant to let go of, and a variety of other things.

What a funny group of hoarder we are! My excuse is always "but it's still good! I might want it tomorrow (or next week), I have it now and don't want to re-buy one when I do want it...) etc.

It's funny so many of us are thinking about this right now.

[ColonialMarine0431]

I thought the DUmmy socialists were against conspicuous capitalist consumption. A bread maker? A pasta maker? No doubt purchased from the evil Wal-Mart and made by child-slave labor in China.

/sarcasm

[BlueStateSaint]

I thought the DUmmy socialists were against conspicuous capitalist consumption. A bread maker? A pasta maker? No doubt purchased from the evil Wal-Mart and made by child-slave labor in China.

/sarcasm

A H5 for reminding me, CM--I told my wife that we should get a bread maker.  It's a heluva lot cheaper than buying bread.

[ColonialMarine0431]

A H5 for reminding me, CM--I told my wife that we should get a bread maker.  It's a heluva lot cheaper than buying bread.

Really? I always thought a bread maker was a bit of a luxury. I guess I was wrong. But I'll admit that nothing beats fresh baked bread with lots of butter melted on top. 

[VivisMom]

I must make a confession.

I love kitchen gadgets. I don't have many of them (our kitchen is tiny) but I love to look at them. I will confess to having a Kitchen Aid stand mixer and hand mixer, but other than that and a small food processor, I am gadget-free. The catalogs from Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table are like my porn-I like to hoard the catalogs and look through them over and over, dreaming about the day when I will have a kitchen big enough to let me have the panini press and the electric griddle and the belgian waffle maker and the tabletop convection oven.

And I would cut a bitch for an ice cream maker.

[BlueStateSaint]

The catalogs from Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table are like my porn-I like to hoard the catalogs and look through them over and over, dreaming about the day when I will have a kitchen big enough to let me have the panini press and the electric griddle and the belgian waffle maker and the tabletop convection oven.

Catalogs from Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops have that effect on me.

[GOBUCKS]

hippywife  (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 12:33 PM
MRS. ALFRED PACKER
Response to Original message
There are just one or two very non-electric retro appliances that I bought strictly for decoration. They sit on shelves or on the space above my cabinets strictly for ambiance.

You may recall that a year or so ago Mrs. Alfred Packer received a couple of live lobsters as a gift. After describing her erotic fantasies involving the Fedex delivery man, she posted some photographs of the dinner she prepared. It showed her kitchen. In its grimness, presided over by the bloodthirsty Wild Bill, it resembled the kitchen of a Brezhnev-era USSR apartment. "Ambiance" did not appear to be part of the plan.

[Ballygrl]

Condolences to hippywife on the loss of her Mom.

[Ballygrl]

BTW Denninmi needs to watch the show Hoarders, she'll get rid of that stuff fast then.

[true_blood]

pengillian101  (1000+ posts)        Sun Dec-05-10 12:31 AM
Response to Original message
2. I hear ya!
Maybe wait till spring and have a garage sale - or donate to Goodwill?  (Make sure you ask the king imposter if you don't have to PAY to get a permit to have a garage sale. You idiots want more and more gubberment intervention, you got it. )

[Karin]

Kicked...I see that GOBUCKS checked back in on Sunday, and made me laugh once more...."Ambiance did not appear to be part of the plan".... until Ballygrl threw a cup of cold water in my face.