Where Bloggers Live: Kitchen Gadgets I Have Loved
Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes and lives? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, thoughts, and more!
Annnnnnd we’re back! This month we’re sharing our favorite kitchen tools! I’m not a super big kitcheny/cooking type person so I don’t have a lot of gadgets or doodads…but I definitely have a few favorite tools.
If you think they all look kind of old and crappy…you’d be right 🙂 Old and crappy is my vibe.
Five of these tools were my mother’s…but one of these things is not like the others…
A Pampered Chef scraper…it was in my Christmas stocking probably ten-ish years ago, when I spent Christmas with my sister and family in South Carolina. When you cook things that stick in the bottom of the pan/pot and they don’t come loose even after soaking (I’m the Queen of Soaking…I’ve been known to let things soak all week, just to avoid me having to really scrub them). But this little plastic dealie helps, well, scrape (hence the name) all the ookie stuff off the bottom of the pan/pot. It’s not sexy, but it’s useful.
Apple corer. It was my mother’s. Made in Taiwan. Somehow I always wound up with plastic ones in my drawer…and they all snapped. This is 30+ years old and will never snap. I know it only has one job, but I WILL NOT bite into a whole apple. Don’t argue with me. It gets a lot of use when I’m in juicing mode cuz you gotta cut the stuff up to fit into the feeder tube thing. And *I’M* certainly not gonna do all that cutting!!! So the apple corer holds an important spot in the kitchen drawer.
I’ve loved this jar opener since I was little. Don’t know why exactly. See the bite marks in the wooden handle?? Mine.
There is something Very Very Wrong with Me.
But it’s the best jar opener ever. And clearly I have a fondness for green wooden handles, so…
Cheese slicer. Also my mother’s. Also made in Taiwan. Apparently in the 60s/70s, Taiwan was rocking the kitchen gadget industry. Same as the apple corer – I’ve used other ones over the years: plastic metal, wire….this beats them all. It looks like hell…all these things do…but they work as well as they did on their Day One. I eat a lot of sliced cheese. So this puppy gets a LOT of use.
Somewhat unspectacular. Tongs. Scissor-handled tongs. But I use these a LOT. Turning chicken mid-roast. Pulling things out of the oven. They’re ALWAYS soaking in the sink cuz I’ve ALWAYS “just used them.” I don’t even bother looking for them in the drawer. Also my mother’s.
This is the greatest whisk to ever whisk. I bought this at an antique store on my 30th birthday (I can’t remember the name of the person on the phone 30 seconds after they tell me, but I can remember when (and where!) I bought almost every thing I own). The flat bottom makes it so much more effective and less tiring to use than a traditional balloon-shaped whisk. It’s also one of the few American-made kitchen items I use.
Side note about this picture: I will NOT miss this apartment’s inescapable overhead lighting. It throws my shadow into EVERY picture I take.
And last but not least…
The tacky pink-turned-orangey-pink Tupperware 3-piece steamer. I got this for a wedding shower gift in 1989. I have used it exactly 12,974 times in the past 34 years. You can use it just as a regular lidded heating-up-container-thing, but when you add some water in the bottom part and then use the reticulated middle piece to hold the whatever: frozen vegetables, leftover pasta, reheated rice, etc, it’s a workhorse. I just throw stuff in it and put it in the microwave. Things heat up with overcooking or drying out. You don’t have to babysit it. The alternative would be a pot or pan on the stove, but then the food is going to overcook and stick to the pan and even with the Tupperware scraper, who wants to do that job if they don’t have to?? Food just slides right out of here. It’s a mini-miracle. In 80s pink.
With the exception of the Tupperware steamer (unless I find myself with extra space in my luggage HA HA HA HA HA), all these things are going to Korea with me. My little comforts of home…and a little piece of my mother going with me to East Asia. If I could have gotten her out of her bed and nightgown, I think she would have liked this trip.
I would name my juicer as a favorite kitchen tool as well, but I have sort of a love-hate relationship with it. I LOVE the fresh juice – there is nothing better. But I HATE doing all the peeling and chopping prep…and the clean-up. It’s just so much time and effort to use…that I just…don’t 🙁
What’s your favorite tool in your kitchen (and don’t say THE UBER EATS APP ON MY CELL PHONE!).
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own
Jodie Filogomo
Ha, the juicer. That’s why my husband bought the high-end special one and then we find out that you still have to peel the oranges and lemons.
It’s still much better and we still like it.
As for the cheese slicer my mom always had one of those when I was growing up but it’s definitely one thing I didn’t bring with me for some reason.
Xoxo
Jodie
Sally in St Paul
I LOVE your collection of old, crappy-looking but amazing-working kitchen tools. I have a few of those old workhorses myself that I got from my grandmother (of the Grandmother’s Microwave story) from her secondary kitchen where she kept the stuff she could do without. You know, her fifth favorite cheese slicer, etc. I have a couple items that date to the 50s but were made to last forever. Just the sight of that exquisite old bottle opener can make me wonder, What have we wrought? You know?
Daenel T.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some of those items in my MIL’s kitchen. She still has that avocado green and orange floral glass cutting board from the 70’s.
I have not, however, seen the jar opener. How does it work?
Leslie Susan Clingan
I’m with Daenel, how does the jar opener work? I am pretty certain I need one in my life. Can hardly open anything anymore. It is really cute.
The cheese slicer looks just like the one we had when I was a child. Worked like a dream and the wire never broke or came undone. We have had several new-fangled ones that snap shortly after first use. Worthless.
I had never had a whisk until PC bought one for me and a strainer for Christmas. Red, of course. But it has come undone…not sure how to explain that…the whisky parts have come disconnected. Probably need to look for one like yours…does it come in red?