Are you a kitchen gadget person? Is there a drawer in your kitchen that teems with apple corers and hard boiled egg slicers? Do you use a rasp? Do you know what a mandolin is (and I don’t mean the musical instrument)? I am the worst kind of gadget person. Like Sally Albright in When Harry Met Sally who Harry describes as the worst kind of woman: high maintenance but thinks she’s low maintenance, I am a non-gadget person who thinks she’s a gadget person.
The problem with being a non-gadget person who thinks she is a gadget person is that I can’t pass a Williams-Sonoma or Sur la Table without acquiring a garlic peeler or zester. I love to cook, but if I’m going to zest a lemon, I do it with that one side of the box grater that nobody knows what’s for. And what good is using garlic in a dish if I can’t obliterate it by placing it under the flat end of my knife and smashing the clove with my fist—peeler be damned.
The other problem with gadgets is that while I like to cook, I hate to clean. Ever try washing a ricer? The fewer gadgets the less there is to wash. My gadget drawer is divided into three categories—metaphorically speaking, literally it looks like a bomb went off in it. Category one: the gadgets I use regularly, category two: gadgets I can identify but never use, and category three: gadgets which may as well have been left by alien probers.
I have a great friend who is a terrific cook. Her gadget drawer consists of a whisk, a wooden spoon, a spatula, a slotted spoon, measuring spoons, a can opener and of course, a cork screw. That’s it. My next decluttering project is definitely the gadget drawer. Say goodbye candy thermometer and avocado scoop, and I’m going to get rid of the rest of the stuff too… as soon as I figure out what it is.
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