I was just thinking about some of the things that I use regularly that I
thought at first were stupid, useless, or gimmicky, but now I'd have a hard
time living without.

Prime example is my microwave. When I first heard about them, I thought they
were insane. Why bother? Okay, I don't actually "cook": much in the mw, but
I use it all the time for reheating things, and sometimes for thawing. Some
veggies get cooked in there, just because I run out of burner space. And
I'll admit to cooking winter squash in there. I'd miss it if it disappeared.

Gloves are another thing. Rubber gloves, latex gloves; whatever. I don't
think food is "icky" and I never saw the sense in using rubber gloves for
washing dishes or handling food, but lately I've been battling a little rash
on my hands, and I've taken to wearing gloves when I'm working in the
kitchen. Seems to be helping while I narrow down the exact cause. Using
gloves while handling dough is kind of weird, so I just bought some fabric
"dough gloves" which I never would have bought otherwise. They work. I don't
know if I'll continue using them forever, but for now, they're a keeper.

Electric meat slicer. Yeah, who needs a meat slicer if you have a sharp
knife? This isn't something I use every day, but when I have a beef roast
and I want thin slices for sandwiches or Italian beef this thing is great.
Or for nice even slices of anything. Bread, cheese....Yes, I still slice
things by hand a lot of the time, especially when it's small quantities, but
this is a nice thing to have on hand when I need it.

On the other hand, I've gone though so many cheese grating devices in my
time...this must be my major impulse-buy weakness. I was cleaning out
kitchen gadgets a while back, and I got rid of quite a few grating devices
that just didn't do the job. I had rotary graters and box graters, and all
sorts of stupid gadgets. For big jobs, my kitchenaid has a grater device
which does a good job, but I went through a lot of hand graters before I
figured out what I liked for the small jobs.

So...what things to you have that you found out were really wonderful and/or
terrible?

Donna



--
D.Currie