As stated in multiple videos, I am absolutely ADDICTED to shopping at kitchen stores, specifically Sur la Table.
I have a bad day, I buy kitchen toys.
I have some extra money, I buy kitchen toys.
I find a recipe that uses a kitchen toy I do not have for one step of the process, I buy kitchen toys.
So here is a list of the 10 most ridiculously un-useful items in my kitchen.
Alton would be ashamed at the sheer amount of multi-taskers in my kitchen.
1.
) A cast iron skillet with a 2 inch cooking surface.
What can you cook in it? A single, sunny side up egg? I don't even LIKE sunny side up eggs.
To my credit, I did not buy this, my mother bought it for me.
But it is the size of a Christmas ornament, and I do not celebrate Christmas.
I only once found a use for it - I used it to weight down a boiling artichoke.
After hanging out in the water for ten minutes, it promptly rusted.
It's fine now, after about an hour of scraping.
2.
) A manual citrus juicer.
Here's the thing.
You squish a lemon hard enough, it'll empty of juice.
You do not need a citrus juicer.
And yet, after an awful day in NY, I found myself on the train home with a very vintage-y looking, green citrus juicer.
I now use it whenever possible just to convince myself it was worth the money.
But really it just creates another dish to wash.
3.
) A spatula specific to cooking fish.
A "fish turner," if you will.
I do not like fish.
I love shellfish, but fish filets are just too...
fishy.
Unless the ratio of butter to fish is ridiculously in favor of the former.
So why a fish turner? Because it looks classy and people on Top Chef use it.
4.
) Most of my knife block.
Again, a gift, so not my fault.
In my (admittedly little) experience, you only need three knives.
A chef's knife (I use a santoku because that's what was trendy when I was shopping for one), a pairing knife, and a serrated bread knife.
So what do I do with the rest? Display them and listen to my friends oggle.
5.
) Multiple whisks.
I own three.
One small French whisk that I bought before I knew I needed a balloon whisk, a balloon whisk for whipping egg whites, and then another French whisk with silicone edges that Mom insisted would make stirring things neater.
Here's the secret: It doesn't.
And it's must harder to clean; apparently the batter sticks harder to the silicone than to the normal wires.
6.
) A fish that holds a sponge in its mouth.
It's from Anthropologe, and it's lovely, and my hippie brother bought it for me.
But I do not use the sponge in its mouth because it looks too pretty, so the fish is now the guard of the sink.
Of course, it is made of porcelain, so would probably be very ineffective in a battle.
7.
) Silpats.
Like many items on this list, a silpat's job could be covered by non-stick cooking spray.
But people on television use silpats, so I must use silpats.
8.
) A Magic Bullet.
This is Steve's.
Not mine.
No explanation.
9.
) A salt box.
It's a little wooden jar that holds my kosher salt so that it's easier to pinch and put on things.
I have no excuse for my awful, awful kitchen toy whoring ways.
Hello, I'm Jenny, and I'm a kitchen toy addict.
I'll bet you $10 bucks that in the next hour I'll be looking at the Sur la Table website, oh man, they're having a sale, aren't they?