Kitchen Gadget A-Go-Go

A devoted I Hate to Cook Book fan, Michele Bartlett, recently wrote about a trek through Target where, in what she cleverly calls the “culinary distraction aisle” she spied what has to be the end-all of kitchen gadgets:  an egg cracker.  

According to her, you put the egg in what looks like one of those old meatball scoops, squeeze the handles and voila!  Your egg is neatly cracked and the insides slip out sans any sign of a shell.  It also has a separator attachment, she reports.   Truly amazing.

Michele’s missive sparked a recollection of my mother, Peg Bracken, as being quite enamored of time-saving kitchen devices, as you would expect.  (Once, before concerns about Salmonella, I actually saw her eat an egg raw to save time).  And with all this rattling in my brain I went off looking for some of the weirder kitchen conveniences available today. 

Now that my research is complete, all I can say is, “Wow, people really buy this stuff?”   Here are some of the highlights:

• A quesadilla maker for those who can’t bear the agony of spreading cheese between a tortilla and pressing Start on the microwave
• A motorized, self-twirling spaghetti fork, apparently designed for chronic carpal tunnel syndrome sufferers
• A microwave s‘mores maker for those who abhor campfires

And perhaps the most absurd:

• A so-called toaster kettle, which boils water and toasts bread simultaneously.  I presume this is sold with its seemingly mandatory companion:  a contraption that dips tea bags and spreads butter

Am I naïve?  Or has it simply been too long since I darkened the door of Target, Williams and Sonoma and other stores of that ilk?

 I invite fans to talk about their oddest kitchen doodad on the newest IHTCB Facebook® discussion board.

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