About those kitchen gadgets

A lot of people will get useless kitchen gadgets for Christmas, and we know this because people buy them year round, so, of course they’ll buy them for gifts. While some are truly useless, others aren’t, and most are between the two points.

In the video above, “Thyme Lord” Alton Brown talks about what he thinks are some of the most useless kitchen gadgets. I tended to agree with most of what he said, but I had a personal reason for paying attention.

We had a Rollie (it was on special at a big box retailer). It worked a bit better and faster than the video suggests, and people liked the product, but I never got to try it: After a few uses and cleaning—all in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions—the non-stick silicon coating started coming off. We could have taken it back, but then we’d have gotten a new one and the process would repeat itself, so we threw it away and chalked it up to experience.

One comment about the video that I saw somewhere said that all those useless kitchen gadgets keep op shops (thrift shops) in business. I’m sure the person was mostly joking—I hope.

As an aside, I used to watch Brown’s Good Eats TV series, which sometimes was like this video, and other times used science in cooking. However, unlike Heston Blumenthal, I thought Brown’s shows were much more realistic, believable, and, frankly, non-absurd.

At any rate, just something a bit lighter after a day of heavier topics.