Kitchen Utensils: What Do We Really Need?

We are a gadget society. We love clever items that simplify tasks, but can we find the items when we need them? Much like the junk drawer, the utensil drawer can spread into multiple drawers quickly and become a tangled mess.

There are staple items in the kitchen, of course. Can opener-yes! Wine opener- yes! Kitchen scissors-of course. Vegetable peeler-yes. Zester-okay! Ice cream scooper-must have. Pizza cutter- necessary. Rolling pin for the pie maker-yes. Pie server. Meat thermometer. We need and use them. And one of each serves us well.

Then there is the duplication that consumes the drawers. Spatulas, flippers, spoons of all varieties, ladles, whisks, a variety of knives, measuring spoons–you do use a few or several in each category. Just like our method in the junk drawer where we bring like things together, this is a great way to thin out the utensil drawer or drawers. Bring all the stirring spoons together, all the spatulas, tongs, all the knives, corkscrews, etc. together in like piles and then ask how many of these do I really need? I cook and use multiple wooden utensils in my no stick pans, so I do need and use a few, but do I need a dozen? How many do I really need? A realistic thinning of the duplication is a great start.

What is so fascinating about the utensil drawer is the one-use utensils and gadgets that have collected over the years. What led the inventor to envision and design the strawberry stem remover? What prompted us to buy it? Maybe the case of strawberries we crawled on the sandy ground to pick on a warm Wisconsin day in late June. But when will I need a volume destemmer again?

My friend recently gave me her pigtail food flipper to use when making sausages for us on the grill. It is a long metal spear with a twisted top that looks like a pigtail. It can be used to snag the sausage with the pigtail and flip it over. Will a fork to release the grease and tongs to flip work as well?

I am guilty of the cherry pitter and the shrimp deveiner. Very specific use items. The question I ask Customers (and I had had to ask myself recently as the owner of very narrow utensil drawers) is do you use the items? If you do and frequently, then keep them. But bring all your one -use items out of the utensil drawers and evaluate when you last used them and can something else do the trick? You have the avocado pit remover but would a knife in the pit work just as well. You have the corn butterer and the corn dekerneler, but can a pad of butter and a steak knife do the job? You may say no I really use them and if you do, hang on to them. But then the name of the game is prioritizing.

If you jam your utensils in deep drawers, you will not find the utensil when you need it. Because I bake, one of my utensil drawers is all baking items (beaters, spatulas, small flippers-you must have 2 or 3 small Pampered Chef flippers if you entertain, frosting knife, rolling pin, pie server, cake server, measuring spoons and cups.) The other utensil drawer is everything else, all the staples and the singles of items that I need but do not use daily. The utensil holder on the counter has the items I use often and need easy access to at the time I need them. If you love your gadgets, find them easily, use them regularly and enjoy the ease they provide.