An observation

[unixronin]

Alton Brown has stated in the past that there is no place for unitaskers — tools that do only one thing — in a kitchen.  Yet he has a kettle, a device for boiling water with no other purpose, and an espresso machine, a device for making espresso and steamed milk with no other purpose.  And then there's knives.

I have to disagree.  There is a place, in the kitchen just as in the workshop, for single-purpose tools that do one specific job well, and for multitaskers that can be used for a range of purposes.  What there is NOT a place for is poorly thought out or poorly constructed tools that are intended to perform multiple tasks, but which don't actually do any of them well, or single-purpose as-seen-on-TV gadgets that do one exceedingly uncommon job that you could, with only a little more effort, do just as well with other tools that you already have.

Comments

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

Knives? If you're including knives as unitaskers, you might just be insane. Knives are the most versatile multitaskers in the in the kitchen (in the last 24 hours my 6" chef's knife has chopped, sliced, minced, pared, peeled garlic and acted as a board scraper...prolly more, but that's just off the top of my head. I'm not going to count 'saved me from moving 6" to the right when I stabbed an onion in the basket to retrieve it').

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I like my knives too much to use them as board scrapers. ;)