My birthday is coming up, and so Saturday night I got together with a few friends to celebrate with a potluck dinner. Despite the fact that I told all who asked that I didn't need a thing, several people brought gifts. Because these people all know me so well, nearly all the gifts were food-related.

My cousin Angie brought the scissors you see above. The package calls them Herb Scissors and up until this weekend, I had never seen anything like them. I haven't actually tried to use them yet (although I have plans to use them on a bunch of parsley in my fridge soon), but I find them fascinating (and oddly reminiscent of Edward Scissorhands).

What do you all think? Useful time saver, or space stealing gadget?

The crust of the bread is the best part as far as we are concerned, but for some reason, there are a lot of kids who don't like crust on their bread. Is it the taste, the color or is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich just more fun without a crust? While philosophers ponder the question, you'll probably be cutting the crust of the sandwiches for your kids or for yourself, since there are plenty of adults who like to eat their sandwiches in this slightly nostalgic way.

Put down that knife and check out the Crust Cutter. The stainless steel cutter measures 4"x4" and is designed to remove all crusts with one swift motion. It also folds flat, for easy storage. The only downside is that once you've made it easy to remove the crust from the bread, you might never get Junior to actually give them a try. At least he'll be able to cut the crusts of his own sandwiches. Price: $3.95.

We love salt and pepper shakers of all kinds here - after all, what would food be without seasonings? It would be boring. And while it doesn't hurt to have an interesting set of shakers on the table, there is such a thing as having ones that are too interesting. Creepy, even. These chicken feet salt and pepper shakers let you "shake a leg" in seasoning your food, but they still look like chicken feet and they might be disconcerting to see on the table. They're also $50 per pair, and at that price, I'd rather spend the money on some expensive salt than ceramic feet.

Speaking of the cost effectiveness of kitchen gadgets, what do you think that your most and least used appliances/tools are? I know that I use my ice cream maker quite often, though it was voted as the least cost-effective appliance. On a near-daily basis, I use my espresso machine and my oven, and I use my toaster and blender less frequently. My stand mixer gets a good amount of use, too. I'm not going to work out the exact cost per use, but I think that these have all paid for themselves.

In terms of least used items, my waffle iron only makes occasional appearances in my kitchen, but I got such a good deal on it that it could be considered "cost effective" even if I only used it twice. My slow cooker is an appliance that I want to use more often than I actually do, as well. Fortunately, I don't think I have anything that I have never used. I'm sure that that is more indicative of the fact that I cook a lot than the potential usefulness of the gadget.

I'm willing to bet that sometimes the least used things in the kitchen are some of the least expensive, like my waffle iron. Things that were expensive tend to motivate people, myself included, to use them in an attempt to justify the cost. If it seemed like too good a deal to pass up at the time, you probably didn't buy it because you actually needed it, like that 6th unusually shaped whisk or yet another cheese grater that is now collecting dust at the back of the pantry.

How many times have you come across a neat looking gadget or seemingly useful appliance at the store and bought it, thinking that it would be useful? Maybe you rationalized your purchase by thinking , I always wanted to make my own ice cream, or perhaps even something like, the toaster on the TV show I watched last night looked just like this one and it made perfect toast! Not all kitchen gadgets are as costly, or as cost effective, as they sound. Pricegrabber.co.uk did a study of the cost-effectiveness of 30 household items, based on a survey of 1,500 UK shoppers that asked about how often they had used the items in the past year.

The least cost effective item was an ice cream maker, costing £19.48 ($35) per use! Clearly, nothing that is used only once or twice is a very cost effective item. Kitchen gadgets that were cost effective were tea kettles, averaging 5p (10¢) per use, and toasters, which ran about 18p (32¢).

 

 

I saw this on Popgadget and was instantly transfixed. Forget rolling maki in a bamboo mat, now all you need to do is put the filling in the roller, feed in a nori sheet, turn the handle and presto, rolled sushi. I'm a little skeptical since I once had one of these for rolling cigarettes and it didn't work that well but for 39 euros it might be a fun gadget to own if you make a lot of rolled sushi.