The Unitasking: Make it Stop!

Ten Things I (and the World) Do Not Need:

1) A portable, handheld nanotech toaster.

(Photo via Daily Mail).

2) A dispenser that makes butter ribbons, saving me the time (and risk!) of cutting butter with a knife.

(Photo via Whatever Works.)

3) A special fork to protect me from the perils, according to the product information, of "squeezing your fingers into a jar trying to grasp a pickle to no avail."
(Photo via Bed, Bath and Beyond.)

4) An apple peeler (which removes the best part)-slash-corer (which duplicates the work of a knife, with more mess and effort!) (See also: The Rotato).

(Photo via Williams-Sonoma)

5) A $30 stainless-steel electrical appliance for cooking eggs. According to the product information, it "cooks up to seven eggs at once!" You know what? So does my four-quart saucepan.

(Photo via Amazon.com)

6) A little robot-y looking thing to chop my garlic for me. Cute? Yes. Possible to clean? Probably not!

(Photo via the Kitchen Outlet).

7) A plastic thingiemabob to crack eggs. The thing about eggs? Is that... um... they practically crack themselves. Also, $19.95!!!!! (Image via ezcracker.com. Heh, heh, heh. I'll show you an easy cracker!)



8) Similarly: An avocado masher? Avocados, like bananas, are naturally mushy. A fork, a spoon, or--if you have neither--your hand would do the job as well. And if you can't afford forks and spoons, I doubt you can spend $12.99 on an avocado destruction device.

(Photo via YumSugar).

9)A shrimp deveiner. Hey! It's a little pointed thing you can use to take the guts out of shrimp! It's called a knife! Or you can buy one of these.

(Photo via Kitchen Haven).

10) ANY device to cook bacon in the microwave other than paper towels, although the WowBacon cooker may be my favorite, for reasons of bulk and counter space.

(Photo via Wow Bacon).

P.S.: Unitaskers I like: Kitchen torches, rice cookers, seltzer makers, dehydrators, ice cream makers, knife honing steels, Microplanes, cookie cutters, waffle irons.