What Non-Kitchen Tool Do You Use in the Kitchen?
Hello and welcome back toWhat’s Cooking? , an open thread where you can share your brilliant thoughts, tips, recipes and opinions on all food related matters. This week I want to talk about tools that are not technically designed for the kitchen, but still have culinary uses.
As you may or may not know, I am a big fan of keeping a tape measure in the kitchen to measure the size of a pie crust and the like. Hair dryers are another unexpected tool outside the kitchen with delightful uses; culinary writer Helen Rosner recently sparked a storm on Twitter by using hers to make a chicken skin crisp . I have only a few specific questions today, and the first one is the most important.
- What’s your favorite non-kitchen tool you use in the kitchen? I love my tape measure, but I also use a fair amount of blue masking tape for marking.
- What are the best culinary tools to buy at a hardware store? The 5 gallon buckets available at hardware stores are great for home brewing and sous videography, and are much cheaper than the Cambros.
- Do you have a tape measure or ruler in your kitchen? Yes.
- Have you used a hairdryer in the kitchen every time? I didn’t use mine for chicken, but I used it to temper chocolate .
- What about a brush? They make great cheap baking brushes.
Basically, if you have a non-kitchen tool or appliance that helps you prepare great food, I want to hear about it, and I’m sure your fellow commentators will too.