How to Know It’s Time to Say Goodbye to a Kitchen Appliance
Part of the job of a food writer is to write about things that are popular, because popularity leads to clicks, and clicks are what keeps the light going, so to speak. It is also just a good journalistic service. Positioning yourself as too cool or smart to be a fashionable device will not help anyone, not to mention that it looks elitist. An air fryer may be “just a convection oven,” but it’s an affordable way for people who live in apartments or can’t afford to buy a new oven to get the results of a convection oven for as little as $100.
However. This may result in me using the appliance more than if I was just cooking, but sometimes it leads to finding new and interesting ways to use the appliance that I wouldn’t have “naturally” found. This also leads to saturation and transition to any new and shiny device that will be trending this year, for clicks as well as reducing device burn-in.
This is obviously not a problem for most people, but knowing when to say goodbye to a kitchen appliance. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to decide if the slow cooker, air fryer, slow cooker, or sous vide romance can be rekindled, or if it’s time to say goodbye and make room for something new (or just enjoy the reclaimed counter space).
Did you enjoy using the appliance the last time you cooked with it?
“Throw it out if you haven’t used it in the last year” is a common decluttering principle, but I don’t think you should get rid of everything you haven’t used in the last 12 months. If I believed this, I would have to get rid of my McDonald’s varsity jacket, and I don’t want to do that. I am a compulsive person who goes through phases clinging to things (including tech) only to then put them aside and forget about them for months. Instead of a time-based metric, I get a bit of Kondo: Did I enjoy using the device the last time I interacted with it? If the answer is yes, I’ll probably keep it for myself.
Do you have another device or method that does the same thing, only better?
Many people have bought immersion circulators promising steaks that will be perfectly cooked from edge to edge, with no terrible gray streak and no chance of overcooking. It wasn’t an empty promise, but many people are perfectly capable of doing this, or something very close to it, in a skillet (or, in the case of thick steaks, in the oven and pan ).
If I used my submersible circulation pump just for steaks, I would have gotten rid of it by now, but this thing cooks beef tongue like no other, and I’m very partial to my vacuum egg bites , which brings us to our next question.. .
Is there anything he does better than anything else?
I may never use my immersion circulator again to cook rib eye (or shrimp or lobster or many other dishes), but the way it cooks large cuts of meat with lots of connective tissue and fat is reason enough for me. to keep it around, and it ‘s the easiest way to cook a lot of poached eggs (and the same amount of hollandaise) at once. I’m also a big fan of what he does with the alligator . I may not cook either of these exact dishes that much, but I wouldn’t want to make them without my Anova (or Joule). If simple memories can’t help you make a decision, try cooking a dish you remember fondly with the appliance and then consider whether you want to keep it.
Are you outraged?
Does Supertramp’s “Goodbye Stranger” start playing in your head the moment your eyes meet the device? Do you feel guilty for avoiding it? Do you change the subject when someone mentions her name? If you answered yes to any of these questions, it might be time to move on.
Likewise, just because other people are outraged by their Instant Pot (or whatever) doesn’t mean you should turn yours on or feel uncool about using it. Popularity has waxed and waned, and despite what the hyper-perfectionists who have dominated cooking for the past decade may have told you, there is no “best” way to prepare a meal. The right way to cook something is the way that fits into your schedule and gives you what you want to eat. If the device in question helps you with this, you should probably hold it for a little longer.