Now we get to the Tim Allen/Home Improvement part of arming your kitchen. Some people love kitchen electrical gadgets. Others eschew them. We are in the middle camp. Our main consideration: Will we use this appliance enough to grant it precious space on our counter or in our cabinet? Here are a few other factors to consider as you walk through a kitchenware store.
What are your physical abilities? You may not need a food processor if you’re an expert with a mortar and pestle. If your knife skills are flagging because of arthritis, a food processor can help cut up potatoes and carrots quickly.
What do you cook or bake? For a casual baker (cake mixes, cookies), a hand electric mixer may work fine. If you turn out yeast breads, you may need a heavy-duty stand mixer. A blender is a necessity if you make a lot of smoothies or shakes.
How much of a particular item do you make at a time? If you have a large family, a large rice cooker is a good investment.
Is the time spent cleaning and reassembling this gadget going to outweigh the time saved by using it? See my earlier post, Inspecting Kitchen Gadgets.
The electric gadget that gets the most use here at Casa Sammamish is the rice cooker. We have a small one with an on-off switch and no neuro-fuzzy logic or different settings for different rices. We have small and standard-size food processors, and hand and stand mixers. I picked up an electric spice grinder at a kitchen yard sale several years ago. I admit I don’t use it very often, but it works very well on grinding dried chiles and hard seeds. The bowl and knife assembly are metal, so there’s not much flavor carryover. It’s a unibody construction; however, the bowl is shallow enough so you have less chance of ripping up your fingers during cleaning.
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