The Novice Foodie's Tour of Misfit Kitchen Tools

As part of my quest towards foodiedom, I'm trying to create a kitchen full of useful, dependable tools that will help me create good food at home. Tools like I mentioned in my holiday gift guide for novice foodies: multitaskers that will last forever if cared for properly.

However, in my pre-foodie life I collected a motley crew of kitchen inhabitants that don't fit this description and still haunt my kitchen. Take, for example, my standing mixer. Most foodies I know have this beauty:

The Novice Foodie can only admire it from afar, because I'm rocking my grandma's hand-me-down, 70's-era, comes-with-a-crate-full-of-attachments food processor. Think I'm kidding?

Bam. Standing mixer.

Blender.

"Food processor."

Meat grinder/food mill/possibly pasta maker? The rust scares me.

Wow. It feels like an episode of Hoarders. While this beast of a machine actually does just fine kneading bread dough or mixing cake batter, it fails at "whipping" anything, and somehow, among dozens of attachments, there is no paddle, either. Maybe it got lost somewhere between 1972 and now. None of the various modes work really well. In any event, I'm stuck with it until it totally grinds its motor into obscurity and I can justify spending the money for a KitchenAid.

Welcome to my kitchen of misfit tools.

Last year my brother, bless him, got me an ice cream maker, something I'd asked for and was grateful to receive. Incidentally, he chose to buy me the largest, bulkiest ice cream maker he could find.

This guy and my food processor and its attachments are all friends.

I also found this guy, which I think is an apple corer. Why do I need this? I own several knives.

Non-springloaded tongs. What's the point?

A broken can opener living with a warped can opener. I'm pretty sure this is illegal in Missouri.

This vegetable peeler is kinda scary.

It looks like a prison shiv. Feels like one in the hand, too.

I know I'm not the only one to receive one of these insta-chopper thingamajigs. Also obsolete if you own a knife.

You can see how much use mine gets. It looks like old man chest hair.

So there it is: the deep recesses of my kitchen, laid bare for all of St Louis to see. And if you've got a spare KitchenAid standing mixer lying around, I'd be willing to trade you, straight up.

Somehow, I don't think I'll have many takers.

Kelli Best-Oliver is on a quest to become a full-fledged foodie. She chronicles her adventures every Tuesday. She writes about any damn thing she pleases at South City Confidential.