3 Unitasking Kitchen Tools That Are Actually Worth Buying

Alton Brown has slammed single-purpose cooking gadgets to high heaven, but they're not all bad.

For years, I resisted buying a cherry pitter, instead dutifully poking out each pit using an old plastic bottle and a chopstick, tools I already had on hand for other uses. I came of culinary age in the Alton Brown era, learning to cook from the Food Network and outfitting my kitchen to the mental soundtrack of Brown railing against “unitaskers,” devices with only a single purpose. As a budding food writer, I gave away an endless parade of highly specific inventions that I’d received in conference swag bags ― avocado slicers, lettuce shears, strawberry hullers and so on. I guffawed at Sqirl chef Jessica Koslow’s suggestion that to make the best toast, I needed a butter wheel. But I also shunned things I grew up watching my parents use, chopping endless cloves of garlic as I stubbornly refused to purchase a garlic press. Eventually, I gave in, but pressed my garlic furtively, in shame ― even as it saved time chopping and spared me from the lingering smell of garlic long into the evening.