Over the years I have learned many tips and tricks from the folks here as well as had more help fixing dishwashers than I can quantify.

This morning as I was making our oatmeal in the Thermomix, I was thinking to myself that if it hadn’t been for this group I would likely never have known these existed.  So, I was thinking wouldn’t it be fun to start a thread of everyone’s top three favorite small appliance or kitchen gadgets.  I am a bit of a gadget junkie so I have many that I use often, but I purposely chose three that I thought some people may not be aware of.  

My top three are:

1.    My Thermomix - I first became aware of it by someone here on AW.  I investigated a little bit and thought it might be something I would get some use out of.  Well I was wrong, it doesn’t get occasional use, it is used almost daily at my house for all kinds of things.  I got my first one on eBay and loved it so much I upgraded to the newer version for some of the upgrades.  To be honest, had I known about this earlier I would likely have not upgraded a few of my other appliances.  If you are pressed for space this thing really does replace several small appliances and then some.  And the bowls are dishwasher safe.  Love that.

2.    Pampered Chef Close and Cut – sounds like a gimmick but I promise you it is not.  This thing makes it easy to safely cut all kinds of things especially big fat chicken breasts.  It cuts fast, evenly, and best of all I don’t have to worry about cutting my hands which I have done from time to time.  I also use it to cut a bunch of cherry tomatoes at once or a can of olives that I want to cut in half.  And the whole thing goes in the dishwasher.  Love that after cutting raw chicken.

3.    Insulated bowls – These things are great for just about anything you want to keep warm like soup, pasta but especially sauces like hollandaise.  They are amazing and I use them almost daily.  They are great to keep food at serving temperature without having to warm stuff up.  Never knew about these until I got the Thermomix.

So, what are some of your favorites?

This time of year when the navel orange tree in the back yard is loaded, I haul out my Breville Citrus Press.  It makes short work of juicing, and clean-up is fairly easy.  All removable parts are machine washable as well.  I love having fresh squeezed orange juice every morning.

I also treasure my vintage Trinco ReCAP bottle opener/resealer.  There was one of these things rattling around in the gadget drawer when I was a kid and it was never used.  I don't even know how I ended up with it, but after using it for the first time, I was hooked, so to speak.  One quick motion removes the cap without bending it.  I rarely need to reseal a bottle of beer, but I've used it to reseal other carbonated beverages.   I've nabbed a few on eBay to give to friends, but lately sellers have been asking way too much for them.  They clean up nicely with some BKF.

Eddie, my Mom had two bowls that looked almost exactly the same.  The one she used most of the time had a flat bottom with no markings and no ridge or anything just the bottom of the bowl.  The other one was an old GE Mixer bowl (there was a large and small one) that had the bottom that would fit into the mixer stand if that makes sense and it was stamped with the GE logo from what I remember.  The mixer was long gone but she had kept the bowls. She didn't use those that much but the flat Botton one she used daily from what I remember.  Can you share the bottom of yours, I'm curious to see if it is like the one my Mom had.

Ralph, I have never seen a bottle opener like that one.  Does it really reseal the bottle enough to keep the fizz?

1.  Programmable coffee maker.  Sainthood for whoever came up with the idea.

2.  Panasonic FlashXpress toaster oven.  Best reheating machine for pizza and chilled fried chicken.

3.  Variable power turntable microwave oven (yeah, yeah, I know about the other thread).  Use it right and your leftovers (pasta, soup)  won't get dried out and/or rubbery.

That is almost exactly how I remember hers and like you, she used it so often from what I remember.

Ralph,

Here's what I've been using to juice oranges for years now. I think it's at least 30 years old, still works great. I remember seeing these in use on the Cal Berkeley campus, at the intersection of Telegraph and Bancroft, when I was a student there in the 1970's.

The brand is called Ramcon, and when I saw them for sale at Costco around in the 1980's or 1990's I picked up the one I still have.

I have this one that belonged to my Mom.  I also have a bag full of attachments for it.  When my youngest sister started high school, my Mom got her first part time job and this is what she bought with that first paycheck.  She had a KA mixer that she flip flopped back and forth between. 

Rich, I had one of those Ramcon type juicers for a while.  The first time I saw one was at a juice bar on my first trip to Mexico in 1972. 

The Breville offers a much faster assembly line type of system for processing larger quantities, like a quart at a time when I'm filling two large tumblers in the morning for me and my buddy during the peak harvesting period.  That's what it takes to keep up with the amount of sweet, dead-ripe Navel oranges when there's a bumper crop.  Juicing time is nigh, and I'll be pulling the Breville out of storage within the next week or so, I'm estimating.  This year the oranges are smaller and less plentiful than last, probably due using water more sparingly during increasingly serious drought conditions.

My Ramcon clone from Tuesday Mornings still sits in the basement, but I can't imagine ever using it again.

By the way, my sister lived in and later managed the 1904 El Grenada Apartments at the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft from around 1970-75.  They had a great rooftop garden, but the constant daily din coming from Sproul Plaza on the UC campus across the street, particularly from the Krishnas, was inescapable.

Ralph,

I have two different types of orange tree on my property.

The Washington Navel tree gives easily peeled and separated segments for eating as is. The Valencia tree gives juicy fruit perfect for slicing in half and juicing.

My buddy has a vintage copper plated jar opener that's similar to the one Ken posted, but it's much more compact.  I had never seen one before and he showed me how to use it.

1) Sunbeam Coffeemaster C30 is my daily driver

2) Sunbeam egg cooker. The egg cooker is the appliance I didn't know existed and now can't live without

3) Corningware

Honorable mention goes to the shamelessly bougie Ember coffee mug that holds my coffee at the perfect temperature for as long as it takes me to drink it. The thing retails for a painful $130. I got mine at the thrift store in the original box for $10

1) Bosch dishwasher*

2) Titan T1060 Waste Disposer (Joneca)

3) Keurig 2.0 Coffee Maker, with special cup for ground beans

* I hate washing dishes!

Yep. I love mine. It's creeping ahead of a vintage KitchenAid for a spot in my vintage kitchen.

My goto morning coffee is pour over using a Chemex coffeepot.  I have one of those electric goose neck water kettles that I have set at 203 and it takes 3-4 minutes to heat the water from cold.  We have one of those hot water dispensers at our kitchen sink that heats the water to about 180.  So I fill the water kettle every morning using the hot water out of the dispenser and it literally takes less than a minute to bring the water to 203.  Every second counts when you're waiting for that morning first cup :).

When I think about how often we use the water out of that dispenser throughout the day I have to add that hot water dispenser to my list.

Ralph, do you use the Chemex paper filters? We have a Chemex, and I think it makes stellar coffee with the Chemex brand paper filters. With the metal filter my husband uses with it, not so much.

My Coffeemaster C30 beats the Chemex with the metal filter hands down. It's a draw with the Chemex and paper filters--the Chemex might even be slightly better.

Sarah

Sarah, only Chemex paper filters for me.  I have used a Chemex pot for the better part of 40 years.  Over the years I have tried a number of reusable filters.  Some cloth, some metal and I remember one that was some kind of material that I can't even say what it was.  It was some kind of rubber material.   I remember after the first use it was stained by the coffee and the coffee was terrible.

My experience has been the Chemex paper filter is the only one that removes the "stuff" that makes coffee bitter.  If you ever feel you want to test, make a pot of coffee with the Chemex filter and then another using one of these other filters.  Pour a cup of each and then look closely at the top of the cup of coffee and on the non Chemex filter cup, you can see the oils floating on top.  Those oils contribute to making the cup bitter.

I agree about the Chemex method.  I do cheat, though.  I hacked my Bonavita automatic drip by using a medium sized Chemex carafe with it.  You can't get a smoother brew with anything other than Chemex paper filters.  I have to use the "FC" type filters with round tops in order to fit the Bonavita, and they can sometimes be hard to find.  During COVID they were MIA, and I was using scissors to cut the square filters to fit.

I also agree about the instant hot water dispenser.  We had one in the remodeled kitchen of our first house and it saw a lot of use.  I recently found a used one for free on Nextdoor and am going to install it when I change out the faucet on the sink.  I do prefer using filtered water from the refrigerator dispenser for making coffee, but I'm not so particular about tea.  I'm also considering an in-line filter for the hot water dispenser's supply.

The water that goes to our dispenser is filtered and I agree that makes a difference.  

I have or had (not sure where it is at the moment) one of the original Chemex automatic makers from the 70s and it makes good coffee.  A few years back I bought an Ottomatic and it makes good coffee but it takes too long.  About 11 minutes for a 6 cup pot.  I can do a pour over in about 3 minutes once the water is at temp.  I may have to look for a second hand Bonavita.  They have a setting to do a bloom first, correct?

I had to chuckle about cutting the square filters to round, I had to do that when I was using the original maker and couldn't find the round ones.