Living With Less: Kitchen Utensils

You know what's not convenient?  Things that are supposed to make life easier.  As a general rule, anyway.

Maybe that's a little over the top, but it does hold true with most of the things that you find yourself tripping over in the kitchen.

In other words, "convenience" items like melon ballers and orange peelers and cherry pitters--things that are only good for one task (and typically a task that you don't encounter daily)--are not deserving of space in your kitchen.

Consider the following:



Your cooking utensil drawer (or vase or wherever you store spatulas and stuff).

Is it overflowing with layers of utensils?  Does it get all jammed up with the big end of spatulas sticking the wrong way every time you try and close it?  Are you cringing right now?  If so, you're not alone.


I'm sitting here trying to remember the contents of our kitchen utensils drawer as it was about a year ago.  I think it went something like this:

• Spatulas (the flexible kind you scrape bowls with): 5 or 6
• Spatulas (the kind you flip pancakes with): 7 or 8 --one of which was plastic and partially melted on one side
• Whisks: at least 4 (some of which were getting rusty down inside the handle bit)
• Melon ballers: 1 or 2
• Orange peeler thingys: 1 or 2
• Cherry pitter: 1
• Wooden spoons that were actually made of cheap plastic: 4 or 5
• Wooden spoons: 4 or 5
• An egg slicer
• Measuring cups: 3 sets (1 complete set, 1 complete set with one of the handles broken off of one of the cups, 1 set with only two measuring cups remaining)
• Measuring spoons: 2 complete sets (maybe 3?) and some extra random orphaned measuring spoons
• Cheese graters: 1 really nice one, 1 really old one that was literally rusty
• Knives: an assortment of mismatched knives (these in addition to the set on the counter in the knife block)
• Ice cream scoop: just 1 I think
• Pizza slicers: 3 (at least) which we never, ever, ever, ever, ever used

There were surely additional things I'm not thinking of.  But you get the idea.  It was ridiculous.

Post-purge, we were left with the following:

• Spatulas (the flexible kind you scrape bowls with): 4 (three in graduating sizes, and one red one that I love)
• Spatulas (the kind you flip pancakes with): 2 plastic, 1 metal
• Whisks: 2 (one small, one large)
• Wooden spoons: 3
• An egg slicer
• Measuring cups: 1 complete set
• Measuring spoons: 1 complete set
• Cheese graters: 1 really nice one
• Ice cream scoop: 1

You know what happens when I open the drawer with all our kitchen utensils inside?  I can see everything.  At the same time.

Also?  It doesn't get all jammed up with spatulas when I try to open/close it.

Also?  We wash a lot less kitchen utensils.  Yes, I may have to rinse out a measuring cup while making cookies once in a while.  But it's better than having to wash four of the exact same size cup once I'm all done.

My general rule for sorting kitchen utensils is this: 
If it only gets used once or twice a year, it's not worth keeping.*

*Obviously that rule should be amended for things like canning supplies (if you're into that--I'm not) that are truly useful things that you do need to have once a year, but not all the time.  Although those things should probably be stored elsewhere.  Like, you know, in the basement with the rest of the canning supplies.  Not where you have to deal with it every day.


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See the entire Living With Less series HERE.