Greetings, and I hope all enjoyed a fabulous holiday weekend, and that your roasted/smoked/fried/poached turkey was the best evarr. Not too much left to say on the subject of Thanksgiving, but the day after is a holiday that does not get enough love. Buy Nothing Day poses obvious problems for the potential celebrator. It is un-American, for one thing, and very hard to merchandise. Even Buy Nothing Day cards would seem to violate the spirit of the day. So what to do? As a nation, we like making lists almost as much as buying stuff, so I suggest, next year, celebrating the holiday by making a list of worthless crap you do not want.
Williams-Sonoma is right behind this effort. On a good day, leafing through the W-S catalog is like having limited second sight that allows you to see yard sales twenty months in the future. Most folks who cook have a knife or two, some pots and pans, and are ready to cook about 99% of whatever they might want to cook. But that does W-S no good, so they target the other 1%, or pimp single-use items of limited utility. Unless you live on an island off the coast of Brittany with Fanny Ardant, you do not need a dedicated mussel-cooker.
Number one on my Buy Nothing Day Registry is an item featured on the back cover of the current catalog -- the Cuisinart popcorn maker. Make no mistake -- this is not the modified hairdryer you remember from dorm days. Instead, this is an oil-based system -- you put oil and kernels in, turn it on, and it pops. Thus, essentially you have a hotplate and a plastic bucket, marked down from $110 to only $59.95. That represents a significant discount, but is still $59.95 more than the pot with a lid and stove you already own, not to mention the counter real estate it takes up during those rare moments when you are not cooking popcorn. If there is more stuff like this out there, please send it along to the comments or fesser -at- gmail dot com -- if there is enough, I'll do a grinchy twelve days of worthless kitchen crap series of posts.
In the spirit of the season, however, some lowdown_popcorn.
Got you beat. Saw this last night, but didn't have enough time to send to make the publication deadline, apparently. The gift that says, "you don't know sh*t from shinola."
Posted by: Rose's Lime | Monday, 26 November 2007 at 02:32 PM
This is too easy. Fish, barrel, etc. I present: the electric martini shaker. Does the same job as this girl (scroll down a bit) but with that extra touch of Bond.
Posted by: poacher | Tuesday, 27 November 2007 at 04:43 AM
Rice cooker. Who buys a rice cooker?! Jeez -- you got a pot with a lid?
Posted by: ride&cook | Tuesday, 27 November 2007 at 06:25 AM
For the people who own everything but want more shit. You did a good thang by paying tribute to JB. Almost a year gone.
Posted by: Marco | Tuesday, 27 November 2007 at 09:54 AM
on the other hand, the right gift can make a big difference.
Check out the last segment in this CNN video where a cancer patient talks about the patio chair that his friends buys for him...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZbUw54Rw_w
Posted by: Bill | Tuesday, 27 November 2007 at 05:54 PM