What Not to Get Me for Christmas

I'm a chef.

For some reason, people, knowing I'm a chef, like to get me kitchen gadgets for gifts. Why? I really have no idea.

Would you get a carpenter tools? Would you get an photographer a camera? No, of course not. You'd assume that: a.) they already have this stuff, and, b.) they have a very specific set of criteria for the tools that they use in their trade.

So it never fails to amaze me when I receive stuff like a "mango cutter" for a gift. I already have a mango cutter. It's called a knife.

Ok, stop right there. Maybe you think I'm being arrogant or ungrateful. I'm not. A mango cutter is just plain impractical. Take a look at the picture in that link. The device is used by lining it up and then pushing down onto the mango. Now, when you eat a good mango, what's it's main characteristic? A ripe mango is soft and almost mushy. If you place this oxo good grips guillotine collar type thing over it and press down, what's going to happen? Are you going to get nice, clean, ready-to-eat mango halves? No! You're going to get a smashed mango.

News flash, people; I get paid because I know how to take apart a ripe mango so that I can get all of the juicy fruit off the pit and skin and cut it into even, pretty pieces.

Here are some more classics:

An avocado cutter, herb snips, a corn "zipper", a $30 electric potato peeler, a garlic roaster (tin foil accomplishes the same thing) and what's got to be the dumbest of the dumb gadgets, a banana slicer. Is slicing a banana even slightly difficult for anyone over the age of six? You've *got* to be kidding me. I already have a dozen or so banana slicers in the drawer. They double as butter knives.

This stuff makes me sad. It attempts to take people's lack of knowledge about how to cook or prepare food and parlay that into sales of stupid made-in-china garbage. If people would just read up and get themselves a good sharp knife, 95% of this stuff would disappear overnight.

So, please....DO NOT get me this kind of stuff for Christmas.