Ahem. Seriously now. There are any number of cooking things that require specialized equipment. You can’t make waffles without some sort of waffle iron and I cannot think of another (sensible) use for it. It’s impractical in the extreme to make ice cream with anything other an mechanical ice cream maker.[1] A dehydrater is much more efficient than an oven on low with the door cracked. A salad spinner is much more efficient than towels or human-propelled rotation, which means the produce lasts a lot longer. “Grinding” meat by chopping it with two knives takes forever and a day. And I defy you to make sausages without a stuffer. (I suppose you might be able to repurpose a canolli form but I haven’t used one so I don’t know). So some unitaskers make sense.

Others do not. Since I don’t have a Williams Sonoma catalog at hand none spring to mind but it’s late and I’m a tired. Um, pasta serving measurer?

Still others are in a fuzzy middle ground. I think the key question is how much do you use it? Some uses are seasonal (canning equipment), others save huge amounts of time when you do use them (cherry pitters) (although old fashioned bun pins are surprisingly effective). Still others are simply a question of space and frequency (my rice cooker; I make great stovetop rice (as long as I have a gas stove, that is) but the rice cooker is set and forget and I use it several times a week).

Why is a standing mixer considered a unitasker?

PS – Running stale bread through a coffee grinder is also said to remove the old bits stuck inside. I don’t like coffee and found that, when cleaning time was taken into account, I could use a mortar and pestle faster than the coffee grinder, so I can only relay what I’ve heard. FWIW I heard it in cooking school.

[1] Rich – no, no don’t do it! Actually, I looked into doing the same thing and decided not to. Here ae my reasons, you decide what works for you. The Kitchenaid bowl is $70, the Cuisinart with two bowls is $50. The KA bowl is also very big. The bowl is just as much of a unitasker as the Cuisinart ice cream maker is. The KA bowl doesn’t do a better job than the Cuisinart.

Some other sorta/wannabe unitaskers that came to mind:

*Garlic mincer – new one has a slicer that I also use for olives. Sliced garlic is excellent in cheesy-garlic-potato gratin, and olives at least 2x week for mex meals.

*Strawberry huller/capper – also use this for tomatoes.

*Cherry pitter – I hate the mess & bother of fresh cherries, but kids love it. I also hate the mess & bother of hand-pitting a pound of cherries, so this $3 unitasker is worth it. (Tried on a tin of pit olives, didn’t work so well. And who tins olives with pits? Snooty olive people, that’s who.)

*Coffeemaker: the ultimate unitasker. It makes coffee. But one cup means I make breakfast for children and actually hit exercise bike, so it’s a multi-tasker in disguise.

Random useful but useable unitaskers:
*Stapler – staples. Love staples.
*Printer – prints. I work in desktop publishing, so I need prints. (Bonus: print paper airplanes. On the backside of discarded printer paper, of course. Boys are used to paper airplanes with “Page 1 of 5″ footers.)
*

AND… actually… food molds don’t count as a Unitasker if you’re a bento maker! Everyday, when I make my bento (bento means lunch box) for the husband and I to take to work, I use my molds and little containers that go with it. Great for portion control (the little containers), saves us money because we don’t eat out and it makes lunch fun!

And… my sister in law has the purse hook >.<

Hehehehe… Love the Unitasker posts! Keep it up!

-Rice cooker: used at least once a week for dinner. Fool-proof is always good in our kitchen, particularly since I frequently experiment with new recipes and am often too distracted to make sure I’m not burning the rice.

-Popcorn popper: also used at least once a week for snacks. Next one will be an air-popper that blows the popped kernels out, however. I still burn the occasional batch from being distracted.

-Kitchenaid ice cream maker attachment: not used very often as our current freezer is small and a little too warm. Planning on purchasing a small chest freezer in the next year; I anticipate many delicious sorbets once that occurs.

-Cherry pitter: I’m learning how to can and preserve, and there’s a local farmer who sells cherries for $0.99/lb at the height of cherry season (as in, right now). This little gadget is absolutely worth every penny and every cc of used storage space, even if I only use it a couple of times a year.

-Belgian waffle iron: yes, one of those monstrosities that can be flipped over to get the perfectly fluffy waffle. Gets used at least once a week for a big ol’ batch of waffles for a weekend brunch; leftovers get frozen for breakfast later in the week. It actually gets stored in a really weird place (cubby under the guinea pig cage) because it’s the only place it fits within 20′ of the kitchen. Totally worth it, though.

-Countertop dishwasher: eats up approximately 20% of the available counter space in our apartment’s galley kitchen. And I am not giving it up until we move to somewhere with an actual built-in dishwasher, dammit.

-Canning supplies: true, the jar tongs and magnetic lid lifter spend three seasons a year in the storage closet, along with all empty mason jars. They are absolutely critical for canning without burned fingers and loud cursing, though. And while some of the early batches were less-than-fantastic, it’s a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to cherry pie in winter this year.

We have an ice cream maker, but I think that’s the only true unitasker we have. I’ll have to have a look round the kitchen and check, though, because I’m sure there’s some strange things lurking at the back of our cupboards…

I do have a mesh salad basket with spinner handles but I use it to carry produce in from the garden, so it hardly qualifies. My 2 1/2 gallon colander definitely is a unitasker but it’s a necessity in preserving season.

My most hated unitaskers? Charger for phone, charger for iPod, charger for radio/mp3, charger for laptop—why can’t I get a multi-head or multi-purpose charger? I finally have the USB cord with multiple attachments.

Toilet paper holder. When I pull on the paper, it always falls down, so we keep the roll on the back of the toilet. I suppose I could fix it.

Decorative pillows. Not even comfortable, but lovely…

Cooling eye mask. It sits in my fridge but I never use it because I always fear there are germs from my fridge on it and if I washed it before use, it wouldn’t be cooling.

Pump to fill an air-mattress. We are sans air-mattress.