Comments on: Can a waffle iron make more than waffles?

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:57:23 +0000

I love waffles and I love my waffle iron. We use it a lot. I don’t need a Foreman grill with 5 plates that does things I don’t need or already have utensils for, and that takes up more room than the other things I use. Different people value different things, I guess.

By: joss

joss — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:22:15 +0000

Late thought: some company makes a high chair that also turns into a baby swing. It’s more expensive than buying the two functions separately and combining the two mean you can’t put the baby in a swing while you clean up the highchair (and high chairs, even with regular effort, are notoriously gross). Another instance where a dedicated device works better than the also-make-Julian-fries approach.

By: joss

joss — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:19:09 +0000

Agree with Mikey’s mom -just like an item that tries to do many things is not valuable if it doesn’t do any of the things especially well. The toothbrush is an excellent example of something that’s a unitasker for a reason while the “book brush” featured on the 2009 Unitasker List is a perfect example of a specialized brush that can’t hope to ever justify its existence.

By: STL Mom

STL Mom — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:15:11 +0000

I no longer need to defend my waffle iron – yeah!
Now I need a website to show me 30 ways to use my George Foreman grill. Because right now I only use it for hamburgers, when it’s too cold to grill outside. I live near Chicago, so that’s more than half the year, but I’d still like more justification!

By: Anita

Anita — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:07:08 +0000

I don’t own a waffle iron, but the recipes on Wafflizer so far almost make me want to get one!

By: Rico

Rico — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:47:21 +0000

Waffle toast! Once you’ve had it, you just might question the need for a toaster. Hit it with the topping of your choice and all is right with the world.

By: Raisin

Raisin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:00:46 +0000

We have a waffle iron, and we don’t eat waffles. We use the waffle iron to make bacon, and to make ice cream cones. It gets used at least three times a week, so I don’t mind having that ‘unitasker.’

By: Katie Van Domelen

Katie Van Domelen — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:39:57 +0000

That site is cute! But couldn’t you still use those recipes and ideas if you had a grill with waffle-iron plates? I guess as someone who lives in a small space I value the concept of having only the things that I need and that will see a lot of use so the grill/plates solution makes sense to me.

By: klutzgrrl

klutzgrrl — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:32:59 +0000

I guess unitastkers – and kitchen unitaskers in particular – are always going to be the subject of dissent. Some love’em and use them, for others they are just more clutter. I tend to be in the ‘use my frypan for everything’ school but then I’m not a great fan of cooking generally.

I do have a unitasker popcorn maker, which is brilliant and worthwhile beause it air-pops without mess.

Liked this article though, got me thinking of ways to make interesting combos!

By: Erika

Erika — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:32:57 +0000

I have to agree with Mikey’s mom. I own a cherry pitter even though cherries are only in season in the summer, but I love making desserts with fresh cherries and it really is impossible to pit a bowl of cherries cleanly and efficiently without a cherry pitter.

And, when I think about it, most things I use on a daily basis are unitaskers. Am I supposed to use my toothbrush for anything other than brushing my teeth? I sure hope not.

By: Rebekah

Rebekah — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:06:29 +0000

On a side note, Erin, can I ask why you put quotation marks around the word disagree in your post? Surely the sentence works even better without the quotation marks– people really did, literally, disagree with you, right?

You may have been making an arch reference I didn’t get, in which case I apologize. But I’m not a fan of the very common misuse/ unnecessary use of quotation marks.

By: Krista@CommitmentisLibearting

Krista@CommitmentisLibearting — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:40:53 +0000

We make chocolate cookies on our waffle iron too

By: mbm

mbm — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:04:02 +0000

I love waffles! I don’t care that the waffle iron is a unitasker. I have no interest in making paninis or hamburgers or cookies or anything else on it.

Okay, maybe bacon, but only because it’s a natural companion of waffles. Mmmmm, waffles…

By: Mikey's mom

Mikey's mom — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:58:25 +0000

My take on your Unitasker thread is that if you use the item a lot, and it does what it does better than anything else, then it’s actually a perfectly designed functioning item. A true unitasker is something that does a function almost or just as well as another less specialized thing.

A scythe can mow your lawn and do many other things as well (including harvesting souls, I suppose), but most of us have that lawn unitasker in our garage. It just works better, and is a great example of a machine that’s perfectly designed to do its single purpose.

When some of us object to the unitasker designation, I think we are thinking that this item does something we do a lot, and the item does that thing really really well.

Okay, sorry /ramble now

By: Emily H.

Emily H. — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:27:59 +0000

We don’t use our waffle iron enough–I’m heading over to check out Waffleizer right now!