Essential Gadgetry #1
Each week, we have a video call where we catch up and talk about things and stuff. While on one of these calls recently, we realized that it might be fun for us (and interesting for our readers) if we blogged about some of our favorite kitchen and household gadgets and how we use them.
The name of the blog was a bit of a conundrum. Girls and gadgets? Women and whisks? Sisters and sifters? Ladies and ladles? Three forks and a lot of other things? So anyway, throwing an arbitrary dart at an imaginary dartboard, Essential Gadgetry was created (we’re sure open to other suggestions!)
First, let’s qualify “gadgetry”. We’re not talking about staples like a mixer, an oven, even a microwave. We’re talking about something that maybe not everyone has in their kitchen but that we’d rather not live without. Some might even be *egad!* what a famous TV food host calls a unitasker. 
Being fall, the first gadget that came to my mind was an apple corer. I’m not much of a whole fruit eater, but there is something about the autumn months that makes me crave apples and pears. So what’s easier than whipping out the corer and making quick work of coring and cutting, and getting on to the eating?
I love my Oxo cutter with a nice fat handle for my clumsy hand (I severed a tendon in my thumb years ago and don’t have much dexterity in my right hand, so these big handles make a difference for me). It’s sturdy, sharp and gets the job done, and handles the dishwasher like a champ.
Something I keep toying with doing is making apple cider vinegar. I found a recipe that talks about saving cores from apples, accumulating them in your freezer until you have “enough”, then putting together an “apple scrap” vinegar. It’s on the “someday” list, which is a pretty long list, but still is an intriguing idea.
Jan:
Ohhhh. The Apple Cider vinegar idea sounds wonderful. A challenge! With the number of apple cores that three kids whose only extra snack a day is an apple creates… I may be able to market it!
I also do not like biting into a whole apple or pear. Nor does my granddaughter. When I moved here five years ago, I had this apple cutter to make pies more easily…
However, since I moved here the cutter constantly disappears from my apartment into the Kid’s house. I have given up and it lives there now. I borrow it back when I need it. I know how it feels. It is nice to be needed.
Carol:
Hum…maybe it’s because I am the oldest of the three of us that I don’t own this gadget. I grew up watching my grandmothers peel and slice apples for apple pies, and my mom peel and slice apples for her famous apple dumplings, all using a pairing knife. I still remember the chatter in the kitchen as the peels cascaded off the apples and the cores were carved out with precision. To be perfectly honest adding a apple corer/slicer to my overflowing kitchen utensil drawer never entered my mind. When a recipe calls for peeled and sliced apples, I still use my favorite pairing knife.
Apples are not our fruit of choice but when we do eat them, we wash them, rub them across our shirt sleeve to create a little shine, and take a bite.
My newest favorite low carb sugar free apple breakfast cake or dessert (featured on a previous blog post) is this Upside Down Apple Cake.
Although the cake is delicious, I really love the sliced apple preparation. I plan to use apples prepared this flavorful way in the future by adding them to oatmeal, cottage cheese or yogurt for breakfast or a snack.
