I second that good knives thing! But I would say almost anything kitchen related is worth the money to me...not frivolous gadgets of course, but good cookware, knives, Dutch oven etc. You get so much more longevity out of them when they are good quality! Good bed and good clothes, by which I don't mean fashionable, but will wear for a long time. Also good tools if you're into DIY. And good food, organic etc. This one is the most important to me.
Also I ashamedly admit, good makeup and good booze...hey we all have our vices
I do 99% of the cooking in our house. Works out well for the DW, and since I consider cooking a sort of hobby, all the better!
One thing I cannot stand is a single-purpose kitchen gadget. If I can't use it for more than one thing, or I don't do that one thing weekly, it is OUT of my kitchen!
Also for this kind of thing, I find the buy-it-for-life sub-Reddit quite useful.
So tell us what you have in your kitchen and what you have jettisoned over time as not meeting your criteria.
I keep getting tempted by one of this hand blender things. A lot of people seem to swear by them. They always seem gadgety to me (thou I confess I have never used one), and I have managed to get along without one for lots of years.
Somehow missed this reply, please excuse the lateness of my reply.
Anyway, I have a number of gadgets: Blender, Food processor, immersion blender (makes making mayo a snap!), a crock pot, a pressure cooker, and a Kitchen Aid stand mixer I got as a wedding present that sees little use now, mostly just the meat grinder attachment. My wife occasionally uses a waffle maker.
While that's a fair number of gewgaws, I've also eliminated a lot of useless things. I got rid of a number of 'as seen on TV' kind of things like onion choppers, bell pepper containers, etc. as well as pasta stirrers (not sure why a wooden spoon is not good enough to stir pasta) and various specialized things like that. My rule is that if I don't use it once a year, it's gone. That's especially important now that we've moved and have a smaller kitchen space.
When I moved in with my wife, she had a huge number of impulse buys and ill considered gifts which we sorted through to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. I've kept on paring down the number of things, so I can finally fit it all in our drawers. If I find something I need, I buy it and have asked people not to buy things for the kitchen for me unless I've asked for it directly.
