Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

@bobbob: There's also a $2.95 egg separator in the mix.

My mom actually has an egg timer like that from circa 1982.

I love WS's attempt at gouging you on pointless crap. $25 for a doohicky to roast garlic in? Have they heard of this thing called the resession? Or this thing called foil?

A good, practical low cost stocking stuffer: a Microplane.

Sorry, Kerry, but I'm with the others... these gadgets do seem a bit silly.

For the price of the egg cooking gauge, you could buy a carton or two of eggs and practice cooking them with a timer until you've got it down pat. Handily, the timer is probably something you already have, and can be used for other tasks.

Count me among the hands-as-egg-separator crowd. If you just can't abide the thought of messy hands, practice using the egg shells to do it. Fairly simple. Much less clutter. Very cost effective.

Likewise, you could get about 4 boxes of toothpicks for the price of the cake tester. Why would anybody want an *adorable* uni-tasker? Besides, IMHO it does need to be wooden as previously mentioned (crumbs usually won't properly stick to metal so you could get a false reading).

BTW, I'm not exactly a complete neat-freak, but I still manage to have my toothpicks always in the same spot, and it's one that's pretty easy to find (no hunting required). Maybe some people lose theirs amidst all the uni-taskers filling their drawers and cabinets?

Am I the only one amazed by the price differences between C&B and WS? $25 @ WS for garlic roaster and only $8.95 @ C&B? Ditto that for the egg separator, $16 @ WS and a mere $2.95 @ C&B. Makes me want to rethink ever spending my money at that store again. I agree with pretty much every one else. If you can't separate eggs, cook eggs, roast garlic or cut a grapefruit without the aid of a specialized gadget you probably shouldn't make cooking/baking your hobby.

For a site that features so much content with Alton Brown, this sure is a load of useless uni-taskers. If he were dead, he'd be rolling in his grave right about now. Cake tester = toothpick. Garlic roaster = foil. Egg separator = eggshell. Grapefruit knife = knife. Egg timer = eh, that actually might be useful.

The problem with stocking stuffers like these is that they only *seem* like they will be handy and save a lot of time, but if anyone is in the kitchen long enough to make this stuff worthwhile, they will develop the skills necessary to transcend the need for this stuff.

Hi, Everyone! Thanks for weighing in on these. I understand your gripes--frankly, I use egg shells and skewers and foil myself, but I thought these were the sort of little novelties we (obviously, from the comments) wouldn't buy ourselves, and would just be thoughtful. But I will say, I am the owner of the grapefruit knife, and the egg timer. I'm a boiled egg idiot, and I find it really useful, and so far, it has never emitted any sort of plastic anything into the eggs in the years that I've had it. And the grapefruit knife--looks flimsy I know, but since I eat a grapefruit every morning, I've come to regard it as a kind of sidekick. One side has twin blades that perfectly without any effort or extra strokes, separate two sides of flesh away from the membrane at once, and the other side, sort of hooked, goes around the whole thing, along the skin, but underneath the rounded part as well, without ever poking through and cutting me (like my poor little trusty paring knife used to). It's sort of brilliant, if a one-trick pony. After all, I need it to do its one trick every day! I suppose I do rather like my kitchen to be overstuffed with little odds and ends that make cooking even more novel--like the kitchen door is my portal into another world, full of whimsical cake testers and garlic-shaped roasters.