A cast iron skillet. If you use it regularly the seasoning will be so good that it’s as functional as any PTFE nonstick pan, you can use metal cooking utensils on it instead of having to get plastic/silicon stuff (for PTFE), and it serves many purposes from stove top to oven. If you can find a “vintage” one at a yard sale from when they used to hand polish them smooth instead of pre-seasoning them with a rough texture, even better. When I bought a small Lodge one years ago, I used a grinder and sanding discs to polish off the factory textured seasoning and re-seasoned it myself, which worked a charm! If you go that route, I recommend doing it outside, because the amount of metal dust that it stirs up is impressive (and magnetic, so an absolute mess to clean up).
Old mandolin slicers. The plastic on one’s produced recently cracks in a year for the cheap ones, or five years for the expensive ones. My grandmother had one that was solid metal. I’m sure it’s serving my cousin as well today as it served my grandmother 50+ years ago.
Not to mention the shit that’s completely fucking useless, like Juicero - a “juice squeezing machine” that only works with plastic bags you get from their subscription service.
Anything cooking related. It all the same shit you already had but this time it’s plastic, harder to clean and only does 1 specific thing.
Can you give a few examples of older stuff worth getting? I’m looking to update my kitchen soon :)
A cast iron skillet. If you use it regularly the seasoning will be so good that it’s as functional as any PTFE nonstick pan, you can use metal cooking utensils on it instead of having to get plastic/silicon stuff (for PTFE), and it serves many purposes from stove top to oven. If you can find a “vintage” one at a yard sale from when they used to hand polish them smooth instead of pre-seasoning them with a rough texture, even better. When I bought a small Lodge one years ago, I used a grinder and sanding discs to polish off the factory textured seasoning and re-seasoned it myself, which worked a charm! If you go that route, I recommend doing it outside, because the amount of metal dust that it stirs up is impressive (and magnetic, so an absolute mess to clean up).
Nah because my kitchen is full of plastic junk 😅
I’d suggest a stand mixer, but even those have gone down hill, even brands like kitchenaid have gotten worse.
Maybe some old pyrex, if you can find some. The new stuff is bad, can’t recommend that.
Old mandolin slicers. The plastic on one’s produced recently cracks in a year for the cheap ones, or five years for the expensive ones. My grandmother had one that was solid metal. I’m sure it’s serving my cousin as well today as it served my grandmother 50+ years ago.
Not to mention the shit that’s completely fucking useless, like Juicero - a “juice squeezing machine” that only works with plastic bags you get from their subscription service.
You can also just… empty the bags manually. Without buying the super expensive machine.
Yes, but you wouldn’t be a cool forward-thinking silicon valley tech fan anymore. Only kind of /s.
Or just buy a glass or box of juice, which is also cheaper than their proprietary bags
Of course