Things in my kitchen I really, really like:
1. China Blue sesame soy sauce – I can only find this from Williams Sonoma, where it is outrageously expensive, but it’s the best sauce in the world in which to marinate flank steak.
2. Polder digital meat timer/thermometer – allows you to set the timer to let you know when a roast is done according to the type of meat and desired doneness.
3. Playtex Living Gloves – they may not advertise that you can pick up a dime anymore with these, but they beat the cheap store-brand imitations hands down.
4. Phillips Samba TV – not precisely a kitchen utensil, but I couldn’t live without having Imus on in the mornings or news in the evenings.
5. Safeway brand “sparkling water” – cleverly disguised caffeine-free, sugar-free soda. But in great flavors like raspberry/blackberry and grapefruit/tangerine.

Things I wish I had in my kitchen:
1. Sharp knives – I bought a set of knives years ago that were highly rated by Consumers Reports. They’ve lasted for a long time, but desperately need to be sharpened. Neither my husband nor I can stand the whine of the electric knife sharpener (sounds *way* too much like a dentist’s drill), and I never learned to use the sharpening steel correctly (in fact, you could call it a dulling steel when I use it). When I was a kid there used to be a guy who came around door-to-door sharpening knives. I guess he went the way of the Fuller Brush man.
2. A chef. I dislike cooking though I can do it well when I take the time to both read the recipe and follow it.
3. Someone to shop for groceries. Even more than I dislike cooking, I really despise grocery shopping. All those carts with hard edges to crack the back of your ankles, and the retirees from the local adult community with a fistful of coupons, and the constant game the store manager plays that involves either discontinuing items I’ve come to depend upon, or moving those items to a hidden shelf behind the gefilte fish, or placing them upon the top rack which requires me to clear off the bottom shelf so that I can stand upon it and bat the items to the ground, crushing them in the process.
4. Lyle Lovett – not exactly a kitchen utensil either, but I figure he could sing to me while I cook.