What makes a kitchen gadget a culinary gamechanger? An indispensable item of the kitchen toolkit doesn’t have to be hi-tech or fancy – my most prized tool is a 50 cent plastic spatula – but it does have to earn its place in the cutlery drawer.
The salad spinner comes a close second to my spatula. It’s the first thing I look for when I’m preparing salad in someone else’s kitchen. If my host doesn’t have one, I’m never sure how to proceed. If the answer to “How do you dry your lettuce?” is patting gently with paper towels or performing some kind of frenzied windmill impersonation with a tea towel, I have an urge – which I (mostly) resist – to throw my hands in the air.
