Every kitchen, I'm sure, has them.  Little gadgets, simple tools that have a distinct purpose, and are uniquely useful in the kitchen.  I don't mean those expensive electronic mixers, juicers, choppers, but rather objects that with their particular design, allow you to make short work of food preparation.

This morning, looking about in the near-chaos of some of my kitchen drawers in search of the cherry-stone plucker I knew should be there, my eyes lit on that small strawberry-huller in plain sight, sitting where it should be, awaiting use.  I have not seen that little thing in over a year.  And it's not because I didn't want to see it, because I have been looking for it, and just gave up, thinking I had accidentally discarded it, and it was somewhere it would never be retrieved from: the garbage.

I'd given up looking for it.  And I missed its usefulness.  And there it was, precisely where it should be.  How could I have overlooked it for so long?  Now that I have it securely in my known possession once again I will take special measures to ensure it doesn't get mislaid (but it wasn't mislaid if it lay there now, where it should be for easy access!).  Because this is a little device I have been unable to replace.  I haven't seen its like anywhere I've searched.

I'm preparing to pit a large number of fresh cherries.  They're not as firm and as delicious as the last cherries we bought, and I've decided to bake a pie with them.  That cherry-stone-pitter will come in most handy for that little task.  The kitchen resources are made up of many little action short-cuts like that. 

I value them, those little things that over the decades have been picked up and used repeatedly.