My husband is the fixer of things in our home. I am the fixer of food, and, pretty darn good at it, thanks in part to professional cooking courses I’ve taken over the years and lots of practice.

Like my handy husband, I learned the hard way that there is nothing more maddening when you’re practicing your craft than poor quality tools. They may save you money in the short run, but you’ll end up cursing the cheap knife you bought from that late-night TV commercial when it ends up with a piece of your finger falling into the Bouillabaisse.

Now that the economy has sliced into our national dining-out budget, supposedly we are all becoming masters of our kitchen-domain. Yes, there are real money-saving and health benefits to becoming our own version of the “Next Food Network Star.” But when it’s 7 p.m. and you’ve just arrived home exhausted from work and the first thing your family says to you is “what’s for dinner?” suddenly the take-out menus in your kitchen drawer start calling your name.

But wait! Don’t dial yet. What if I were to share the knowledge that will help you make a delicious and nutritious meal in less time then it takes for the Mu-shu to arrive at your door? No, it’s not a recipe. You probably have enough of them already. Actually, it’s all about having the right tool – the best tool – for the job. This is what makes cooking fun even if you don’t like to cook.

After years of fixing meals for my family, my friends, my relatives, even my pets, I realized there are a handful of cook’s tools I use over and over because they do exactly what they are meant to do – help me get dinner on the table quickly and efficiently. My favorite cooking tools are well made, well designed, and great values. Any reasonably organized home cook would do well to include these clever tools in their kitchen.

As a professional organizer with a knack for kitchen design and meal planning, I decided it was time to share my list and my reasons for picking these tools from the thousands out there. Your list may be different. If so, send it to me. I’m always interested in learning new things much like the first cooking course I took. It was a birthday present from my husband when he was still my fiancé. He knew how much I enjoyed cooking and I suppose he knew he’d get a good home-cooked meal out of me as well.

By the way, all the items I have listed are available online and in stores including Sur La Table and Bed Bath & Beyond, neither of which employs me in any way. (Although if either want to send me a gift to thank me for the free plug, who am I to refuse them?) So here they are:

Ten Clever, Timesaving, Cook’s Tools for Under $50 (and Often Much Less)

1. Chef’s Knife – Nothing is more important to a cook, then a great knife. And nothing is more dangerous then a lousy one. I like the 8-inch Wüsthof model which I purchased at Sur La Table. It’s large enough to dice an onion and small enough to slice a strawberry.
2. Stainless steel tongs – I prefer the unlocking kind. They are lightweight and don’t pinch. I use one made by Oxo for everything from flipping filets to tossing salad. They are lightweight and generally cost under $10. I use the tongs probably more then any other single tool in my kitchen. Buy two so you’ll always have one available if the other is in the dishwasher.
3. Mandolin – I use this handheld, adjustable slicing tool for making uniform slices of anything from cucumbers to cabbage in less than 30 seconds. Perfect for stir-fries. If you’ve never seen one, it looks like a paddle with a kind of guillotine blade built into it. I recommend the version that comes with the hand guard. Kyocera makes one in red.
4. Rubber garlic peeler – Whoever invented this should win a Nobel Prize. It’s basically just a small rubber tube. You roll your unpeeled garlic cloves inside it and voila! Out rolls peeled garlic. Since there are no moving parts, cleaning it is nothing more then a rinse under water.
5. Micro-plane grater/zester with handle – This long, narrow grater looks like a giant nail file with tiny holes. Use it to grate garlic right into your hot sauté pan. Doing it this way, versus crushing it, will prevent the garlic from burning and turning bitter. It’s also great for zesting lemons and hard cheeses like fresh Parmesan.
6. Digital probe thermometer/kitchen timer – This has been my foolproof tool for roasting meats or poultry to perfection. It allows you to monitor both time and internal temperature while cooking. I like the one that has the magnetic backing for attaching to your range hood while cooking. No more guessing if the turkey is done on Thanksgiving.
7. Horizontal peeler – I use the Oxo brand. It has a good grip and has a matching vertical model. It’s perfect for peeling large, winter veggies like butternut squash and turnips in a snap.
8. Electric coffee grinder – I like the model made by Krups. Its powerful motor is great for grinding small quantities of fresh-picked spices
and nuts. It’s less expensive then the ones sold as “Spice and Nut” grinders exclusively. It comes in black and white. Buy them both and use one for coffee and one for spices. But don’t mix the two otherwise your coffee will end up tasting like oregano.
9. Handheld citrus juicer (a.k.a. lemon squeezer) – When these brightly colored squeezers first came out, I’m sure I was among the millions that said, “I wish I’d thought of that.” Get the one for lemons. It’s big enough for small oranges and works just fine for limes as well.
10. Magnifying glass – It’s not a cooking tool per se, but if you are past the age of 40, you’ve probably noticed that the typeface on labels, and in some cookbooks, has mysteriously shrunken in size. If you left your reading glasses upstairs by the computer, having a magnifying glass in your kitchen will prove to be a great timesaver.

Bon Appétit!

Think you are reasonably organized already? Take my quiz “How Organized Are You?” Visit https://www.letsmakeroom.com or email me at info@letsmakeroom.com

Say what you will about Oakland. I know I have. Today was a day, though, I was really glad to live here.  You see,  today was the day Oakland rewarded me for being a good “green” citizen.

I started the day with a trunk full of hazardous waste, electronic waste, old plastic office supplies and four bags of “gently used” clothing that no longer fit. After driving around town to drop off my electronic and plastic waste at Universal Waste Management and my old clothes at Goodwill my next, and last stop was Oakland’s hazardous waste facility for Alameda County.

The only hitch was when I went to drop off the hazardous waste my GPS took me to a location smack dab in the middle of an overpass connecting Oakland’s 880 freeway with the shipyards. “Simon,” the cockney avatar of my GPS system, kept insisting that I’d arrived at my destination.  I’m quite attached to Simon so I wanted to believe him and drove incredulously around the same loop twice before I had to accept the fact that even Simon was not invincible.

As it turned out, Simon was taking me to 2100 7th Street not 2100 East 7th Street (which for some reason is not on his radar) but is in fact the actual site of Oakland’s Hazardous waste drop off facility.  The facility is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m Thursday through Saturday for residential hazardous waste .  Of course thanks to Simon’s shenanigans, I arrived at 1:30 to closed gates. Fortunately, there was a kind employee standing outside of the main door getting ready to leave when I shouted out to him and explained how I “really wanted to be a good green citizen” and could he please take my shopping bag full of old CFL bulbs, kerosene oil and batteries. And so he did! Mission accomplished. What a great feeling to know that I live in a city that makes it easier for me to be “green.” Even Kermit the frog would like that.

Yesterday I started re-organizing my office. Yes, even organizers need to get organized. In fact it’s a principle of organizing that every so often you need to go back and re-organize what you’ve already organized because life has a way of getting messy. I’m not one of those people that lives a perfectly organized life. Not even close. What I do understand is that getting organized is a set of tools and techniques but staying organized is a practice – both internal and external.

So right now my office looks like it was hit by a hurricane. There are files strewn all over the floor, small slips of paper and other  supplies piled haphazardly on my desk. There are boxes more than half-filled with paper to be shredded and recycled and a smaller container of trash. There is a shelf half-filled with books (the rest are on the floor) and a bulletin board half empty with images that inspire me awaiting others that I find in the future.

On the floor sits a brand new all-in-one printer/scanner/fax that I just purchased and admittedly the culprit in this whole project.

You see, when I brought home the printer, I realized it belonged on the shelf  next to my desk. But the shelf was already being used by my business files. I knew my business files belonged in my file drawers.  The drawers, of course, were filled with my personal files and several other files that needed purging and archiving. I  decided they were going to live in the closet but the closet was filled with old clothes and the clothes needed to be sorted and bagged up for donating.  And so it goes as it does with anyone who simply wants to live their lives and next thing they know they’re arguing with their husband about why he needs to keep his 17 year old karate outfit that’s gathering dust on the closet’s top shelf. (It’s great for a Halloween costume, he tells me, defiantly.)

Years ago I would have been glued to my chair until the wee hours just to make sure every last piece of paper was filed, every thumbtack and paper clip in it’s rightful place. Tonight I still heard the small voice in my head that said,  “You mean you’re going to leave it like that overnight?”  Yes, now go to bed.

The Prisoner

I often get asked why I became a professional organizer.

My training as a therapist and experience as a learning consultant partially explain why I do what I do but the photograph to the left says it better.

It is a picture of an unfinished sculpture by the Italian artist Michelangelo. This sculpture is one of a series of similar works that were famously dubbed “The Prisoners.” This is because the figure appears to be imprisoned or breaking away from the stone that surrounds him.

I first saw this sculpture when I visited the Accademia Gallery in Florence, Italy as a teenager.  It is a work in progress that was never finished.  It is both tangible as a beautiful sculpture and deeply symbolic of what is possible.

Change can come slowly. This is difficult for many of my clients to understand in an age of instant gratification. Even so-called “reality” TV shows about organizing convey the impression that results are fast and painless. It’s simply not reality.  In truth, it can take hours, days and even weeks to bring someone back to the place they need to be to take control of their space, their lives and to feel more organized.

My work is about helping my clients chip away at their clutter – both physical and emotional. In the process, not only do they get their living rooms back or their papers under control, they actually move closer to whatever it is they want to accomplish.

But let’s say you’ve resolved to get organized many, many times and you never seem to make headway. You’ve tried all sorts of clever organizing systems or products and you’re feeling like your space still controls you instead of the other way around.

I often say, “If getting organized were just about putting things in nice containers, we’d all be organized.”

Learning to be more organized is a habit but unlike, say, brushing your teeth or taking out the trash, getting organized can sometimes make us feel worse, not better, at least at first.

This is because as we begin to take control, we realize how out of control we’ve been and how much we’ve adapted to habits that don’t serve us.  In addition, we feel stupid and silly for not being able to do what we falsely believe everyone else can do so easily. This moment of realization can feel overwhelming  and outright discouraging and, for some, leads back to old habits and behaviors.

Getting organized is a process that begins with understanding and forgiving ourselves,  recognizing that our habits no longer serve us and taking the time to learn and practice new behaviors.

These behaviors may feel strange at first but are based on accepted standards developed and proven as effective by professional organizers everywhere. And just like brushing your teeth, almost anyone can learn them

Getting organized is not for everyone. There’s nothing objectively wrong with being disorganized. Some of the world’s most brilliant minds can function quite well amidst a sea of clutter. Michelangelo himself is said to have cared little for his surroundings, would sleep in his clothes and may have had obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) a mental health condition which sometimes manifests in extreme clutter.

Some people, like those with pervasive hoarding behaviors, can tolerate massive amounts of disorganization and may only make changes if forced to through external circumstances or threats to their well-being.

Being disorganized is only a problem when you begin to feel distressed (or even depressed) by your disorganization. If your disorganization leads to consequences such as losing money or strained relationships then it’s definitely time to seek out help.

I consider it an honor when people ask for my help to get organized.  Together we enter into a trans-formative relationship that only needs to start with willingness;  Willingness to learn, willingness to try and willingness to start over when you find yourself slipping back into old habits.

Through consciously learning new ways of organizing your space and your life, you may discover the person that you were meant to be.

That is why I am a professional organizer.

Visit my website at https://www.letsmakeroom.com