Can opener-- $1.49, eating canned food-- priceless

Think about your most useful kitchen gadget. What are you thinking about? Your George Foreman? Perhaps your Bosch, or blender, or pots and pans, maybe even your rice cooker? (Have you heard how a rice cooker almost made Blaine and I break off our engagement-- that's another story for another blog entry). I bet you are thinking of some fancy appliance like you feel like you simply could not live without.

I am here to tell you that you need to rethink your priorities. I could live for years without my george foreman. If my favorite frying pan were missing I would be able to make-do with another type of pan. After yesterday I realized that a small gadget that is tucked away in a drawer is far more necessary than most of my other appliances combined.

Over the past few months I have noticed that I have been having a harder time opening cans. I thought maybe since my hands are swollen from pregnancy (good thing I took off my wedding ring months ago!) it was making my can opener harder to use. We are simple people, with a lack of counter space, so we only have a cheap-o hand can opener. Not the electric kind, or that weird new one you see on TV that is hands free. Anyway, the cans got increasingly harder to open and I swore the next time I remembered I was going to buy an electric can opener. Then yesterday as I was preparing a crock-pot meal that needed to cook for a long time. . . .my whole can opener just broke. It literally fell apart in my hands. Now what? My can of corn was only 1/20th of the way open, there was no way I could pry it the rest of the way! I fiddled with the can opener and tried to repair it. Much to my dismay it was irreparable, and I still had two cans to open.

Gwen was taking her nap and I didn't have time to wait. I debated on just letting the dogs have at the cans for a few minutes, because if anyone could open a can with brute force it would be them. Once I remembered how much I hate smelling the dogs breath, I dropped that option. It didn't seem too sanitary anyways (I have taken the Food Handlers Permit course after all). Finally I got my sharpest knife and a hammer and went away at the cans until I had them halfway open, and then pried them the rest of the way. This was a process, not to mention it turned the can lids into deadly serrated weapons!

Later that night as our family was huddled in our closet because there was a tornado warning for our county (warning means a tornado had actually been spotted or indicated on radar, so I was not being paranoid) I couldn't help but think about how useless our food storage was if we didn't have a can opener. What are the odds that our house was more likely to be destroyed by a tornado on the day that we wouldn't even be able to dig through the rubble to get our food storage and can opener. Sheesh.

So of all the tools in my kitchen, I would have to say that I value my can opener the most. And I would encourage everyone who has food storage that is all in cans to add an extra can opener to your food storage, because unless you have Swiper and Boots handy, you are never going to get those cans open!

P.S. As I just re-read this blog entry it made me think about some other important gadgets that broke yesterday--- mostly my cell phone and my plunger (the plunger is another under appreciated tool that you may want to have a spare of!). I guess there was just a malfunctioning vibe in our house yesterday.