My wife says every family has this drawer. I do not believe every family has this drawer. Do you have this drawer? Do you know a good solution to this drawer?
We have a silverware drawer, organized, maxed out. A sharps drawer, organized, maxed out. Ziplocs, organized, maxed out. Bbq tools and oven mitts, organized, maxed out. But all this shit has no particular category so fuck me right. I gotta have an awkward necessary crap drawer. Maybe I should post all my drawers and crowdsource me some sense into my kitchen.
Pretty much every house i cooked at i found an equivalent of this drawer, even when they did other things differently. Maybe with the exception of my girlfriend, she’s freakishly organized, but she has one massive drawer that includes silverware where somehow all the weird crap fits and it’s organized,
Solution: build a new cabinet with a bunch of drawers and put one item in each drawer
At least one. Usually more.
I sort of have 3 variations of this drawer. One is fully named “the junk drawer” and contains things like rubber bands, batteries, scissors, garden snips, things that are sort of odd one out in other spots, but I feel are still relevant to my kitchen. Then I have one that is this but specifically things used on the stove and for mixing. So that puts spatulas, whisks, and such into their own mess. Finally is the “kitchen gadgets” drawer which looks very similar to yours. No organizer tray because everything is odd shapes, but also honestly sees little enough use I don’t really mind digging through it.
We have 3 such drawers, one in the kitchen, one in a common area and one in the laundry room.
Where is the ball of asparagus rubber bands?
Yep, we have that drawer. Ours is much larger and much more full. My wife loves baking, which accounts for a lot of it - there’s about 5 pie servers in there, for example, along with various spatulas of many sizes. There are also three ice cream scoops so the odds are good I’ll have at least one that is clean when I need it. Lemon zester, spoons, all kinds of baking and cooking-related stuff. The rubber things you use to get stubborn jars open. I can’t even think of what else is in there, but there’s a lot.
This is separate from the drawer that has rarely-used knives (we have a knife block for the commonly used knives), cake decorating materials, and similar stuff.
And both of those are separate from the designated “junk drawer” that has random stuff like box cutters, can coozies, gift cards, coupons, etc.
Every family has that drawer
Every family… I have TWO of them
Every family has at least one packing drawer of course!
Jesus fuck, it’s fine.
I’d just point out that most of that drawer could be replaced with a good knife. I mean is cutting garlic really so onerous you need a fancy doodad? Even the zesters functionality could be done with a knife. I hate to be judgey bastard, but that drawer smacks of consumerism and excess. With the exception of the mixer prongs and the scale I’m not seeing anything needed in a residential kitchen.
I have one of the drawers and I’d consider myself organized. I try to keep it organized with one of these rather large Ikea Stodja drawer organizers. I used to use silverware organizers but stumbled upon this thing, 14"x20". They come in other shapes and sizes too but is a lot handier than using a regular silverware organizer because the compartments are pretty large.
Pens and notepads/post-it notes in one, batteries and an Eneloop wall charger in another, hair ties/lip gloss/rubber bands in another, big compartment holds a roll of packing tape and various other tapes, and another slot has a couple pairs of scissors.
I’d recommend getting a larger organizer just so you can compartmentalize larger things together, something a silverware organizer usually can’t accomplish
I don’t have this drawer. The ambiguous items just get a place assigned to them with their less ambiguous brethren. And some of these more three dimensional things I keep in a cabinet, like the funnels. I usually keep my scale out on the counter at all times because it’s part of my coffee setup in addition to just baking/cooking
In reality you live in a junk drawer cozy. Just support the junk drawer and everything will probably be OK.
Our catch-all drawer has screwdrivers, pliers and enough other tools to rebuild an engine, plus office supplies.
