Best kitchen gift I've ever received? I've gotten too many to count. Deb sent me a bread machine that I use at least three times a week. Nancy gifted me with her "old" KitchenAid mixer when she got a new one. I've gotten surprises and gifts from a lot of the members here ranging from spices to pie plates to cookbooks.

I think I use the bread machine the most, followed by the mixer, but I use just about everything I've received and couldn't possibly pick a best.

The worst? That belongs to Ashley, my daughter, who really thought the battery powered pepper grinder was a great idea. It worked for about 3 days and then quit, but it's the thought that counts!

Annie

My Kitchen Aid mixer was a life-changing gift when I received it a decade ago. Couldn't believe how it simplified baking and so wished I'd had one when my kids were young and nearly every week brought a "bake sale" request.

The worst food gifts are still coming...commercial packages of "cheese food" and mystery meats packed with hard candies and lots of messy packing straw. The candy always gets tossed, the processed food sits in the fridge for a couple months because we feel bad throwing it away. Eventually we come to terms that it's not something we want to eat, and certainly not something we want to serve to company, and out it goes. I always feel bad about the money that was spent, and for the waste. Appreciate the thought, though.

To balance that crabby review, let me say that we love and appreciate the packages with juicy citrus fruit and luscious pears some folks have sent us in the past.

The best is my KA stand mixer followed closely by my KA food processor.
The worst was, well, I have never gotten a worst kitchen gift.

Best: KA mixer
Worst: The book Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. This is not necessarily a bad book, it just conflicts with my style of feeding my children.

The best was probably the microplane grater than Ann_T sent me - that changed my life - but then she also sent me a tea strainer that fits perfectly in my mug. I used it until it wore out, and then I bought another one. I've received a lot of other great gifts, but those two stand out because I use them on a daily basis.

The worst was probably the square egg press that my sister gave me back in the 1970s. I never used it, but then I guess I'm not a square type of person. I understand from Jessica that these are now back in production, but I still don't need square eggs. My sister has a talent for picking bad gifts, but I will say that she has improved over the years.

Lars

My best kitchen gift was a new kitchen. The fact that I didn't receive it at Christmas didn't really matter, since I finally had room for more than one cook at a time, and could quit shooing people out of my space.

I don't give ''worst gifts'' a second thought.

Best: Big Chief Smoker (from my non gift-buying DH)
Worst: There's bad kitchen gifts??? LOL Guess I've been lucky! There's been some "odd" ones, but never bad.

Deanna

Best commercial food gift: The regular and chocolate filled croissants from Williams-Sonoma. Dripping with calories and a delicious treat!

Worst: Can't think of any at the moment.

Best food-gift is a little pepper grinder, about 3/4 inch in diameter and about 4 inches high, fits nicely into my shirt pocket. Always carry it when I travel or whenever I eat out. Now I can enjoy fresh-ground pepper with my meals out without having to endure the pre-ground stuff in table shakers or have to hunt down the guy who carries around the grinder in restaurants.

Seems like a such a little nit, but I love the thing!

Best Appliance: Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. A decade later and still loving it, especially this time of year.

Best Cookbook: Bon Appetit's "Fast Easy Fresh"

Worst Appliance: electric knife sharpener.

Worst Cookbook: Sandra Lee's "Semi Home-made Desserts" cookbook.

My Williams Sonoma bread machine was the best kitchen gift ever. I use it at least twice a week.

The useless-for-me gift that comes to mind is those large baskets of gourmet food items. Since we keep kosher the large packages of processed meats and much of the other foods are given away. I do love the baskets they come in though.

The best is my food processor, followed closely by my mini-food processor, both given me by my wonderful and smart husband.
The worst was an electric can opener. I don't know what kinds of cans it opened, but I sure didn't have any of them!

The best=The CF. Well, it's on in the kitchen most of the time ;-)

The worst=A shrimp deveiner. It dosen't seem to work on my kind of shrimp.

Hard to choose the best, but I love my Oster blender that was a wedding gift 44 years ago. It outlasted the marriage! A microplane was a great gift and so was a pink plastic ice cream scoop that I got in a swap. It's better than the Oxo.

The worst was a George Foreman grill which I am ashamed to admit that I asked for. Another was a travel mug that squashes your nose flat when you try to drink from it.

Best appliance: My KA mixer (seems a popular one!)
Best other gift: A gift card to Half Price Books, with which I was able to buy Dorothy Greenspan's cookbook, "Baking, From My Home To Your's" and James Beard's cookbook, "Beard On Pasta."

The worst, I guess, was a gift basket with Italian foods, such as pasta, sauce, and I can't remember what else. The pasta was great, as probably was the sauce, but it had beef stock in it, and I'm vegetarian, so I had to give it away.

Sally

The best things people have given me have been a set of good pots and pans, and a set of mixing bowls (somehow I didn't have one before that and didn't really notice, but I started baking once I got one). I tend not to like getting the specialty appliances/utensils-- good way to end up with a kitchen so cluttered you can't find anything. I've gotten some cookbooks that were perfectly suited to me, and some others that weren't, so that's a toss up.

My best was a Kitchen Aid mixer just like everyone else. I didn't know that I needed one until I got it. Baking is so easy now. I would never be without one.

The best was, as everyone else has said, the KitchenAid mixer.

The worst was a contraption I received about 10-15yrs. ago called 'Mrs.Tea' which was like a coffee maker but for tea. IMO it seemed to be a very contrived appliance and the results were not as good as just making tea the regular way.

I think I tried to sell it off at a gargae sale but there were no bites.

Best......My "Henckles Twin Knife Set"
Worst.....My Tim Hortons Coffee maker ( It leaks )
Diana55

Best - All Clad cookware, Global brand knives, the immersion blender!!!

Worst - any cookbooks where one of the ingredients is Ragu or some other commercially processed packaged item.

My best was the Electrolux range my DH gave me last year.

The worst was a tie, an over the sink wooden stand for paper towels or an electronic cookbook.

I guess everyone knows I like cooking gifts.

I Love my handmade cutting board that AnnT gave me too!!! Thanks Ann !!! Diana55

My favorites are the jams and pestos and spice mixes from the good cooks, I always love those.

My worst is the one person who brought me a tin of leftover assorted holiday goodies way past their prime, including the butt end of a loaf of fruitcake, specially since that person had told me the day before how she had so many leftovers and how she was so sick of them. Gee thanks for gifting me with those.

The best was my Toshiba counter top oven:

It has two electric coils, one as top element and one below. I can turn on either element or both. Nothing fancy that could break or wear out. It has a countdown timer and the top outer casing gets warm enough that I can put the dinner plates on top to warm. Came with two good black enamel roasting pans and a metal grate, so it will cook meat or fish on one level and vegetables on the other. I use it year round and only turn on my big oven for the Christmas turkey or a large casserole.

I've never had a bad kitchen gift, but my daughters have sometimes sent me envelopes of chip dip mixes. As we don't do chips or dips I have mixed them into homemade salad dressings.

SharonCb

Another was a travel mug that squashes your nose flat when you try to drink from it.

dedtired that cracked me up!

My two best gifts came from here. A cutting board and a stick blender - you ladies know who you are!!!!!!

The worst gift is an egg separater - it's a face and the egg whites come out it's nose - realllllly gross.

shaun, I think I remember that egg separator, didn't you post a picture, LOL?

So it was a bad gift for you, but a great gift for the rest of us, a chuckle when we needed it!

Gadgets are usually not a good gift for me. If I only use something once or twice a year it's going to end up in a yard sale, given to GoodWill or discarded. I just don't have any room to keep them.

Annie

Augghhh! Shaun, I gave that egg separator to my brother and brother-in-law. They SAID they liked it ....

Like the others, it's way too hard to choose the best -- I, too, received my first KA mixer, Japanese knife, and microplane as gifts, but I'll skip them as already having been named.

I think I'll have to say the BHP -- i.e., the Big Honking Pan, the 14 inch straight sided (crucial) Calphalon sauteuse. I got one for my mom after she loved cooking in the one my friends gave me. Neither of us can remember how we got along without it. Ditto my big soup skimmer. Another really clever kitchen-related gift I got once from my cousin was a really nice dustpan and whiskbroom set from some artisan somewhere. My favorite kind of gift; something you really do need and use, but a much fancier version than you'd ever buy for yourself. And last night I once again blessed my mom for giving me the little dumpling press as I made dozens of Chinese dumplings really fast -- and do Harry & David pears count? -- and I haven't even started with the cookbooks from my brother-in-law -- rats, I knew I couldn't choose just one.

Worst gift -- I've never gotten anything I hated, but, like Arabella, we keep a kosher home, so the lovely enormous package of pork sausage from a Vietnamese guest was sort of a problem for us.

LOL, gellchom, what DID you do with the sausage?

Annie

Annie, I assume I gave it to a neighbor or a food drive. Luckily, it was shrink wrapped, if memory serves. This happened 27 years ago, so I fervently hope that whatever I did with it, it's long gone by now.

Best: Breville Smart Oven ooops, it's under the Christmas tree so I haven't opened yet, but I'll bet that's what it is and I know I'm going to love it!
Okay, Best Opened Gift: The everyday pan Peppi gave me.

Worst: A set of "Pick Your Nose" glasses. Each glass has a different nose and when you turn the glass up to drink out of it, it looks like your nose.

Yep here he is

Shaun, That's so you!! LOL

I think the best and the worst changes over time. My absolute best and one that I will remember always is the one my father gave me just before he passed away. My KA mixer is something that always brings my dad to my thoughts with love every time I use it! It is one of the absolute best gifts of my life. The worst? -- It's hard to gather them together in one cohesive thought! Many weird-into- the garbage-what were they thinking gifts! Oh well, "it's the thought that counts", right?

I think the best and the worst changes over time. My absolute best and one that I will remember always is the one my father gave me just before he passed away. My KA mixer is something that always brings my dad to my thoughts with love every time I use it! It is one of the absolute best gifts of my life. The worst? -- It's hard to gather them together in one cohesive thought! Many weird-into- the garbage-what were they thinking gifts! Oh well, "it's the thought that counts", right?

Best is definitely my KA mixer too. My now-EX bought it for me as he was in the doghouse for shaving his head!

Worst? Can't think of a single thing.