Your mistake is considering form over function....
I like zyliss for a garlic press....there is an OXO at the church and it can't hold a candle to my Zlyss.
I have a no name meat mallet bought years ago and made out of aluminum and discolored from many trips through the dishwasher. You are supposed to put plastic wrap over the meat when bashing!! But if you really want to flatten the meat....get a batte carne... a smooth surfaced "thingey" that flattens a cutlet to paper thin without tearing.
I have avoided anything Oneida since Wally World started featuring it.
Linda C

No more Oneida here either, I've been slowly replacing my "cheap sh*t" with some good stuff. I finally told David (my mechanic SIL to be) that tools for the kitchen were like tools for the garage. There's a big difference between Snap-On and the Walmart brand. Same thing goes for kitchen tools.

I finally convinced him when he bought steak knives and an ice cream scoop. The ice cream scoop from The Evil Empire lasted about through two boxes of ice cream. He bought another, same life span, LOL. (Yeah, he's a slow learner) I finally bought him a $12 KitchenAid scoop, that was two years ago and he still loves it, LOL. All metal, though, not the plastic handled one. The steak knives were worse, the handles were poorly attached and when he tried to cut steak they folded in the middle like they were hinged. I bought him a sent of Henckels steak knives on clearance for his birthday last year, and he loves those too.

I like the feel of OXO utenzils but those rubber handles come off eventually and I have to crazy glue them back on.

I finally gave up on wooden spoons altogether and started making my own, which I cannot break!

As for the garlic press, I still don't have one. I tried one and didn't like it, it was a PIA to clean. It was pampered chef but it was several years ago, maybe they're better now? Anyway, I smack the garlic with my knife blade and then just mince it up, it works great!

Annie

We are so lucky to be able to buy cheap imported items from overseas, the landfills overflow with them :)

I have utensils that are literally vintage, been used by many hands before mine and just keep "on ticking". Check flea markets, garage sales and thrift stores for these products.

Well, I must say there is one main thing I don't like and that is...was my Hamilt*n Be*ch blender. We bought it brand new at Targ*t and it Never once worked. Nothing would blend or mix or chop or puree, everything just spun around and became slightly mashed. We trashed it and picked up a hand-held blender thing from Oster and we love it...plus, there is less to clean!
I love my Henckels knives and will never bother with any other kind. But, I was being fairly cheap once and bought a "pro-edge" from Henckels. It is not the same and I might as well should have bought something cheaper. I only sharpen my four or five stars once a year or so but the pro-edge thing needs to be sharpened every other month it seems. Bleh!

I'm looking for a new garlic press. I used to love the Pampered Chef Garlic Press but lately I find it so hard to squeeze. I dont know if the garlic is unusually hard or if I'm losing strength in my hands but I can hardly use it anymore.

Check out the Acea Reversible Garlic Slicer. It is not a press and really works to either thinly slice or mince garlic. Sturdy and dependable.

I'm trying to find a flexible nonmetal spatula to use in the teflon fry pan. I had one from EKCO for 40+ years that I finally threw away as the plastic finally broke. I've had similar EKCOs spoons, metal spatulas for the same length of time and they are still almost new. Problem is, teflon was invented much later. All the new ones melt or the handles get notched from heat, including the new EKCOs, they all stink. And why do they make the handles as thick as baseball bats? Ohiomom is right about vintage but I don't have the patience for garage sales or flea markets. My mom taught me to crush the garlic with the blunt end (handles cut off) of the rolling pin. The Acea sounds pretty classy; maybe in my next life!

terrapots, try my favorite spatula, mine was a gift from Jessica. I can't find the brand that I have and I can't manage to link the page for some reason but cooking.com has a Trudeau spoon spatula in silicone and it's just like mine. I like the fact that the handle and the spatula bowl are all one piece, no handle to break or come detached. They're great!

Annie

Oh boy...a topic that pushes my buttons hard -- quality vs price points.

The one thing that was driven home hard and fast to us during our little foray into retail and production was that very few people give a ripe fig about quality anymore. Oh, they say they do; they are often very pretentious about saying they respect and want quality. But when it came down to brass tacks, lowest price is what they go for nearly every time.

Manufacturers has figured this out. Some figured it out by themselves; others were beaten down to it by the likes of WalMart dictating purchasing terms in such a way that the manufacturer had to meet a price point for the retailer rather than saying "It costs X to make, so we need to sell it at Y." When the world's largest retailer says they want a bazillion of something that will put your brand in front of 43% of the US public every ten days (at least those were the last numbers I saw), are you going to say, "sorry, not interested" or are you going to do what you have to do to satisfy that order? Add to it that stockholders refuse to accept that "profitable" is good enough -- it's not anymore. 3% profit used to be acceptable. Now if it's not double digit profit and MORE profit than last quarter, stockholders start screaming that they are getting shafted.

So you have companies like AllClad, Oneida, OXO, Krups, Solis, who used to make a decent product at a reasonable price now cutting corners so they can offer the "competitive" price point. They start rolling out "entry level" lines whereas before they were considered a premium label. And consumers see the label and think, "Oh, that's a good brand!", take it home and are disappointed, but HEY! I didn't pay all that much for it so I'll go buy another one from a different company. End result: strategy backfired. No brand loyalty because there is no loyalty to the priciple that made the product good to begin with.

So then A company says "We have to get our brand out there more so people will buy more!" and they try to expand their offerings. But they can't produce some of those things themselves and have to contract to another company. So company B makes the items with company A's brand stamped on it. And everyone has to make their dime, but the consumer still wants it CHEAP. So corners are cut, and they are smart enough to know to cut those corners where the consumer won't notice it until after they've had the thing awhile.

Welcome to the new retail model. Personally, I think it sucks.

And, IMO, WalMart is the kiss of death for any brand's quality. I can't think of a single brand that WM has carried for more than six months that has not decreased in quality.

Ok. I feel a little better now.

My brands to avoid: Krups (sold them for 20 years, you couldn't give me one since circa 2004-5), Black and Decker, Ecko, Waring, and (sadly because they used to be wonderful) Magnalite, OXO (who for a while was owned by the same comapny as Magnalite...hmmmm.) and GE.

I am trying to find a light flexible metal spatula (pancake flipper) to use for flipping eggs and omelettes. Most I have tried are too stiff. I want one I can easily slip under a frying egg or turn over to lift the edge of an omelette. I had one I loved til the handle broke and haven't found an acceptable one yet.

As for garlic, I crush it with the side of a wide knife blade, first a quick easy press to remove the peel then a harder one to crush the clove - works every time. After preparing garlic or onions I rub my hands along the stainless steel faucet to get rid of the smell.

Mimsic, Lamson Sharp makes a good flex spatula, but it is solid (no holes in the blade).

Mimsic I have been searching for the same thing. I have looked all over the internet, as well as in the shops and what I'm looking for is no longer to be found.

Mimsic, when I'm making soup or something where it doesnt matter if there are big pieces of garlic, I do it the way you do too, with the knife. But sometimes like when I make salsa for instance, I want minced garlic so I use the press.

What I've been doing is just laying the press on the counter and using all my weight to lean into the press, and letting all the minced garlic go right onto the counter top, then I use a knife to scrape it all up and put it into whatever I'm making, but what a hassle.

I recently read the Cooks Illustrated review on garlic presses and they recommend the stainless steel Kuhn Rikon 2315 Epicurean Garlic Press @ $34.95.

I have never used one and I never thought I needed a garlic press until I read this article.

As Beanthere.. said, Oneida used to be a good product. Their products used to made in Oneida, NY, about 60 miles away from me. A couple years ago, they moved their production overseas and laid off all the workers in Oneida! Since then, I've boycotted their products. I guess that was a good thing.

As for disappointing kitchen products, I don't like Kitchen Aid silicone bakeware. It doesn't matter if I grease the darn things or not it always sticks. Food doesn't seem to cook the same way as it does in glass, ceramic or metal pans.

Another disappointment was a Kitchen Aid can opener. Doesn't work for anything.

Glad I'm not the only one who is boycotting Oneida! I was actually surprised by Farberware... They are far from being a prestigious brand, but the three or four things I have from them have held up very well. I didn't know Oxo was declining... that is sad!

I'm not impressed with Cuisinart gadgets, especially their knives.

Annie, spoon spatula sounds interesting but I am looking for a flat solid or slotted spatula that is soft enough to be used when flipping on nonstick kitchenware. I have an EKco solid flexible stainless steel spatula that has to be 50 years old, I use it for many things, cutting, serving, cleaning stuck on food on pans. It's begining to show wear. It has a composit handle that is holding up surprisingly well. These were sold everywhere in those days, when things used to be made in the good old USA.Sounds like what Mimsic is looking for. I'll check out the Lamson Sharp. And, I agree, it's impossible to depend on brands any longer.

I just found this Mario Batalli at Sur La Table on clearance for around $3.00 a couple of weeks ago. I have to say that the extra width has really been helpful when lifting larger items out of the pan. So far I like this a lot!
Deborah

http://www.italiankitchen.com/store/images/site_images/0-49132_product.jpg