Did you ever spring for the new Searzall Pro? I am looking forward to receiving mine, but they’re so heavily delayed because of the situation in China that production hasn’t even started yet.
I get it. Sorry for crashing on you. Just saying, this subject has become a significant part of my life. I get your point, I guess; but you were, perhaps, in a state of greater sensitivity to our petty woes and “needs.” Maybe it would help you to know that most families reunite and prosper where they go. Love that.
Boy is that true. But I found happy adoptive homes for most of my Christmas single-use stash. One thing I kept: a set of Spode Xmas Tree stainless flatware (since discontinued). I don’t do Xmas dinners anymore, I just get invited to them … with a request to bring things and help in the kitchen 
. I have a little cart on wheels. When Covid is over we’ll see what comes next. Keeping themed stainless flatware (I find packing cubes work just find for corralling them) takes up a lot less space than dinnerware sets.
Funny, but out of all of my kitchen/cooking apparatus and tools the things I would miss the most are my corning ware casseroles with lids. I’ve replaced them from sellers on EBay and Etsy, mostly the lids. I’ve had them since the 80’s and we use them constantly almost always to store leftovers to reheat, I don’t care if they’re out of vogue. They have no equal.
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My counsel about the Searz-All is that you’d be disappointed if you consider it anything but a finishing tool for steaks. As powerful as it is with the 8000 torch head, it’s painfully slow and small for even one steak.
What it WILL do is bring a pan sear up, and give a respectable headstart to the “up” side of a steak or chop.
I also like using it for gratins, cheese sandwiches, and fine-tuning pizza toppings.
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Great uses. My disdain for sous vide steak remains intact. To my way of thinking a great sear simply takes time and butter. Sounds like a Laura Nyro song!
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My original 10" cast iron skillet, bought used and well-seasoned from the Marin County Flea Market in about 1983
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Smallish wooden bowl I got at a craft fair. Beautiful and used almost daily for salads, noodle and rice dishes, basically anything
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Cuisinart spice and nut grinder, a fairly new addition. Can’t believe I spent so many years using a shitty coffee grinder. This one does dry spices and wet mixtures. Love love love and use at least 3x/week
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I share your disdain. For cooking a steak or two, I think SV is not worth the effort, and the results are hardly miraculous. The only application where I might use it is a large # of steaks with varied degrees of doneness. A bag of each degree, a quick sear, quick, and no mistakes
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In Marin City or San Rafael?
Marin City
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I used to go to the Marin City Flea Market periodically. Great market. Are you located in Marin County? I was in Mill Valley back then. And miss Southern Marin.
I was born in and went to college at UCB. My roommate was from Mill Valley so we spent quite a bit of time in Marin and we loved that market. Lived in SF for a while but have been in the DC area for 30 years.
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You must have been one of my customers 
Santa bought us a SV device. His elves didn’t like it and put it at the end of the driveway with their recyclable “Free” sign. It magically disappeared…
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I’ll second (or third) that motion about SV steaks. I reverse sear, but I can’t sear at incinerator levels because I can’t disable my smoke detector, open kitchen window, and live in a high rise, but I try to make up for it with my torch, and plenty of butter. The SV cambro has been repurposed for kibble.
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I’m keeping mine, but it’s been relegated to things like 18-hour pork belly, spoon lamb, and Kenjii’s carrots. I find SV too fiddly for much else.
My spouse is a mathematician and engineer. He was the Santa. He got into cooking when I went through treatments for advanced breast cancer. Prior to that, food magically appeared on his plate. It’s been interesting watching his learning curve because his point of view is scientific. The most frustrating thing he says in the kitchen is “But that’s not what the recipe says”. We’re going into 48 years together…
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Ahhhh… the joy of engineers! They love instructions and will follow them to a T. I say this with love because the men on my father’s side of the family are almost exclusively in the math and engineering fields. There’s nothing like learning about the meniscus line when all you want is to make some Jello.
That said, I’m glad you are feeling better. Probably because of his insistence on following instructions. 
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Has he checked out Cooking for Engineers (the site) or Cooking for Geeks ( the book)? I’m laughing because I know a couple of guys like this …
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