I went through a few of those mills for spices and out of frustration bought a Cuisinart conical burr grinder a few years ago. So far, so good, and the spices are ground evenly. If I start with larger spices (remember, about the size of a coffee bean) I put them through once at a coarser setting, then again at fine and it works very well. I think I paid $49 at Costco.
This is the one I have:
Hmmm… the only thing I can remember that was disappointing was a Calphalon “wok pan”. It was a flat bottomed, anodized, non-stick, wok shaped pan with a stainless lid. It was a nice size and shape, and given I cook on electric, seemed ideal for stir-fry type dishes.
But it warped badly in it’s first year… so bad it would not sit anywhere near as flat as it should on a ceramic cooktop. I treated it well, as I do with all my cookware, but since then Calphalon stuff is a brand I avoid.
Hi Jammy. Thanks. I bought a hand held burr grinder. Man… hand held is really slow. I was grinder some dried fish. Not even that much… maybe 30-50 gram. It took me two sessions across two days. I think I was hand grinding probably over 4 hours in total while watching Youtube and Netflix. It was boring and tiring.
In short, I really should think about an electric burr grinder. Thanks.
Lololol
I use a strawberry huller for plucking feathers from chicken. (Kosher chickens always have some feathers left in the skin.) And, really, how much space does one take up in a drawer?
I never hull strawberries–how would you pick them up to eat them? 
Strawberry hullers work great for getting the seeds out of fresh jalapeños and other small chiles.
I wish I could “like” this post multiple times!
Did you get any satisfaction from the letter you wrote?
So do paring knives
Of course they do, but when I remember to grab the berry huller, the rounded portion helps to scoop both seeds, and remove the membrane. Useful for hotter chiles than jalapeños, which are usually pretty mild, so I frequently don’t bother. (Depends who I’m cooking for.)
This is the one my husband bought. I don’t see a “rounded portion”
Also, when I’m cooking for wimps who can’t handle heat aka my husband, I just slide the blade of my paring knife along the pepper which easily removes the vein.
Mine looks totally different! I’ll post a pic later.
Speaking of bad gadgets though, I bought a citrus trumpet from WS that didn’t work as intended. Kinda ridiculous.
I just use a spoon. Works good.
I don’t know @naf on one hand, being able to know with precision the thickness of the dough sounds great. Otoh, the tool itself looks like a sex toy. I feel like I would have explaining to do to the family if I bought this! 
My 2 bad purchases are not bad tools. Just bad for me. About 30 yrs ago when I was infatuated with food network, I spent $160 on a mandolin. I’ve only used it maybe 6 times. It’s hard to use, and I keep thinking what a ripoff it was compared to the $20 plastic handheld versions. So it was just a mistake of buying a cadillac when I could have made do with a bike.
The other was also prompted by too much food programs on t.v. I bought one of these guys:
And then NEVER used it, because it looked like it would be a huge pain in the ass to clean. It’s still lying around, taking up space.
So interesting - we got a Soda Stream last summer, and I’m disappointed in it’s carbonation levels. We can fizz up a bottle pretty well, but it seems to go from ultimate fizz to hardly fizz about 5 hrs later, and by 24 hrs appears totally flat. It’s a bummer.
We have 2 of the Krups ones in the photo. One is for spices, one is for coffee. They’ve both lasted for years and we are quite happy with them for the price. I’ve noticed that a little brush is the perfect tool to clean them out too.
In another example of different strokes for different folks,
I am very pleased with my SodaStream. I bought the one with glass bottles despite it being costlier than the ones with plastic bottles.
It would be nice if the carbonization was stronger, but having carbonated water on hand at all times, cutting down on our household’s use of single use bottles and saving money more than make up for the less than optimal carbonization.
I don’t have the problem of the carbonization weakening over time.
Well, they just pretended to be surprised and asked me to deal go back to deal with the physical store.
