He estimates the super scraper costs around $3, but they’re a lot less than that where I’ve seen them. I’ve even seen them get thrown in the bag as a little gift if you spend $X at a kitchen supply store. At any (reasonable) price, it’s worth getting a new one: the one he shows wouldn’t work well, and seriously needs to be bleached…yikes!
The jar opener is fine, but there’s a much easier way: use a can opener as a lever to introduce a tiny bit of air into the jar. Once the vacuum seal is broken, anyone can open it My kids were opening jars pre-kindergarten thanks to this trick.
I totally read that as Useful kitchen tools made from the previous homeowner
Does that make me a bad person?
We had one of the jar opening tools in our kitchen drawer when I was growing up in Connecticut in the 60’s, and we pronounced it “gill-hool-ee.”
Mark I think the last time I listened to one of your pod casts or saw you on the TV was more than 5 years ago. And you’ve come a long way as an “on air” personality. You’ve gone from delightfully awkward and interesting to veteran NPR. You seem a lot more comfortable, and that’s a hard place to get to.
ALSO: FYI I’ve always been told that kitchen shears have a serrated blade because it helps to get through bones especially when breaking down poultry. Most modern sheers have this as well. In my experience shears with serration cut through chicken bones (especially breast bones) with less slippage. I don’t know that they cut any better, but the blade will “bite” into the bone better. Otherwise the cutting edge tends to slide along larger/thicker bones for about 1/3rd of the blade before it “bites” in and cutting can really start. Which is a problem because the strongest cutting force for a pair of scissors is as far back along the blade as possible.
You’re scissor making “putter” from last weeks internets still makes a similar kind of shear:
http://www.ernestwright.co.uk/catalogue/browse.aspx?breadcrumb=13_52
But pricey. In my experience most modern shears of this style work for shit, but I think these would stack up well with the old school ones. Given they’re an old design and hand made.
We have a lot of old weird kitchen tools from my Grandmother’s best friend’s old house. Most of them are actually pretty terrible (including a jar opener). But we’ve got a decent old food mill, and a stove top potato baker (they still make it, and it works nice) and a few other things that are pretty rad. The super scraper looks like the rubber scraper that came with my pizza stone. Which we’ve lost about 20 times.
I do the same thing with a beer bottle opening, almost always works a charm. It’s one of those little things I wish I’d realised years ago.
That depends on what we find when we dig up your back yard…
I always end up getting chips of glass in the food whenever I try that. 
The shears is fantastic, if sharp enough.
The scraper makes me nervous.
I once bought a $4.50 hand-crank beater at an “antique” shop. I spent about an hour with a toothbrush on that scary, grimy thing – but it still shines! (And takes wonderful movies if you hold it up horizontally to your eyes!)
I grew up using one of those…thanks for calling me an antique! 
If it will make you feel differently, it was more of a second-hand/junk shop (hence the quotes).
The next question is – so which are you, then?
I’m so old, my birth announcement was printed on punch-cards (from the world’s first digitally-automated library self-checkout system. I was not overdue, which is more than I can say for my own books…).
LOL!!
I am, without question, second-hand. Technically, third-hand at this point. But I’ve gone up in value each time, so perhaps I’m an antique after all. 
I’ve reached the age where it’s gotten more than a little discouraging going through “antique” stores. It’s no longer about finding neat old stuff I’ve never seen before, but recognizing stuff I grew up with and can’t imagine why anyone would want. Like who the hell wants to buy those old macrame owl wall hangings from the 70s? I don’t feel the least bit nostalgic about that stuff. It was tacky then, and it’s tackier now. Yet, there’s a market for them, and someone must be buying them. But I think the underlying truth is, as the people of my parents generation are really dying off en masse now, the contents of their houses ends up being resold in antique stores or junk shops now.
That makes a lot of sense.
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