Normally, we dedicate this space to telling you about our most beloved kitchen tools. We share the unbridled joy that comes when you place a perfectly even, precisely sized piece of precut parchment paper on our tested favorite sheet pan; we sing the praises of beautifully hideous drinking cups that keep your beverages cold all day; we yammer on about the fancy little French pocket knives that taught us to be responsible knife owners, all because we appreciate tools that work well and make cooking more fun.

But we’ve shared enough joy. It’s time to spread some negativity. For every gadget we love, there are plenty of others we find unnecessary or downright frustrating to use. While we don’t think it’s valuable to write long screeds about particular pots or pans we don’t like, we do think there are a few popular kitchen tools that need to be taken off their pedestal. Sometimes there’s a less popular tool that just does the job better.

Of course, these aren’t definitive judgements, and you should always use the tool that works best for you. While some of our staff may deride the box grater, others can’t make pimento cheese without it; one cook’s dishwasher-unfriendly Dutch oven nightmare is another cook’s braised chicken dream. We’ll simply make our cases against these kitchen tools, provide some alternatives, and let you make the final judgement yourself.

Wooden spoon

David Tamarkin: “I know there's a lot of romance and sentimentality around wooden spoons, and yeah, sure, they kind of look nice when they get battered and beaten up (I guess?). But I find them pretty impractical—they warp, they chip, you have to keep them really dry or they'll rot. You can't put them in the dishwasher, either.”

Kendra Vaculin: “I find wooden spoons extremely difficult to clean; it’s impossible to get the smell and color out of them. They don't offer very much precision, either. I’ve said it before, but I prefer silicone spatulas and spoonulas of various sizes.”

Use these instead:

Silicone Spatula

Silicone spatulas are durable, dishwasher safe, and won’t scratch up your nonstick cookware. They won’t get smelly either.

Spoonula

Part spoon and part spatula, the spoonula has a hard edge for scraping up food and a curved cavity that’s perfect for tasting sauce.

Box grater

Joe Sevier: “Box graters take up too much room in a drawer and only one side of them is ever really worthwhile. This is why I use a paddle-style coarse grater instead. Along with my classic Microplane and ginger grater, the flat version does all the grating I will ever need.”

Use these instead:

Flat grater

A flat cheese grater makes quick work of hard cheeses while taking up far less space in your drawer.

Ginger grater

This grater is specially designed with triangular teeth that easily cut through ginger’s tough fibers.

Microplane

Perfect for zesting citrus and grating Parmesan, a microplane is a multipurpose tool that’s a cinch to use and clean.

Garlic press

Wilder Davies: There are a million types of garlic presses, but all of them come up short. Garlic is so easy to chop with a knife, and that’s coming from someone with mediocre knife skills. Even if a garlic press works relatively well, it won’t end up being a time saver: They’re difficult to clean and bulky to store.