Q: I baked a sweet potato on a cookie sheet and some of the sugar leached out and burned leaving me with a few black spots that are not coming off. I've tried Bar Keeper's Friend and soap/water, the black spots are still there. Any tips on getting the cookie sheet clean?

Sent by Amy

A few years ago, I wrote about one of my favorite tools in the kitchen: my Martha Stewart 5.5-quart enameled dutch oven. Some thought I was drawing a comparison between this $60 pot and the $275 version from Le Creuset and, not surprisingly, found the Martha Stewart version lacking. I found it kind of funny, because it seemed to me there was an elephant in the room, the one that often lurks around conversations about cooking equipment: Sometimes people can't afford the best, so they buy the best they can afford. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Have you ever been uncorking a bottle of wine and, hey bingo, the cork breaks apart? You try again but now the cork starts to really disintegrate and all you have are bits of cork and dust for your efforts. What do you do? This is where my uncool kitchen tool comes in very handy. More

When I moved from a college dorm into an apartment, my mother helped me stock my kitchen, allowing me to use precious Greenbax Stamps to purchase a sleek white hand mixer. When she saw it, she asked to trade, offering me her Iona avocado green mixer, a wedding gift from my father’s college friend English McCutchen. The mixer was only 20 years old then, and in fine condition. 

Because I tout the simple, sparse life in the kitchen, it comes to the surprise of many who visit me in my cooking den that I own a garlic press. The love affair didn't happen overnight. It took me a while to proudly press garlic with a one-hit-wonder gadget, but now I use it all the time.

This single-use tool doesn't even have any sneaky alternate uses; the only thing it will do for your meal is crush garlic into the finest, most gloriously minuscule mince possible. More

There's something I use every day in my kitchen that I sort of just stumbled upon: this dependable, old, blue terry cloth oven mitt. I didn't pick it out in a store, choose it carefully to match my kitchen decor, or research the very best one to purchase. No, I simply moved into one of my apartments and found it left behind by a previous tenant. Yeah, that's pretty gross. But at the time, I just had bare-bones kitchen things and I reasoned that it was in good condition and that a good laundering would have it ready for more use — at least until I got something "better." Little did I know it would stick around and remain my favorite years later: More

I am short.  Never made it to 5’4" — thus my dreams of becoming a long-legged, ballet dancer at Julliard turned into an application for culinary school.  Nevertheless, there is still lots of dancing and constant choreography my kitchen. I can create a sauce with poise and handle a knife with equal aplomb but there is nothing graceful about the kitchen tool I use almost as often as my knife  — my kitchen stool. 

My uncool kitchen tool is so uncool, it might just be cool again. With its discolored white plastic body and red, white, and blue, chunky sans serif logo, my Robot Coupe food processor is clearly showing her age. But when it comes to performance, reliability, endurance and, let's face it, quirky charm, she rates A+ across the board — even with a broken-off handle and a scratched work bowl. More

Q: I recently received a gift card to Bed Bath & Beyond. I'd like to buy a good-quality knife set and block with it, but I'm having trouble determining what brand and style would be the highest quality at a good value. I'm hoping to find one for $100 or less, but definitely no more than $150. Help!

Sent by Annie

I am lucky to have many shiny, heavy, ergonomically-designed, and brand-stamped pots and pans in my kitchen, mostly amassed from my wedding registry a few years back. This battered old pasta pot that my mom gave me after college sticks out like a sore thumb. I worry that the other pans mock it after I go to sleep, and yet, I can't let it go.