Cuisinart food processor from Bayleaf, 725 Mass. St.

Vacu Vin Wine Saver and vacuum wine bottle stoppers from The Bay Leaf, 717 Mass.

Measuring spoons from The Bay Leaf, 717 Mass.

Kuhn Rikon and Zyliss peelers from The Bay Leaf, 717 Mass.

Stainless steel measuring cups from The Bay Leaf, 717 Mass.

Spatulas from The Bay Leaf, 717 Mass.

Joyce Chen bamboo cutting board and a Wusthof knife from The Bay Leaf, 717 Mass.

Kitchen scissors from The Bay Leaf, 717 Mass.

It slices! It dices! It pulverizes! It’s the greatest invention in the history of home cooking … until you realize it’s a bear to clean and takes up a larger percentage of counter space-to-time used than anything else in your kitchen.

Sometimes when standing in a store, it’s hard to figure out exactly what will make your culinary life easier, and what will just end up collecting dust in the basement. Because, after all, someone’s fabulous, handy-dandy juicer is someone else’s eBay cash cow.

And even the experts aren’t immune.

“I have a house full of things like that – that my husband just has to have,” says Ginny Weygint, a sales associate in the Home Shop at Weaver’s Department Store, 901 Mass., laughing. “‘Oh, I saw it on TV today!’ … oh dear.”

To figure out what’s worth adding to your kitchen we hit up both experts like Weygint and home cooks for their top products – you know, the ones worth wedging into your cabinets.

Multitaskers and simplifiers

Kitchen helpers seem to come in basic two types: the beefy multitaskers and the little simplifiers, aka the small items meant for a specific purpose.

The multitaskers include food processors and stand mixers, while the simplifiers might be something as common as an apple corer or a garlic press. Both have their merits in the kitchen, says Shana Cowart, district customer service trainer for Bed, Bath and Beyond’s Kansas and Missouri stores. She recommends starting with what you need and what you are sure you’ll use, not just thinking might come in handy. Cowart gives the example of picking the right blender for you, knowing full well there are several types from stick blenders to smoothie machines that are available.

“We ask them what they’re trying to make – are they trying to make soups or stews or just wanting to blend something? Then we can get them in the right category of what they want,” Cowart says. “And then if they want something else maybe there’s something else that we have that does both the things that they need.”

Sue Nutt knows exactly what she needs and has made room in her small kitchen for her favorite gadgets – both in the simplifier category.

“My coffee pot is pretty darn important, absolutely,” the Lawrence resident says, laughing. “And I do have a water kettle and it’s electric and you plug it in. It’s for tea, and so there’s the caffeine part of it.”

Also a simplifier fan is Patty Chichester of Clearwater. She says the most-used gadget in her kitchen also happens to be the cheapest: a citrus peeler she got for free at a Tupperware party.

“It looks like a heavy duty crochet hook,” she says. “They probably cost 2 cents to make, but I use it every day.”

In fact, she uses it so much that she was quite worried about wearing it out – or losing it and trying to wade the through her fruit bowl without it.

“I actually went on eBay and ordered a dozen of them,” she says of the backup peelers she keeps. “They’ll probably last us the rest of our lives.”

Geri Riekhof, owner of The Bay Leaf, 717 Mass., names several simplifiers as among her favorite kitchen helpers, including paring knives, kitchen scissors, a wine saver, measuring cups and an array of spatulas. But the one thing she can’t live without happens to be a major multitasker: a food processor.

“So many uses – making doughs, pestos, sauces, chopping, slicing, blending, shredding,” Riekhof says. “It makes every aspect of being creative in the kitchen possible.”

As Seen on TV

Cowart says the one thing that all kitchen gadgets have in common from rice cookers to lettuce knives is that if they make a cameo on television, they’re guaranteed to get a fan base.

“A lot of times they do watch Food Network and they do get recipes off there and (they say), ‘She was using a microplane, what’s a microplane?'” she says. “You know, they’re like, ‘I need this and I need that and I need this’ and then they come in and get it.”

Shannon Jones, a registered dietitian and owner of Simple Solutions in Lawrence, says that her favorite kitchen item is one she saw on TV and wondered if it worked.

“I have a SlapChop at home, which I love. You know, you’ve seen the guy? I was like, OK, I just want to see if this guy’s for real,” Jones says of the small cutting tool that has been sold by a loud-mouthed pitchman in infomercials in the past few years. “And it really is awesome. I SlapChop almost all my vegetables and just throw as many as possible (into dishes).”

Weygint says she’s sold many SlapChop-like appliances recently thanks to the popularity of the infomercials.

“We sell a lot of minichoppers, and those are really good for making salsas,” Weygint says. “It just chops up all your vegetables and makes it really easy so that you’re not using your knife.”

Other items Weygint sees getting a lot of looks by home cooks are old dogs that have learned new tricks: Forget that old lasagna pan – these days, it’s a three-section pan, perfect for making a meat lasagna and a veggie lasagna with minimal mess. In that same vein are brownie pans with dividers sectioning the pan into the perfect serving sizes. Even your cake carrier has gotten a face lift – Weygint sells one that collapses so it doesn’t take up precious inches of cabinet space.

Linda Elwell of Lawrence says her kitchen’s plenty big enough for an army of new, cool small appliances and gadgets, but she just doesn’t want to mess with anything other than the most basic of basic kitchen supplies. In her day, she’s discarded a juicer, salad spinner and a bread maker.

“I still have the bread maker stuck in a closet somewhere. With the juicer, I think it’s just a matter of taste and motivation … the salad spinner, I could never really figure that thing out,” she says before proving that not everyone can be swayed by the SlapChop pitchman: “I just loved it when they started putting salad in bags because I don’t like to cut and chop.”