I swear, I invented the concept of the utensil rest in my head, thinking I was going to be a Shark Tank millionaire, before I realized that they already exist.
Once I discovered and bought one of these Tomorrow’s Kitchen utensil rests, I had this to say on The Inventory:
Tomorrow’s Kitchen’s silicone utensil rest is literally just a slab of silicone with some molded grooves on top. You lay your utensils in the grooves, and all the grease and grime and E. coli-ridden raw meat juice drips onto the surface, and that’s where it stays. It doesn’t bleed through to dirty up your cooking surface, or lead to an outbreak of crippling diarrhea because you ate a potato chip off the counter two days later after it landed in a colony of salmonella because you used a dang paper towel to hold your utensils. “Bet you regret not buying a utensil rest!” I yell to nobody in particular, as you enter hour number three on the toilet.
It couldn’t be a simpler device, but it’ll make cooking so much less messy, and you can throw it in the dishwasher when you’re done. Get the gray one for $6, neon yellow for $5, or a slightly different shade of gray for $5 (though that one looks like it’ll sell out soon).