By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

To all of you the Mrs. and I wrote thank you letters to after we were married, I’d like the thank you notes returned.

I know it has been many moons since that blessed May day, but dig ‘em up and send ‘em back because I ain’t saying thank you anymore. To those who gave gifts like tools and hammocks, coolers, artwork and the Robert Johnson box set, you are exempt. Keep our cordial note and know you are appreciated. But to those who decided to actually buy us the kitchen crap we had listed on our wedding registry, we have issues.

When I say “we” I really mean you and me. Mrs. Sullivan is quite content with the kitchen gadgetry that fills every available, and some unavailable, storage area of our house.

The problem really started with us not marrying young. We were married when I was 30 and my wife was really 29. While not exactly long-in-the-tooth, we had both been out on our own long enough to accumulate our own kitchen-munition arsenals; of course my stockpile was a little more like Albania’s and hers a little more akin to a combo of the U.S. and Soviet Union’s stockpiles during the Cold War. Either way, we had some kitchen stuff even before the wedding presents.

When it did come time to put things we “needed” on our wedding wish-list I was laissez-faire about the whole matter, this was the province of my soon-to-be wife, not something a guy’s guy like me should be meddling in, so I didn’t, and I’m still paying the price. I think my betrothed must have watched about 3,000 cooking shows too many and maybe had a sip or two of wine when she filled out the registry, because she put items on the list that would have made Julia Childs say, “What the hell does that contraption do?”

So the wedding came and went and when we returned from the honeymoon so did the calls from our parents to come get our wedding gifts…all of them…right now…because we’re sick of looking at them. So dutifully I carried the loot back to our house, which before the marriage had been my house, a house built in the ‘50s back when people lived a hardscrabble existence sans fondue machine or even an electric wine chiller.

The cabinets that were in the house, that had for many years cavernously swallowed up what I thought was a full compliment of plates, cookware and accessories, were in an instant as full as a pair of biker shorts on Dom DeLuise and that was just after unloading the first of many car-loads. Once things started to fill up, Mrs. Sullivan went into kitchen triage mode and started sending my pots, pans and plates to the do-not-resuscitate ward and still the cupboards bulged with eggplant serving dishes, oregano graters and the like.

And the plates…oh my God at the plates! What bored European monarch decided every different thing one might want to stuff in their divinely destined pie-holes be served and eaten from plates specific to that purpose? Was it this same obviously mad royal family that decided we needed utensils sized from microscopic to industrial to handle all the different foods that might be served or eaten from the aforementioned plates?

In addition to the different sizes of plates there is also the plates for different occasions dilemma. Since the set of plates that is OK for the family to eat from on any given Tuesday can’t be the same set of plates that friends who come by for a dinner party on a Friday eat from and those sure as hell can’t be the ones that we use on holidays and those can’t be the uber-platters we would break out if Pope Benedict just happened to be in the neighborhood and stopped by for some beef tenderloin and garlic mashed potatoes, we ended up with a collection of plates equal to weight of the entire house.

Now onto the machines of our kitchen storage and my mental health’s demise. I can pretty much some up my problem with excessive kitchen contraptions with three words: ice cream maker. You know, if we lived in a world without ready made and inexpensive ice cream or a world where the do-gooder, nanny state, don’t-get-fat police put a prohibition on rich, creamy, life sustaining ice cream, then there might be a reason to have your own ice cream maker.

If they ever ban ice cream I’ll be the first to be cooking up some illegal pralines and cream in the back room, but until then why do I need cream, sugar and vanilla extract all over the kitchen when I can scrounge up three bucks to buy some professionally made ice cream?

“Well Sean I’m a ice cream connoisseur and use my ice cream maker to get flavors I can’t get anywhere else.” Exactly what ice cream flavor can’t you find there, chunky? Red Man, mullet, baked beans, McRib?

There are many other kitchen machines bending the boards of our cabinet shelves waiting to do what exactly I don’t know, but I am sure of this after they get used they are about as easy to wash as a cat on mescaline. Then of course there is the question of what parts can go in the dishwasher and what parts will melt like a forgotten peppermint patty in your jeans pocket.

I have to go now because I hear what sounds like the dull rattling of a full set of recently purchased, collapsible Tupperware containers being unloaded by the wife. While I can’t hold this latest collection of culinary paraphernalia against y’all, whoever bought us the Ravioli maker better be sending that thank you note back to me double quick.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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