Hit the Hardware Store for 3 Surprising Kitchen Supplies

A clever (and impressive) way to pit cherries without a specialized tool: Drive three clean stainless steel nails close together through a piece of clean, thin scrap wood to form a “basket.” Gently push the cherry down onto the sharp tips of the nails to extract the pit. Entry and exit “wounds” are minimal.

Keep track of the sizes of your bakeware with metal paint, a hardware store staple, since manufacturers’ indications of size on baking pans are often either illegible or nonexistent. Use ovensafe metal paint to mark pan bottoms, noting dimensions or capacity.

To keep bowls from slipping in the kitchen, apply rubber coating (the kind used to coat the handles of tools) to bowls that tend to run away. To create a nonskid surface on the bottom of a slippery bowl, dip its bottom in rubber coating. Note: The rubber-treated bowls won’t be dishwasher-safe.