I discovered something important about myself recently. It's that I have strong feelings about kitchenware: pots and pans, spatulas and wooden spoons, whisks, rolling pins, garlic presses—you name it. The revelation occurred as I traveled the aisles of Broadway Panhandler on East Eighth Street with Christopher Kimball, the host of "America's Test Kitchen" on PBS.

I'd go so far as to say that I have developed personal relationships with several of my bottle openers and bread knives. Just like with people, you prefer some to others. A few you avoid at all costs.

Christopher Kimball, host of 'America's Test Kitchen,' explains kitchenware at Broadway Panhandler in Manhattan. Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal

In fact, as soon as I complete my work for the day, I'm planning to edit my kitchen drawers, which harbor labor-saving devices dating back to the 1940s and '50s. We use maybe 10% of them. The rest are just running interference for the chicken baster or the meat thermometer hiding in plain sight.

Our plight is probably somewhat worse than the average American's. My father, who had trouble saying no to freebies (a trait I inherited), ran an ad agency where he would be pitched free samples, some of them no doubt solicited. In other words, the company sending them was hoping that he would order 50,000 of one widget or another to help promote some client by slapping their logo in the space on the sample marked "Your name here."

The manufacturers put a premium on novelty. Our drinking glasses were made out of surprising materials such as sponge or obscure metals in otherworldly hues or insulated space-age plastics. Rare was the simple tumbler or can opener. They had to be capable of performing several functions simultaneously. For example, I just pulled from the drawer what looks like a cake knife, except it has an inscrutable hole in the center of the blade, serrated edges and what seems to be a bottle opener. Upon closer inspection, I see it's called a "Klever Kleever." But how klever can it be when its form gives no clue as to its function?

Truth be told, we probably use no more than a half dozen of the hundreds of strange tools in our utensils drawer. That is why I was eager to get together with Mr. Kimball, who also serves as editor-in-chief of Cooks Illustrated magazine. I wanted his advice on future acquisitions and also reassurance that my instincts regarding things such as mixing bowls, colanders and measuring spoons were correct.

It became apparent almost from the start that Mr. Kimball's expectations regarding housewares were several orders of magnitude more refined than mine. For example, I was happy to learn that if you are going to own but one skillet it ought to be an All-Clad, because that is what I have. But then he started analyzing its metallurgy and celebrating its heat conductivity.

"The only problem you have," he said, "is if you take a hot pan and put it in cold water, it warps. You want to make sure the pan cools down."

I assumed warping was a fact of life—like cuts and bruises or high blood pressure. "What happens is, it's going to get a high spot in the center," he went on. "Pour oil in it and all the oil is going to go around the perimeter."

I've experienced that. Only I thought the puddling was the result of gravity. I didn't realize it was preventable by developing a relationship with my skillet.

Fortunately, Mr. Kimball and I saw eye to eye when it came to nonstick pans. He reassured me that it wasn't our fault that the bottom of our Teflon pans look like Pollocks. Scratches happen. In fact, he said you would be foolish to spend more than $30 or $40 on a nonstick pan; recommending one by T-Fal in the $35 range. "What we've found is you're going to have to throw them out every so often," he said. "There's no point in spending $200."

I bit my tongue, but I don't remember the last time I threw out a Teflon pan. I wait until they die of natural causes—such as the handle flying off, scalding me, or springing a leak, both of which have happened.

I take a badly scratched, possibly carcinogenic, surface for granted, as inevitable and inescapable. Like wrinkles and aging.

"Don't get a set," Mr. Kimball announced, unprovoked. He was pointing at a particular family of pots and pans. "That's where manufacturers dump stuff they can't sell otherwise. You get knives you'll never use in a million years. Pots you don't need. For example, you don't need both of these."

He meant All-Clad saucepans in both 1½- and 2-quart sizes. "You need one big one and one small one and you're done."

We approached the pepper mills. I wondered whether it was just the ones I bought, or if the devices are fundamentally flawed, all putting out paltry amounts of pepper, in particles so small they resembled fairy dust. "We've never found a wood one that does a good job," he said. "The big problem is you can't get enough production."

He recommended a Unicorn Magnum Plus Pepper Mill. He acknowledged that with its black plastic housing it bears more than a passing resemblance to Darth Vader, and certainly doesn't conform to the French provincial ideal of a pepper grinder. "But it puts out a massive amount of pepper."

He surprised me again with his choice of knives, ignoring the store's pricey Wusthofs and Messermeisters for a $40 Victorinox 8-inch cook's knife. "We put these knives through weeks of testing," he said. "This knife wins every time. You're not talking about professional chefs here."

I discovered Mr. Kimball and I had something in common. We both started cooking as children. My specialty was a cinnamon cake called Maybelle's Snickerdoodle. "I had a Fannie Farmer cookbook," he remembered. "I made a chocolate cake."

There was much else to get the cooking expert's opinion on: aprons ("We didn't like the ones with the pockets. They catch on things."); butter and whether it can be left out ("I grew up on rancid butter. You can't. It goes bad really fast."); coffee makers ("They almost all are worthless. I'd use a Melitta drip or French press for $30."); cutting boards ("Olive wood is the best"); colanders ("You definitely want feet"); and mixers.

I decided to take a pass on the $799 KitchenAid 7-quart commercial stand mixer Mr. Kimball recommended. But I happily sprung for the Matfer Pelton nonstick spatula, and bestowed it upon my daughter as a housewarming gift. At $10.95, it was smack in the middle of my price range.