Today's Kitchen Tip: Don't just throw out a defective kitchen product!

If you have ever been to my classes, you know I love Microplane graters.  I love them so much I even have 5 hanging as a 'useful' decoration on my wall.

I had cheese I needed to grate and pulled one off the wall to use.  When I looked at it, the thing looked like it had dried-on cheese still on it.  At a closer look, the plastic used was cracking all over.  Since it was still in one piece, I decided to use it gently to grate some cheese and while I was able to grate the cheese, the grater felt like it was going to break.

I was just about to throw it out until I realized that Microplane has always put out a quality product and I'm sure they would stand behind this defective grater.  I wrote an e-mail to them and within a day I heard back from them.  Not only did they apologize, but offered to send me out a grater of my choice.  They also told me that they reworked the plastic in the defective grater so future versions of the 'home series grater' will not have that problem.

So how is this a kitchen tip?  My thoughts are that if you spend money to buy a quality product, most manufacturers will stand by their product.  It will take you less time to e-mail them than it would to go to the store and replace a defective item.

So next time a kitchen tool (or anything for that matter) does not live up to your expectations, contact the manufacturer.