Cheap Hacks To Make You Look Like A Genius When Making Brunch

Are you tasked with making Mother's Day brunch, Father's Day dinner, or any other sort of entertaining responsibility where you really need to outdo yourself — okay, the version of yourself you aspire to be — in the kitchen? Fear not: Even on a tight budget, these gadgets from Mastrad Paris will make you look like a pro.

1. Unless you have spent a ton of time and money mastering the julienne cut — we repeat, mastering — you are not getting the job done like this with just your kitchen knife and a dream. The Mastrad julienne peeler (above) will have your partner's uppity aunt immediately asking where you went to culinary school.

2. Use this to torch a cheese crust, sear beef, finish off merengue, or if you're really a piece of work, fire off a sugary brown crust for that crème brûlée like you do it for fun all the time. The handheld food-specific blowtorch helps you brown meringue on desserts and custards, caramelize crème brûlée, peel tomatoes and bell peppers, sear meat, or flambé scallops right at the table with a made-for-the-kitchen (as opposed to, say, your mechanic's garage) tool.

3. "What's that, gluten-free recently acquired mother-in-law who doesn't actually have a health condition? Of course, these are zucchini noodles. No, it's all made out of zucchini. The zucchini is the noodles, my friend. Nope, it was no trouble at all." The deco veggie slicer makes salad just a bit more exciting — though how much more exciting can you get than a salad in the first place, really? — by helping you turn carrots into tagliatelle strips and zucchini into spaghetti.

4. You're running short on time, so you need to cut the daylights out of those chicken breasts — or, because you ruined everything, you need to slice up the emergency backup pizza that has arrived with cheese sloshed everywhere. These poultry and pizza shears do exactly what they say they will, thanks to a curved blade that helps you snip these sometimes tough-to-cut foods with the ease of cutting paper with safety scissors. (Which we obviously all still do as adults.)

5. Now you're just showing off: You made it all from scratch, down to the potato chips. The Mastrad Topchips Limited Edition Kit helps you create fat-free, oil-free, and (unless you've got a mother like mine, in which case, it's unavoidable) guilt-free crispy fruit and vegetable chips in just about five minutes. The chip-maker tray and mini-mandolin slicer (there's also a full recipe book) can be used to make chips from potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, and pears, and I may just go wild and try them with my favorite vegetable, zucchini.