Do you want it? Or need it? Depends

So, it’s an exciting time for a lot of us, this whole being domestic thing—we’re cooking, really cooking, cookbooks-and-no-microwave cooking—and so we’re also building up all the right kitchen essentials: saucepans, pots, wine glasses, baking sheets, cupcake pans, knives that are actually sharp, Tupperware . . . you know, the stuff that you and I would’ve had in our possession a long, long time ago if we hadn’t first wasted away on fast food and take-out.

Thankfully, with spots like IKEA and Target, the accumulation of indispensable kitchenware isn’t too expensive of a task. Sure, it may be pretty disposable—how can a $2.99 set of knives not be?—but as young adults trying to establish some sort of feigned domestic stability, sometimes disposable is okay. Williams-Sonoma can wait.

In the meantime, Boston Warehouse recently released line of kitchen goods and accessories called Animal House that appeals to people just like us—young and entering the realm of quasi-responsibility, and not yet too practical. Or maybe we’re just fun-loving. Either way: I wasn’t having the plain black vegetable peelers on display next to Boston Warehouse’s Monkey Peeler at Olives, Too. Especially when they were the same price ($7.99). But the Monkey Peeler features a smiley orange face (looks more like an orangutan to me) with lanky, outstretched arms holding up/swinging from a peeler/eye-remover. Adorable. Boston Warehouse offers other affordable animal-themed accessories, too, like a pink octopus soap scrubber, parrot garlic press, woodpecker scissors, and a swordfish bread knife. Best of all, peeling vegetables with a monkey peeler doesn’t make me feel tooooo grown up.

That can wait, too.

AVAILABLE AT OLIVES, TOO 3423 E Broadway | Long Beach 90803 | 562.433.1800 | olivesgourmetgrocer.com