Carrie gets a surprisingly practical no-prize for bringing us this Washington Post article detailing how cooks are finding nifty tools in unexpected places:

Practicality rules in the restaurant galley, where some tools come straight from the hardware store. A putty knife can make perfect chocolate curls, and simple polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe can mold an elegant appetizer. Chefs find such items are often sturdier or less expensive than the designer widgets sold in kitchen stores.

Alton Brown of Good Eats fame has been doing stuff like this for years, but it's hard to say who got the idea first.