No hoity toity kitchen store where you are? Have a hardware store hack, Chef.

It melts glass; therefore, it is perfect.

Yeah okay, you don’t do creme brulée. I bet you would if you knew it meant you could score a new torch, right tough guy? I bet you do nachos and you like it when the cheese is all brown and bubbly without burning the chips, right? Yeah. I know you. I AM you.

There’s nothing like open flame to lend instant cred to your cooking. Yeah, big bad chef store sells the $80 “real deal” butane micro torch favored by French patissiers for its “elegant form and precision control,” but come on. We’re Mainers. We don’t need precision, we just need to get it done fast. If you can’t fix your plow mount with it, we don’t want to hear about it.

Get thee to the local hardware store and get yourself a nice Bernzomatic setup. You can get the tank and 1/2” pencil head for about $25. It’s big. It’s unweildy. It’s AMAZING. For an extra $1 or so, snag a dedicated Red Sox Bic lighter at Cumby’s to round out your kit. Team pride, 1,000 degrees of blue flame, and dessert. Win.

If you keep it behind the seat of the truck, it’ll always be where you need it. And there’s nothing that makes this girl feel more useful than having just the right tool for any delicate vanilla bean custard or light auto body work she might come across.