Behold: The automatic butter spreader

Sadly, the best kitchen gadgets appear to be the ones you rarely see — like the automatic butter spreader.

It’s essentially a mechanized roller, the cousin of the hot dog roller at QuikTrip or 7-11, that allows for the even coating of toast or whatever you slide across the roller face. Both the warming and non-warming models have the capacity to hold one pound of butter.

The only time I’ve seen one in operation is at a grilled-corn stand at the Kansas State Fair, where butter was applied liberally to the corn they were selling. This was a serious bit of walking snack food.