Where would we be without our kitchen gadgets?
Those well loved labour saving devices our grandparents could only dream about.
Take the humble electric kettle that we take for granted it has made life so much easier and the first morning cuppa so much quicker.
Although Sometimes a whiff of nostalgia remembering the good old fashioned whistling kettle. We have one somewhere in case of power cuts?
The pop up Toaster, is another one we take for granted. I can remember my Mother standing near the grill watching the bread closely and as soon she looked away it was burnt.
How many of us remember the scraping sound of burnt toast? Add a toastie bag and you’ve got a meal in a moment.
The French have even given the toaster a little platform to heat up croissants
Now for the BIGGIE ! The food mixer with all its attachments. It is amazing what you can do with it, chop vegetables, slice vegetables, make coleslaw, mix pastry, knead bread dough, puree fruit & veg, make breadcrumbs, the list is endless.
Similarly we have the stick blender, and the mini mixer? For us the piece de resistance is the coffee grinder, but, in our case a spice grinder. Invaluable for curries. It takes all the hard work out of grinding by hand.
I know, the irony: is our 40 piece collection of Pestle an Mortars.
Talking coffee, we inherited an nespresso capsule machine, It is very convenient, easy to use, and a reliable cup of coffee, and perhaps that’s the problem.
Before we had a De Longhi Expresso machine, with that, you called the shots. Coffee could be as strong or as weak as you liked, and a lot more environmental friendly compared with the capsules heading off to some far away beach.
A recent addition to our array is a Rice steamer, early trails are proving positive, especially for Sheila.
Interestingly the one gadget I have never got on with is the electric bread knife, Sheila s brother had one and to be honest I could never see the “Point” if you’ll excuse the pun. Sheila kitchen Nemesis is the pressure cooker.
Of course not all gadgets are electric, or for that matter big. The humble potato peeler, scales, Potato ricer, masher, salad spinner, graters, and the once indispensable tin-opener, now sadly in demise since the advent of ring pull tins.
Drink is surrounded with gadgets, the assorted shapes, and sizes, and designs of cork screws. The waiters friend, the fish cork screw, pump action, and many many more One of our best buys was a Luxury corkscrew, table-mounted with wood handle, stainless steel propeller
Beer Bottle opener, Franck our friend as a pair of sunglasses with a built in bottle opener on one arm. We have a A strange looking device for mashing fruit and herbs for cocktails. A cocktail shaker. A measure……is there a theme developing here?
Our current favourite is a very handy tool to help champaign corks out.
Eggs that’s another area, Sheila loves her collection of “egg gadgets”. Two little poachers, 2 toppers for soft boiled eggs, a slicer for hard boiled, numerous egg
timers, spoons for eggs, a collection of egg cups all shapes and sizes. Can eggs be any more moddle “coddled;”
A pastry Pricker, you don’t often hear that in conversation. A fish scaler, A Pizza wheel, are all things we have found we cannot live without, well perhaps the pastry pricker. The Fork does the job just as well.
At this point I feel I must interject with a reading recommendation “Consider the Fork” by Bee Wilson. A really good read. Sheila Loved it. How often did I hear “Did you know..” “Listen to this…” just when I concentrating on some important transaction ( code for Candy Crush) See Sheila’s review here
Pasta is another area ripe for gadgets….. I mean how useful is a spaghetti gauge.
The pasta serving spoon is perfect for purpose.
Two other Pasta gadgets that I must confess are now gathering dust in one of our caves. A pasta rolling machine and a ravioli tray. The latter would have been very useful 30 years ago. Sheila decided that we would invite friends for dinner, and she would make her own pasta? So I trail-run was organised; she would make ravioli. Let me state for the record that the pasta was delicious, and on the night the Lasagna was perfect. Well! On the practice night we had two envelope sized ravioli…
A question: Is a reclette machine a gadget? You could argue that it as replaced hanging a piece of cheese in front of the fire, so I guess the answer is yes. In any event it makes for a very enjoyable evening
So My Favourite Gadget?? the one I would take on a desert island….. The one I am using at the time!
Leave a Comment