Tuesday Ten

Scratching around for new inspiration for a Tuesday Ten, I came across this impossibly chic blog and thought it might be good for some ideas. Recently the author has covered her ten favourite kitchen items. I was tempted to get up on the counter in a maxi dress, a la Celeste Barber, but my ceiling isn't high enough and I'm not convinced the counter would prevail; and it's 11.23pm and my alarm is going off in 6 hours and 37 minutes. Regardless...

Ten favourite items in my kitchen

1. This soup ladle. Mr Z and I saw it on Facebook some years ago, before it was for sale, and then forgot about it, so I was utterly delighted to come across it in John Lewis a few weeks ago. I even bought the mini version which is a tea infuser.



2. The Kenwood. I saved and saved and it was so worth it. It's just effortless! I have attachments I have never even used, though. I should rectify that. Mother Hand bought me a slicing attachment for Christmas two years ago and it's never been out of the box. I changed what I was eating for lunch shortly after I'd asked for it, so it became less useful.

3. The glittery floor tiles. A big splurge when we were putting the kitchen together but totally worth it. And in the summer when it is hot I fling myself through the front door and lie down on them, because they're always cold.

4. Mason Cash mixing bowls. I've got a red one and a white one, to match the kitchen. They are from the jubilee release a few years ago. I don't get the use of them, sadly, because of the Kenwood, but they look pretty.

5. Espresso machine. I swore I'd never have a pod one but it came free from someone who had tired of it, and it does make a nice coffee, even though I get liberal guilt about the length of time the dead pods will spend in landfill.

6. The juicer. I don't use it often, but tend to binge with it when I am using it and drink juices every day. It's fun to make combinations. It does the best lemon and gingerade. It's also exceptionally helpful for making all kinds of curd.

7. The big pink Smeg fridge. I've long forgotten that we had to crowbar the old kitchen apart to fit it in when Mother Hand bought it for us as a Christmas surprise. It's the magic fridge: it keeps food fresher for longer than should be possible.

8. My bundt tins. I have three, which is too many as they are a bugger to store. One is a star, one is a cathedral and the third is a sort of divoted affair that allows drizzles to nestle in little pools all over the cake. Absolutely genius. No home should be without one.

9. (This is quite hard. I don't own an ice crusher and I pour my oil directly from the plastic bottle I bought it in.) I love the red and white spotty bowls from Spode, and the red and white spotty over-sized teacups from Laura Ashley. One of each has a fatal crack in, but I can't bear to get rid of them because they look so nice. Every so often I get the bowl out and flex it gently. It's very tempting to just break it in half.

10. Martini glasses with little glass strawberries embedded into them. Difficult to describe, but I have a matching jug. I also have a crockery martini glass that looks like a watermelon, that I carefully transported back from America one year. It's a whole fruit-themed martini thing. I never drink martinis at home, but I like to have the accoutrements anyway.