(kitchen gadgetry)

With my recent stray into the goodness of baking, I'd say finding plain round pastry cutters in an assortment of sizes is like looking for needle in a haystack. They're non-existent.

Baking made me buy something, the thing being a set of plastic/polyethylene cutters in primary-school-kid-will-brag shapes of rabbits, bicycles, rugby ball and umbrella for £2 (okay deal price-wise.) The colours, too, are bright. Well, let's say that other than the square, rectangular, diamond and circle shapes... the rest aren't exactly my piece of cake. Which made the per unit cost stand at 50p a cutter. Not bad, considering the teddy head cutter at Japan Centre costs £2.50 apiece. But then, that might be just because it's pricey Japan Centre...

As expected, baking also made me eye a few other things.
Since I was quite unhappy with the selection I had, I asked a friend to lend me a few. So she did - they were her granny's. They were, surprise surprise, plain stainless steel round pastry cutters in nine sizes, and they nestle within each other... how neat is that! A quick word with her didn't lead to where it was purchased (other than the faint markings that they were bought for £8.58 excluding VAT), but she mentioned John Lewis. So off to on-line John Lewis I went.

Here are a few things that I found interesting:
- set of measuring spoons
- cookie cutters in star and snowflake patterns
- double-edged pastry cutters (how high are they?)
- old-school icing bag and nozzles
- this cute imprinter for cookies (pretty please!)

I don't think I will buy all of them... but it's nice to have a list of kitchen gadgetry I fancy, I guess.
Ooooh, and why John Lewis?
Maybe because it's next to school. The admin/library building, I mean.

And, looking at these things remind me of how I loved to spend my afternoons inside home shops, scrutinizing every single knick-knack that people could come up with. Some are still in 'fascination' stage (namely the Kitchen Aid stand mixer in red). A few came home with me: handheld egg beater, Zyliss ice-cream scoop in pale Vespa green. Most things, like oilcloth aprons and the Alessi Spider, stayed firmly in the shops though.

(According to my design/cultural studies tutor, the Spider didn't get juice out of citrus fruits as sleek and effective as advertised, but I won't say more on that until I try it out myself.)

Last thing I'm gonna do is sing praise to the Zyliss ice-cream scoop that didn't make its journey across the world from Melbourne. It was the first ice-cream scoop I bought myself (without consulting anyone else), the heaviest, the cutest-coloured, probably the most expensive one I've ever bought. It's easy to clean. Despite my propensity to bend spoons in vain attempt to chisel morsels of frozen foodstuff away, and a history of successfully breaking the release mechanism on two ice-cream scoopers (one being made entirely of metal), the Zyliss scooper stood/worked/stayed in shape. If it wasn't for its weight, I would've happily nicked it from the utensils drawer in April before returning to London.

Alright, enough of that now.
Have a good day! ^__^