New Utensils and Refinding Happiness

I was reading an article, in the Guardian, the other day about Nick Cave and his experience in losing two sons in the course of the last 9 years.

And I thought his current take on how he’s adapted to life without them is an interesting change of heart. He describes his feelings of culpability, hurt and anger and the unnatural state of burying your own child, being against nature.

The anger, which I believe (from reading, and my own experience of mourning, is a normal enough feeling to experience at various times through this process), was what he’s targeting, when in the article the writer says this.

One way in which he has changed is that he appreciates life more. In the past, he has described learning to live again, refinding happiness, as an act of defiance.

But he no longer thinks it’s an appropriate word. “Defiance has a fuck-you element to the world; we’re not going to let it get us down.”

But now his attitude is…

“What’s it saying to all those who’ve passed away in their multitudes if we lead lives where we’re just pathologically pissed off at the world?”

“What does it say, to those who have left the world, to be in a perpetual state of misery and fury and depression and cynicism towards the world?”

“What legacy are they leaving if that’s how we manifest the passing of that person?”

So why am I sharing the message of this article with you? I think it’s because he is a man of deep and clear thought, and his words reinforced my feel that celebrating the life of someone and enjoying that memory, enables us to relive and reuse (continue to use what we learnt from them) our appreciation of them almost as if they were still alive. I do that with Babette several times a week, sometimes daily. Whereas to be angry at the world, or them, for having pissed off somewhere else, tends to cast a shadow over their memory and stops the enjoyment.

NEW: Zyliss Wheatstraw Kitchen Tools from £6.95

We needed another range of kitchen tools like we needed a hole in the head, as we already have three or four ranges. And indeed, we were going to give this the Zyliss range a miss. But when Andy Wheeler, our DKB account manager, last came to visit me, he left a goodly number of samples for us to try out.

And by and by we looked at them, tried to ignore them, but actually found that quite difficult…. Someone said, “that Extra Large Turner is a good size isn’t it?”. Someone else said “oooh that whisk (oddly called a gravy whisk) is something we get asked for, lets stock that”, and so the conversation went on and on, until we had 7 pieces that we convinced ourselves we needed!

Three quite unique pieces

• XL Turner is very wide, so  good for fish or fried eggs
• Mixing Spoon Angled. A very good stirrer for sauces with its hole in the middle. And it has a sharp corner for getting into the sharp corners in your pan or mixing bowl.
• The so called Gravy Whisk is good we feel for shallow pans, frying pans and has apparently been selling hand over fist.

Four everyday pieces

• Slotted Turner. Good for frying work and the slots help with draining the fat or oil.
• A Spoontula. Slightly different name (usually Spoonula) for a commonly used spoon with a soft silicon edge that captures all your food as you wipe round your bowl, frying pan or saucepan
• Spatula Medium. This is just an everyday silicone ended spatula, big enough to be generally useful, and small enough to get into most jars.
• Spoon Large. I’m not going to tell you what to do with a large spoon. I’m going to leave that to your imagination.

And of course, as the name suggests the other big quality in their favour, are the handles, because although the business end is the standard either nylon or silicone (tool dependent), the handles are up to 50% Wheat Straw, which quite dramatically reduces the amount of plastics used.

So there you have it. A nicely made range of Wheatstraw handled Kitchen Tools from this high quality Swiss company Zyliss, who manufacture these tools in China.

My offer this week is buy two or more pieces from this range and get 20% off. Use code ZYLISS24 if you are shopping online, or tell us who you are if coming into Cobham or Reigate shops.

Shop All Zyliss Wheatstraw Utensils

Joseph Joseph Cookware

Very briefly, just before I finish, last week Luke Gurney our Joseph Joseph account manager invited me up to their head office, near London Bridge, to what he described as news of a major launch.

There were 6 or 7 of us all told. And I’m very pleased to say that the visit was well worthwhile, because they are producing a range of cookware that is high in quality, (think Le Cresuet TNS or GreenPan top range), has folding handles that are very secure, very safe, and very well thought through, making stacking and nesting your pans really easy.

Richard Joseph gave us chapter and verse on the range that they have been developing for the past five years!

When they do arrive with us, I’ll go into more detail on why I’m so sold on them!

They won’t be available until late June or early July, but if you have a space problem with your pots and pans then these could well be worth waiting for.

If you can’t wait, then they are, or will shortly be, available in JLP and possibly elsewhere. 

An exciting development in cookware, I think.

That’s it for this week. I’ll leave the last word to Jimmy Carr, talking about life and how he sees it.

It’s not the journey or the destination that matters, it who you become on the journey.

Like Nick Cave, another deep thinker.

I hope you have a pleasant and peaceful weekend

Warm regards

Andrew

Andrew Bluett-Duncan