Gyms have equipment to help you get fit and lose weight. So do kitchens.  Having the right kit can make the difference between making a salad and diving headlong into the nearest bag of doughnuts. As a side effect, it also makes cooking a lot easier.

So here’s some things to put on your  Christmas gadget wish-list  – and if you are stuck for ideas (I am always stuck for ideas) they all make fantastic presents.

Although not according to Offspring.  

When I solicitously ask her what kitchen gadgets she needs for Christmas, she assures me that there’s nothing she cooks that she can’t prepare with a knife and a chopping board.

And she hasn’t got a Magimix, I scream inwardly, whilst surreptitiously googling mutant children. She helpfully offers to send me a list of things she does want for Christmas.      

I consider pointing out that if I had to choose between my laptop and a Magimix, my laptop would be in the bin before you could type –

Laptop has just deleted my novel. I had not realised they could be so vindictive.  And I hadn’t even said it out loud, because I am a sensitive parent.

Anyway, back to Food Processors  

If you haven’t already got one, put it at the top of your Christmas list and underline in red. You cannot prepare enough veg to feed the elephant house at London Zoo – or my lunch as I prefer to call it – without one. And if you are downsizing, you will be preparing a zoological mountain of veg at least twice a day.  Vegetables are heavy, hard, dirty things, and you need all the help you can get.  

Food-processors are fantastic at chopping, slicing, and grating vegetables, and making soups, gremolata, zhoug, hummus, sauces and pates – and can do it all in seconds.

Unlike a laptop, which takes years to write one little novel – and makes me do most of the work.

I have always used a Magimix, but other makes are available.

Oil Drizzler

Drizzling oil is like trying to stick to the 20mph limit.   A drizzler removes the need for willpower or a steady hand.

Meat Probes

I am not at my best with timing, so I always use a meat probe – preferably one that stays in throughout the cooking. If I can see the temperature rising, I can whip whatever it is out of the oven before it dries out or burns.   If the meat lands on your plate resembling something you could resole your shoe with, it is harder to say no to tiramisu.

Microplane Graters

These graters are my number one present – as any of my friends will vouch for. Some of them have a dozen or more. Yes, it would be a clever idea to make a note of what I have given people – but then I couldn’t keep giving people Microplane graters and I would have to think of something else.  Anyway, they are fantastically well-designed and sharp for effort-free grating or zesting.

For Parmesan it creates feathery light flakes so you get a much bigger pile of cheese for the same weight (good for not feeling hard-done-by), and as I spend much of my life zesting things, I could compare its usefulness to my laptop, but there is the other novel to consider.

But be warned: there are many Microplane lookalikes creating dullness and misery in the world. Have nothing to do with them.

Fridges

If you are eating a shed-load of vegetables, you need a fridge the size of a shed to put them in – but do not put it on your stocking list:  it would get stuck in the chimney and put Father Christmas’s back out.  And you might have to knock walls down or move house to fit it in your kitchen, which is absolutely not going to improve Christmas lunch.

Food Mixers

I want to suggest you get a Kitchen Aid food-mixer too because they are so extremely pretty, but they practically force you to make cakes and puddings, which does not help. Although they look delightful filled with fairy lights, which is more than can be said for a Magimix.

Magimix has just bitten off its ON button and stormed out.  

Am beginning to see Offspring’s point about a knife and a chopping board.

Bowls

Taste comes as much from mixing the ingredients well as the ingredients themselves, and to do this properly, you need a bowl much bigger than the quantity you are mixing. I am a great fan of stainless steel bowls because they are very light, but I also like the Mason Cash pudding and mixing bowls.

Salad Spinner

How life can continue without one is impossible to imagine: I use mine at least several times a day.   For washing veg as well as drying it – it’s so much easier than filling the sink with water.  

Mandolins

Mandolins are brilliant things for slicing veg very thinly when you don’t want to use the food processor.  They are sharp and make short work of slicing vegetables.  This is good.  .

Also fingers.  That is less good.

Do not flirt, watch TV, or try and get stray children to do their maths homework while you use one. You must give your full attention to the moment when your carrot or onion is almost fully sliced, and the thing nearest to the blade is your finger; possibly more than one of them. That is the point at which you must stop.

And Finally … Spatulas.

You can't have too many of them.

Offspring might disagree.

Some people put their child’s name down for a school within hours of its birth. For me, it was spatulas.

For some reason she didn’t take all of them with her when she left home.

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