What Gets Used

Another storm sweeping through (Benjamin), so had some dark, rainy and windy days. I am bored already with rainy season. But, the other morning, during one of the sunny intervals, I went out to do errands and was greeted by the most monumental rainbow. It was one which stood out. It took me around 5 minutes to finally get in the car it was so ‘there’ and so hard to look away from. Beautiful colours – and as if Mother Nature was saying, ‘no, not quite yet – have another look’.

Another ortho appointment. And another in two weeks.

My favourite holiday of the year later this week. Here’s my pumpkin, with the late blooming roses.

So ‘What Gets Used’. This could easily be about perfume – ie, what of all the bottles sitting near me and in the box upstairs gets sprayed most frequently. But, it’s not. I’ve just finished re-reading Nigel Slater’s sort of memoir A Thousand Feasts from last year and it got me thinking.

Today, it’s kitchen stuff. I have cupboard and kitchen drawers full of cooking and eating things but tend to use only some on repeat on a daily basis. Some things get brought out for holiday cooking or serious baking but definitely not every day use.

When my marriage dissolved my husband wanted to take the matchy matchy stuff we had accumulated which was fine with me. I really only wanted the things I’d come into the relationship with (some that had belonged to my parents, some I’d accumulated earlier in my adult life).

When I started to rebuild the things you need for a basic kitchen I found I didn’t want anything to match. Even the three cereal bowls purchased from a Cornwall-based company that uses sea creature motifs had different creatures. And if it gets chipped, it’s kept anyway. Unless it’s dangerous I don’t mind.

And to be honest I mostly use bowls of different sizes for regular eating: a sea creature in the morning for yoghurt with fruit; a flattish bowl or a deeper one at lunch for pasta, soup, eggs, etc. Things bought on a whim for design or structure. I’m still frustrated I didn’t buy more of the Ikea white bowls with the blue band that are long discontinued.

I have different sized Picardi (Duralex) glasses and am partial to a low wide mug when I’m not using the tea cup I made at the pottery lessons last year for my early cup of green tea.

I also have a bowl from those lessons I use for berries and sometimes soup.

The cutlery was bought 25 years ago and every once in a while something bends or breaks and I replace with something that doesn’t match.

Most of my utensils – soup ladle, big spoon, metal spatula – belonged to my mother.

As to large dinner plates, I tend not to use them much. They come out for Xmas or roasts. My faves were bought during Covid – I think I needed amusement. Each one has a vegetable painted on the surface: artichokes and eggplants.

And finally what pans do I use in rotation? A big frying pan that resembles a wok but with a lid; one large and one medium sauté pan for pasta and pasta sauce; a small milk pan for boiling things like … milk; a smaller frying pan for eggs.

Oh, and the four different sized Picardi bowls for mixing etc (I also use the bigger ones for washing bras – yes, you needed to know that).

What else … well, there’s the Dualit electric kettle. I love its shape and it’s sturdy – and not plastic. A toaster. A big, heavy-weight stand mixer for cakes.

I’m thinking about acquiring an air fryer…

Oh, and things I love but don’t use any more. Wonderful Williams Sonoma wine glasses (I stopped the alcohol about five years ago – not worth explaining why). I look at them, and at the beautiful lead crystal wine glasses my grandparents brought with them to the US. Sigh.

So, where are you in this? Beautiful dinner sets and matching pots and pans? Nothing matching at all and favourites have been with you for ages? Things handed down through the years?

Oh, and should I get that air fryer?

Pics: mine, pexels