Virtually There - March 2009

It had to happen. After twenty five years, my mother’s state-of-the-art 80s kitchen has died. The cantilevered white Corian bench return has cracked. The white sink is stained and the white enamel tapware chipped. The white lacquered cupboards instantly turned a delicate shade of ivory in sympathy and the hobs ceased to function. Never fear, I cried. What better reason to drag her favourite room kicking and screaming into the new millennium?

 

 

Inspiration can come from Dwell, where the kitchen blog  has eight years of awesome kitchens to drool over. Equally desirable are the kitchens at Ernestomeda. Follow the products link to the Solaris kitchen – clearly, kitchen-wise, these Italians are living in an alternate universe.

 

For confirmation of this you need look no further than the collaboration of fashion house Missoni with Corian . My retinas are still recovering from the black and white polka dot kitchen island with red high-gloss top. Missoni has also branched into homewares with the same bold attack of colour and pattern that characterises its clothes .

 

If tasteful minimalist functionality is more your bag, you will love the Grace Kitchen Centre from German company Schulte Design . Yes, it’s a freestanding induction cooking unit that doubles as a dining table. It looks very cool but, if difficult and practical questions about minor technicalities (extraction, for instance, or electricity) spring to mind, this is not the concept for you. The Grace was the hit of the international furnishing show, IMM Cologne , but Italian or German avant-garde is not for everyone and I have a sneaking suspicion that all that hipness might just start to pall if you actually have to cook in it on
a day to day basis.

 

Perhaps it is simpler to leave the kitchen just as it is and buy more stuff to fill it. To that end, I recommend kitchencontraptions.com, a blog of kitchen sine qua nons that I never even knew existed. Such as the Chef’N FridgeFork condiment fork (a mini pickle fork in a rubber holster designed to fit over the pickle jar) and the Margaritaville Tahiti Frozen Concoction Makers. How about a Toastabag from toastabags.com (yes, it is a bag that lets you toast sloppy things in your toaster). Or a Rotato Express as seen at freshfinds.com. All it took was an electric rotating peeler to make my kitchen complete.

 

 

Site-seeing Speaking of kitchens, do you remember Hudson and Halls? Now, thanks to a new NZ on Air initiative, NZ on Screen , you can relive an entire episode from 1985, complete with ravioli, lamb shanks, big hair and special guest Pam Ayres. The NZ on Screen archives are a real blast from the past: Billy T. James, Town and Around, old news reel footage, an episode of Gloss and It’s in the Bag from Dunedin. By hokey, this is nostalgia at its finest. Still with TV chefs, I was channel surfing the other day and stumbled on an old episode of The Galloping Gourmet on FoodTV. It was catastrophic – burned fingers, copious amounts of liquor (not in the food by the way) and the most awful-looking food you have ever seen. I laughed until I cried. I’ve never seen another episode since, but managed to track down an excerpt from The Way We Cooked, a BBC tribute to Graham Kerr and cooking show pioneer Fanny Craddock on youtube.com. You cannot miss Fanny and her Blue Canapé Eggs in all their glory. Nigella, eat your heart out.