I haven't posted anything for a while. This is not because I have suddenly discovered how to cook, rather it's that our kitchen has been completely gutted and replaced.
It has taken a couple of months, and has gone through quite a transformation.
The first photo is a view of the room when we purchased the house. It doesn't show limitations of the room, such as the fact that the peninsular legs were loose, the work top varnish was chipped and partially missing, the boiler was embedded a few inches lower than the tiled floor partially in the gap where the fireplace used to be, the hot water cylinder was in the cupboard to the right and the fronts for all of the cabinets was cracked and perishing.
The kitchen has gone from this:
through this:
to this:
Now that we have a working kitchen again, which has more work space and more cabinets, I can recommence cookistry. The kitchen now has an induction hob and the new oven has many controls that I don't understand, both of which increase the possibility of future cookery disasters.
Although I haven't yet cooked in the new kitchen, my partner Doris has already had a couple of disasters ...
Yesterday, she baked bread. Hers was the disaster a few months ago when she
forgot to add water to the bread mix. She didn't forget that, this time. However, the bread machine has been in storage while the kitchen has been replaced, and she neglected to check that the paddle insert was still inside the machine. After 5 hours of baking, she went to extract the freshly-baked bread and discovered that there had been no kneading, so the bread was a mass of unmixed (but cooked) ingredients.
This is what the paddle is supposed to look like:
We are now searching for where the paddle has disappeared to. We shall continue to hunt for it until we give up and buy a new one, on which day we will find it and then have a spare, which we shall store "somewhere safe" and never see again.
This evening, she made smoothies. She hasn't been able to make smoothies since I've known her, due to lack of workable space. With the kitchen replacement, she is now able to easily retrieve all of her gadgets. This is a photo of the model of smoothie maker that she has.
The smoothie-making went perfectly, and she poured mine out. She wanted to fill my glass to the brim, but the tap on the smoothie maker is slightly too low for the pint glass that she had selected for me. Therefore, she lifted the perspex jug from the motorised base in order to position it over my glass and pour out more smoothie.
The perspex jug is semi-permanently affixed to a plastic housing that contains the blending blades. The fixing utilises an extremely tight-fitting grommet. The smoothie maker hasn't been used in years, and the grommet had, unbeknownst to Doris, become slightly dislodged. In regular operation, this was not a problem, but when the grommet had to take the entire weight of the smoothie, the joint failed.
Or, as Doris herself explained "The bottom fell off!"
At her shouted request that I collect my smoothie while she cleaned up the kitchen, I went to the kitchen to find the new peninsular work top covered in purple smoothie. The base of the smoothie maker was also covered in purple smoothie, as was the cabinet door, the whole of the new marmoleum kitchen floor, Doris's shoes, Doris's legs and Doris's dress. It was a mess!
At least I had most of a pint of smoothie. Doris was wearing and standing in hers.
When I start cooking again, I will continue to post my disasters. I have successfully got out of the habit of cooking, though, and we have found some lovely restaurants near to us while we've had no kitchen, so it might be a while until I'm persuaded to get back in the kitchen and try to remember everything that I've learned about not making silly mistakes.
