Guest Post: Rachael from Gastronomics

I”m so excited to share today”s guest post with you this morning! Rachael is half of the duo behind the blog Gastronomics. I met her a few months ago at this blogger function and now I count her as one of my closest blogger friends – she”s this dynamo mix of intelligence, wit and worldliness. Seriously interesting to talk to, that chick.

She and her mom post great recipes, budget grocery finds around Dublin, and lots of funny tidbits from their lives. I always crack up reading Rachael”s posts. You”ll see why below! Isn”t she just a hoot?! Thanks, Rachael!

My Coveted Kitchen

We’re in the process of buying a house. Yep, I know, utterly crazy. The market’s going to drop more, we know.  The variable rate’s going to sky-rocket, we know.  House insurance, life insurance and general recession-insurance are going up. We know.  But we all have to grow up sometime!

And so,  having undertaken a grueling twelve-week round of negotiations the likes of which would not even be found at a Camp David summit, we’ve managed to persuade the bank to part with ‘their’ cash and are now buying a beautiful 150 year old town house.

Which means that having left home nine years ago and lived in fifteen houses across four countries, I finally, finally get a proper kitchen. So in a nod to the old Celtic Tiger spirit of coveting items well outside of our budget, I’ve been drawing up a list of ‘wants’ for my kitchen, which unfortunately will not turn into ‘haves’ until we win the lottery. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Plus, I recently whetted my appetite for all things house-y at the Interior Design Fair in Dublin with the lovely Emily, who has kindly allowed me to blather all over her blog this week. Apologies guys, normal, relaxed and smooth service will resume next week.

1. Quooker Tap

This is probably the most practical kitchen gadget thingie I’ve ever come across. It is literally a tap from which boiling water pours when you flick a switch.  So when you want to blanche those asparagus tips? Stick ‘em under the tap. You want to sterilise the baby dishes? Under the tap. You’d like a cup of tea now, not in five minutes when the kettle’s finished boiling? Done.  There are various different brands providing this including Quooker and Zip, and they all come with safety features to protect curious little hands.

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I want. But nope, can’t have, as it’s currently retailing at approximately €700 plus. Which makes it a feckin’ expensive kettle.  Although the nice and remarkably well-dressed kitchen man did assure us that we would get this back in saved energy over, er, twenty years. Even the bank probably gives better interest than that.

2. Wall-Mounted BBQ

Ok it’s not technically kitchen, but it’s for my outdoor kitchen. The outdoor kitchen that resides firmly in my imagination. In our new house we have a large front garden and a side patio, but no back garden, meaning that the chiminey-bbq-drinks table combo that will have to do as my ‘outdoor kitchen’ has to be very carefully planned.  Needless to say, the BBQ needs to be easily packed away and hidden after the annual three days of Irish sunshine are over.

While researching I found this French-designed wall-mounted BBQ and fell for it. Hard.  And got bruised badly when I discovered the price, which is approximately €1600. So, blogosphere people, does anybody have an extremely handy other half who knows how to knock one of these things up, for oh, a quarter of the price? If so, pleeeeease get in touch!

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3. Vorwerk Bimby / Thermomix

I saw this on that great authority on all things culinary, ‘Come Dine With Me’ (skip to 4:12).  I watched, cynical hat firmly in place while the talkative Aussie cooked her entire Italian three course meal using this innocuous-looking countertop machine.  She threw in a load of vegetables, for example, which I expected to be blended and come out as brown mush. Not so, they simply popped out neatly chopped.  She then wanted polenta, so simply dropped in the ingredients and a few minutes later it was cooked, silky and resolutely lump-less, having been stirred by the machine as it cooked.  It steams, blends, kneads, grind, simmers, grates, mills, weighs, cooks, chops, crushes, emulsifies, whips, and mixes. Hear me now and her me well. This thing is voodoo.

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However, you know something’s going to be scarily expensive when the price isn’t to casino deutschland be found on the website and they offer payment plans…. prices begin at about €1000 from what I can garner on the big old interwebs.

While I want it very, very badly, I think this one definitely is going to have to wait until I’m grown up and have more money than time. Instead of neither, like now.

4. Super Duper Fridge

We’re having a bit of an argument over this at the moment in Casa Gastronomics.  While we’re shaving off sums here and there to try and get the best possible finish on the house, the other half has a little bee in his lush bonnet. A wine fridge.  Yes, we enjoy our wine like the rest of the recession-riddled middle class soaks out there, but seriously? An entire fridge dedicated to bottles of Lidl and Aldi plonk? I’m not so sure.  If I had my way my fridge would instead look like this;

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How utterly frickin’ cool, right? Pardon the pun!  The Meneghini. It even sounds mythical.  The cost, however is very real indeed. Approximately €16,000.  The same price as my masters degree.  Which I’d very happily swap now!

5. AGA Cooker

To be honest, my eyes start to glaze over when I read through the cooker brochures. All this palaver about optimum temperature, ionic cores, induction heating, blah blah blah. I would just like gas, six rings and two ovens please. However, there is something just impossibly beautiful about traditional Aga cookers.  Although with newfangled switches and timers and the likes – modern women aren’t locked in the kitchen next to them all day anymore, thank goodness.

So ridiculously good-looking are these kitchen stalwarts that the advertising actually depicts them alongside a piano and a guitar. What do these items have in common? Absolutely nothing except that they’re all beautiful to look at.  Don Draper would be so proud.

These swanky new versions retail at approximately €12-15,000.  Right.  What’s the going rate for a kidney these days?

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P.S. – while Googling my dream cooker, I came across this hilarious blast from the past; a manual for the effective sales of Aga cookers, from 1935.  It includes some gems such as “Dress quietly and shave well. Do not wear a bowler hat.” And my personal favourite, “Go to the back door (most salesmen go to the front door, a manoeuvre always resented by maid and mistress alike).” What different times we live in!

I could go on and on forever, talking about height-adjustable kitchens, waterproof TVs, and all the rest, but I’m interested in hearing from you – have I left out any must-haves or dream additions to the modern (mostly unattainable) kitchen? If you won the lottery in the morning what would you buy?