liuzhou

If it's goiing spare, I'd give it a good home.

The only one I possess is the coffee grinder, but I've never used it for coffee, either. Only for spices, the reason I bought it.

I've never come across taramasalata made with mayo, either.

Oh. I do that regularly. Best way to make ice cubes! There was a French restaurant very near my London home, years ago. Sadly long gone. Their signature dish was a dessert of frozen grapes in a pond of straight Pernod! Utterly delicious, but I was always glad home and bed was just around the corner.

Drat! I forgot my cheese knives.

My Chinese friends are baffled. Most of them only have a cleaver and maybe a fruit knife. Yet, all those knives I bought or otherwise acquired right here in China. I just learned many years ago that the correct tool for the job saves a lot of grief. I'm now looking at a dedicated durian knife, but I'll behave myself!

Right! (Many things that are made in China aren't available in China! Or have to be re-imported and attract import duty!)

That is my preferred solution, but I can't find such strips here. At the moment most of the knives live in two knife blocks, but I hate them. Troublesome to keep clean.

That is my most prized knife. Almost my most prized possession. Several years ago there was a Xinjiang restaurant called AliBaBa, here in town. Xinjiang, for those who don't know, is China's westernmost province bordering Mongolia. Kyrgystan, Khazhakstain, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is mainly Muslim. Their food is wonderful, but totally different from what most people think of as Chinese. I ate there regularly with friends and got to know the boss, a Xinjiang native, quite well. He made a point of coming out of the kitchen to say a word or two before rushing back to cook the next order. In 2003, he announced his upcoming retirement and I, with a couple of friends, went to his restaurant for its last service.The place was rammed full. Towards the end of the evening, he came out and announced to the entire restaurant that there would be no charge for dinner that night, but it would be a thank you to his loyal customers for their support over the years. Tears were shed. Then, after the crowd had thinned a bit, to my amazement, he came up to me and handed me the knife he always carried on his front-of-house visits. He said he wanted me to have it as he thought I might actually use and value it, now that he no longer would. There is a story about Johnny Cash handing Bob Dylan his guitar as a mark of respect which blew Dylan's mind. I know exactly how he felt That was the last time I saw him. He moved back to his hometown many, many miles away. But your question was "how is it meant to be used?" My answer is "I don't really know." The only times I ever saw him use it were a) to slice naan bread (the local staple visually resembling pizza bases) into manageable segments and b) to slice mutton from the Xinjiang version of gyros. I think he mainly carried it for effect. It is 40cm / 15¾ inches long in total; the blade being 28cm / 11 inches long. Xinjiang style mutton gyro I mainly use it as a bread knife. Although not serrated and although I do have a bread knife, I've always kept this one as sharp as I can. I also use it to open durians. I used to use it to cut watermelons, but then acquired a dedicated watermelon knife. I do regret that I don't use it more. And I miss him and his restaurant still.

10 kitchen gadgets you really don’t need – from garlic presses to spiralizers This is an article in today's Guardian listing 10 kitchen gadgets which, according to the author, you don't need. Views will, no doubt, differ. I guess I broadly agree as I possess only one of them and don't use it as intended by the manufacturer, but there are others I might add to the list. I'm sure we all have our opinions. Do you agree completely or think the article is idiotic (or anything in between)?

I've been sorting out my knife collection and am looking for better storage. I was surprised how many I have. I found this lot but then remembered another box had some They do all have different functions. Storage options are limited here; I may have to improvise.

Lucky I don't have a husband, but if I did, the butchers' knife would be a fine choice for any intended doing away with him. I would love to get some grapefruit knives, but haven't seen them in years. Certainly not here, anyway.

Today, plums.

Enjoying this already, thanks. Looking forward to more.

We never had a butcher's knife at home when I was growing up. The gamut of kitchen knives amounted to three - a bread knife, a green-handled cake knife and the "sharp knife", which was no such thing. It was a blunt paring knife. Table knives were mostly of the normal variety, but I remember being fascinated by the grapefruit knives as a child.

Flower shiitake! Beautiful indeed. BTW, that price is about four times what I pay for them here!

Certainly not! Almost nothing is frozen in China; never fruit, although I have one friend here who likes to freeze the segments after extraction. But she is strange! Durian ice-cream is wonderful!

As many do in Scotland and northern England. 'Dinner' as the evening meal is a southern English thing. That is why the people who work in school canteens are called "dinner ladies"; they serve dinner, the mid-day meal.

Yes

I raise you this. Hand forged bone chopping butcher's knife

I'm not particularly a pizza fan, but I think I might have bought that, too!

I'd say that's roughly correct, but then again it depends how well you like the critters cooked. I prefer the regular size to be marginally undercooked, by many people's taste. I wonder what your fishmonger would recommend for these, bought this week in the local market.

Her taste in food is actually very broad; her vegetarian streak lasted about an hour. I'm not sure she knew who her "companions" were. George Michael was still above ground, but no one had heard of him, then. He was still Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou.

When my kids were kids we had a kind of family tradition. Whoever was the birthday girl or boy could choose any type of food for dinner that evening, unless it was a weekend, in which case it could be lunch instead. I'm glad to say McDonald's or the like never turned up. There were some odd choices, but neither 'afternoon tea' or 'pie and mash' ever made an appearance. Perhaps the strangest was when my daughter decided on a vegetarian picnic, to be eaten in Londons gothic, Highgate Cemetery, now home to Karl Marx, Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot), Michael Faraday, George Michael, Catherine Dickens (Charles's wife) and Christina Rosetti among many others. She wan't even vegetarian!