A simple kitchen is a productive kitchen. It's not the amount of equipment you have that determines how fantastic your food tastes, it has more to do with how determined you are to use what you already have.
I'm always wary of the accrual of "another kitchen gadget" because too many end up in the graveyard - that corner cupboard full of clutter, that bottom drawer that's impossible to open.
A recent trip to Thailand served to prove my theory even more. I took every chance I could to be nosey "behind the scenes" whenever I ate at one of the simple street restaurants and I couldn't believe that so little was able to produce so much.
A hissing gas burner, a giant single wok, an aluminium rice pot, a mortar and pestle, a couple of plastic buckets, some eaten-up tin plates and trays, a set of well-used utensils - and usually a single chef, going like the clappers. I reflected on the acres of stainless steel, the granite benches, the double ovens, the mammoth refrigerators with their french doors and ice-makers, the whizzes and blenders and all the rest of the "domestic kitchen fit-out and gadgetry", that barely gets used given we're all so busy.
Inspired by the simple Thai-style kitchen, I'm up for a gadget audit over the next three months - use it or lose it I've decided. Standby for an update.
