Category Archives: Random Thoughts

Favourite Tools #2: Hand Blender

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I highlighted my favourite garden tool recently, and now I thought I’d show you the kitchen gadget I love most: a multi-purpose blender, with various attachments. It does almost everything!

Blender1

I use this more or less daily. For chopping and grating, grinding and mixing, and of course blending. I used it for my creamy carrot soup which I posted just the other day. It also has a whisk attachment, for whipping up cream or pancake batter, and an extra large bowl for larger quantities. In the summer I make our basil pesto in it, as well as zucchini pancakes and raw tomato sauce. (See Robin’s recipe here). There’s even an ice crusher, but I’ve never tried that out.

Do you have a favourite kitchen gadget that you would hate to do without?

Blender2

Favourite Tools #1: My Trowel

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I remember proudly carrying home my first ever garden spade and fork… a good 40-minute walk, in the days before I had my own car, on a very warm morning, across a major retail estate and then a field road (the short cut). That spade got heavier and heavier… but I still love it!

Until a few years ago, that was my favourite garden tool, used to create my first garden from scratch. But then my Mum gave me a beautiful copper/bronze “Implementations” trowel, and since I now live in a different house, with a rockery as my garden, the trowel has been my most valued and trusted friend.

Trowel

It has a smooth wooden handle, and the head is solid bronze. It doesn’t rust, stays sharp, and is very strong – great for stony soil! Soil doesn’t stick to it, and supposedly using copper tools reduces the number of slugs and snails… I’m a little sceptical there though!

You can see similar tools here. The website explains why copper is so good for gardening implements, and why it is in general such a valuable material.

Trowel2

Do you have a favourite garden tool?

The Problem with Words…

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“Language is the source of misunderstandings.”
from Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saunt-Exupéry

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I always felt German was a hard language to learn – much harder than French, my first foreign language at school – but I do understand that the English language has its problems too…

Here are some sentences found, oh goodness knows where, many years ago, that I sometimes show to my students to console them when they have difficulties!

  1. The farm was used to produce produce.
  2. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
  3. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
  4. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
  5. I did not object to the object.
  6. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
  7. They were too close to the door to close it.
  8. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
  9. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
  10. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

And then there’s these:

  • The chicken is ready to eat.
  • Visiting relatives can be boring.
  • They are cooking apples.
  • They are hunting dogs.
  • We saw her duck.
  • He ate the cookies in the kitchen.
  • Mine exploded.
  • I know a man with a dog who has fleas.

:D

Who says English is easy?!