GOOD TIME IN THE KITCHEN

Last month Iain and I visited Aberfeldy Watermill which has now been converted to a bookshop and coffee house. I was greatly taken with the tasteful conversion, the range of books and the food and cakes in the Bistro. When they served the coffee it came in a very smart stainless steel cafetiere accompanied by a 3 minutes stainless steel-cased timer. I was very impressed with the offer of, and the clean lines of, that little timer.

So last week I bought one in Dunkeld when Maggie and I stopped for lunch en route to Inverness. As Alastair Bird in Vancouver would say "It's good Karma." By that I mean a coffee pot needs a companion and I just know the coffee tastes better for it! (I feel no need to defend irrationality: I buy wine because of the label, a car because of the colour ... and I am here to say that, without exception, the system works!)

The habit of always having a timer on hand comes straight from my mother. This chicken above is my current timer in the kitchen. It is fairly new as I dropped and broke my old one.

Some years ago my mother told me the story of how she was out at the lake and visitors dropped in. A small child was with them and in order to keep the child occupied they got her to draw each of the ladies sitting there having their coffee. And what did her drawing of my mother look like? She had her sitting in a chair with her very distinctive kitchen timer perched at her elbow! It gave my mother a huge laugh as the child was absolutely spot on! She always had something on the stove or in the oven. It was probably jars of fruit being processed in her king-size pressure cooker!

Anyhow, on her 80th birthday Mairi drew this picture of Grandma and we had Crosbie Printers print a whole bunch on cream card (as it formed the basis for party invitations).

In the drawing you can see the Sunbeam mixer next to the pile of recipe books on which is perched her timer. Oh, and she is wearing Nora's knitted slippers!

Those boxes under the table are apple boxes. Note the "SAFE" printed on the side. (Salmon Arm Farmer's Exchange).

She is baking cookies. She baked A LOT of cookies! And the bottom line always was a back-handed compliment from my father (as he scooped a hand-full on his way out the door) "Gee those are good! Whydon'tcha make an apple-box full of 'em?!"

And to this day, this crazy line comes into my head when someone, for example, buys or produces something that is a 'good thing' - "Gee that is really good! Whydon'tcha buy/produce an apple-box full!"