You’ve got the culinary prowess of Lorraine Pascal, the filthy vocabulary of Gordon Ramsay and the affinity for baking of Mary Berry – but have you got the kitchen to match?
Indeed, you can settle for a manky living room or a dank bedroom. But without a dazzling cooking area you’ll be like a down-on-their-luck master chef, holding a sign reading, “Will prepare sushi for spare change.”
With that in mind, we’ve come up with a natty range of kitchen goods to help you rustle up meals like the pros.
Let me be your Mat-tasy
Just imagine concocting a scintillating spag bol or sizzling chilli. While it might look tasty, the splashes and splodges of sauce and discarded veg will be all over your floor, scattered and stepped in like flies on a car windscreen.
And trying to scrape this muck out of your kitchen tiles is little more than a hassle. The solution is to buy a couple of kitchen mats for those stain hotspots – the hob and the sink – that collect the most mess.
Then, you simply bung the mats in the wash and they’ll be clean in a jiffy, leaving your floor sparkling.
Gee, units!
Storage is a vital part of any kitchen. Just imagine a life without kitchen units – your tins and lentils would be strewn over your counter, looking messier than an excitable dog in a muddy park.
But not every kitchen has enough space to cram in all their great ingredients. The solution to this is simple – invest in a few portable units and place them in your hall or living room. You’ll be able to neatly store your foodstuffs away until you’re ready to use them.
More than standard
Buying white goods can be a financial nightmare. A new fridge for a few hundred quid is bad, but add an oven, a freezer and other necessary appliances and you’ve got a price tag equivalent to a small mortgage.
The price is worth it, however. Newer models will be more energy efficient (great for the environment and gas bills) and will last that little bit longer than their cut-price counterparts.
You don’t have to worry about little add-ons (who really needs an ice dispenser in their fridge?), but a fast, efficient and effective set of white goods is an absolute must.
The little extras
Do you really need a bread maker with MP3 functionality? Or how about a toaster with Wi-Fi?
As technology improves, so does the utter pointlessness of some of the tech on offer. Know when you’re being scammed – and when going back to basics is better than striding into the future.
Ultimately, your kitchen is your space. Fill it with your favourite foods and you can revel in your meals to your heart’s content.
