PEEL'D

It's the simplest of devices, and yet I seem to be making an utter hash of handling it, especially it seems, and perhaps ironically, whenever I'm making a hash.

Actually, it wasn't a hash at all, but more of a stir-fry, but hash sounded better. Anyway, whichever it was, it involved a potato that needed peeling, and therefore a potato peeler had to be brought into play.

The thing is that, after several incident-free years of wrangling my old-style vegetable peeler, the one where the handle is an extension of the blade rather like in a knife, we recently bought a selection of new ones where the cutting edge runs at ninety degrees to the handle, and every time I use one of them, I seem to be taking a slice out of one or other of my digits, which I'm sure adds little to the flavour.

This time it was my left thumb and it's only when you've taken a chunk out of your left thumb that you come to realise just how much you actually use it in day-to-day life.

Turning off a tap, using the command keys on a keyboard, trying to open a coffee jar, taking a CD off its spindle, eating a bag of Hula Hoops… the slight wince of pain that registers in the mind each and every time is enough to remind me just how much I take my left hand for granted, given how generally right-handed I actually am.

Of course I got lucky really. The tip of the thumb was protected by the fingernail, a chunk of which flew off in that dreadful moment, otherwise the wound would haver been much, much worse.

Thank God for evolution, eh…? (If that's not too oxymoronic…)

Of course, I was only going to mention this because I seem to be making a habit of it, what with the potato peeler slicing off bits of my fingernails twice in as many weeks, because the nail on the index finger of my right hand is only just growing through from the last time I did this.

But then I remembered something.

The last time it wasn't a potato peeler I was using at all…

No, last time I was grating some cheese to make some toasted sandwiches and managed to grate my finger instead, so that's two of the simplest kitchen devices that I've proven myself massively incompetent at handling recently.

Perhaps I ought to just give up and start to order takeaways instead…?

STIRRING HERMAN

We – well, when I say ‘we’ I mean the ‘not me’ part of the household – got given a “Friendship Cake” to bring home from work last week.

“Mmm! Cake!” thought I, when this was announced, and I headed into the kitchen to investigate I found a plastic tub full of gloop and a list of instructions, which was initially quite disappointing really, even though it wasn’t really “my” cake anyway. This brown gloop was called “Herman” for no particular reason I could ascertain, and was described as “a cake that you cannot buy but can give away” which, in many ways, is terribly sweet.

I always have a slight problem with anything that requires me to “pass it on” to my “friends”, and have found over the years that I tend to be the precise point where the chain “breaks”. This is particularly true of the type of email that requires that you forward it on to ten (or whatever number it is this week) of your chums to maintain a run of “good luck” (whatever that might be…). I tend to be of the opinion that if that particular message has got to the point at which people have decided to forward it on to me, then it has most likely run its natural course anyway. Not only that but, if it has reached that stage then, as my contacts list is so very miniscule, the people sending it to me are likely to be the only people I could have sent it on to even if I chose to. Strangely enough, I also tend to think that the people on my contact list are precisely the sort of people who simply would not wish to be receiving such things anyway, but there’s an internal paradox building there that I really don’t want to get into today.

Suffice to say, if you’ve ever been troubled by the notion that “bad luck” will descend upon you and all your household if you fail to pass one of these messages on, just take a little moment to consider the life of your little pal in Lesser Blogfordshire, and then use your own judgement.

Anyway, back to Herman, our little stray potential cake. It (I hesitate to assign any gender despite all the documentary evidence supplied with it) arrived in the house contained in a little plastic tub of the kind you get portions of takeaway food contained in and, because I opened up the tub in eager anticipation to find not a ‘cake’ as such at all, but rather this ‘potential’ cake consisting of a sticky yellow goo that seemed to react in some very peculiar ways, when I enquired what it was, the witty little list of instructions was thrust before my very eyes and a ten day process seemed to be in the offing.

Day one was fairly straightforward and involved transferring the gloop into a bowl and covering it with a tea towel. Obviously finding an actual suitable bowl was a bit of a stretch (and a clear area in which to stand it) but was happily achieved. Days two, three, five, six, seven and eight were fairly easy too. Basically Herman needed stirring three times a day and, if the instructions were to be believed, needed talking to. Strange, you might think (I did), but then yeast is alive so maybe this wasn’t as unusual an idea as I first thought.

Days four and nine required a bit more work, but then friendship can involve a certain amount of hard work at times, so, again, this was not really any hardship. On those days the mixture needed to be fed some flour, milk and sugar, all every day products that should have been found around any self-respecting kitchen.

We went shopping.

Herman was starting to get the odd resentful glance from certain quarters of the household. I bet you can’t guess which…

Still, day nine also required that Herman be split into five portions so that three could be passed on to any friends that we might have had, one could restart the whole ten day cycle off again, and one could go on to fulfil its cakey destiny by having the other ingredients (flour, eggs, sugar, fruit, nuts etc. – you know the sort of thing) added to it and leaping into the cake tin of dreams and entering the oven of eternity.

Sadly, in the end, our particular part of the gestalt Herman didn’t quite turn out as planned. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Herman’s fault, and I’m fairly certain it wasn’t ours either, as all the baking instructions were followed to the letter and the temperature probe came out cleanly at the end of the cooking time. Once again I shall cast a sly sideways glance towards the temperamental and (it seems) thermostatically challenged oven and make little further comment.

Mind you, the crusty parts around the edge that had properly cooked through were very tasty indeed and I’m looking forward to eating one of its offspring some day soon. I can only hope that Herman’s many siblings around the world have been successful in achieving their own destinies.

In the end, I do actually think that it was a rather lovely idea, by the way, and I hope that a friendship cake comes knocking on your door sometime soon, and I’m sure that if your lives are even slightly more organised than ours are, you’ll be terrifically successful.