Why wait till spring?

The betwixtmas lull seemed a good time to refresh the kitchen shelves.  This is when I most regret the size reduction  in newspaper pages and I forget to ask my friend whose husband reads the Daily Telegraph to let me have some old copies.

It's not that I'm especially pernickety about cleanliness - far from it.  Fur, cobwebs and crumbs are in no short supply here. Smoke and steam and grease frequently fill the air. My casual attitude to cleanliness has been vindicated by the revelation that excessive sterilisation (promoted by chemical manufacturers) brings more harm than good by destroying the very bacteria our bodies need to be able to deal with if we are to lead healthy lives.* Kitchens are not laboratories, they are places for cooking, eating, socialising, working and general family life.

Last summer I was involved in running a short course on food hygiene at our local youth centre. At the outset of the discussion on food poisoning I asked the small group if any of them had been made ill by food they had eaten. I was surprised when half their hands shot up   and they all cited fast food outlets as the culprits: MacDonalds, Wimpy, KFC etc.
No one has ever fallen ill from food cooked in my grubby kitchen.

(Truffle wonders "Who needs three egg poaching pans?" Who indeed?)

*Anti-bacterials have been implicated in the development of leukaemia in susceptible children - see here.