My plasticware collection,
purchased from various op shops
$1 - $2 each

Whenever I pull out my reusable containers at a Chinese restaurant, a waiter sees what I’m planning to do and hurries out the back to fetch me some disposable take-away containers and a plastic bag. “Thank you, but I prefer to use my own,” I say.

At a Vietnamese bakery, I handed the woman serving me an old plastic bread bag for her to put my new loaf into. She started laughing and said, “Recycle!” Then she shook her head, still laughing, and as she slid the loaf into the bag she said again, “Recycle! Recycle!”

When I asked a middle-aged woman in a milk bar if I could have my hot dog without the paper bag she exclaimed, “But it’s only paper! It’s not like it’s plastic.” “Still, I’d prefer not to have it, if that’s okay,” I said. “Look,” she returned, indignant, “it’s easier to eat this way. You just peel the paper back, see?” I didn’t know what to say to that.

Set of ice-cream cups and spoons,
$4.50, MS Shop, Melton



 

Sometimes it feels as though the world is against me. My first great love was the Cappuccino Gaytime, but after a few short months it disappeared. Somehow, I picked myself up and found the Mars Ice-cream Bar. Hell, I never knew things could get so serious! But then it, too, came to an abrupt end. Against the odds and despite my battered heart, a friend introduced me to Cherry Ripe Ice-cream in a tub; and it was love. The same love. But on the night I went out to buy my own tub, I discovered it had gone the way of the others.   

15 litre stockpot, $9.50

The kitchens of fine-dining restaurants are known as high-pressure workplaces. But why all the pressure? Instead of bursting a blood vessel or yelling at an underling over some tycoon or socialite’s entrée, I wonder if restaurant staff ever stop and think, “Wait a second – it’s just a bunch of posh twats out there. Half of them are on expense accounts, half of them are on fad diets. Why do I even give a shit?”

I always feel resentful whenever I read about lavish Hollywood parties at which exquisite food is served. Surely celebrities don't maintain their size-zero figures by eating it.    

Coffee grinder, $10

I have to be forced into exercise to do it. And since I’m not about to pay someone to force  me, I just have to force myself. I sometimes walk into town to pick up the girls from school. It’s a 5km walk, and once I’m halfway I can’t turn back because the girls will be waiting. But walking doesn’t do much for my upper body, so I stopped buying ground coffee and started buying whole coffee beans. This is the only coffee grinder in the house, so even if I want to forego my five-minute upper-body workout, I can’t forego my morning coffee (it goes hand-in-hand with the Nicabate) so what choice do I have but to stick it out?

Spice rack, $5

Many people seem to feel it’s only natural to wax lyrical about the likes of Italian or Thai food but make fun of English and American food. Now this might merely be the glutton in me talking rather than the diplomat, but I never actually met a cuisine I didn’t like. Hell, I even like that Czech stew that’s served with whipped cream. And I never fail to be dazzled by the array of soups, ways with eggs, and sweet pies on offer the best American diners. One of my favourites is pumpkin pie, and I make it so often that I think I’ve managed to notch up a dozen or so first-time eaters at my kitchen table. The recipe calls for the classic mulling spices, as represented in this spice rack.

Frying pan, $5

I’m not always a stickler for the tenets of customer service. This is fortunate, because I recently had a price upped on me right before my eyes. I was paying for this frying pan at an op shop when some sort of head honcho swept into the store, picked off the $3 price sticker and announced to one and all, “A heavy-based pan should be at least $5.” Earlier, a different woman had noticed me looking at the jewellery and brought out some more. I mustn’t have spent long enough looking at the new jewellery because when I moved on she mumbled something under her breath. I nonetheless loved the shop and loved listening to those old biddies nattering amongst themselves. But a rude waiter at a trendy café? Intolerable.

Tupperware Lunch 'n' things
container, $2.99

Judging by the amount of litter to be found in the average school rubbish bin, it seems the idea of the rubbish-free lunchbox hasn’t really taken off. Some students take a rubbish-free lunch to school each day, but it probably makes very little difference to the environment since most lunchboxes are still filled with cling wrap, foil packets, zip-lock bags and waxed paper. Ah, but today is election day! That’s right, today is not the day to be of the opinion that the decision of any one individual can’t make a difference.

Utensil rack, $450

The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney is certainly impressive, but when I went there recently the only sight that really stopped me in my tracks was the replica of a typical 1920s kitchen in the ‘…never done’: women’s work in the home exhibit. In New York, I gravitate towards the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and at Walt Disney World in Florida I make a beeline for the Carousel of Progress attraction. Nothing transports me back in time quite like a replica kitchen replete with the furnishings, cookware, crockery and gadgets of the period. Gigi a la maison specialises in antique French enamelware and toleware.

Knockout tube, $4

One of the great, unexpected pleasures of quitting smoking was that I found I was able to have coffee in cafés again. You see, I pretty much stopped having coffee in cafés when they banned smoking in indoor dining areas in 2001. I ate in cafés, but had my coffee at home so I could light up at the same time. Now that I have eight years of catching up to do, quitting hasn’t actually saved me a cent because I go out for a coffee two or three times a day. Still, it isn’t quite as tragic as being overseas during summer and missing a whole mango season.

Bottle, $2

I live in country Victoria and though I cook using water from the tap, my family and I mostly drink Melbourne water. Whenever I’m in town I fill up this five-litre bottle, which lasts us three to four days. On the odd occasion that we’ve run out and had to fill our glasses with the chlorine-flavoured local tap water, my five-year-old has been known to groan, “Don’t you have any water with fluoride? I love fluoride!” And when she says this it is a reminder to me that though she doesn’t fully understand everything that is spoken between adults, she is always listening.

Cookie jar, $1.50

Some years ago I noticed that my friend Mary had three animal cookie jars on display in her kitchen. The dog jar that went with her cat jar happened to be languishing in my childhood bedroom, so I dug it out and gave it to her. Then I came across a mouse jar and then a lion jar in op shops, and I decided to get those for her too. But was I flogging a dead horse? Was she really a collector of animal cookie jars? Well, she is now.

Cutlery divider, $2

Designer William Morris once said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” When I moved into a house with no cutlery divider in the kitchen drawer, I was in two minds about getting one. But then I sustained an injured while retrieving a fork from amidst a jumble of sharp metal objects, and the search was on. I found this melamine cutlery divider in a shop that had good stocks of Australian souvenir tea towels, men’s straw hats, prescription glasses (but please, buy them for the frames and have your own prescription put in) and a set of block-mounted newspaper front pages, for those with a soft spot for July 1 1997, May 22 1998 and February 8 1999.

Tupperware container, $1.50

The key to getting around the use of cling wrap is a wide variety of plates and lots of plastic containers. A plate fitted snugly over a bowl is all that is needed to keep things like leftover mashed potato from drying out, and an assortment of plastic containers will take care of the rest, including school lunches. This piece of vintage Tupperware comes with a draining rack, and is just the right shape to stop your spring onions from wilting in the fridge. What’s more, you could take it to the bakery and ask for your loaf of bread to be put directly inside it in lieu of a plastic bag (some bakers will, some bakers won’t).