Spring Greens

While you wouldn't know it to look at me, I do like a bit of design. It might not have translated to expensive labels in my shirt - though the day Armani do fleeces, I'm there - but I do appreciate a bit of thought-through cleverness and simplicity.

Which brings me - several months late, as it happens, and I have no excuse - to Australian online shop Dreamfarm and some of their devices. The site is excellent fun, full of innovative (and solidly made) gadgets that you probably never knew you needed, all with delightfully silly names.

Take this masher, for example. They call it a Smood, I call it the single greatest guacamole maker in the history of things that need mashing. The spring design, apparently, eliminates wrist problems (stop sniggering at the back). What I've found is it isn't quite as efficient as the potato ricer for the sort of texture-free mash Mrs L demands but it IS: a) a damn sight easier to wash; b) brilliant for things that don't "need" to be thoroughly pureed, guacamole being the prime example; and c) dead clever with that little spatula attachment that makes it easy to scrape out the bowl.

Dreamfarm also kindly sent me a pair of Clongs and a Vebo. The former are brilliant: tongs with a click lock AND a little "kink" in the handle that means your work surfaces stay cleaner. The latter is equally brilliant: a squishy plastic pot that turns any saucepan into a steamer and doubles as a strainer. Head-slappingly simple but bloody useful.