I often find myself browsing in the kitchen utensil isles of stores and supermarkets and am, mostly, utterly bemused by the foolish unnecessariness of most of them.
Most often they are to cut or chop something which can be done equally fast, easily and well with a sharp knife.
But I succumb from time to time and, their pointlessness proven, they take up valuable space in cupboards and drawers.
I don't remember how we came by it but, one such item has been knocking about for years and I was on the point of throwing it out when I realised that I could not remember having ever used it. So I resolved to try it out before consigning it to the bin.
Most mornings I make Sue a packed-lunch which, harking back in the years, we refer to as her 'school lunch'.
One morning recently, I decided to make her a gourmet egg-and-tomatoe sandwich.
Now, as part of her birthday feast, Ousmane made exquisite Scotch eggs.
Unlike the usual Scotch egg, with its solid and sulphurous yolk, the yolks in Ousmane's were just barely set.
I resolved that this should be a feature of Sue's sandwich.
Contrary to my declaration above, I have always found it impossible to slice a hard-boiled egg without each slice sticking to the knife and the yolk falling away from its ring of white.
And this is where 'the gadget' came into play.
And I have to declare that it was brilliantly up to its task and enabled the best constructed egg-and-tomatoe sandwich in the entire history of egg-and-tomatoe sandwiches.....
...I'm off to the utensil isle............