We were never fancy

Over the weekend, preparing for the arrival

of an infant English dog, I went out to pro-

vision the house with a maker of smoothies -

the new compulsion among the green Maoists -

for his nutrition and mine, to see that I'll

keep up with him. I foraged a breakfast with

the thing this morning, inducing its opera-

tion for the first time. Immediately, I fell

into a gentle basin of despond, if not fully

a pit, as the device exerted itself in dig-

itally nuanced pulsings and whirrings and

ancillary esoteric frolics, to persuade me

that I'd made a witty acquisition.

I take, needless to say, the contrary view.

I'd been had by a culture of technology over

technique, and left with an incurably glossy,

supersafe chemical compound for a canister of

state-of-the-art extracts and chopped debris.

If only my family were here to indulge a de-

served laugh at my expense, I'd feel I were

still living in a gentler, more humane world.

Our world is one of cutting boards and sieves,

food mills run by hand, and mortars and pestles.

Our engagement with our ingredients is physical,

stylised, an exercise of craft. Apart from the

undeniable lewdness of the machine, there was

its mockery of time and feeling, caring and cre-

ativity to welcome, suddenly, as if some stan-

dard befitting the puppy.

I will not go that way with him. 

Adam Prucha

Breville 

  Hemisphere™ Control Blender

Thorny in California