Have you ever considered murdering your spouse, only to be deterred by the fact that you’re not sure how to dispose of the body, since you don’t have access to, or room for, a woodchipper (à la Fargo. [Those of a nervous disposition might want to look away from 40 seconds onwards]). If this resonates with you, then you might like to consider the merits of a Vitamix blender. I don’t normally indulge in product endorsement, but the Vitamix is such a powerhouse that I have to mention it.

If you can stand the sound of a Hell’s Angels convention in your kitchen, then this compact weapon of destruction can convert a kilo of raw root vegetables and half a cup of cold water to a perfectly smooth soup in sixty seconds, and, if you are prepared to risk long-term hearing damage, you can keep it running for another minute, in which time the force of the blades will heat the soup to a serving temperature that would satisfy all but the most demanding customer (which, in our family, is my sister-in-law Adèle). I’m sure it could handle a reasonable-sized spouse without the motor burning out.

I mention the Vitamix for two reasons. I hope that naming it three times in a single post might lead to the manufacturers showing their gratitude by sending me a blender. More realistically, I am reminded that a friend once told me that her friend (I know this is starting to sound like an urban legend, but…) said that if her kitchen were on fire (note the subjunctive in a too-little, too-late attempt to mend some grammatical fences), she would run back into the kitchen to rescue her Vitamix.

I have often thought about this, as one does. I must confess that the comment seems ridiculous to me, since, with internet access, you can replace a Vitamix in days without having to leave the relative comfort of your (admittedly now reeking-of-smoke) home.

If I were (two subjunctives in three paragraphs – this is a genuine attempt at reconciliation) to brave the flames, it would be to rescue something irreplaceable…or, rather, several irreplaceable somethings. I thought you might be interested to hear about them. (As I typed that last sentence, even I was wondering why on earth anyone else should be interested, but, intrepid readers, you have surprised me before, and perhaps you will again this week.)

Exhibit A is a pastry brush. I actually use it as a brush for egg-glazing challot, and it replaced a silicon brush, which was really not gentle enough to coat the challa with egg without driving some of the air out of the risen dough and pulling it slightly out of shape. So, I looked for a brush with natural bristles.

All I could find in the shops in Israel, wherever I looked, were unyielding silicone brushes. Online, I could find just what I was looking for, costing a trifling amount. However, to that cost I had to add shipping. I don’t know what Micha’el and Tslil paid to ship their lift from Israel to Portungal, but it can’t have been much more than the cost of shipping a pastry brush from China to Israel. Of course, if you buy 20,000 pastry brushes, it becomes an economic proposition; but that seems a little excessive.

Then, the last time we were in Portugal, in the China shop (which, you may remember, sells everything), I found one, ridiculously cheap. Needless to say, I bought one to leave there and one to bring home. Glazing the challa is now a pleasure. Happiness, I increasingly find, is most easily achieved through the steady accumulation of such small felicities.

Exhibit B is a short, narrow-bladed, plastic-handled knife, which I use, together with a wooden board, for cleaning and slicing pickled and shmaltz herring, and sometimes for filleting raw fish. The light weight and the narrow blade are all that is needed for slicing through tender fish, and they make the knife very easy to control, allowing me to work in comfort and at speed.

The wooden board is possibly an indulgence, and probably more difficult to clean than a plastic board, but when I scrape the herring skin and other waste to the side of the board, and tap the knife against the board to release the last scraps that have stuck to the knife, I hear the rasps and raps of my childhood, the sounds of my late father z”l standing cutting herring in the shop for hours on end.

Next up is perhaps the most unexpected item. Before we were married (and probably for a decade before we were married), Bernice’s grandmother z”l accumulated, item by item, a trousseau for Bernice (although she called it a bottom drawer). She was far from a wealthy woman, but she knew how to save a little here and a little there, and she was a very canny shopper.

One of the many items she gave us – bought, in all probability, in Well Street market in Hackney – was a bone-handled grapefruit knife. It has seen good service over the years, but, since Bernice doesn’t much like grapefruit, and a health fund dietician recommended recently that I stop eating it because of my osteo-arthritic hip, we don’t really have a need for a grapefruit knife these days. Nevertheless, I couldn’t imagine parting with it.

Having used a number of different grapefruit knives (at Pesach and in other people’s houses), I have come to realise that ours is a miracle of engineering. The teeth are perfectly sized and spaced for cutting through grapefruit flesh cleanly and easily, without tearing. The blade is flexible enough to accommodate the variations of curvature in the fruit. The curve of the blade itself is perfect for scooping out the flesh in two quick circuits of the halved grapefruit – one a series of downward sawing plunges, the second more of a gouging action.

In addition, if, like us, you often cut melon in rings to dice it, rather than cutting ‘boats’, the grapefruit knife is perfect for separating the flesh from the rind at those awkward ends of the melon. On reading my first draft, Bernice also pointed out that what we should clearly be calling an all-purpose scoop knife, rather than a grapefruit knife, is perfect for hollowing out eggplant/aubergine for stuffing.

In my experience, it is only when we are lucky enough to find a perfectly designed implement that we realise just how much craftsmanship goes into it, and just how inadequate most such implements are. Each of these items possesses an integrity and grace that elevates it.

My final choice is the odd man out. Its irreplaceability rests not in its perfect design, although I am sure it is perfectly designed, but rather in its sentimental value. I inherited one of my late father’s smoked-salmon knives. I have never actually used it, so I cannot absolutely vouch for its quality. However, judging by the wafer-thin slices that Dad conjured from a side of salmon, I am sure it is as fine an instrument as the others I have described.

I keep it also because I hope, one day, to try it out. However, I do not understand how anyone gets to practise cutting smoked salmon. Surely, nobody in their right mind would consider entrusting a side of salmon to a novice, to be butchered. (In the same way, I often wonder how a mohel, a ritual circumciser, acquires his skill…or, indeed, a brain surgeon. I seem to remember once hearing something about practising on grapes, but it’s not really something I want to think about too deeply.)

I actually have a recipe for ‘smoked’ salmon that involves wrapping it in aluminium foil, puncturing the foil with airholes, and cooking the salmon in a closed pot on the hob. I hope to try this some time. (Genuinely smoking salmon, in our gas barbecue, using a box of woodchips, seems unnecessarily carcinogenic at this stage.) So, perhaps I may still have a chance to take the salmon knife for a test run.

Meanwhile, I have a clear mental map of the location of these five items, so that, if the dreaded fire does break out, I will be able to save my irreplaceables.

Of course, it’s equally important to have a rolling pin that is just the right size. (This video is from about a month and half ago.)