Not the Which Report on kitchen equipment

How gratifying to receive a commission. Commenting on my post about pencil sharpeners, Lucy asked if my research team could investigate garlic crushers. I was delighted to comply but hadn't realised what an emotive subject this is. There was a hint that it might be in Plutarch's comment nominally also about pencil sharpeners.

My senior consultant (Guess who?) reacted noisily and definitively. "They're all rubbish. We've had several and none of them worked." By which she meant that anything calling itself a garlic crusher was to be avoided. However garlic can be crushed - by lateral thinking.

The perfect tool (on the right) is the Krups Type 203B which, oddly enough, is made in France. Garlic crushed in this very serious chopping mill stays crushed. But there are two disadvantages. Cleaning after use means sticking your finger into a cavity dominated by a sharp, twin-edged blade. Given its size it was also hideously expensive and was to some extent superseded by the food processor. My wife passed it on to me when I was going through my coffee-bean-grinding phase. I avoided damaging my finger-tips by cleaning it with a redundant pastry brush. Eventually I tired of its high-frequency shriek and I now use pre-ground coffee which I keep in the freezer.

Now, chez nous, garlic is crushed with the marble mortar and pestle. This is not only efficient but resonates with my wife's atavism and her aesthetics.

If it's a button - whatever turns you on

When married couples split up and divide the household spoils, the husband tends to take the hi-fi. Which explains why a hi-fi looks the way it does. Rather than disguise the knobs, switches and buttons, the designer turns them into a virtue - emphasising their technicity - supporting the belief that men revel in an amplifier's appearance while women simply use it to play the CD.

I must confess I did the choosing and the buying when we acquired the twin-drive CD player and the tuner/amp (left). And I love them both. The 700 - 800 CDs are another matter. Dividing them would be impossible. They could be part of the glue that holds us together.

Confirmation of the men/hi-fi link occurred on a ski-ing holiday when I shared a chalet populated by solicitors and doctors. I mentioned the above thesis and one male doctor became thoughtful. Then he looked at his wife, another doctor. "Tell you what darling, if we split up you can have the hi-fi," he said. Obviously he saw a split-up as an opportunity to buy a new hi-fi - with even more switches and buttons!