Rose's Christmas Shop Watch: Tea Towels
Tea Towels
Sous Chef Cooking Shop
What?
Christmas Tea Towels
Why?
Gifts that leave you high and dry
I realise that you will almost certainly stop reading my column when I tell you about tea towels. You see, I have a ‘thing” about tea towels. I don’t see them as being just a useful bit of kit in the kitchen. I see them as being one of the best ways to accessorise your kitchen and one in which you can express your personality. I now have to confess that many years ago I told my husband that I had been feeling down the day before so had gone out to buy a tea towel to cheer myself up. At this point he said “how sad. That confirms it, you are certifiably bonkers!” To which I replied that it was an infinitely preferable way to cheer myself up financially than to buy a piece of jewellery or a pair of expensive shoes or a handbag. To that he somewhat reluctantly agreed. So, I am always on the lookout for beautiful tea towels.
But if you see them as boring objects and receiving one as a gift akin to a pair of socks or a Boots beauty bag, I am still going to try and bring you over to my way of thinking. You see they are not gifts given without thought but can be highly personalised gifts given with love and care. And I am hoping to convince you with the selection I have found on a wonderful website called Sous Chef. (And if I fail altogether then it is worth looking at all the other gifts on this site.)
There are basically two collections to look for. The first is by Stuart Gardiner, a company run by a husband and wife team who specialise in fun graphics and lively prints. Their tea towels are individual guides: to whiskies, to beer, to fizz, to coffee, to sourdough, to tea, to G&T, to wine, to classic cocktails and chilli peppers. So, the Classic Cocktails one has 20 recipes from a Sidecar to a Moscow Mule as well as lots of useful information on equipment and glassware and muddling. A perfect gift for someone who fancies their skills with a shaker. The Beer guide tells you how beer is made, what glass you should use for different beers, and quirky information like what is the longest pub name in the UK. Great for pub quizzers.
Stuart Gardiner also do towels which are pairing guides: spice and food, herbs and food, beer and food, red wine or white wine and food. The lovely graphic red wine pairing tea towel has 34 types of wine down one side and all the food types across the top. So, I find that I should have been serving Beaujolais, or Cote de Rhone or Sangiovese or Zinfandel with sausages all these years! It’s a perfect gift for wine afficionados.
The second collection, and my favourite, is a French company called Coucke who have been making kitchen linens since 1931. You can buy the linen tea towels edged in red or blue that I always try and search out in brocante fairs in France. Then there is one which features a huge lobster – le homard – set off by a peachy stripe top and bottom reminiscent of the colour of a cooked lobster shell. One has traditional French lavender illustrations, another has olives. There is one called Menu, featuring classic French dishes and drinks which will turn your kitchen into a French Bistro. Individual dishes are the star of others like poulet roti or coq au vin so you can match your tea towel to your main course! Cheese lovers will like the Camembert or Gruyere cloths. And wine lovers will delight in seeing the wine regions of France detailed.
I am buying them for all my friends this Christmas and will make them even more personal by adding a bottle of vodka to go with the Classic Cocktails towel, or a bottle of red wine with a towel featuring wine, or a cheese knife with the cheese cloths, or tuck in a recipe for coq au vin with that towel. To make them even more special, I shall roll the towels and tie them at each end with ribbon to resemble a Christmas cracker.
I hope I am now preaching to the converted but whether I can ever bring my husband round remains to be seen.
Conclusion:
Throw the towel in
Product Details:
Sous Chef Cooking Shop
from £8.50 - £16.99
Contacts:
souschef.co.uk
(go to menu, cookware, kitchen linen)
Price and availability as at 30th November 2021