To Gadget or not to Gadget, that is the question.

"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind" etc. (With apologies to Billy S.)Preparing food for the table has been made so much easier by the invention of numerous helpful doodads, widgets and gadgets that there are times when I think that giving up and opening a can of "chemically enhanced" Spaghetti O's is a lot less technologically daunting that making a wholesome meal.
There are machines for just about everything and, whilst I am not opposed to the presence of a really good vegetable peeler or a mixer that will ease the ache in my arthritic fingers, I do think that the advance of technology has taken the feeling out of food.
Bread makers are my pet hate, if one wants a bland brick of white "stuff"' then one should go to the supermarket and buy a loaf, at least you won't be fettered with the awfully strenuous chore of slicing the bloody thing.
Now I am not a die hard "beat the clothes on a rock" anti-technology nutter (although according to my beloved daughter I am a nutter) but somehow feel that if you can't be bothered to knead the dough for a loaf of bread then you really have some issues in your life that a psychologist should examine.
There is something about kneading bread that makes all the niggling little stresses of the day go away.
The obnoxious twat that tail-gated you on the way home no longer matters.

Mushroom Bread

The bloody awful woman at the supermarket checkout who had to find her cheque book at the bottom of a cavernous handbag, and who didn't start looking until after all her purchases had been rung up, is now a misty memory.
The soothing rhythm, the changing of the texture as the gluten forms, and knowing that it is ready from  the way it feels, not from the clanging of an awful electric timer.
And in the end, and what is most important, wrapping your gob around a texture filled flavorsome chunk of home baked delight.
No machine in the world can reproduce that.