New Bamboo and a child friendly environment

You will be pleased and relieved to hear, I’m sure, that Jane, Commercial Director at Cole and Mason (DKB), did read my email last week, didn’t reduce our discount, nor did she put a stop on our account after the pasting I gave her Saunderton herb and spice shaker last week. In fact I got a very nice email from her thanking me for still bothering to write about a product that I strongly disliked. She did observe that mine was a subjective point of view. I thought an informed point of view might have been more accurate, but again I’ll admit (as she didn’t close our account) that this could also be construed as subjective….?

So, casting around for a point to this diatribe, in an attempt at gravitas, and to get you to believe that there’s a deep meaning to it, my point might be, that tolerance of differing points of view, is a great quality and one to be admired. For me, of the quite awful design. For Jane of my awful review.
 
Ignore the next two paragraphs, unless you are short of things to do on a Saturday morning, it’s a meander of loosely tied threads…
Very satisfactory all round. And, you know, one of the really great aspects of the houseware industry and trade is the palpable goodness of the vast majority of the people in it. There are very few companies, who we deal with, with whom I’m not on good to very good terms, most of the time (no relationship is perfect, even one of my favourites, Le Creuset, cockup nearly every time they do a delivery to our Reigate shop, in refusing to taking away the pallets which they’ve promised to do!) and in business that’s quite an ask, although it may be even more of an ask within our families at times, I suspect!
 
Talking of people, one of my observations is that some companies are better at finding the right people than others. But there are exceptions, who either by chance, or by judgement, seem to be unusually “lucky”. One such is Le Creuset, who I have worked with for over 30 years and have had some quite exceptional people over these years, some of whom are still there and some who have moved on. Of those who have moved on, Nick Squire (he who drives around in a battery powered X5, very sad,* and flies his Bees Wax cotton in from Vietnam by Bee!...cruel!) Jane Mason (Commercial Director at DKB), Neil McIntosh (Country Manager GreenPan) are all people who are now highly influential in other market leading housewares organisations. Is this a coincidence? Unlikely. What they (Michael Sworder and Nick Ryder, the two MD’s over the last 30 years) have been good at, is identifying the right people, the people who shared the Le Creuset “Why”! (see my email of January 15th).
 
Ok enough meanderings , but one further thought .
 
A child friendly environment. No charge for breakages
At a managers meeting recently we happened to be discussing a problem that exists, that in some ways we have very little control over. Art of Living is not only considered expensive (not really accurate but I’ll come to that) and filled to the gunnels with stuff! And this apparently makes us not very child friendly. Well I have two points to offer, to argue with this perception.
  

Le Creuset NEW Colour “Bamboo”
Yes, the Le Creuset marketing machine has once again swung into action and brought out a new, rather luscious colour, called Bamboo. It’s not a million away from the previous Rosemary green of two years ago, in fact, just with a little more yellow in it, to my eye, so a smidgen warmer in tone. And It’s got really quite a decent range of choice, comprising.

In Cast Iron Cookware

And in Stoneware there’s:

1. 3 sizes of rectangular dish
2. Petite Casserole, Egg Cup
3. 3 sizes of Mug
4. Storage Jar and a Utensil Jar
5. Jug and Butter Dish
6. 2 Tea Pots and a coffee Press
7. Salt and Pepper Mills
8. Water Bottle
9. A trivet in silicone

Le Creuset Stoneware Cafetiere with Metal Press 1L Bamboo Green

£46.40

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Le Creuset Stoneware Grand Mug Bamboo Green 400ml

£20.00

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So, quite a selection from which to choose. In my usual charming but utterly commercial way I’m very happy to bribe you into starting your collection of Bamboo. Spend £50 on any of the Bamboo range and we’ll take 10% off your bill, this weekend, spend over £95 and we’ll take 20% off the bill. If coming into the shops then tells who you are, if shopping on the website then please use codes BAMBOO10 or BAMBOO20.

Le Creuset Cast Iron, a note of caution

One last thought. Jeanne and I were in Banstead first thing Thursday morning with Sally (our new shop manager there) and Janice (our new part timer there) doing training with them on cookware coatings, such as enamel and non-stick, versus uncoated pans. And inextricably tied up in this conversation, is the matter of heat transference in metals, because not only does a pan made from a good conductor of heat give you better cooking results (in general, there are exceptions) it also has an influence on how long the non-stick coating will last, if present. You may be surprised to hear that Le Creuset’s cast iron is actually a slow conductor of heat**. So, if you are in a hurry to throw something together for your evening meal, don’t pick up your Le Creuset cast iron frying pan or casserole, instead use their 3Ply range (or Dexam's Swift range, GreenPan or, of course, Demeyere) any of these will heat up three, four, or even five times faster than cast iron, and wont frustrate you. Anybody’s cast iron will (frustrate) if used in a hurry. Results will be burnt in the middle and barely cooked on the edges. Don’t do it.

Kind regards,

 Andrew

 Andrew Bluett-Duncan Director

* In case you think I’ve really got something against Nick, or anyone else who drives around in a BMW X5, I’d like to make it clear that I have nothing against him whatsoever. On the contrary he and I go back a long, long way, to the late eighties or early nineties when he was at Cole and Mason (then an independent British company) he then went on to Le Creuset, where I think he was sales director, followed by a move to George East (Tala brand owners) where he is MD. So, whilst history doesn’t a friendship maketh, in our case over the years I think we’ve actually become very fond of each other. My not infrequent jibes at him are therefore really quite uncalled for and unjustified (were it not for his choice of car and abuse of bees) and yet I’ve a feeling that he quite enjoys the notoriety?  You'll be glad to hear that he doesn’t, however, take it lying down, and I often get a berating text about 6.30am on a Saturday morning pointing out the error(s) of my ways. Despite this I would like to make a public apology to him for taking my indulgences on the chin. Of course, if he were made of sterner stuff, he’d make his feelings known in the comments section at the bottom of the email….provocative? I do hope I don’t regret saying that?

As for X5 owners….well, I’ll say no more …. Therapy? A new pair of glasses?

**  Interestingly, they recognised this many years ago and ceased putting non-stick coatings on their cast iron frying pans, because the non-stick didn’t stay put! See my Best Non-Stick Frying Pan Care & Use Guide