What is it about really big spoons, I wonder? They had all kinds, impossibly tiny ones as well, possibly for salt, who knows, but it's the whoppers that I'm drawn to. I'm a ladles man. The big spoon is the spanner that cranks the cauldron at the heart of domestic bliss. I feel like I'm three years old when I hold an outsize spoon. They're so suggestive and pleasing. They always calm me down.
I needed calming down because I always get a bit over-stimulated in Pages, the catering supply shop on Shaftesbury Avenue. I started going there because I used to live nearby, but now whenever I've got a rare spare half hour in the West End, I dash over. It's hard to bring myself to buy anything for the kitchen or dining room from anywhere else. Pages is the best shop in the world.
I'm not just saying that because it's my favourite. It actually is. All the swanky restaurants use it. I know this because I once saw the maître d' from the Ivy in the queue. He was getting some tea towels, those ones with 'glass' written on them, the professional ones. I was buying an Exocutor fly zapper that day. I'd gone there specifically to get one, but I often find I'm unable to stick to my plan once I get inside. I'm kind of after an ice-cube machine at the moment. I mean, I don't need one, nobody does, but I really want one. They were on sale as well, for obvious reasons, but I got sidetracked in the accessories section and ran out of time.
The delight of Pages, and all good catering suppliers, is that most of the stuff they sell manages to be convincingly practical, yet completely ridiculous at the same time. All you really need is a knife, a spoon, a pot and a fire but here the bounty stretches and turns in all directions and it's all so proper and robust, but still slightly silly and wonderful if you don't own a restaurant.
By the time I got to the spoons I'd already accumulated a horse-radish grater ('danger,' it said, 'razor sharp'); some quite menacing meat hooks; a very small and sweet frying pan; a cheese wire; fondue fuel and some funnels. I always grab a few bits from the accessories aisle, but I'm not sure which is my favourite part of the shop. I've been going there for years, and yet only discovered yesterday that it has an upstairs.
The glassware section has done me proud. I've had flutes, balloons, proper Martini coupes and highball tumblers by the dozen. The recently expanded dressing-up department, with everything from hats to clogs, is always a giggle, but the really good stuff is towards the back: deep fryers, circular slicers, mega grills, blast freezers and kebab twirlers. You could easily leave with a kebab shop if you went in there drunk and weren't able to control yourself. I've been eying up the big ice-cream machines for years and I've decided that as soon as I go bald I'm going to buy one, so I can be fat as well.
They also do good trays. The man in front of me was buying loads of them. Maybe he just liked them. It's always surprised me that most of these places are open to the public. It's very generous, when most of their business is trade. There is a wonderful simplicity about trade shopping. In a catering suppliers' a tray is just a tray, something for carrying things on. Anywhere else, it's got this year's pattern on it, or it's been 'designed' by someone, or has something about it that tries to make it unnecessarily sophisticated. Who needs things to be more complicated in the 21st century? Maybe that's why I'm drawn to those spoons. They're so big and simple. OFM
· Pages, 121 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2, 0845 373 4017
