What we’re seeing instead, she says, is “an increased emphasis on back-of-room houses – so, other rooms that go with kitchens, like pantries and laundry rooms and those sorts of things”. ![]() “I don’t think the middle-class kitchen is dying”, declares Fiona McKenzie Johnston, House & Garden magazine’s Agony Aunt. So what on earth is going on? Is the middle-class kitchen dead? And if so, where does that leave our wedding lists? Nothing seems immune, even the kitchen walls: Farrow & Ball sales slumped by about 3pc in 2022 as people moved on from slathering Elephant’s Breath and Mouse’s Back all over the place. Sales of new Agas (from £7,000 for a dinky apartment-sized model) slumped £10m to £140m last year in June, Cath Kidston, purveyor of the spotted and strawberry-patterned oilcloths that once adorned every scrubbed pine middle-class kitchen table, slashed prices by 70pc ahead of the final closure of its remaining stores and in January, posh veg box supplier Riverford Organic announced a fall in pre-tax profit to £5.2m (although admittedly it claimed this was due to increased advertising and people costs, as opposed to a fall in sales). All around the country, the cornerstones of what used to constitute a decent kitchen are dropping like flies. (I confess that though I am the possessor of at least five Le Creuset items, I’m eyeing up the Always for Christmas.)īut Le Creuset is not the only middle-class kitchen staple to be falling out of favour. These days, it’s all about the multi-functional Always Pan by Our Place – which also comes in a range of colours, starts at a comparatively mere £85 and can be used for boiling, steaming, braising, straining or frying. ![]() Nick Ryder, Le Creuset’s managing director, puts it down to the cost of living crisis and it’s true that £525 – the cost of the new, green, 24cm, Christmas edition casserole, with star-shaped lid – is an awful lot to spend on a pan.īut there are surely other factors at play, too – not least the aforementioned weight, as well as the fact that cooking scrambled eggs in them is a total bugger as they’re not non-stick (the company also offers a lifetime guarantee on its products, which is great for customers but not so great for new sales). Sure, they weighed a ton and took up loads of cupboard space, but for years they were a jaunty fixture on wedding lists across the land, the colour denoting what middle-class tribe you belonged to: orange for traditionalists, blue for those who fancied themselves a little more modern, cream or duck egg for those who liked their cookware to match their kitchen aesthetic.īut alas, Le Creuset, that bastion of middle-class kitchens, is in trouble: sales of the French homeware brand’s goods fell nearly 20pc last year, with profits dropping more than £1.5m. A multiplayer beta will be available starting in October.They were a soothing sign that here was a kitchen you could trust: one in which comforting casseroles would simmer in winter, steaks would be griddled in summer and, on Sunday mornings as sure as the cock would crow and the church bells would ring, the frying pan would be deployed for bacon and eggs. Star Wars Battlefront launches on the PS4, Windows PC and Xbox One on Nov. For an additional fee, you can purchase a care plan, to ensure your refrigerator's longevity. Not only can you store your cold soda (or whatever other canned beverage you fancy) inside of a screaming Han Solo, but the product listing also emphasizes its additional "warming function that keeps food from getting cold." Bet Han wished that his carbonite chamber sported that feature. Wal-Mart notes that your hibernating Solo fridge is an "official" Star Wars product, and can hold up to six cans of soda. The refrigerator's design references, of course, the state that the hero is left in at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. The bundle comes with a copy of the game for either the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox One as well as a Han Solo mini-fridge. A new Deluxe Edition for the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront is now available for pre-order at Wal-Mart.
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