I thought kitchen-accessory perfection had been well and truly attained when I bought two dozen gingham-checked restaurant-kitchen-quality tea towels from London and American Supply Stores ten years ago. They were absorbent, generously proportioned, didn't need ironing and made a nifty faux-kaffiyeh when I felt the urge to indulge in a spot of Palestinian-styled keening at my latest culinary disaster.
Of course, they got threadbare and worn over time, so two years ago I went back to that trusty little Elizabeth Street gem only to find the tea-towels on offer were NOTHING like the ones first bought all those years ago. They were a decent size and they were the same colourful check pattern, but a quick fondle confirmed what my eyes picked up almost instantly - despite their restaurant-y look, they were RUBBISH. They would shed lint faster than a mutt sheds hair in Summer, or Miranda Kerr her nursing bra at a David Jones catalogue shoot.
I had to fight the urge to wrap one around my head, ululate at the top of my lungs and empty a Kalashnikov into the sky.
Surely it's not much to ask of a tea towel that it be big, largely crease-free, dry quickly after laundry, be colourful and above all SUPER ABSORBENT AND LEAVE NO TRACE OF LINT on your glassware, especially if - like me and Muddy K - you don't have a dishwasher (as ours is a mostly analogue house...)?
You'd think finding good tea towels would be easy given the proliferation of homewares stores catering to domestic goddesses, hostesses and hostesticles everywhere - but you would be wrong.
WRONG WRONG WRONG.
After spending an inordinate length of time and money on sub-standard swathes of honeycomb linen, crappy cotton and porous polyester from various reputable homewares suppliers, I succumbed (at my cousin Chunky Venetian's insistence) to the homewares section of Country Road. I say succumbed because I have little love for Country Road as a fashion label, having found its stock of mostly bland, inoffensive, dull, cookie-cutter suits and pants, shirts and t-shirts/tops exclusively created with the sartorially petrified mid-level executive PA in mind.
So I bought a bundle of five cotton towels from one of the CBD stores two months ago and gave them a go. Oh. My. God. They are truly beautiful. They are bright and cheery primary colours; they are thick and thirsty; they don't have to be ironed (but strangely enough it is a pleasure to iron them, slowly and lovingly, like a well-made man's tailored shirt); they leave not fleck or speck of lint, making your crystal sparkle; they need a tiny hit of Napisan to come up clean and spotless on the short cycle; they dry speedily in a warm spot and they stack beautifully in my kitchen drawers.
Can a person fall in love with a few rectangles of fabric designed solely for sucking up water? It would appear so, for I have fallen hard for my Country Road tea towels.
Some might say I need to get a life - I would say you need to get down to your local Country Road outlet and buy yourself a set of tea towels. You'll thank me.
