A Nice Cuppa

I am sitting at my dining table attempting to stare through the clouds and foggy mist that have vanished the tallest buildings in Manhattan. New England hasn???t seen this much rain in 70 years. With moody weather like this, I tend to think back to my first visits to England when I was well advised to take an umbrella everywhere. The problem as I understand it isn???t that it rains all the time, but that you never know when the drizzle will come. One minute you???re walking down the street on a fine day and the next, water starts falling for no apparent reason.

The first time I went abroad to England was right after high school graduation. My best friend is half British and her family had just moved to Bath, England. She was going to University in Scotland and I to New York. So, I came to visit my second family that summer and stayed for a month. I had always known them in Virginia and I saw some of the ways England changed how they lived. Perhaps the most comforting change was from stovetop teakettles to electric ones. Instead of shrieking when the water is boiling the electric kettle just bubbles softly for a minute or two and shuts itself off.

Until recently, they weren???t widely available stateside. But the world has gotten even smaller over the last decade and they???ve been popping up everywhere. My favorite model is the Delonghi Metropolis kettle. It is beautifully shaped like an old fashioned coffee pot. Unlike so many of the older models, this one is sturdy and has a cordless option. If you find yourself regularly sprinting to the stove to stop the insanity, then I recommend trying an electric teakettle.

* The Delonghi Metropolis Electric Tea Kettle is available online at
Kalyx.com.