Being kind to lobsters...

When I got back from testing the Nomads at the beach I was still humming a certain ditty by the B-52s, then this beauty popped through the letterbox - and Nero had me in howls of laughter once more. Of course, as a vegetarian the last thing I want anyone to do is poach a lobster for me, but it's a cracking notebook for scribbling in the kitchen.

As you'll already have discovered from the getting to know article, the kitchen is very much where this started, and there are accompanying volumes celebrating bread and wine too. My immediate question is "where's the cheese?", but perhaps that design can join the collection later on. So how does it handle a combined pen and pencil, err, pincer movement?

Pretty well, as luck would have it! The Fedrigoni paper has a bit of texture which makes it great for pencils, and it's happy accommodating larger round-tipped fountain pen nibs too (which is, to be fair, the majority of them).

It's a nicely presented package, about the size of a Penguin paperback - and, my dietary preferences notwithstanding, culinary environments are obviously where it's at home. For future developments, I'd love to see a lined version available, and perhaps one with smoother paper too; the cream Fedrigoni's texture is a little on the bumpy side for extra-fine nibs, and that matters to those of us into the whole flexy copperplate sort of thing.

Meanwhile, it's time to take a break from scribbling and get back into the scullery!