This week's obsessions

A new rangehood. Because the current one just stopped sucking. Making pasta is akin to taking a sauna: steam billows everywhere, condensation drips from the walls. Good for the skin I suppose, but not the paintwork, and strong cooking odours linger.

Of course, nothing is ever easy, and new rangehoods are much larger than the one currently in my kitchen (or, more correctly, sitting on the floor outside my kitchen). Which would not be such an issue if my home's previous owners had not built cabinets completely surrounding the rangehood. There is no wriggle room. So a minor kitchen remodel is in order.

On the plus side, a lunchtime visit to the appliance store revealed new ones are magnificently quieter now, and wonderfully easier to clean. So I'm kind of looking forward to getting a new one. Just not the process of putting it into my kitchen.

Peanut butter. I am obsessed with PB at the best of times; I keep a jar at work and have some every work day (curiously, I don't eat it at home or on the weekends). Occasionally on toast, usually on a baby carrot, sometimes on apple wedges, but mostly just on a spoon.

But I'm especially consumed by PB thoughts at the moment because the Australian brand I usually get is out of stock, the peanuts wiped out by the Queensland floods.

So an agonising hover in front of the supermarket shelves, analysing the ingredient lists and providence of the half dozen brands before me. Decisions, decisions! I chose a brand made from imported peanuts - but with no added salt or sugar (I realised my usual brand may have been Australian nuts, but had the salt and sugar).

Yes, I know - first world problems indeed.

Last night at the Aproneers I was stopped in my tracks by jars of PB - made locally in a suburb of Hobart, from some miraculous stash of Australian peanuts, and with no added this or that! Ticking all the boxes! Sold to the girl who cannot get thru a working day without a PB hit.