Putting a Little Zest in Life

A friend and I recently exchanged emails about cooking. Neither of us is the cook our mothers were, but my friend said she had more time on her hands to cook because of the pandemic. I hate to cook, but I’m desperate for a greater variety of meals. She mentioned that she uses Hello Fresh, and I was curious about the service.

So I emailed her, asking:

Do you like Hello Fresh? I’d like to order from one of those services, because I’m tired of deciding what to cook, as I posted a couple weeks ago.

She sent me a picture of a meal she had prepared, plus the instructions.

My response was:

The final product looks beautiful (good job), and I could follow the directions, though it seemed like a lot more work than I usually put into dinner.
And I don’t have a zester.
But I have a gift certificate from Sun Basket (Williams Sonoma’s answer to Hello Fresh), so I will have to do something with it.

She wrote:

You’ll get your new zester tomorrow, so don’t let that stop you. I never heard of Sun Basket, but I’ll check them out.

Knowing my friend, I was confident she had ordered the zester as soon as she read my email. But I didn’t really need a zester, so I responded:

Ha! I’ve survived for 64 years without a zester. I have a mini-food processor.

She replied:

No, really. You’re getting the Cadillac of zesters delivered tomorrow. Amazon knows you so well that it autocorrected the address I had for you!

I hoped Amazon had auto-corrected to the right address. My first several Amazon orders at our new address required that I override their suggested zip code. But the zester arrived the next day as promised. Amazon delivery people do not ring the doorbell, so before I even knew the package was there, my friend texted me the photo Amazon sent her of their successful delivery with these words:

Now I get to see a closeup of your pretty front door!

I opened the package and examined the zester. I’d never seen one before, though it looked a lot like a grater I used to have, though with a finer grating surface. Upon examination of the small holes, I developed a new worry, so I responded to my friend via text:

Thank you for the zester. Is it dishwasher safe?

(I don’t like products that can’t go in the dishwasher.)

Friend:

Yes! Great for grating garlic and ginger…

Me:

Who grates garlic and ginger? I buy minced garlic and powdered ginger.

Her (written in the tone she frequently used with me in college):

I can solve some of your problems, but not all of them

Me (contritely, after all, she did send me a zester):

I will buy lemons and make lemon bread with freshly zested lemon peel. I won’t use my mini food processor, I will use your zester.

So now I am committed. I have purchased the lemons, but have yet to try out my zester. Now that I have the lemons and the zester, I sense two loaves of lemon bread in my future. The problem is, I have no visitors to eat them. Only my husband and myself. That’s a lot of lemon bread for two people.

What is your favorite kitchen implement?