There are many Bibles and wouldn't you know it, many more kitchen Bibles. One of mine in the latter category is The Essential Kitchen by Christine McFadden. Christine's Essential Kitchen is a simply sumptuous, authorative guide to tooling up a first quality kitchen that doesn't come in a box from IKEA. The Essential Kitchen comes in an essential spiral bound plastic wrap, so necessary when reaching for a guide to the tools you require to complete the perfect sausage and grape dish without burning the grapes. But that is another long long story.

As with many Bible's, Christine's could do with an update. Ten years ago, The Essential Kitchen introduced me to my enduring loves, All Clad and Microplane. Although revised and updated in 2007, a new edition would surely declare no contemporary kitchen complete without Northern Wood's Flat Pack Bookstand. 

Northern Wood Designer Damon Hayhurst literally fashions his items for his company from discarded bits of old schools and other public buildings, and his prosaic Flat Pack Bookstand is no different. Elegantly crafted by hand, "Mostly from cedar, and whatever other timber he has lying around," it says on their website. 

The bookstand comes in three pieces. 

Okay, while it might be just a moment too soon to describe Hayhurst as the Jonathan Ive of used wood, his Flat Pack Bookstand does adhere closely to many of the legendary Dieter Rams Ten Principle's of Good Design. And it does make us look forward excitedly to future products from Northern Wood. The Flat Pack Bookstand does what is does, for your books, beautifully. 

Before I go, this perfect antidote to any modern Umbra kitchen overdose serves to remind me to serve up one more anecdote. I had a close friend, possibly now deceased, who helped herself to a lectern after Sunday mass one week, "perfect for my cook book," she reasoned, having been unable to find anything similar outside the church. Is it irony that she died from food poisoning?

Flat Pack Bookstand, available on Etsy. Kindle version, I'd say, available by special request.