Jamie's invention

My inspiration

I was in my kitchen a few years ago bashing up some ingredients in my pestle and mortar and I suddenly thought to myself that even though I love the old pestle, there must be an easier and quicker way of bashing and grinding your herbs and spices together. Some way that isn't messy and doesn't take as much time. I've never come across anything in the shops that has come close to a good pestle and mortar though. I put the thought to the back of my mind, but it kept reappearing every time I was making a dressing or a marinade so I decided to try and come up with my own invention. It started out as a personal challenge but as the ideas came I suddenly realised that I was on to something

It's probably the time factor that puts most of you off making a nice marinade or rub to go over your meat or fish for supper, so that you probably settle for eating something plain, when you could be rustling up all sorts of quick flavour combos to liven things up. Does that sound about right? Or you just can't be bothered to use lots of energy bashing things up, especially if there is lots of mess to clear away afterwards?

Developing the idea

I was sure there was a way of coming up with some sort of gadget where you could put all your ingredients inside it and then just shake it all together. So, I started to put some ideas down on paper, doing little sketches, and from there I got a little model made up to see if it really would work. This was about four years ago and I've been tinkering with the idea ever since - all through launching the restaurant, through all the school dinners stuff and while writing my last few books. To be honest, there were times when I thought it might never happen, but I wasn't prepared to give up on my idea, so I stuck at it.

The designs just got better and better, until finally I had the model I was happy with - exactly as I first imagined it. And now I can't quite believe that its all finished and being sold in the shops! I really do think it will transform the way you think about flavouring food, so I hope you enjoy using it as much as I do. I reach for it all the time in my kitchen at home, and the guys in my restaurant are now using them too.

And what have I called this little gadget? The Flavour Shaker - it does what it says! Inside is a ceramic ball so that when you shake it, it crushes, bashes, bruises and mixes all the ingredients together and it does all this very quickly.

Making it happen

The next thing was to see if somebody wanted to turn my idea into a real product. Of course it had to work really well. I wanted to be able to see inside it so I could keep an eye on what I was doing. It also needed to be easy to hold and use, it had to be tough and it had to look great too!

I started looking for somebody to help me turn my idea into reality and found William Levene Ltd, a company that specialises in making really clever kitchen gadgets and pepper mills. Working with their in-house design team we put all the elements together and eventually came up with the product you see here - the Flavour Shaker . I'm so excited by what it can do and I think you will be too!