`Knives to cut friendship" is the old saw our parents spout when anyone mentions giving knives and whatnot for Christmas presents. Well, to hell with that. Modern knife design is truly cutting edge and gorgeous - and knives make perfect presents for serious cooks. None is more covetable than the Global knives, available from kitchen specialists such as Sweeney O'Rourke, on Dublin's Pearse Street, and also from fashionable lifestyle stores such as Brown Thomas in Dublin and Cork.
The Global knives are sublime pieces of design, with the blade and handle integrated. They come in a range of sizes from small paring knives right up to whacking great chef's knives, and the prices range from £18 to around £48. Incidentally, for serious cooks, make sure you buy them a sharpening steel to keep the knife in hair-splitting sharpness.
All the colours of crockery
SOME modern design trades on funky colours, but the genius of the Arzberg Tric crockery is to be funky yet timeless. This is truly cool crockery. The range is comprehensive and comes in a variety of colours - lime green, blue, orange and yellow amongst others - but for something really unusual, don't miss the cool colanders. You can find them in BT and other household shops, with prices from £9 to £23 for one piece.
Name your cutlery
Cutlery has increasingly become a target zone for designers from other fields, with Paul Costelloe perhaps the best-known Irish name to start creating a range and, if the Tiger has been filling your tank this year, you can pay £995.00 for a Costelloe dinner service!. But don't overlook the fine cutlery made by Newbridge Cutlery, with their Nova service costing £99.95, and the Beckett service another hundred pounds. Design fetishists might like to check out the classic Oval Steel service made by Boda Nova. Designed in the early 1970s by Michael Bjornstjerna, this is coolness and classicism united, and at about £130 for a twin set, decent value. Grimes & Co, the mail order specialists, sell the Oval Steel range, at £65 for a seven-place setting. Grimes & Co, tel: (01) 667 5627.
Bowled over by design
Alessi doesn't come cheap - the fruit bowl will set you back no less than £70 - but this brilliant reconfiguration of the bowl is a masterpiece of design. Just as aesthetically stunning is the bread basket, and at about £46 it's somewhat more affordable. The Alessi range is widely available.
Table setting
Always spend as much money on crackers as you can afford, for once you get past the basic level and pay a little bit extra the value and fun increase startlingly. For good, basic crackers try Marks and Spencer. But for a bit of quality at a decent price, try Meadows and Byrne crackers which are handmade by Robin Reed Ltd and come in at just over a tenner.