Helpful Gadgets Make Housewife's Work Less Dreary

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 40, 12 January 1949, Page 3

Helpful Gadgets Make Housewife's Work Less Dreary

The housewife’s lot is no longer a dreary one. With the numerous helpful gadgets that are appearing on the market, a day in the kitchen can be anything but dull. Take eggs, for example. In the good old days when eggs had to be beaten up by hand, half of the joy was missed in the baking of a cake. But today there are several new and intriguing types of beaters. A new handy little egg-slicer has come on the market fairly recently which slices eggs neatly and efficiently, and one firm reported that it was one of the most popular articles in the-shop.. And not only eggs can be tortured into perverse shapes. The housewife today can have her potatoes and vegetables in the shape of spaghetti or tiny triangles like confetti if she cares to experiment with various kinds of vegetable ricers—gadgets which can help to cover many cooking failures, and, according to one shop assistant in a large chain store, are popular with newly-weds, who like variety. Also handy for . newly-weds are new concrete mixing bowls, guar an- _ teed not to break under any but the severest strains. A gadget designed to save space and time is a combination home tool kit, which includes a chisel, two screwdrivers, a fillips screwdriver, a paring knife, tack' lifter, and gimlet—none of them longer than an inch and a half, and all fitting' into the same tiny holder. The housewife can do a tremendous amount of repair work about the home —-if she is prepared to expend a fair amount of time. 1 \ These are just a few examples of the many time-saving devices which can be used in modern kitchens. Some of them are completely new ideas, but the majority are'extensions of old inventions'. The manager of a little shop which specialises in such gadgets said that many people buy them to experiment, but usually find it quicker in many cases to stick to the old methods. The reason, he said, was that New Zealand 'housewives have not been educated up to the same standard of mechanical ability' as their American counterpart.