Feminine Interests

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 648, 27 April 1929, Page 27

Feminine Interests

Kitchen Efficiency

Labour-Saving Devices

The modern housewife realises that the efficiency of the work she does in her kitchen depends to some extent upon its equipment. The room should be light and airy. The sink should be placed near a window if breakages during washing-up are to be avoided. The gas stove should be placed where the cook need not stand in her own light, whether she is cooking by daylight or by artificial light.

Space, too, must be saved in the kitchen. The kitchen cabinet can house the ingredients and utensils in constant use. and save many steps to and fro bettveeu kitchen and pantry. The kitchen table, too, can serve a dual duty if the space beneath it is j turned to account. It can be fitted i with drawers and shelves, thus uti- | Using space that would otherwise be wasted.

Among the smaller devices for saving labour there are up-to-date cook ing utensils made of aluminium, or of earthenware, that are easy to keep clean and economise fuel. In practically every department of cookery there are many small devices of merit which are worthy of consideration.

During the last few years there has been a tendency for the shops to offer such a bewildering number of socalled labour-saving devices, that discretion is needed in purchasing. It would be an easy matter to load one’s kitchen .with devices that were either so complicated to use, or so tiresome to keep in order, that they have no just claim to save labour. There are, however, many devices that are really labour-saving, and simplicity characterises most of them. Among them must be included those various forms of vegetable knives and cutters, many of them with stainless steel blades. For peeling large quantities of potatoes, a useful invention consists of a metal basket with cutting blades attached to a handle. Water from a tap can be allowed to flow r into the receptacle, and when the handle is turned the skin of. the potato is pared off quickly, and without waste, entirely doing away with any need for the hands to touch the potatoes.

Another useful device when preparing vegetables is a combined colander and strainer, fitted with a removable pressing mechanism. When the handle is rotated, the rollers press the vegetables through a wire strainer with meshes of varying size. This is useful for mashing vegetables, and also for straining soups, sauces, and gravies.

When sponges and chamois leathers get hard soak them for half an hour in warm water, to which a few drops of lemon-juice have been added; then wash them gently by squeezing and kneading. A final rinse in clean soapy water is necessary. I