HOW A BLIND HOUSEWIFE “SEES” IN HER KITCHEN

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28480, 9 January 1958, Page 2

HOW A BLIND HOUSEWIFE “SEES” IN HER KITCHEN

[By

EVA WELLS]

Yes, I thought, scrubbing my hands in preparation for making the cake, it will be nice to have all the three children home together next week, if only for a few days. Quite like old times again.

I tipped the soapy water away and refilled the bowl with fresh, hot water. If your eyes do not function properly (and mine have been out of action for about 45 years) you have to make double, perhaps triple use of your hands, and your hands must be really clean. I always keep a bowl of hot water in the sink when I’m cooking. One dip, after rubbing the fat into the flour, and my fingers are ready to distinguish knife from spoon, and to leave no floury traces on glass jar or drawer. Saving Time My cooking-cabinet is one of my greatest treasures. Each jar and drawer contains the same ingredients, week by week, and in the same order. The left-hand top cupboard holds small packets: jellies, custard powder, cornflour, and bottles of essence. The righthand cupboard:. tins of cocoa, coffee, Ovaltine, with jam, marmalade and curd in its bottom shelf. The bottom cupboard and nest of drawers are similarly in order. I am not a specially tidy person, but the saving of time and movement become a necessity in the blind housewife’s scheme of things. Time is so often lost because hands locate objects and the space in which to place objects, less quickly than eyes. I cannot glance over and see that I really turned the grill switch of the stove to low, wiien I thought I did. I must remember accurately, or walk over and look with my hands, possibly having to wash and dry them first. When I first married, I used an up-to-date oil-stove. Where we lived electricity was expensive. We used it for power and light only. My husband coped with the wicks and the container-filling, and I found the cooking gentle and satisfactory. Now, we’re all electric, and very simple it is. The dry ingredients for my cake are mixed. A dip in the water, dry, and look at my Braille watch. Another two minutes and it will be 20 minutes since I switched the oven on high. That should bring the heat up to 400 degrees. One day I will get a Braille scale fixed to the thermometer, but in the meantime. I secretly enjoy making do and calculating. Blessing of Braille

Can I afford two eggs? Oh, I think so. I don’t have the children all together so very often. Hilda and Malcolm are over 21, Only Anthony, aged 15, remains to me anything like a real child. They will sleep all over the hduse, fill the clothes line with towels and bathing costumes, and get ever and ever hungry. Which reminds me that as soon as I have this cake out of the way, I must put a tin of ipeat on the shopping list. What a blessing I have such a neat little Braille pocketframe for writing. It fits easily into the bill rack in the cabinet. Now what did I do with the “stile” that makes the actual Braille dots? That’s it, now on with the lunch. Better do the steamed jamsponge first. Here’s the aluminium steamer. I wouldn’t be without it for worlds. I can put the pudding in the first tier, the potatoes in the top, and, later, the cabbage in the water at the bottom.

The potatoes are clean today, with none of those rough edged little holes which mean disease, or the infiltration of insects. The skin comes off easily, and I can find enough of a size to cook them all whole. A bit Of mint from the garden, a flurry of salt, and there we are. Now let’s pull the cabbage to pieces and wash it all thoroughly—it’s a lovely fresh one. The liver and bacon can go into the bottom rack of the oven, under the cake. A dessertspoonful of flour over it, tea cup of cold water, a couple of sliced tomatoes and it will be all ready in its gravy when it is cooked. It’s just lunch for Anthony and me today, but next week it will be a different tune, played on the same instrument. The steamer and the oven will suffice; with the milk saucepan for sauce, and the egg saucepan for salad eggs. These.

and a double porringer, are all the cooking vessels I need. There are fireproof dishes and cake-tins for use in the oven, but I do think it is a good plan to keep everything as simple in number as in design. All the saucepans live in the deep cupboard under the sink, and next door the draining-board, all the cleaning materials struggle together for a tolerably orderly existence.

The draining-board is a really fine piece of teak—hard as stone. It is my favourite place for filling things—the jam dish, the sugar basin, the tea-canister. The tea canister holds just a quarter, and consists of a cylindrical container which is fitted with an inner cylinder. A lid fixes over the inner container and a cone surmounts the lot. When you tip it up into the teapot, the tea comes down round the space between the inner and outer cylinders and through the open cone. This measures a good teaspoonful, and you straighten up the canister for the next teaspoonful. It saves time and tea. It isn’t a special invention; I bought it at an ordinary hardware shop years ago. I find the draining-board just the right height for all these operations and it can be wiped down into the sink so easily. My kitchen is one of those rather long, narrow affairs, with the back door at one end beside the sink, and the pantry at the other end. It is a nice pantry, with a fitted meat safe. As soon as I have washed up after lunch, I must go down to the butchers. Guide-Dog

As though he reads my thoughts, my guide dog begins to prance on his hind legs in anticipation of a walk. He is invaluable to me. With his harness handle in one hand and the shopping bag in the other, I combine his exercise and my shopping at the same time. And now you’re wondering if I ever burn my fingers, in my kitchen, cut my hands, trip over the dog, forget the boiling milk or the toasting bread. Yes, of course, I do sometimes—just the same as you do.