Random reminder

Press, 1 September 1980, Page 33

Random reminder

GESUNDHEIT

At one suburban kindergarten from Monday to Thursday inclusive the Play-Dough Table is popular. A bucketful of durable colourful reusable dough is rolled and cut and modelled and shaped by forty httle pairs of hands each morning and by another forty little pairs of hands in the afternoon. At tidy-up time on Thursdays the bucketful is dumped and on Friday it is Baking Day. Real baking with real dough. The Dough Table is scrubbed ana dried. The usual tools and dishes are put away and the special, clean ones are brought out. The first group of eager little bakers is seated, the freshly-washed hands are inspected, the Mixing Bowl is placed centrally. “Who knows where we get flour from? Who knows where we get butter from? What does baking powder do?’ Yes, yes, they all know. Get on with

In goes the flour. In goes the butter. Everyone gets a stir. Here is the

cheese. Everyone gets a go on the grater. Teacher does the last bit, to avoid blood. Baking powder. Double quantities never did any harm. Milk 600. Teacher gives it a final stir, then it’s Rolling Out Time. Then it’s Cutting Time. Then it’s Pop The Tray In The Oven Time, and Teacher rushes back (no running) to inspect the next lot of eager little hands At the end of the session, 40 proud cooks show 40 delighted parents their 40 hygienic plastic bags of scone. Success every time with double baking powder. If there should be one or two left over for the staff, that’s O.K. I couldn’t, said a student teacher, horrified. One of the children — you must have noticed — you were right there — one of the children sneezed right into the bowl Relax, said a teacher no longer a student It never happened. It never happened, and anyhow they’ve had 15 , minutes at 225 Celsius. Pass the i butter, please.