BEHIND THE SCENES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 82, 3 October 1941, Page 8

BEHIND THE SCENES

THE CASUALTY CLEARING

STATION

KITCHEN STAFFED BY V.A.D.'S

While the Prime Minister and others were receiving a number of New Zealand soldiers who have been invalided home from the Middle East, a large band of St. John and Red Cross women were hard at work behind the scenes. There was a homely bustle in the big kitchen, with a] warm note of cheerfulriess underlying the orderly and efficient way in which things were being done. These women, with the matron and others of the nursing staff, had decked the cheerful, cream-painted diningroom with bowls .of fragrant ' spring flowers sent by women's organisations and other friends, and the lounge for the men and their next-of-kin, and the corridors and wards were bright with japonica, or primroses, or marigolds or azaleas. In addition they had prepared wagon-loads of good fare for morning tea, and when "The Post's" representative was shown over the kitchen by Mrs. Marshall Macdonald <in charge of the dietary department), they were cooking a typical New Zealand luncheon for the men. The menu began, with vegetable soup, and included a choice of roast beef or roast mutton; roast and mashed potato, cauliflower with sauce, steamed raisin pudding with sauce, apple pie, creamy rice with stewed apples or prunes, and' cream. . VERY UP-TO-DATE. The kitchen is very up-to-date. There is a dish-washing machine and a steriliser for dishes used by infectious cases, steam presses for cooking vegetables and puddings, hot presses for keeping cooked food at the right temperature, a steam-heated electric double boiler for making soup in large quantities, an outsize mixer which can be adapted for shredding vegetables, and, of course, many big cooking stoves. Vegetables' are prepared in a separate room, as large again as the refrigerating rooms. . Mrs. Macdonald was especially proud of the electric service trolleys which are used for serving meals to bed patients. Electrically heated covered containers on top hold the meat dishes, etc., and underneath special containers keep puddings hot or cold as required. The trolleys are self-contained and can be wheeled any way in the clearing station.. They were made at the Hutt railway workshops.