Blancmange Moulds And Salt-Boxes...

Gerry brought the new 'fridge last night...it's very nice...very shiny...very new.

I've never been able to work up any enthusiasm for household equipment ...suppose the only items which would hold my interest would be copper-bottomed sauce-pans and glass blancmange moulds in the shape of a rabbit...I do have a little wooden wheel for neatening the edges of short-crust pies and a wooden reamer for juicing oranges and such like...used to have a glass rolling pin as well...it had a big cork on one end so you could fill it with iced water to stop your pastry getting warm...don't know what happened to that actually...one of those mysterious disappearances which happen every once in a while.

Mum used to make the lightest most crumbliest pastry...a plain jam tart became a delicious morsel...she had an ancient piece of marble which she knew for certain had belonged to her Granny...that was kept only for rolling out pastry on...never for anything else. It weighed a ton, so she kept it in the bottom of those odd little cupboards that were built under the servants stairs.

Those little cupboards were really quite odd...they were in the kitchen, but went way back right under the back stairs...you could actually get inside them, which was my job when we 'lost' the Brasso...the top cupboards held the clean tea-towels and hand-towels...the middle ones were for dusters and jars of beeswax polish...and the Brasso...while the bottom one had the marble slab and odd socks. It did honestly...that's where the odd socks went until they found their partners.

Mum also had a small wooden salt box...someone had that the minute she passed away I think...you'd shudder to see how much salt she'd put into vegetables while they were cooking...

But I think the only real gadget she had was one of those wire things for slicing hard-boiled eggs...that was used for beetroot as well, 'cos Dad loved beetroot with a salad...

My Mother made wonderful gravy...and stupendous Yorkshire Puddings which we ate before the meat and vegetables...she didn't have a great deal in the way of kitchen gadgets though and she simply couldn't make either pastry or cakes...lumpen and leaden actually. We ate them, of course we did...

Dumplings were for poor people, so it wasn't until I knew Mum that I found out how yummy dumplings were...she used to sort of squidge them into one of those ice-cream scoops...she'd asked Mr Morelli if she could possibly have one...he was the owner of the ice-cream parlour...then, when they were stuffed well in she'd let them go into the bubbling stew...

Funny where your thoughts go sometimes...