OUR KITCHEN
Our kitchen is not that of a millionaire; it has not a tiled floor, enameled brick walls or glass shelves; it is not fitted with appliances for cooking by electricity or with automatic arrangements for bringing up coal and sending down ashes. It is a plain, ordinary kitchen, built new six years ago, and attached to an old house to take the place of the former basement kitchen. It was planned by the landlord and the carpenter for unknown tenants, and the general arrangement had to conform to the plan of a house built many years before. If, then, it has been possible, with these usual, every-day conditions to develop a kitchen that possesses convenience of arrangement and unity of purpose, it would seem that similar ends might be obtained in any kitchen, anywhere, by any person, through use of the same means,—careful thought.
We are busy women who have learned, in other lines of work outside the household, the value of order and system, and when we began housekeeping we saw no reason why the application to the kitchen of the same principles that were used in arranging a study or a library should not produce the same ease and joy in the work of the household. If a library, to be of service to those who work in it, must have its books classified according to some clearly recognized principle, would not a kitchen gain in usefulness if some principles of classifying its utensils were employed? If a study-table demands every convenience for work, ought not a kitchen-table to be equally well equipped? If the student can work more effectively in a cool room than in one that is stifling hot, will not a cook produce better results if working in a well-ventilated room? If the librarian needs special equipment, does not the butler need appliances adapted for his work? If the instructor needs the materials for investigation if his work is not to perish of dry rot, should not the houseworker have at hand all the materials needed if her work is to represent progress? If the parlor gains in attractiveness if its colors are harmonious, will not the kitchen gain if thought is given to appropriate decoration?
It was the affirmative answer to these and similar questions that led to the evolution of our kitchen from a state of unadorned newness to its present condition. An indulgent landlord provided a model range, a copper boiler, a porcelain-lined sink, and a double shelf; we have added the gas-stove, the instantaneous water-heater, the electric fan, two double shelves and all the utensils. Thus equipped, what does our kitchen represent?
To answer this question it is necessary to consider its general arrangement. The north side is filled by a window, the range, and the outside door. This with the adjacent east side, we call “the cooking side.” Here are arranged boilers, sauce-pans, broilers, and all implements large or small needed for cooking.
The south side is filled by the door leading into the refrigerator-closet, the baking-table, and the door leading into the butler’s pantry. This we call the “baking side,” for here is the baking-table with its bins for flour and meal, its drawers for baking-spoons, knives and forks, and sliding shelves for baking and for bread-cutting. Above it are various small utensils needed in baking, together with spices, essences, and various condiments. A “kitchen indicator” showing articles needed from the grocer’s hangs at the left of the shelf, a peg at the end holds the household bills, and pegs at the right are for shears, scissors, a pin-cushion, and a cushion for needles used in preparing roasts.
The west side is the “cleaning side.” This side is our special pride and delight, for here on a corner shelf is our electric fan, the drop-leaf table for drying dishes, the porcelain sink with its shining brass faucets, the nickel instantaneous water-heater, and our fine forty-gallon copper boiler. Here above the sink are collected the cleaning-brushes of various kinds, ammonia, borax, scouring-sand, and all cleaning preparations. The sink is set about three inches too low for comfortable use, a fault in sinks almost universal, and to remedy this defect a rack was evolved from four nickel towel-bars joined by connecting metal plates. Lack of wall space required that the shelf on this side of the room should be shared equally between the preparations for cleaning and the kitchen library, while the basket for newspapers and magazines occupies the end of the cleaning-table. But does not cleanliness of mind accompany cleanliness of material equipment?
The outside entry to the kitchen serves, in default of other place, as a cleaning-closet. Here are kept brooms, dusters, scrubbing-brushes, polishing-brushes, dusting-mops and cleaning-mops. Here also, easy of access, is kept the garbage-pail,—three times each week emptied by the city garbage collector and three times each week scrubbed with hot soap-suds.