CONSUMING INTEREST

Machines for Cooking In

By LESLIE ADRIAN

It is fun-of-the-fair side-shows such as this that save the Heal's exhibition from the 'ideal home' sterility that infects most kitchen displays. Certainly I came home from Tottenham Court Road last week convinced that there is a barrel of fun to be had free at Heal's just now—pro- vided of course you leave your chequebook at. home. I also made the happy discovery that you can have the sort of smooth-surfaced kitchen that women's magazines call 'dream' for less money than you think. And that with a lot more money you can have only a very few more machines.

Heal's low-cost' kitchen (designed for Jona- than King, the bat7man of Trinity College, Cam-. bridge, but just the thing for lucky young

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couples with an unfurnished flat) need cost no more than £100, including the flooring but ex- cluding the mixer and waste-grinder (which Heal's don't of course).

Basically it consists of three open shelves, the lowest one fitted with the essentials of kitchen

life—sink and cooking rings. A mini-fridge and.

spit-roaster (in lieu of an oven) are hung on the walls between the shelves and all the pots and pans are stacked in the open. Where the kitchen cutlery and can-openers would be kept is not made clear and I cannot help feeling that the elegant sweep_ of shelving would be spoilt by brash excrescences such as Brillo pads, bleach bottles and boxes of Square Deal Surf. Also, such a wide-open-to-the-world storage system demands Design Centre cookware and an almost unhealthy sense of order.

But the simplicity and economy of the idea (with a few modifications to allow for the frailty

of humans 'aild their battered batterie de cuisine)

is worth copying. Though somehow I doubt if Jonathan King will bother. If he is making the

money the papers would have us believe, he is more likely to go for the 'All systems go' kitchen, dishwasher, `Kitchenventilator,' double refrigera- tor, satin-chrome cooking units and all.

The exhibition could well have been called The simple girl's guide to push-button living.'

Certainly the Electricity Council and the domestic appliance boys must be tossing their ha,ts over Heal's four-poster shop sign. If all

the electrically-powered machines in the show suddenly went maliciously berserk they would create an `Avengers' nightmare that might even unhinge the imperturbable Steed.

Gas comes off less well (although one of the captions pays tribute to its sensitivity). There is not one gas oven on show (except, of course, in the Gas Couneil's demonstration theatre) and only two gas hob's. And alth h the drabness of its garb would never put me off gas for cook- ing, in that setting the antique Gas-Light-and- Coke-Company design of the hob units is a bit like, a hat ,from 'Modes' of Huddersfield amid the Mayfair creations of the Royal Enclosure.

However, one point is well made. That there is no reason (except the bloody-mindedness tof the gas and electricity boards) why every kitchen should not be equipped with the best of both fuels in the cooking world, gas hobs and elec- tric •ovens. Provided,. •of course, you are split- minded as far as these things are concerned.

With Shirley Conran at the helm (she and John. Prizeman devised the show), it goes with- out saying that visually the exhibition is a pace- setter. In every room the decor is both bold and peaceful, and the management of space is masterly. Their 'living kitchen' proves that a comfortable family kitchen need take up no more room than two meanly partitioned little boxes conventionally labelled 'leisure' and 'labour' and one wonders why it has taken the affluent classes so long to catch on to an idea the workingclasses have of necessity taken for granted for centuries.

The weakness of the display is in ideas for the cook qua cook (as distinct from mother, hostess, aesthete, career girl or layabout). It is in. this sphere that the devisers could learn some- thing by looking across the Channel to the Arts Menagers in Paris, where designers con- centrate on one essential—providing the cook

with the most efficient way of performing her duties as a cook. Aesthetically most of the show kitchens would:unnerve all those sensitive people who help the Etat of Edinburgh distribute his design awards. But as a workroom where the main motive power has to be human, they leave

Heal's, Harrods and House and Garden at the etarting post.

To take just one example: a shallow unit at work-top level housed over a stack of wire vegetable or saucepan trays on runners. It is only one foot deep and the work top, flush with the rest of the kitchen, folds back to reveal a series of pull-out trays—Marble for pastry, end-grain wood for chopping. wire-mesh for cooking cakes. (Such practical units are not available in England and it would cost the price of the Derby winner to import them. But if arryone wants a picture of this and other clever kitchen furni- ture to show their little man around the corner,' I will send them a short list of addresses.) Other things especially worth noting are plate- racks concealed in a wall unit (by Nordia), and some remarkably cheap tiles. I can only assume that it is the price that prevents the British from using tiles in their kitchens on the scale that Europeans do. They are so durable. hygienic and attractive. Those on show at Heal's are also reasonably cheap: Langley's matt black or white at £2 a square yard, and the delicate Delft tiles sold by Elizabeth David at her shop in Pimlico (46 Bourne Street, SW3) at £6 Is. 6d. a square yard.

Not all the exhibits are as committing (or as financially critical) as tiles and cookers. What seemed to be giving most people present most fun the day I was there was the herb stall (roots sent to you by post for 4s.), the tea-towel boutique and the apron mart. Especially the aprons which are made of PVC and designed by. Mary Quant. Fun fashions are not every- woman's, wear in public, but in the privacy of the kitchen, PVC by Quant is sense as well as fun.