You know you are getting old when things that you took for granted as part of your daily life start being ignored or forgotten. It is a bit like going into a museum and seeing things you have and use at home being displayed as curiosities.
Flour Sifters
One of the Facebook sites that come up in my feed sometimes has photos of everyday items and asks readers to share if they know what it is? Often I wonder why they are even asking.
Take flour sifters. I use a flour sifter, my mum used one, my grandma used a sieve which is more or less the same thing but not as convenient.
At the Op Shop, I was told that “people don’t use them now.” Funny because whenever we have one for sale it goes pretty quickly. I’m puzzled though about why people don’t use them. Everyone is so into cooking these days. I mean people want to make elaborate and fancy looking meals like the ones they see on Master Chef but they don’t take the time to sift flour? That doesn’t make sense. If I bake, I sift.
In fact, it seems that flour sifters are still being made and sold. I even found a comparison of the best ones on the market. So I don’t know who decided that they were old hat.
https://www.thekitchn.com/is-sifting-flour-for-baked-goods-really-necessary-213894
Fitted sheets
A lot of people who come to our Op Shop looking for bed linen tell me that they don’t want flat sheets, only the fitted ones. It seems that a lot of people don’t use a top sheet anymore just the doona. You can even buy sheet sets that are just a fitted sheet and doona cover.
Well personally I don’t care for the idea but even if I did, that’s no reason to consign flat sheets to the rubbish bin.
Fitted sheets are great, don’t get me wrong. I use them myself but with a flat sheet as a top cover. I like to be tucked in.
When you buy a fitted sheet you have to make sure you have the right wall size. If you have one of those pillow top mattresses a 30cm sidewall won’t stretch over it. I’ve had 40cm ones that I struggled to fit on our king-sized bed. There were a couple of pairs of sheets we had that I could stretch over the bed by being patient but David could never do it and would just throw them on the floor and use some mismatched sheet. I like things to match so that always irritated me. I used to put those sheets at the bottom of the stack of linen in the cupboard if I was going away so that he would not need to use them. Not only that, fitted sheets are a pain in the neck to fold up neatly. I’ve read numerous tips on how to do it and I can do it but spending ten minutes folding a sheet does not rate highly on my enjoyment of life scale.
You can actually use flat sheets as bottom sheets. You just have to tuck them in. I had to remind a younger friend of this not long ago when she didn’t have spare fitted sheets. What do you suppose people did before fitted sheets were invented? By the way, they were invented in 1959 but I don’t recall seeing one before the 1970s.
If you buy a sheet set with a flat sheet included and you are one of those doonas only people you have actually bought two changes of bed linen. Had you thought of that?
Did people actually forget you can do that or doesn’t anyone know how to make a hospital corner?
Here are some comments about the debate.
https://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/bedding-debate-top-sheet
https://www.inverse.com/article/42949-top-sheets-millennials-bedding-duvet-cover.
I personally would rather wash a top sheet every week than struggle replacing a doona cover. I do wash that too of course but less often than the top sheet. The Millenial argument seems to be that washing top sheets makes extra work. They should have been around when grandma had to wash everything in the copper and have it hung on the line to dry before breakfast.
Have to go, it’s time to hang my sheets and doona cover on the line.
Putting on a king size doona cover is a nightmare. I can’t do it. So I leave that job to my beloved. So I am definitely a top sheet gal. And yes, I do hospital corners. I spent a lot of time in hospital as a kid, so it stuck.
I saw my son use a sifter to make pikelets the other day. He was using a very old Woman’s Weekly recipe.
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We used to have a king size so I know what you mean. I generally did it alone because David could not grasp the concept. Now I have a single bed so much easier to manage. Glad to hear your son uses some of those good old recipes and a sifter.
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I have a queen sized bed and use both the fitted and top sheets. Love the neatness of the fitted sheet. My mother used to “tuck” me into bed so tightly I couldn’t move my feet.
I occasionally use a flour sifter. Not always. But I think the old kitchen tools have become decorator items more than working tools in some of the vintage kitchen schemes. I sometimes display my mother’s items from the 40’s in the kitchen because they have that cute, vintage look. They may sell out quickly in the Op shop because people are buying them for that purpose.
Rarely do people use a tablecloth anymore either. I always loved the look of the cute little 1940s breakfast table set with the printed cloth and all the cheery looking dishes that we see in old movies and pictures.
But I guess lots of things have fallen by the wayside.
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Vintage kitchen items do look nice on display. I much prefer them to the sterile kitchens favoured by decorating magazines. I think the people who buy flour sifters in the shop may be older people like myself who actually use them though. I like a tablecloth, it protects the timber table top and adds a splash of colour to the room.
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Yes, it is true it may be people closer to our age that grab the vintage kitchen tools because they know the value of using them. It must be fun helping in the shop.
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It is fun although exhausting at times.
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