Sunday 26 August 2007

Mrs Beeton, 2007........


In general, I care much more about the kitchen equipment I use than about the plates the food is served on - with the possible exceptions that desserts always look good on a black plate and that nothing ever looks good if the plate is too small. .....

Drinking glasses are another matter, though - and there is no doubt that a good wine does taste and look better when drunk from a fine wine glass than from a plastic beaker (speaking from plenty of experience of both). Unfortunately, in the rough and tumble of daily life, wine glasses take a beating - and not predominantly from the actual process of drinking. Short of managing to break them, the most irritating thing about good glass is the (almost inevitable) appearance on it over time of 'dishwasher-bloom'. In an ideal World, of course, it would all be washed by hand, before being lovingly polished and carefully returned to the cupboard........

That's the Ideal World version.

In the Real World, though - the 'life's too short' version - nine times out of ten, the glasses go in the dishwasher along with everything else.....With the result, over time, of a growing collection of milky hazy wine glasses which are perfectly serviceable except that they have a displeasing foggy bloom on them. Generally, too, this is on the outside of the glass so it doesn't even disappear when the glass is full....

You can remedy the problem by the judicious use of jewellers' rouge, (a) if you can find any, and (b) if you don't mind the tedious process involved in carefully polishing away all the tiny scratches and abrasions in the glass which go to make up the bloom. The Technical Department has come across a rather bizarre alternative method though: application of a proprietary brand of something that is in fact manufactured as a Rubber Bumper and Trim Polish for cars. It rejoices in the name 'Back to Black', and I assume is targeted at boy racers who worry about things like the pristine condition of their dashboards. In my mind, I associate it with the sorts of cars that have fluffy dice dangling from the rear-view mirror. Why we have any of it lying around is completely beyond me, and even more fascinating is why the Technical Department even thought of using it to restore the Riedel glasses to their pristine condition........Sometimes, it's just better not to ask! It works, though. Amazingly, it does.......

I doubt it's safe to use inside the glass, since I'm not certain what the stuff actually contains - but since most of the bloom is on the outside anyway, there's little temptation to risk it. Given that the bottle bears a large yellow sticker proclaiming that the product 'Contains Alcohol', I'm not sure we aren't in practice returning it to its spiritual home.

If you want to get hold of any of this stuff, I suggest you google it and find your nearest boy-racer online supplier! Difficult to think of Mrs Beeton and boy-racers in the same breath, but I suspect that were she around now, she would approve.......

Dinner Tonight:

Crab Tarts.

Chicken with Mascarpone & Dill stuffing. Celeriac Mousse.

Souffles of Vanilla & Apricot.

2 comments:

Joanna said...

Brilliant solution to a common problem - and, as you say, best not inquire just how this solution was arrived at, it's too mind-boggling (just exactly how clean is your dashboard??).

We use either v nice glasses from my wine merchant, or Duralex glasses, the sort we had at school, you get in a Routiers restaurant, the sort you can take on picnics without having to resort to plastic, the sort that stack, the sort that someone only this evening said was much nicer than any other kind of cheap glass. Only here in England, they're rather expensive! But this morning I dropped three on the floor as I was emptying the dishwasher, and none of them broke. I love them. And occasionally crave a lovely thin, tall stemmed glass, even if it's only for plonk.

I think there's a car accessories shop in town, it's probably open on Bank Holiday Monday ...

Thanks for the tip!
Joanna

Pomiane said...

How clean is my dashboard? Suffice it to say that the myriad paw-prints from the four-footeds' attempts at trying to drive give rise merely to hollow laughter in response to that question.......