Shake, Rattle and Roll

Get outta that bed, wash your face and hands
Get outta that bed, wash your face and hands
Well, you get in that kitchen, 
Make some noise with the pots 'n pans *

Face and hands washed, we’ll get in that kitchen but we won’t make a shake, rattle and roll noise in the kitchen with the pots ‘n pans till after lunch. That’s when we do the combined dishes from the first two meals of the day.

The morning jive will be happening in the laundry sink. That’s the day’s first use of the soap shaker. Metal on metal on metal makes for quite a rattle as June makes some noise.

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The very hot water in the goats’ enamel milking pail has got itself all shook up and there’s a metallic rattle as the shaker strikes the pail and the pail rolls about in the stainless steel sink: “Shake, Rattle and Roll”.

We found our first soap shaker in a secondhand shop some thirty years ago: we’ve been using them ever since to do dishes and dairy.

Sunlight soap in the cage, hot water, energetic shaking: it’s a recipe for squeaky clean “pots ‘n pans”. I take my que from the Sunlight dishwashing liquid slogan: “Gets your dishes squeaky clean.” I tell the curious that “we’ve got squeaky clean insides”.

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The woodstove’s water jacket gets the water piping hot so we wear rubber gloves. Once done, the dishes in their rack are put on top of the stove’s plate rack to drip dry – no tea towels.

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Hope I’m right about the squeaky clean innards. In the days when we used standard dishwashing liquid, we’d always wipe the residue off by drying the dishes with a tea towel.

That first shaker didn’t miss a beat for twenty years or so. When welds and wire came apart and the jiggled soap slid out we started looking for a replacement. No luck.

We thought our only chance was to come across a secondhand one. Niece Amelia did some research online and found a New Zealand company making them – at a price.

Politicians and public health gurus love saying that some aspect or other of our Covid response is “Gold Standard”. Are they referring to the billions in cost? These shakers were stainless steel not gold. They were $49 each (we got one for dishes and one for dairy), but at least they’ve shown themselves to be “gold standard”.

Now that the world’s been turned upside down, there must be some demand for them again. Recently June saw one in a local shop. Then Amelia of the above sleuthing fame messaged me on Facebook – one of her Kiwi friends had posted a photo of one in a Briscoes half price sale for $14.99.

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So it’s not made in New Zealand. Just hope our Kiwi “Gold Standard” continues to hold up in the realms of soap shakers and Covid response.

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*Song by Big Joe Turner (‘The Boss of the Blues’)