I did something radical to my kitchen last week. Well, to me any change is radical, so it's not that I've been knocking walls down or anything. What I did was add a boiling water tap. Of course, I now worry that my children are going to burn themselves, but I had a talk to them and they quite rightly pointed out that they are not entirely children and, furthermore, if anyone was likely to go burning themselves it was me. Too true: a mixture of clumsiness and impatience does mean that my working practice often looks like the bad behaviour highlighted in a Government warning health and safety films.
So far, so good, though. Mind you, there is rather an irritating safety feature which involves stopping the flow of water after every 500mls. I can see why it's in place, but I start wondering whether I wouldn't have just been better off filling a kettle and then pouring it into a saucepan. Nevertheless, as someone who suddenly has to feed teenagers pasta at all hours, I do feel a lot better about not having to wait for 20 minutes while the pan of water for the pasta comes to the boil.
What I would never use it for, I think, is to make cups of tea. I know this is one of its selling points, but for me part of the ritual of tea is the time-wasting involved waiting for the kettle to boil.
What I am also not going to do, is say what brand of tap I've got or where I got it from. So far, it's only been installed for a few days so I don't know completely how I feel about it yet. Anyway, I'm not advertising the thing, just wittering about my kitchen!
