Poetry In A Pot Of Tea: Mary Dunbar

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Just Plug It In~

My cup today is part of a set that belonged to Handyman's grandmother. It has white roses around the saucer rim and one inside the teacup. I can picture Grandma Alice sitting down to breakfast with these sweet cups.

Well, who'd a thunk it?! I am a creature of habit and I usually stick with the tried and true. I've been using a whistling stove-top kettle for 20 years. Had my eye on a British Simplex, but with a kid in college it is not in the budget. When our latest kettle's knob broke off for the second time, I shopped around at my usual thrifty haunts - TJMax, Home Goods and Tuesday Morning - for a handsome whistling kettle under $70 to no avail. The size, color, handle placement, ease of filling, or some other problem existed with all kettles I found. So, I did a bit of online browsing for a replacement kettle and I saw a variety of electric kettles. Hmm. I read reviews. I checked customer satisfaction. I looked at Consumer Reports. I came to the conclusion that an electric kettle has several features my old stove top version did not have. The feature I was particularly interested in was the auto shut-off and boil dry prevention. That is an idea I can get behind! The stove-top kettle takes so long to boil water that I would put it on the fire, go upstairs to finish getting ready for the day, then come back downstairs to make a pot of tea.

Ta da! We decided to give it a chance - who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks? I selected a kettle with the least amount of plastic (the plastic it has is BPA free), made with German Schott glass so I can see if it needs to be cleaned, and turns itself off once the water reaches a boil. It also has a filter in the spout. Now, there are fancier models with timers and temperature control but we are all happy as can be with this simpler kettle.