5 thoughts on “The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen”

  1. Wonderfull photo Jeff. It was particularly evocative for me as my mother posed for a very similar photo in the 40’s for an interior design exhibition in Scotland. She suffered an angina attack on Saturday (just a warning we think) so your image sparked nostalgic thoughts – thanks.

  2. Have a good one, Jeff, and thanks for a page of posts [well, since you bounced in the happiness of your profession]. I just read and said, “Yeah.” Nice to do it occasionally.
    The picture above? My old man was a pathologist in apartheid South Africa. The morgue at the Conradie Hospital in Pinelands, Cape Town was revamped. White corpses in one side, not-white corpses in from the other; two entrances and morgue slabs divided by a wall of fridges, much like the wall of cupboards in the photgraph above, where the bodies, paradoxically, lay side by side.
    Trouble was, the fridges had internal locks and, to best use available space, doors at each end. Unfortunately, the trays on which the bodies rested, if pushed back in too hard, would unlock the opposite door and the body would slide out into the morgue reserved for dead people of another hue.
    It happened often. Compounding the absurdity rather than the gravity [heh] of the situation [technicians worked feverishly to fix the fridge locks], my father’s assistant for many years was a black African who worked alongside him either side of the wall, hauling bodies, black and white, out of the fridges, slinging them onto the slabs, stitching them, and shoving them back in again.
    And, of course, occasionally having to wander around to retrieve somebody who had slipped over to whichever was ‘the other side’ at the time.
    Not exactly a Christmas tale but then, why not? I believe my father and his assistant were the only people at the laboratory who found the situation amusing.
    So much for kitchen cupboards…:)

  5. in light of the past few weeks and the realities of combining adult households, the starkness of that kitchen is extraordinarily pleasing. an awesome photo overall. i smile. thank you for finding it. and sharing. you are a very generous being and i hope you have a fine and peaceful and interesting holiday!

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