Kitchen Culinaria

My Heart Beets For You

2012-02-14T10:55:00.000-08:00

First of all, a confession. I like to play with my food. I like to have fun with food. And I think engaging with food is one of the most interesting and enjoyable past-times possible. I mean, it's okay. You can say it. I'm a food nerd. Goodness, I mean I've got the credentials for it; there is no use shying away from it now.

So when I saw this:
I think my heart just skipped a beat (or should I say, "a beet"). I love it! Mrs. Stella Gilbert, you are one witty lady. I knew I had to share it because if you're like me, the only thing you like more than an ingredient is a clever play-on-words.

Do you care at (carrot) all for me, for my heart beats (beets) for you and my love is as soft as a squash but as strong as an onion. For you are a peach with your reddish (radish) hair and your turned up (turnip) nose. You are the apple of my eye, so if we can't elope (cantaloupe) then let us (lettuce) marry anyhow, for I know we would make a happy pair (pear).

This also got me thinking about another food-related project I've been wanting to try recently. Perhaps you've see them:

Wait, are those ...? Oh you mean bacon blossoms? Pork petals? Broses? Why, yes. Yes they are. Because, you know, sometimes you see an internet meme and think, "If I see one more cat wanting a cheeseburger I am going to scream." Other times you realize you should probably make your fiance bacon roses for Valentine's Day. Potayto, potahto. They were surprisingly simple (albiet time consuming) to make. Don't let the ridiculous directions online which require to you take an electric drill (?) to the base of a muffin tin (?!) deter you. I used one of my vintage Pyrex #414 prep bowls as a mold and lined it with foil. I assure you it is much easier to poke a hole in the base of an aluminum foil cup than it is into a metal mini-muffin tin (say that ten times fast). No power-tools involved.

The rest of our celebration was fairly rote, but I found it the perfect excuse to use a whole assortment of thrifted vintage finds I usually find a bit too overly-feminine. A stunning set of Hazel Atlas Pink Crinoline plates, milk glass vases, shabby-chic assortment of various plates and pieces of our Diane china.

Now don't tell me grown-men don't like breakfast tea-parties (the key to success is a pot of Earl Grey) - I think he loved it. Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

"Orange" You Glad You Met Me

2012-02-09T11:03:00.001-08:00

Last night I dreamt I stumbled across an entire collection of orange kitchenware. Seriously - that is what was flickering across my subconscious mind at around 3-4am. At some point, as I was loading up a cart with pumpkin colored pots and pans, carrot orange casseroles and flaming cast-iron, I thought to my dream-self, "Just because it's all the same color, doesn't mean you have to have it if it's not something you want."

Naturally, when I woke up this morning I wondered what it meant. What deep and mysterious truths and occurrences did this dream foreshadow? If I go out thrifting today will I actually run-across the ruddy-colored compatriots of my turquoise motherlode?

Then I took a look around:

Turns out I have a lot of frickin' orange laying around the house. And that doesn't even include the awesome tangerine spring day-coat I snagged for half-off (!) at a vintage clothing-store the other day. The strange thing about all this, though, is that up until very recently orange was perhaps one of my least favorite colors. Right up there with pepto-bismal pink and princess purple (rendered exponentially hideous when used together). Orange things I liked included: oranges. pumpkins. cheddar. monarch butterflies. That, my friends, is not a very long list. And it certainly doesn't include snack bowls, and tea-towels, and coffee cups, canisters and clothing. What happened?!

It would be all too easy to say I have merely fallen victim to Pantone's Color of the Year, which is, in fact, a bright, terra-cotta-esque "tangerine tango." But that would imply I have the ability to keep up with trends, which a look inside my closest clearly indicates that I do not (unless navy blue, cream, and grey cardigans are coming back in fashion. Please please please!). No, I blame it on these:
Well, the top two anyway. We had discovered a new estate warehouse that offered online bid-auctions as well as in-person sales once monthly. So a cold, brisk winter morning we lined up outside the opening and as the door opened, I saw these. Can we say, "bee-line?" Both the flame pieces are Le Creuset, the sunny yellow is an early Descoware. All are in ridiculously good shape but the orange pieces looked brand new. Maaybe, they had been used once. Maybe. In fact, so new that I don't even think they qualify as vintage. But that's okay, because the reason I love vintage kitchenry as I do is because it is timeless.

It did give us slight pause as to what to do with them though, because they weren't suitable inventory for the Etsy shop and up until this point our kitchen has always been a shade of chartreuse, apple-green (always. Since the time I moved out of the college dorms and had a kitchen, and every kitchen we've had together since). Then of course, we added the turquoise/aqua blue because you don't look a gift-horse in the mouth and then complain about the color. Moot point anyway because green Le Creuset wasn't even offered in the early years.

I would really love to have some baking dishes though, and I'm positive I'll be holding my breath a long time waiting to locate those in original Paris Blue or affording to buy kiwi pieces retail.

So it has now been decided - our kitchen colors are turquoise/aqua blue, chartreuse/apple green and bright orange! Drum roll.....

What do you think?

The Loneliest Number

2012-01-24T09:09:00.000-08:00

Shortly after we decided that, oh my gosh, oh my goodness, oh my golly, relics of American domesticity were uh-mazingly interestingly and ever so useful to have around the house, we had to face the fact that thrifting alone wasn't going to cut it. Sure, every so often you hit the jackpot and come back with a casserole, maybe even a roasting pan if you're lucky (oh that reminds me - note to self: take a photo of your roasting pan), but those days can be far and few between, separated by numerous trips that end in disappointment. Better to go to the source: The Estate Sale.

To this day, I still find estate sales somewhat intimidating and/or uncomfortable events. They are a completely new scene to me and more often than not the folks hosting the sale are close relatives of the former owner. Nothing seems more awkward and insincere than, "My condolences on your loss. Um, okay I'm going to tromp back to your kitchen now. Would you take $2 for this?"

So imagine my surprise when we arrive bright and early at our first "we planned to be here" estate sale (yes, technically this came from an estate sale too, but it looked like a yard-sale at the time and the purveyor didn't even know the deceased) and run upon a mob of elbows-out, doorway shoving patrons clamoring over each other to get the goods. We had serious doubts about entering the fray.

But as soon as the door opened, I saw this sitting on the counter-top:

A perfect condition casserole with lid. Okay. Now here is where all of you get to go, "Are you kidding me?!?!" Because the other one was there too. It was $4 for the pair. And, get this, I didn't buy the second one because the lid had a chip in it. Yep. That's right. It actually had a lid. I must have been under some deluded notion that one never, ever, ever found lids all on their lonesome and without a glass topper it would be somehow "incomplete." And who needed a duplicate anyway? Pffph. So I walked right out with my one perfectly pretty piece and didn't think twice. Until I learned that it was the 1959 Buffet Twins promotional casserole set - oh that's right. Set. A pair. As in two. As in - the other one that I left behind.

Talk about kicking yourself. But I was (kinda still am) a novice. It was a rookie error. Now I have an entire box of miscellaneous lids that I will one day match to a base. I didn't know any better. Oh yeah, I passed up a Spring Blossom butter dish too. Won't be making those mistakes again.

I did find a few other things that have been happily re-homed across the country - a set of Harvest Gold Tupperware measuring spoons and a yellow Foley jar-opener - and a gift for my grandmother (an occupied Japan teacup/saucer) but nothing else as awe inspiring as that which I had walked away from.

Fortunately, the story doesn't end there. See, months later my fiance wanted to make amends for something that is completely irrelevant and, being the good man that he is, knew the best way to make an apology isn't with flowers (although I love those too) but with Pyrex. He had found the long-lost mate and brought it back so the two could be reunited. How romantic!

So there they are, back together. Stacked so nicely atop one another in the pantry.

I actually suspect that this is the original pair that I had seen together - that whomever found it at the sale after I so callously left it there simply replaced the lid, brought it to his or her booth and marked it up. And that's okay. Because in this case it was the thought not that counted - not the bargain.

The Thrill of the Hunt

2012-01-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

Before I became a "vintage kitchen goddess" (oh hush. I hear those poorly disguised snickers from the peanut gallery. Can almost hear your eyes roll too! But that is okay, let me get to my point) I spent a lot of time thinking about tourism, and the tourist in particular. And in any academic query of touristic motivations, you will eventually get drawn into a discussion on the hunt. Indeed, of the stereotypical "big game seeking" safari hat wearing, rifle toting sort, but also of the camera toting "perfect shot acquiring" documentarian as well. Seems there is something inherently thrilling to hear about the difficulty of catching something, to go questing for it, to catch it, and to bring back evidence as if to say, "Aha! Out of all the possible animals/photos/places/people/things in the world that one could possibly encounter, I distinguished with the aid of my brilliant perceptive skills, intuitive know-how and vast knowledge of worldly things that this was important to make note of." I mean that's really what game trophies and travel photographs are all about right? Physical evidence of something you saw, or did, or achieved that someone else aspires to do.

See I am a hunter of another sort - a treasure hunter; only my rubies and diamonds are Pyrex pretties and collectible cookware. And my open grassland savannah has been traded for the dusty, musty aisle-ways of thrift-stores and random piles of belongings that characterize the neighborhood yard-sale. This is my "wild." And sure, I could find these things for sale at "antique" malls (even though none of these pieces yet technically qualify as antique, don't get me started) and even online, but that would be akin to photographing an animal in a zoo, or (goodness forbid) a pet-store. Don't get me wrong: These outlets have their place! And certainly I am not one to eschew online resale as a matter of principle. But there is a certain je ne sais quoi that is lost when an element of certainty is introduced. The suspense, the anticipation, the long-awaited reward ... that is what makes collecting vintage kitchenware so exciting.

All this to say a part of me drags my feet posting because I understand that this entire endeavor is really about bragging writes (oh yes, that was intentional), and it can feel a little self-aggrandized to say, "Hey there! I found this and don't you wannnt it, nah nyah nah, it's mine!" ;-) So to make this seem more chronological, I'll start off the way all hunters do - with "the first kill."

I love my 403 primary green mixing bowl even more for its imperfections. In fact, my entire primary set (thus far) shares the evidence of years and years of use. The green 403 was the first piece of Pyrex I found at a thrift-store. I grabbed it, debated it for a while, took it home and have adored it ever since.

I found the red 402 and blue 401 later, but they all seem to be from the early 1940s set with the extended foot. We found the red bowl at a road-side flea market, and it was soo grungy that there was a debate as to whether it had been spray-painted (seriously. It was gross). There, however, was no doubt that it was Pyrex and that the glass' integrity had been maintained. The man selling informed us that, "That right chere'd make a real good bowl for $1" and, not wanting to stick around to discover what 'else' it might make a "real good'un of" we took a chance it would clean up nice and I think it did. I have a soft-spot for gently distressed primary bowls; personally I think I prefer the colors with a little wear rather than in pristine condition.

Snagged the blue 401 at a Salvation Army. It wasn't in the best condition but not knowing when (or if) I'd find another '40s footed 401 in the wild I took the plunge. Would refusing to take this home be like refusing to take a picture of a wild cheetah on safari because I thought it looked a little mangy? Probably. Probably, indeed. And who in their right mind would do that. As every hunter knows, you take the shots your given.

St(r)ained Beginnings

2012-01-05T11:19:00.000-08:00

It has finally dawned on me the that reason I can never get a blog off the ground (not really anyway) is because I never know how to start it. In my strained and self-conscious efforts to make a good entrance, swaggering on into this blogosphere party fashionably late, chatting up the host and seeming like I belong after making a properly interesting introduction, I end up huddled in the corner like a wall-flower, sipping my drink too fast while thinking of the right thing to say, realizing I've been standing there entirely too long to introduce myself to anyone now, and making a hasty retreat. Yikes. And erm, yes, that metaphor was entirely uh, metaphorical in nature. Because wouldn't that be an awkward way to introduce yourself - as some strange and socially peculiar person who can't even go to a party without getting herself all worked about "first impressions" and .... Okay. Sigh

Hi. I'm Stephanie. I like vintage kitchen things, henceforth to be known as "kitchenry" (it's a real word, folks! Even if I have misappropriated the term. Look it up!). I like casseroles, and mixing bowls, and old recipes, magazine ads that sell bake-ware by falling back on some pretty antiquated gender roles, culinary history, and doing the dishes. Pretty vintage dishes. Not washing regular dishes. Perhaps the worst job I ever had was when I discovered, after an exhausting day pushing heavy carts up and down the elevators, that I couldn't go home until all the hospital dishes had been washed and cleaned. And that I was the dishwasher. Surprise! I feel like that ought to have been mentioned. Anyhow. Deep breath.

Having recently relocated from the metropolitan madness that is Manhattan, to the quiet and charming streets of Kentucky, I stumbled upon an estate sale that had the most beautiful cookware set I have ever seen. And I mean stumbled. Upon it.

We were driving back from a hike and saw a bunch of stuff on someone's lawn, pulled over on a whim, and lo and behold this was inside. As I scrubbed away layers of caked on, burnt on, stained and blackened history, I thought all the stories these dishes would tell if they could; all the mealtime memories and holiday gatherings and luncheons and dinner parties during which they played a role. And these pots also (finally!) gave me the opportunity to engage in what I had been, up to that point, studying and researching and writing about only from the theoretical level - the cultural materiality and consumption related activities that revolve around domesticity and food.

Which brings me back to this blog - a place to share all the discoveries, insights, fun finds and domestic adventures that have resulted from that fateful day.

Phew! Introduction = done. Now that wasn't so bad, was it? Grab a seat, maybe even a mug of cocoa or tea (is it as cold where you are as it is here? Brr) and welcome to KitchenCulinaria!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T11:23:00.000-08:00

Without a doubt, one of my resolutions ought to be, "Work on your darn blog!" I realize that introductory post was over two months ago - time sure flies when you're, uh ... (sending out your resume, taking care of family emergencies, interviewing, starting up an online business, continuing to look for a job, cooking/baking/cleaning-up after the holidays) ... having fun?? But(!) - lots of good things to come, lots of good ideas in the works, lots of photos waiting for their 5 seconds of internet fame, I promise.