Four-Hundred Miles of Vintage-y Goodness

Every year in June, residents along the scenic Highway 68 running through Kentucky and into Tennessee hosts the grand 400-mile Sale.  Mile upon mile of booths, tables, front yards and sidewalks all be-decked with antique wares, vintage finds, personal items and a fair-bit of junk (for good measure) up for grabs.  A veritable smorgasbord of possibility!   

Oh yeah, and to make it better, Hwy 68 looks like this:

It meanders through picturesque fields of bluegrass cordoned off with historic stone fences, traversing the Kentucky River palisades, passing through farmland and nearby Civil War battlefields, all connecting a ribbon of small historic towns. 

 

 Definitely not the worst way to spend a weekend.

Naturally, at such a heavily publicized and trafficked event its the good stuff goes quickly.  It's an early-bird-gets-the-worm scenario.  The soonest we could head out was Friday afternoon (it started Thursday), just in time for the weather to turn suddenly nasty.  Fortunately we were rewarded with one of our better finds of the entire weekend from the fairgrounds in Nicholasville (more on that soon).

 

We made it from Lexington down to where Hwy 68 intersects with I-65 (about 140 miles).  With all the stopping, pulling over and slowing down I'm not sure how anyone could cover the entire route in four days

The 400-Mile sale runs the first weekend in June - so if you didn't make it this year, you have plenty of time to plan for 2013.

I wanted to take great little snapshots of all our treasures, but with moving and work I just haven't gotten around to it.  Rest assured there was tons of vintage kitchenware (along with loads of vintage luggage).  But never fret, I'll leave with you a little sneak-peek at what's to come:

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"Orange" You Glad You Met Me

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?

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St(r)ained Beginnings

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!

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