Kitchen Gadgets

There’s been a thread on Facebook lately about an old kitchen grinder, the kind you screwed on to a table and cranked by hand. My mom had one, and maybe she used it for other things, but I particularly remember my dad making cranberry relish at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was hard work, believe it or not. He’d grind and grind—orange, apple, and cranberry. Then Mom would add just the right amount of sugar.

A surprising number of people recognized the grinder—I didn’t post it, as our family grinder has lone gone—but one friend wrote from Virginia that he had grinders from both his grandmothers and always used them to make relish at the holidays.

I do have some old utensils—a small fork from my grandmother that I now call the bacon fork and use for that exclusively. And a small frozen orange juice can from the days when those cans were metal—my mom, and maybe her mom, used it as a biscuit cutter. One son-in-law, who likes funky old stuff, has already spoken for those.

When I downsized and moved to the cottage, the one thing I missed was kitchen utensils. I apparently took what I thought I needed, and my kids divvied up the rest and disposed of what was left. The result was I have only a rubber-coated spatula, and you can’t get a good crisp edge on anything without a metal spatula. I didn’t have tongs, a ladle. My good collection of wooden cooking spoons has mostly disappeared—and I need to distinguish for my family between a cooking spoon and a salad server.

garage sale finds

I could get a few things from a neighbor who opened her garage sale to me a day early, but I have sworn for my birthday I’m going to register at Target for utensils. Sometimes I ask Jordan for this or that, and it amazes me the things she doesn’t think essential to cooking.

I think I’m an old-fashioned cook, out of step with the times.