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.
