Cake Talk

Fantasy Kitchen -- Tools to drool over

You've heard of fantasy football, this is fantasy kitchen. That's where I get to pick the things I'd like in my kitchen, my fantasy kitchen. It won't matter how much they cost, whether I really need them, or whether they'll fit in my real kitchen.

So much stuff comes through Mary's Cupboard. If I were a hoarder collector of kitchen tools, there are several things I'd like to keep for myself.

Starting with the really nice bowls, especially copper. And the heavy stainless baking pans. Older, well-maintained ones are best.

Then the molded pans like the Gugelhopf pan.

And the little hand tools, like the pastry crimper and rolling pastry cutter (which I do have in my real kitchen).

A heavy-duty decorating turntable is an absolute MUST. Spatulas, bowl scrapers and dough cutters too.

And, when you go to all this trouble to make and decorate a cake, you've gotta have a really nice glass pedestal to display it. Or silver. Or milk glass.

And that's just for starters.

What's your favorite tool?

Thrifting along the El Camino Real

As every child in California learns in the fourth grade, the El Camino Real, or "Kings Highway" connects the Spanish Missions built in California between 1769 and 1823. Each mission, beginning in San Diego, and ending in Sonoma, is about a day's journey apart.

The first of the 450 distinctive bells that mark the route wasn't installed until 1906. The bells are hung on supports in the form of an 11-foot high shepherd's crook, also described as "a Franciscan walking stick." When you are a child growing up here, you learn to look for these bells along the route as a way to pass time during family trips. 

Fast forward to 2011... We spent the day today visiting thrift stores, mostly along the El Camino Real, between Mountain View and South San Francisco. I didn't count how many bells we passed, but Dad did the driving. My brother John, did the navigating (aided by a GPS). Mom and I did the back seat driving.

Dad did the research, printing out lists of every thrift store in Northern California (or so it seemed). With that in hand, you can cover a lot of distance when you are being chauffeured by someone with a handicapped parking pass and guided by a GPS.

The Route?

1. Goodwill Industries Thrift Store , 855 East El Camino Real, Mountain View
2. Goodwill Industries Thrift Store, 4085 El Camino Way, Palo Alto
3. St. Vincent de Paul, 2406 El Camino Real, Redwood City
4. Savers, 875 Main Street, Redwood City
5. Salvation Army Family Store, 1170 Mission Road, South San Francisco
6. Savers, 2840 Geneva Avenue, Daly City

What did we find?

• EZ flip spatula
• Spoon scale
• Rotary and flat cheese graters
• Potato mashers (3 different versions)
• Various spatulas and dessert servers
• Meat tenderizer/hammer
• Ice tongs
• Heart shaped egg or pancake ring
• Round cake pan, bundt pan, tart pan and madeline mold
• Pastry crimper
• Cookie press
• Stainless steel bowls

And then we found this mystery item in the miscellaneous kitchen gadgets bin. With absolutely no idea what it was, I just had to have it. Found out later it is not a kitchen item at all, but a shedding blade, used to remove hairs and dead skin from your dog or horse.

You never know what you're gonna find... we've got at least two more thrift runs to do while I'm here.

What's the coolest thing you ever found at a thrift store?

 

Julia and Martha

I'm a big fan of the late Julia Child.

And, I'll admit it, I also subscribe to Martha Stewart Living.

Julia Child was a practical and romantic chef. She loved cooking, hated fuss, and enjoyed food. All that being said, she understood tradition, and how tradition was a part of many of the foods she loved. She didn't invent techniques but documented them. She was also a meticulous researcher, she found pleasure explaining seemingly complicated techniques.

And she was certainly NOT a perfectionist.

My favorite Julia Child quote? "One of the secrets of cooking is to learn to correct something if you can, and bear with it if you cannot."

Martha, on the other hand, is first and foremost a perfectionist.

Her butter comes directly from the cow while mine comes from the grocery store. She practically grows her own wheat to make flour for her pastry; I am happy to buy it already made. She grows pumpkins for her pumpkin pie, I get mine from a local farmer (but am not adverse to the canned variety when fresh pumpkins are not available).

But she collects really cool stuff, surrounds herself with great photographers, and is an inspiration to us normal folk. Just look at this photo of dessert servers from the November issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine...

It called to me, made me want to go out and start collecting them. Or at least buy a few so I could serve sample cake to prospective brides in style.

Of course, Martha would have me making the cake with fresh butter, imported vanilla, and farm eggs. I could probably buy the flour, but only from a specialty store, along with some natural fine sugar and whatever other exotic ingredients she'd come up with for an acceptable cake.

So I get ideas from her and do the best I can. Then, as Julia says, I "bear with it."

I do have some fresh shaved coconut...

 

 

 

Vintage, anyone?

Some day, when I am gone, I hope people go through my stuff looking for treasures... 

I spent some time at an estate sale this morning. The lady was an avid cook and had collected lots and lots of kitchen items. Her stuff was much more interesting than my stuff.

There were scores of cookie cutters, many still in their original box, but there were also a couple of large tins of wonderfully fascinating shapes in metal and plastic. These were the cutters she actually used to make cookies.

Who wouldn't want a cookie in the shape of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln? Or all of the animals in Noah's Ark? Or the 12 days of Christmas? Or a dozen barnyard animals, including a goat and pigeon? 

There were several cake carriers and dozens of vintage pans, in all shapes and sizes. Cake pans, brownie pans, cookie pans, pie pans, muffin pans, corn stick pans, and many old Wilton shaped pans including Holly Hobby and Strawberry Shortcake. Three different easter egg pans, and a set of pans in the shape of an open book (remember that April 1 is International Edible Book Day).

More pans, plus many cookbooks from manufacturers of sugar, flour and baking powder. I truly, TRULY want to try some of these recipes.

Want to see the entire collection? Just come on down to Mary's Cupboard. It'll all be there tomorrow, and until these lovely items are adopted by new owners.