A couple weeks ago, a fierce wind blew into the Philadelphia area and lingered, knocking over trash cans, uprooting trees and snapping their limbs, de-shingling rooftops, and sweeping up trash and debris. I had been out…
Category: Kitchen
Note left on a refrigerator
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and Kitchen
I was browsing the back room at the auction house, looking for nothing in particular. I scanned the titles on the spines of some books packed haphazardly into boxes. I glanced at some reproduction prints lying against…
Every now and then, I’m struck by some very disparate items on the auction tables and on the floor. At one of my favorite auction houses recently, four things stopped me: Two settees with side…
Stocking an imaginary kitchen
Posted in Kitchen
It was a complete set of Pfaltzgraff gray dinnerware that struck me with the idea. I was standing there at the auction, listening as the auctioneer desperately tried to sell the dishes for $5. No one…
Recalling mom’s egg beater & flour sifter
Posted in collectibles, and Kitchen
“Carmen, remember these,” a woman called out to her friend as she stopped at a flea-market table this weekend. She picked up a red-handle egg beater and started twirling the little knob, setting the wheel…
A lovely Hoosier kitchen cabinet
Posted in Kitchen
Some years ago when I was scouting around for a house to buy, I was ushered into the kitchen of one with a huge white cabinet that took up one full wall. It was a…
Whimsical teapots of Paul Cardew & others
Posted in Art, collectibles, Home, and Kitchen
Every now and then when I’m at an auction, some items on a table seem to just will me to stop. Maybe it’s a shape. Or a color. Or an unusual collection of “something.” Recently,…
Years ago, when I parked appliances on my countertop – and very seldom used them – I’d buy those colorful fabric covers to keep them cozy. Since appliances don’t get cold and shiver, I suppose I…
My earliest recollection of using a hair dryer was in college. I have this image of myself and other women sitting in a long room with the plastic hoods on our heads, waiting patiently and…