Old Kitchen Things

LUCY BURDETTE: Hallie beat me to the punch discussing “stickie” stuff in our homes a few weeks back, but I felt sure there would be more to explore—in the kitchen, of course.

 When I was first married, I brought a set of Paul Revere pots and pans to the family. These were the ones with copper bottoms that had to be polished. They were beautiful, and they’d belonged to my mother, so they might have been 40 years old with tons of sentimental value. After a while, we noticed that one of them had a pin-hole leak in the bottom. Honestly, it wasn’t usable, but I found it impossible to throw out. 

“Do you think it’s going to heal if you baby it long enough?” John asked one day. So I threw it away.

Then, for the last who knows how many years, I’ve reached for this sifter when I needed to sift flour, sugar, and other pantry staples. I stopped using it about a year ago because it always delivered a fine sanding of rust to the ingredients. But it had been given to me by a friend who was moving to a new life forty years ago and I figured it had probably belonged to her mother. Again, sentimental value.

Finally I decided it was okay to buy a new one. I texted my friend a photo to break the news and ask if she wanted it back. “Oh,” she said, “that belonged to my ex mother in law.” So I pitched it. 

RHYS BOWEN: we have enough antique stuff in the kitchen to film Downton Abbey, Lucy. John’s mother’s meat mincer, demi-Luna, several jello molds one in the shape of a rabbit, copper molds for aspic ( who does aspic any more?)

The first two are used all the time. We also had a brilliant rotary grater from his mother that would not only grate cheese but nuts and spices. Alas it finally broke!

HALLIE EPHRON:  I think I have more antiques than non-antiques in my kitchen. An ancient rotary grater that’s just slightly (ahem) rusted. It does a great job on chunks of hard parmesan. And my mother-in-law’s candy thermometer which I can’t imagine that she ever actually used. My mother’s wooden salad bowl and hand chopper. And a green porcelain Hamilton Beach milkshake machine (and 2 stainless steel cups) – one just like it is going for $600 on the Internet, which is probably what it would cost to ship it. 

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: So many old things, hand-me-downs and family antiques, including, improbably, the last nine plates (out of twenty) of Syracuse China my Grandma Fleming gave me when I moved to Washington, DC for grad school.

Two I use almost daily: the skillet is one of several given to me by my maternal grandmother, Mary McEachron Greuling. There's no makers mark on it, but my Grandpa Greuling was a skilled foundryman, so it might have been of his making. The knife was HER grandmother's, and if you look closely, you can see where the German steel has worn away in a curved indent from generations of women using and sharpening it. It's the best knife in the world, and I'll pass it on to whichever daughter or daughter-in-law is most likely to use it. 

I hate to sound like an old geezer, but it just seems old kitchenware was made to last in a way modern pieces aren't.

 

How about you, Reds? Do you have antiques in your kitchen? And aren't you dying for a tour of Rhys's and Hallie's?

The Reds Tackle Decluttering.

RHYS  BOWEN: I've been thinking about down-sizing. We have just returned from our condo in Arizona. It is simply furnished with modern lines (thanks to Ikea) and no clutter. I love it! I love the ease in keeping it clean and how nice it looks when the sun shines in through those big windows. Now I am back home in California and horribly aware that we live in a big house with a lot of stuff. So the question is: how do I get rid of it? Where do I start?

I have been good about weeding out clothes I no longer wear. My daughter has made me promise that for every new item that comes in, two must go out. I've pared down books. We've put all of our old video tapes onto one digital file so they can all go. But I'm married to something akin to a hoarder. He prints out every letter he sends via email and keeps them all in files. Filing cabinets all over the house. Every letter he wrote to the water board in 1985!  He started going through things and discarding them but then gave up. Sigh.

And I have been a collector all my life. I have collected books. I have collected items from my travels. When I was a child my aunt and father brought me home dolls from every country they visited. I display those in a corner cabinet. I have collected paperweights. I still enjoy them on the card table. I still collect little boxes when I travel. But in the past I used to collect elephants. Everybody gave me an elephant: ebony, ivory, glass, ceramic. They all now live in a big box. But how do I get rid of them? And little houses. I used to collect little antique houses. They live in another box.

Oh, and we inherited a whole houseful of antique Chinese stuff from John's parents.

So I want to know: do you collect? And have you been able to give up your collections? Any helpful hints on simplifying my life would be appreciated!

HALLIE EPHRON: I am not a collector but like you, Rhys, I'm married to a man who is--which is the plot of my new novel which I am striving to finish.  I've been reading Marie Kondo's "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" and nowhere in it is guidance on how to get rid of a packrat spouse.

But even as a non-collector, I have much more stuff than I need, and my kids have made abundantly clear that they're not interested in most of it. There's a whole profession of organizers dedicated to helping declutter -- the National Associations of Productivity and Organizing Professionals (NAPO - http://www.napo.net) -- and as part of my research for my novel I went to a meeting and was very impressed. They recognize the emotional component.

JENN McKINLAY: My greatest joy, okay, after my hooligans, is throwing stuff out. This is fabulous because the Hub is a hoarder. We never argue but we have spirited debates about why he feels the need to keep every shirt he's ever worn. Also, how many bookcases can one house accomodate? How many guitars does a musician actually need? And, just because that golf trophy was your grandfather's do we really need to keep it? I could go on. I won't. I keep nothing. Like a butterfly, I shed my closet once a year, keeping only things that were handmade (knitted sweaters, etc.) or business clothes that I don't wear often. In a perfect world I would live in a sterilized pod with just my laptop and a coffee maker and visitation from my pets.

INGRID THOFT:  Jenn, I’m with you.  I love getting rid of stuff.  I always have a box destined for Goodwill, and I feel a closet purge is in my near future.  Thankfully, my spouse is not a pack rat; I actually think that might be grounds for divorce!  The best question to ask yourself when sorting:  Would I buy this today?  Obviously, if something was a gift or holds sentimental value that question does not apply, but what about taking a picture of the item and letting go of the item itself?  I had a comforter that I loved as a child, and I had even named it.  As I got older, it was practically disintegrating so I took out the scissors, cut out a small square and still have that swatch of it.  I think I could pitch it today, which suggests that baby steps may be the way to go when getting rid of stuff.

In terms of collections, I expressed a love for elephants when I was a child, Rhys, and the elephant floodgates open.  I rotate those I have on display, and I’ve gotten the word out that I don’t need anymore! 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I've had collections in the past. When I was a girl, I collected dolls from different countries, and since we traveled around quite a bit (military) I had a very nice group. They all live in Youngest's room, along with HER collection of antique-style dolls, which means I'll probably be displaying 25-30 dolls until Youngest buys a house. When I aged up a bit, I started collecting tacky snowglobe paperweights - you know, the kind with a plastic marlin jumping over a badly-painted orange tree and the words "Sarasota, Florida." I stopped displaying them after I got married, but they are still all there in a box in the attic. (At least they're small, which is more than I can say for the dolls.)

Now, I don't think of myself as collecting things, but my daughters quickly put me right. I do collect: china, silver, table linens, silk floral arrangements, glasses - I've simply convinced myself it's not collecting if they're useful. Youngest pointed out that four complete sets of china (for 8, 10, 12 and 14) is a little more than "useful." My plan is to give them away to the kids as they get married...but realistically, that means I'll probably go out and get more for myself.

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh Julia, I think your daughters are being a little hard on you! If you have dinner parties for any of those number of guests, you are perfectly equipped.

We worked hard in CT this year to cull stuff we didn't need or use. We barely made a dent, so I think we'll get back on that again soon. But papers are absolutely the worst because if you're paranoid, you want shred everything with any personal info on it. And that is so tedious! You may know that my hub has a website for Baby Boomers headed for retirement--last week one of his blog posts was on the subject of how your kids don't want your stuff. Here it is in case you need motivation to declutter:
https://www.topretirements.com/blog/home-and-garden/an-sad-surprise-nobody-wants-your-stuff.html/https://www.topretirements.com/blog/home-and-garden/an-sad-surprise-nobody-wants-your-stuff.html/

RHYS: That's so true, Lucy. Our kids say "don't you dare die and leave us with all this!"

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We had our roof repaired last fall, and the roofers brought a dumpster. I thought--hmm. A sign. I asked them--can we put stuff in there, too? The roofer said something along the lines of "You're paying for the dumpster, lady." Okay then.
So I got some guys and pointed them to the basement and to the garage.  Throw everything away, I said. I'm not even gonna look at it.
Jonathan was not so sanguine. That's a perfectly good suitcase! he cried.
It's a Samsonite from the 1950's! I said. And it has no wheels. Would you take that anywhere?
Before he could answer, it went into the dumpster.
Oh, it was fabulous. Our car now fits in the garage.The basement is gorgeous and has shelves and organization.
The dumpster was FULL. It was scary, I tell you, scary.
My only downfall is paper shopping bags and t-shirts. And bubble wrap. How can you throw away bubble wrap?
As for collecting stuff, I don't. Not on purpose at least.

RHYS: Oh funny, Hank. John is exactly the same. Don't throw that out. It's still good!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I think Jenn needs to visit those of us who tend to accumulate!!! But I've just had the next best thing, a visit from my Kansas City friend, who goes through my house like a whirlwind. If she could ever stay more than a couple of days we'd have the whole place ship-shape. Except the the garage, which is hub's territory! Last week we redid the display shelves of the big hutch in our dining room, and then I cleaned out the lower cabinets. A huge bag for the trash, and three big boxes of giveaways. It's so liberating, and it looks fabulous. Now if I just had the time to do the rest of the house...

RHYS: Any brilliant tips on decluttering? Who still collects things (apart from books, I mean. I know we are all guilty of that.

Ann Parker talks about Objects of Desire

RHYS BOWEN: Ann Parker has been one of my long-time friends in the mystery community and we've done many events together. I adore her Leadville historical mysteries, filled with so many real characters and real happenings that you feel you are there.

I wonder how many stories start with a found object, or a found photograph? They've certainly sparked ideas for me, as they have for Ann. And what better excuse to collect things in the name of research! Welcome to Jungle Red, Ann.

ANN PARKER: Objects of Desire, or Confessions of an eBay Addicted Historical Author

My fascination with historical objects goes waaaaay back, to when I was but a young’un (pre-teen, at least), digging through my grandparents’ basements full of dusty boxes and ancient traveling trunks. I’d marvel over the treasure within: beautiful fans, old tintypes, elegant hats, indecipherable letters written in faded ink, worn buttontop shoes… the list goes on.

So, perhaps it’s no surprise that I browse brick-and-mortar antique stores and eBay when doing research for my Silver Rush historical mystery series. From antique stores, for instance, I have obtained a cobalt-blue, gold-latticed “poison bottle,” a magnificent metal clamp for holding papers, a well-used button hook, an old ceramic “cupel” used in silver assaying, and a table crumb brush. Most of these objects have found their way into my Silver Rush stories, which are primarily set in the silver boomtown of Leadville, Colorado, in 1880.

 The cupel kept me company as I delved into silver assaying for the first book in the series, Silver Lies. In Leaden Skies, the poison bottle makes an appearance and my series protagonist, Inez Stannert, puts a button hook to good use.

I also scoop up old photographs and cabinet cards that catch my eye, and muse over the anonymous faces.

Who were these people, and what are their stories? Sometimes, these people from long ago find a place in my fiction. The three top-hatted gentlemen, for instance, became models for my “Lads from London”—British remittance men, who appear in both Mercury’s Rise and What Gold Buys.

Antique stores are dangerous to my pocketbook, and eBay is even worse.

My most recent eBay frenzy occurred when I was working on A Dying Note, the newest in my series. In this book, my protagonist Inez Stannert has relocated from the wild silver-boom town of Leadville, Colorado, to the somewhat-less-wild city of San Francisco, California. It’s now 1881, and Inez is managing a music store, which is quite a bit different from her previous position running the Silver Queen Saloon in Leadville (how this all comes about is another story for another post!). For plot purposes, I needed to get a better bead on Victorian “trade cards” that stores and businesses used for advertising. So, late one night, I turned to eBay, looking for examples from the 1880s.

Big mistake.

I indeed found examples, including some cards advertising music stores, even some from San Francisco, Inez’s new stomping grounds. But then I also found other cards—one for “Fine Hats” that featured a shoe full of flowers, another touting Coraline corsets, another extolling the virtues of Zoedone (a drink both “stimulating and invigorating, yet non-intoxicating” according to copy on the reverse side), and a card with an impressive image of San Francisco’s Palace Hotel.… Before I knew it, I had clicked “Buy Now” for half a dozen or so.

I haven’t found a place for all of the objects, people, or businesses in my collection, but there’s always the next book!

Ann Parker authors the award-winning Silver Rush historical mystery series published by Poisoned Pen Press. During the day, she wrangles words for a living as a science editor/writer and marketing communications specialist (which is basically a fancy term for “editor/writer”). Her midnight hours are devoted to scribbling fiction. The sixth book in her series, A Dying Note, is being released this month. Publishers Weekly calls it “Exuberant.... brims with fascinating period details, flamboyant characters, and surprising plot twists.” Visit annparker.net for more information.

Rhys looks back on a Week of Extremes.

RHYS BOWEN: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times! That line has never been more true than this last week. In the middle of Sunday night I was awakened by a phone call from my daughter Jane. She was fleeing from the fires in Sonoma. Could she come to stay? Of course, I said and hurried to make up beds. Then she called again. Her neighbor has nowhere to go. Could they come too? Of course, I said and found more bedding. Jane and the girls arrived, Jane having fled with just her wedding album and no toothbrush!

 So I was soon hosting seven people and three dogs. Jane's husband Tom works at the Veteran's Home in the Napa Valley. He drove into work with flames on either side of him and had the task of making the decision when and how to evacuate over 1000 old and infirm veterans.

So you can see that the week started in stressful manner. We tried to get updates on the fire. There were rumors flying around. The whole of Glen Elen had burned, just north of my daughter's house and business. The fire was five percent contained. That meant 95 percent uncontained. Real horror stories started to come in. Granddaughter Lizzie's friend's house and winery burned down. Then another. Other friends fled for their lives and didn't know if their houses were standing or not. We heard that the fire fighters were making a stand on Jane's fire on Madrone Road. We looked on the map. Madrone Road was just a block north of the swim center she owns. And if the winds picked up again the firefighters wouldn't be able to make a stand anywhere.

I told them I was going to cancel Bouchercon and stay with them. Don't be silly, my daughter said. You can't stop the flames. You go and enjoy yourself. They insisted. I went, but enjoying myself was not easy. When I was actually on a panel or having a meal with my agent, editor or publicist I forgot to think for a while. The moment I was free the phone came out and I was searching for updates. Ten percent contained. Winds expected to pick up. Fell asleep exhausted and worried. Grabbed the phone first thing the next morning. No real news. No real progress. Another day of worry.

And in between the worry were moments of pure joy.

We Reds went to dinner at the Reds Wine Bar (where else?) and shared a lobster grilled cheese sandwich--delicious but sinful. We plotted our panel and laughed a lot. I had breakfast with Debs and Louise Penny and we laughed even more. Then the three of us sat on stage for a chat to a small audience......

There were publisher parties and time to hang out at the bar (for the others. I was in my room phoning home!) and on Saturday came our Jungle Reds game show. This time it was called Name That Red. A statement was read out about the life of one of us and we each claimed it was us. And it turned out we were darned good liars... including Red Lucy's description of her Olympic luge training and Ingrid claiming she had done ski jumping in Denmark (which happens to be one of the flattest countries in the world). I successfully fooled the audience several times, convincing them that I had had my teeth cleaned by a murdering dentist, that I had lived next to Jane Austen's house. And they didn't believe that I could have been a leading light in the theater in Conroe, Texas. True.

The audience laughed, shouted out and were awarded prizes. I don't know who had a better time, us or them. We even had to face a paparazzi onslaught before we started our panel!

So we left still basking in the glow and regretting that the Reds didn't have more time together. I suspect a Reds Retreat is in our future!

I arrived home to good news. The evacuation order had been lifted. Our family went home this evening to a house with power restored (but no TV. Howls of disbelief) Jane's swim club survived, with just a huge clean up needed: the pool was full of ash and leaves and stagnation from a week with no filtration. But her staff is coming in at seven in the morning and she hopes to open again on Wednesday to help restore normalcy to a stricken community. Alas there will be some people for whom life will not be normal again for years. I'm not sure what to do to help. They have more volunteers than they can use. More donated items than they can handle right now.

On long plane rides I had time to think and I wondered what I would take from an approaching fire: good jewelry? Precious photo albums. We have many antiques from John's family: Chinese plates, a Queen Anne desk, a crusader's sword. They'd all have to be left to burn. And I have a copy of each of my books. I couldn't take them either. So I think of all those poor people who left behind treasures and souvenirs that can never been replaced. Such a heartbreaking time.

And I wonder: : what would you save from an approaching fire?

Sister, Can You Spare a Dime?

Rhys Bowen: Today our guest on Jungle Red is a good friend and neighbor of mine from the Bay Area, Susan Shea. I have been following Susan's career with delight since I was her mentor at a Book Passage Mystery Writers conference a few years ago. I was intrigued then with her world of million dollar fund raising and so pleased that THE KING'S JAR, the new book in her series, is getting good reviews now. So take it away, Susan.

SUSAN SHEA :Sister, Can You Spare a Dime?

Well, actually, a lot of dimes. Say a million dimes, which is only $100,000, which is enough to get you dinner with the head of the computer science department but not with the president of the university. If you have ten million dimes just sitting around, I’ve got a place at the head table with Sarah Jessica Parker and a newly-minted Nobel Prize winner, plus the president, who intends to attach himself to Ms. Parker for the evening.

See? This is the life of a fundraiser, always asking, always promising, always sucking up – I didn’t say that! – making nice with people who have many more dimes than she does. These people, called millionaires and billionaires, are different from you and me in large and small ways. They do not shop for their own toilet paper, for one thing.

The first time I asked someone for a million dollars, I rehearsed the excellent case I was making for the college’s project, spent time beforehand preparing a mental script that would keep the Big Question on the table (you never pose the question in a form that can be answered with a straight no), and reminded myself not to order any food at the lunch meeting that might stick to my teeth and distract me, or her. But the biggest prep was standing in front of my bathroom mirror and saying “We would like you to consider a gift of a million dollars.” I made sure my eyes didn't go into a frantic blinking spasm and that I could get the words out without going, “a mi-mi-mi-mi…”

In my previous life as a fundraiser, which, by the way, is what my protagonist, Dani O’Rourke is, because they say you should always write what you know, I have had the pleasure and pain of meeting a handful of billionaires. I found them all to be fascinating, and half of them to be quite nice. The most delightful of them is a self-made man, once a scholarship student at a prestigious university, who developed an idea into an exceptionally robust, international service business. When he allowed another Big B Billionaire to buy him out, he was like a kid in a candy store. He told me gleefully he planned to give it all away before he died, after giving his kids a million each. “They should have the joy of making something themselves,” he told me. He’s established too many scholarships to count, schools within universities, libraries, you name it. And always with a big grin on his face. I adore him.

Then there’s the fellow who inherited massive wealth at an early age. He plays at one career after another and really believes the world revolves around his wants and opinions. (No, not the current ruler of North Korea although minus nuclear warheads, not all that different, and about the same age emotionally.) My hypothesis is that no one has ever – since he was a toddler and his nannies saw dollar signs when they looked at him – told him his behavior is not acceptable.

Jungle Red writers, a question: Do you ever wonder if someone you know will recognize their annoying tic that you built into your villain’s character, or see a distant echo of something that happened to her or him in your story? While it is the absolute truth that the characters in my books are purely fictional, bits and pieces of the people I have met pop up in my stories, mashed into new forms and suitably disguised, I hope. The work of fundraising, which lends itself to high comedy and deep despair on occasion, is pretty much for real, however, in The King’s Jar and its predecessor, Murder in the Abstract.

SUSAN C. SHEA spent more than two decades as a non-profit executive before beginning her best-selling mystery series featuring a professional fundraiser for a fictional museum. Susan is on the board of the northern California chapter of Sisters in Crime and is a past board member of Norcal’s chapter of Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Marin County, California. www.susancshea.com

Susan will be giving away a copy of THE KING'S JAR to the best comment of the day.