Tiny Bits of Valentine's Day Decor and Fish Majolica in the Kitchen

 

My Valentine's Day decor is sparse and all ends up in my kitchen. I honored the Day on a pretty little pink  blackboard my granddaughter made me two Christmases ago. 

And put a fabric heart in the handle of an odd lid I found at Goodwill and hung on the wall.

Two little hearts adorn a tea towel.

I found this vintage St. Valentine's Day card in an antique store many decades ago. 

Valentine cards from our granddaughters always get saved and displayed.

That's about all I have but I love their presence in my kitchen. 

Last week I took everything off my open kitchen shelves and cleaned everything, the top shelf with RH's help. A couple of years ago I took everything decorative off the lower shelf and filled it with glass jars of rices and beans, etc. that I used frequently but I began to miss having pretty stuff there. So most of the food items went in the pantry (which is a coat closet back near our bedrooms) and I brought in some favorite pretty things.

I put up some of the early 1900's Italian fish majolica I collect including this large platter.

And the gravy tureen that still has the rare spoon for its tongue. And I had RH hang one of the little bone dishes above it. I have stacks of small plates too and might add some of them.

A small English platter went up, all of these fish making sense to me as I could easily give up all meats and only eat fish. Not so, RH.

I must zoom in on Maddie who was clipped to my Christmas calendar that daughter Christy gave me years ago, a reminder of her schnauzer who will be 15 years old this Valentine's Day! Maddie's health was very worrisome a few weeks ago and we were so relieved when she got better.

I can't resist showing you my asparagus candle again. When RH's brother was letting me choose things from his estate sale inventory a couple of years ago, this vintage asparagus candle and two large orange "coral" candles I display on top of my china cabinet were some of my favorite finds. I love this candle!

I think it's magnificent and display it on the top shelf beside a special old Royal Doulton "Countess" platter that was my mother's. 

On the door to the kitchen porch I display seasonal tea towels year round, mostly vintage. I just packed away my Christmas vintage tea towels and despite not having any vintage Valentine's towels, felt like these make a nice February showing, especially the cherries in honor of President George Washington. I know, I know, the cherries were a myth but I don't care.

I'll show this last picture to answer a question that Melanie recently posed, Where do I keep all my different china patterns?

Some are kept handy on this dry sink in the kitchen. Always my Blue Willow, now topped with winter patterns. At Christmas a stack of Spode Christmas Tree was there, easy to grab, and in summer I keep a stack of blue and white Independence Hall plates. Sometime I'll try to get pictures of the other places I stash china. 

That's all for today but I have a very old photograph of myself and RH to post on St. Valentine's Day, one I had forgotten about and recently found.

I always feel I should apologize for so many pictures but I do love seeing pictures from my blog friends' kitchens and hope some of you do too. 

Please stay well, everyone! Our daughter is sick with COVID for the third time in a year and is feeling absolutely crummy. And yes, it is possible to have it that many times because there are at least three variants out there. 

Be safe, be kind to yourself and others. 

A Candle-Snuffer and A Kitchen Tour

My hunt for a vintage candle-snuffer began in late January. I had left a Christmas platter (The Old Curiosity Shop) by the kitchen sink, flanked by two candlesticks, for winter cheer. I was on my third pair of Classic Green tapers I order by the box, burning them at dusk while preparing supper. (I also buy Wedgewood Blue for my dining table.)

 One night RH blew them out for me, not pulling them forward and cupping a hand behind it as I do. He puffed them out with all his lung power and wax flew onto the window glass, something I discovered the next day.

That began my online search for a vintage candle-snuffer but none struck my fancy. One night I was flipping through one of the old magazines from my vintage magazine collection, a House & Garden, January 1967 (our young married days). 

"Notes for the Hostess" is my favorite monthly column in the old magazine, where I read about tempting objects for the hostess to purchase. One object was a "polychromed wrought iron candle snuffer with a butterfly on top." I wanted one.

It would be useless to search for one on eBay, right? I put in exactly those words and found:

"Old Vintage Tole Painted Wrought Iron Metal Flower with Butterfly Candle Snuffer."

It was darling and only $20, not an exact replica of the 1967 one but near enough. When it arrived I knew it would have a permanent place by my sink, with a change of plates seasonally.

My spring plate was Royal Doulton's Countess pattern and I changed the candlesticks to a 1980s Polish pair I've had for years. 

I have three plates and a large platter of the Countess plate, bought in the 1990s in Blowing Rock, NC as a gift for my mother when her eyes lit up finding the platter in an antique shop on Main Street. And one day came when she said her "cooking the turkey days" were behind her as my sisters in Florida began hosting Thanksgiving.

I kept this plate up until June when I spotted this one at our local antique mall.

We have jillions of blackberries in our front hedge row every summer and this plate, 'Blue Ridge' from Southern Potteries, whispered Take me home.

It says Summer to me.

With supper being in daylight in the summer, the candles don't get lit until after-dinner cleanup when RH and I pause whatever show we're watching. He puts leftovers away while I load the dishwasher and one night I began taking pictures of our kitchen at night when it might not show that I hadn't swept the floor.

After many variations of styling my open kitchen shelves, I put practicality before pretty and cleared the lower shelf to hold all the jars of things I use regularly. 

But be sure to notice the vintage tall candle of a bunch of asparagus on the top left end, a gift from RH's brother to me. I swooned over it and two large vintage candles of orange coral now over my china cabinet.

Even though I think copper in a kitchen is the ultimate, most of my copper molds went to a daughter-in-law except for the few I actually use (aspic lover that I am) and keep in a cabinet. 

Instead I've put up two pretty silver molds and a lid with drainage holes I bought at Goodwill. The lid doesn't fit any of my pots but does look pretty hung on the wall. And the 1960s Aladdin lamp is one of seven, most given to us back then for Christmases by friends where the husband was an executive at Aladdin. And there are others in our children's homes.

 The right end of the shelves, built by RH and his brother when we moved here to Home Hill, now hold rices and jars of Rancho Gordo beans, my favorite. 

There are three pieces of furniture that fit in my kitchen, giving me at least a partly "unfitted kitchen" that I always wanted. We found the dry sink at our local antique mall and it holds baskets of food behind doors and special dishes on top.

I keep the Blue Willow out for everyday use.

And I've been using these pretty Independence Hall ironstone plates since the Fourth of July, ironically Made in England. You guessed it, a gift from RH's brother.

But the sweetest gift of all from my brother-in-law was this collection of pie birds!

I adore them all but my favorite is the pheasant, front row right. I haven't used them yet, afraid that baking will discolor or crack them. Anyone have experience with using a pie bird? I would like to use them for my chicken pies as I know they were originally meant for the meat pies of England, not dessert pies.

Not that I make many chicken pies these days or even dessert pies but I do have a freestanding cabinet topped with a nice marble slab that is perfect for rolling out pie crusts. This piece has one shallow drawer and two deep ones and hold so many of my baking things.

The third piece of furniture in our galley kitchen is a taller chest of drawers that RH used for his tools at our old house. Now his tools are limited to the bottom two drawers and I get the top three for spices, etc., which I think is fair since he now has a large workshop out back to keep them in.

On top is the microwave that men can't live without, a beautiful blue bowl holding tea towels, a large gorgeous blue fruitcake tin given to me by a daughter-in-law who used to keep her button collection in it, topped with a green cabbage bowl, and a lamp. And above it all is a print I fell in love with at the antique mall. It's appropriately named 'Vegetables' by Helen Paul and must be one of her older prints as I can't find it online. The colors of the vegetables make me so happy.

 

I have to show you my new (old) blue KitchenAid mixer, again, a gift from you know who. It's so pretty! And I finally solved the problem of a dusty mixing bowl vs. hating the sight of plastic wrap over it by putting a pretty vintage Spode plate on the bowl, Spode's Pink Camilla.

 I've circled the room now except for showing the fridge and trash can. There are other sweet items in this room that were gifts from my sisters too. My house would be half empty without the generosity of others.

RH finished washing a large pan.

 Time for him to have his bedtime bowl of ice cream.

No more worries of RH blowing candle wax on the kitchen window.

Now he can snuffle the candlelight.

My Winter 2021 Kitchen Shelves

 

It is so much fun getting to change what's on the kitchen shelves that RH and his brother built for me when we moved here to Home Hill, almost my favorite thing to do in the house.

I think a January refresh is my favorite since by then I'm more than ready to take down any Christmas items. But this year when I saw the picture I posted at the top of my blog post of December 30th, I was really ready to make a big change. I liked it the day after Thanksgiving when I put my snowmen mugs and old ornaments and a wire Christmas tree on the shelves but I cringed when I looked at what I published here the end of December.

 

Why couldn't I see that it was far too cluttered?

Now, I will never be a minimalist but when I went into my kitchen on New Year's Day 2021, even I knew that all that was just too much.

While I could never style the shelves as minimally as on the Pinterest pin I had RH copy my shelves from shown in the printed out picture below, maybe I could shop my cabinets for something I'd like better. So I took everything off the bottom shelf and washed it and RH did the same with the top shelf and I began all over.

 I found lots of white and cream colored dishes in my cupboards and tried out different arrangements for several days. I even eliminated some things from the pot rack.

 

I had some old U.S.A. cereal bowls and copied another favorite Pinterest pin, putting three on the top shelf that were too crazed for food use.

 

 The only thing I bought to change the shelves was this doily from eBay for under $10 and I think it looks pretty under the bowls, with an old platter from RH's mother behind them.

 

 

The other cereal bowls that we use all the time went on the lower shelf along with two old chop plates that we use all the time and a stack of gorgeous Italian plates shaped like some sort of spiny sea creature that I rarely use. Someday they will be passed on to family, but only to someone who has the patience to hand wash them.

 

I put my truffle pig on the shelf too because he's so cute that I never could stand to use him as a cutting board.

An old blue bowl went on the top shelf in front of a special platter that I bought for my mother one day in Blowing Rock, North Carolina when she picked it up and said she needed a pretty platter.

 

It's Royal Doulton's Countess pattern and later on in life my mother returned it to me when her hostessing large family parties had ended. I know there will come a day when I'll be doing the same thing with this platter and so many other pieces of favorite china.

I'm enjoying this new lighter look in my kitchen and it led to me going through my cupboards and deciding there were lots of things I no longer needed. It was fun to have a grandson say that he wanted all my drip-edge brownware McCoy and come by for them and I can see that there will be more favorite things to pass on in the future. 

I'm in a rare decluttering mood this winter. 

Are you?

 

 

An Iron Skillet

Just look at that skillet! Isn't it a beauty? I only use it for one thing--

Buttermilk Cornbread!

It belongs to me and me alone, at least in my lifetime. I alone cook with it, I wipe it out and leave it in the warm oven overnight and hang it back up the next morning where it waits until the next time I make cornbread. I will not risk that finish with any other cooking.

The other three skillets are RH's. He uses them, mostly for country ham or pork chops, and he cleans them. But I also get to use his skillets, which I do for steaks when he doesn't grill out. 

And after I use them, RH cleans them. Because...just because. 

He made sure the pot rack I asked him to make under the shelves he and his brother built for me was strong enough to support these heavy skillets. The shelves are bolted on the other side of the wall in my laundry room. An elephant could swing on this pot rack. Maybe.

The other pots and pans I use all the time hang on the opposite side and I love them the way copper owners love their copper.

My All-Clad pans are workhorses, too. They go in the dishwasher, a definite advantage over the iron skillets. We bought all of them when RH and our sons put Vermont slate on all the many buildings in the compound belonging to one of our famous country music stars.

She's known by her first name only and it has four letters and begins with an R. She's since then sold the property but I still think of her when I use them. I bet she loves good cornbread and probably believes it's no good cooked in anything other than an iron skillet. Look at how well mine is seasoned...

 

It's a number 8 skillet and for some reason the handle curves down at the end. And I just can't talk about my buttermilk cornbread without giving you the recipe for it.

 

 Buttermilk Cornbread:

Heat oven to 450 degrees (in my oven that is a little hot), putting iron skillet in while heating. 

Whisk 2 eggs in bowl and stir in 1 1/2 cups buttermilk. Gently stir in 2 cups cornmeal mix (I use Martha White Self-rising Cornmeal Mix).

Melt 1 stick of butter and stir half of it into above mixture. (You don't want to beat it smooth, cornbread batter should be a little lumpy.)

Drop a heaping teaspoon of solid Crisco or lard into the hot skillet in oven and let it heat about 3 minutes, being careful not to overheat it but hot enough so that the batter will sizzle when poured into the skillet.

Remove hot pan from oven and pour batter into it and return to oven for about 18 minutes.

Remove pan of cornbread from oven when golden and spoon rest of melted butter over top of hot cornbread, spreading it around the top. Split and butter cornbread while still hot.

That's some good eating, and our favorite thing to have with cornbread is a pot of pinto beans. I discarded my mother's recipe for pinto beans when I found Angela of The Parisienne Farmgirl's recipe here.https://www.parisiennefarmgirl.com/best-refried-bean-recipe/

She uses hers for refried beans but it also makes our favorite recipe for plain old pinto beans because of her three ingredients that my mother's recipe was missing. 

1. A bottle of beer--Angela doesn't specify Guinness but it is my favorite in pinto beans and in chili and in my Beer Braised Roast Beef (recipe here).

2. Fresh cilantro. I feel so sorry for people who think cilantro tastes like soap because I can't do without cilantro in my pinto beans anymore. No cilantro, no pinto beans for supper.

3. A whole lime, juiced and stirred in before serving. No picture of the lime, you'll have to use your imagination.

And if you want to try the Garden Tacos that Angela makes with her refried beans it's on page 97 of her beautiful cookbook, From France to the Farm.

Angela's YouTube channel is one of my favorites, found here--https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4P9zhII6woD8WriaQwk6bw 

My Garden Tacos aren't as pretty as hers but they were delicious!

 

Don't you love the pretty plates I serve all Mexican food on?

I only have two of these W. S. George Bolero Gracia plates but they're just enough for me and RH.

And be sure to save the beer bottle for a vase for the table for this meal, one zinnia is just right in it. I do regret the plain water glass in the picture. RH has several vintage pilsner glasses that would have been cute here.

Is there at least one iron skillet in your kitchen? 

Are you a cornbread fan? Please tell me you don't put sugar in yours! 

The one culinary mistake Southerners can never understand or forgive is to put sugar into cornbread. 

Richardson Wright