Gadgets, Widgets, Thing-A-Ma-Bobs

Donna, my friend of more than 46 years, reminded me of her mom's wooden spoon. (While we are both older than dirt, I tell her she is much older than I since she had an 11 month head start on life.) It had a long handle and she tells me it was used for everything. She told me of this because of my laundry blog. Seems this super long handled wooden spoon was used for everything that was done around the farm in deep kettles. So it stirred the lye soap chips in the copper kettle heating on their wood stove for laundry. It stirred the canning and jelly preserves and other things. The bowl of the spoon and part way up the handle was dyed a deep blue from all the things it had stirred. Her brother's wife didn't know its value so sent it to the trash pile.

Donna also remembers that they not only did not have a hot water heater in their home but actually carried water for house use from the pump by the barn. The water was heated on a wood stove winter and summer in their kitchen. Another friend, who shares my name, says she remembers laundry days similar to those I wrote about but her family was blessed with running water AND a hot water heater.

I have two things that belonged to my mother. One is my mother's potato ricer. It is a utensil you can still buy brand new but a lot of people don't know what it is. It could be mistaken for some sort of medieval torture device. A long arm is hinged in the middle with one side ending in a hoop holding a vegetable can sized bucket with tiny holes. The other side ends in another hinge and a swinging flat plate. Boiled potatoes are put in the can end and the disk is swung over the top of the can. The hinged arms are squeezed shut and bits of boiled potato shaped like rice come out the holes. The stronger the hands doing the squeezing the more potato comes out the holes. This device was created to make fluffier mashed potatoes. What we call mashed potatoes today are actually whipped with a beater. In the long ago and far away we mashed them with a masher and your skill at mashing was measured by how few lumps were in the finished product. The ricer used first created smoother mashed potatoes. Our son, Marc, is proud of how well he mashes potatoes and he should be! No lumps! Sometimes when I was sick as a child I would demand riced potatoes. If I was sick enough to be worrying my parents, I got them. Boiled potato pushed through the ricer, melted butter drizzled over them and a light sprinkling of salt and pepper. Homemade medicine in a bowl.

My other keepsake is a whip for beating egg whites frothy, peaked, stiff, or dry. I can't use it. It looks like the outline of a spoon bowl on a handle with a wire coil around the shape. Mom used it to make heavenly angel food cakes. Dorothy only wanted daffodil cakes for her birthdays, Ev, Betty, Pat and I wanted angel food. Dad liked checkerboard cakes. Mom would use the whip and the 13 egg whites would begin to foam, then turn white, then stand in peaks when she lifted the whip, and eventually stand in stiff peaks. Sugar was added as well as a "good" teaspoon of cream of tartar. A mere pinch of salt came next. The sugar was added slowly and blended in until you could pinch the egg whites and not feel any grains of sugar; it was time to fold in the flour. This had been measured into a depression glass water tumbler rather than a measuring cup. Now began the tricky part because it had to be done so as not to take the air out of the egg whites while incorporating the flour. The batter was spooned into an angel food cake pan, and baked.

Each birthday child was warned that the cake was in the oven and if we walked too hard it might fall. If it fell, we would have to eat the ruined cake all by ourselves! Just picture the stomping I did to try to get that cake to myself. I'll bet there were times she wanted to ship me far, far away. I never got a whole cake to myself. However for my particular birthday, my cake was never frosted but served with glorified rice with strawberries or raspberries in it.

Mom showed me one time how her mother made angel food cakes. Grandma never used an egg beater or whip. She used her bare hand. Mom would start whipping the eggs that way to show me but she couldn't get them past the frothy stage. She would shake her head and say, "I just never got the hang of it, but grandma made beautiful cakes!" I could never imagine cakes more beautiful than My Mom's. However, today when I make angel food it is most often from a box mix (I add the cream of tartar). When I do make one from scratch, it is with an electric beater or mixer. You can often hear, "I just never can do it the way Mom did it." Yes, I shake my head.

I have a "granny fork" which is a 3 tined fork with a wooden handle that is used for turning bacon. As aged utensils go it is a mere infant at 44 or so years of age. It is starting to look handled, grease spattered, well washed, and tired; but it doesn't yet have the character of the one used by my mom. I have my favorite utensils but very few have remained from start to present of our almost 46 years of marriage.

We have some bits and pieces of china used by Dave's mother, grandmother and great grandmother. We have some silver of his mom's and I have some silver that belonged to my dad's sister Evalyn who never married. Helen has some stemmed glasses that were owned by my grandmother on my mother's side, then handed down to my sister Dorothy, and then left to Helen. They are pink and quite fragile. Dave has two cut crystal wine glasses from his grandfather Max.

At one time, I loved and used my set of "Wagner Ware" cast iron fry pans and pots. Dave hated them. He soon talked me into getting rid of them. Guess what? My fully seasoned, well used and loved pans are back in vogue. We had to buy a new 14 inch skillet and 10 inch skillet which I am still struggling to season to the the correct non-stick finish. It is now called "Lodge Ware" and is sold in camping and sporting stores. I have to digress here, but you'll enjoy it.

When I was in elementary school (then referred to as grade school), I told a friend I had accidentally washed my mom's spider with soap and she had really chewed me out for that. My friend nearly went berserk! She could not figure out how I could stand to touch, let alone bathe, a spider with or without soap. You see all fry pans or skillets were called spiders at our house. This came from a particular kind of fry pan to be used over an open bed of coals. It was shaped like a fry pan but had legs and a cover. Hence it looked like a big black spider. It is not as deep as a "Dutch oven".

Sometime later, I wanted to save another classmate's eye by informing her she had an "eye winker" on her cheek. I don't even have to close my eyes to see her horrified expression as she began jumping up and down in place, slapping at her cheeks and screaming. My friend of the spider conversation came to the rescue. She grabbed the other girl's hands and said, I think she means you have an eyelash close to your eye. By this time, two teachers, the principal and several other classmates had arrived. The eyelash was removed from the girl's cheek, she was told to make a wish and blow it away, and order was restored. Everyone was looking at me like I planned the whole thing. Is it any wonder I often ran away from school and went back home where my life seemed safe and sane?

My mom never had an apple peeler and corer. She peeled her apples by hand with a paring knife. The peel came off in one thin, long piece as the knife went round and round the apple. She would hand the peel to one of us. We would solemnly close our eyes and toss the peel over our shoulder to land on the floor. If it formed an alphabet, that would indicate the first initial of the man we would marry. With the number of apple pies made at our house, we all could have married men with unconscionably long names or been accused of bigamy! I have (make that had) a gadget that skewered an apple, spun it rapidly toward the corer end, peeled it, sliced it and cored it all in one magical step. I would let Helen and later Bett and Belle toss the peel to hope for a clue to their spouse. You know I never realized after you play that game you have to mop the floor? Sticky, sticky, sticky! This fall, Isabelle and I made an apple pie together. After she went home with the remainder of her pie, I washed and dried the tool and set it aside but I didn't look and let it fall to the floor. I am afraid it has peeled and cored its last apple.

In this day of utensils coming and going, being touted on infomercials, claimed as the newest and best, some of them look suspiciously like remakes of what we used as kids or received as hand-me-downs from moms and grandmothers. There's a wonder basket of meshed metal that boils, strains, rinses, and carries. Looks like an old egg collecting and washing basket to me. How about the various wonder blades that slice, dice, cut nails? Who cuts nails anyway? These little wonder gadgets never need sharpening (unless of course you buy one and bring it home to use). What's wrong with the man of the house feeling like a hero because he sharpened the little lady's favorite paring knife?

I learned to peel potatoes with a paring knife. I was proud of the thin peel coming off the potato with little waste and eyes dug out with a nice sharp point. Dave's dad once asked why I didn't use a peeler. I said I never could get them to work correctly. He muttered to Dave that the peeler peeled thinner slices and was faster. Dave just smiled and said, "We had a race one time and she won!" I use peelers now. I can still use the old method and still do a reasonably fine job of it. Times change.

Doesn't this make you think? What if God looked at us as throw away inventions? So many things today are made to be used, broken and discarded. Satan would like us to think we are that way. But, God looks at it backwards. He takes the discarded, appreciates the brokenness, and then loves us into usefulness. Each of us that has been used and abused become the best utensils He has to work with. Sometimes He takes those He has repaired and puts them to work helping Him repair others. He sends us out to locate those who need repair to bring them to Him. Do you start to see something here? In God's kitchen, workroom, barn, laundry area there are only shiny bright utensils and he is well pleased. Hmmm, guess I'll keep that old bean pot a while longer.