Cooking With Grandma

I grew up down the road from my grandparents, and one of the things that my Grandma and I did together was cook. Those old spun aluminum pots and pans that made everything taste so good. My first attempt was scrambled eggs and I think all my family had to eat my scrambled eggs 2 or 3 nights in a row because I was so proud that I could cook something. In those pans we made popcorn balls at Christmas and candy like fudge or divinity. We cooked chicken feet and a hogs head for head cheese. We made homemade noodles and roast pork, we had potato dumplings and we made some frogs legs. There are things that we made that were interesting and things that we made that were divine! But it wasn't the cooking that she taught me so much as the moments we shared in that small kitchen up the road from home. My Grandma and I have a bond that is very special. Over that kitchen stove, cooking in those pots and pans, we made more than homemade bread, we made memories. Years ago, I told my Grandma that one day I wanted to have those pots and pans for my own when she was finished using them. This last Christmas, when I was home, she gave me some of the bigger pots that she didn't really have a use for anymore. So I took those old cooking pots home, and I cleared out the cupboard of those newfangled pots, and I replaced them with these that I had gotten from Grandma. Everytime I take them out I think of her. Every time I use them, they bring a memory. And, Everything I make in them just tastes a little bit better!

Halfbakery: Crushed Ice Maker

Halfbakery: Crushed Ice Maker
Here is just a crazy site with half-baked ideas, but fun to look at scratch your head and go hmmmm.

Gooseberry Pyrex Bowl 

The Pyrex Files/Standard Patterns

The Pyrex Files/Standard Patterns
I'm always trying to find the name of patterns and this site has a nice start on finding the name of that piece of pyrex you are trying to find. I am always trying to find the name of a piece of pyrex! that I am trying to put in my store. People are always trying to find that replacement bowl or casserole. Pyrex is a newer collectible, it brings us back to the comfort memories - Making oatmeal cookies in the kitchen with Mom, or maybe it was meatloaf - always mixed in one of those pretty nesting bowls! that came in sets of 4. They had pretty names and patterns like butterfly or Colonial Mist, Crazy Daisy, or maybe it was Forest Fancies or Gooseberry. Gooseberry always made me think of picking Gooseberries at my Grandma house on the gooseberry bush by the barb wire fence that was next to the horse pasture. Grandma and I would pick those little berries and make a gooseberry pie, boy that could make you pucker up - but hot from the oven with vanilla ice cream - YUM!
So again, here we are with the memories. It is funny how a piece of glass like Pyrex can conjure up things like Gooseberry Pie at Grandma's or meatloaf that my Mom made that would be a meatloaf sandwich with mustard on it for my lunch at my country school the next day. Comfort Food in comfort glassware. Memories in the Cupboard, from my childhood, yup- Pyrex.

My Family's Cream Can in Our Home! 

It's Milking Time On the Farm - My Amazing Find

I still find this hard to believe! My amazing find!
When I was small, we milked cows on the farm. Well, I didn't - my Dad, Grandpa and big brother did though while I sat and watched from my perch in the corner of the barn on an old chair that had no seat - which is a story in itself - and for a later day. We milked a batch of cows, and then separated the cream from the milk in the old milk house which was attached to the barn. We would put the milk in the cream cans to haul out to sell. Now where we took them, I can't remember, I was too small, but I remember the cream cans. Sometimes we used the cream cans for an extra chair in the house when we ran out of seating space, or we used them outside for a seat when we had a picnic or a neighbor stopped by to visit and ended up staying for dinner or supper. That is how it was back then, we neighbored. But cream cans were always around and we always had a use for them whether they were stools or vessels that carried milk to market.
All the Cream cans came from certain farms and when they were shipped away, they needed to be returned so they had metal labels attached saying This Farm or That farm and ours said Morton Tiensvold and our home town. Believe me, there is only one Morton Tiensvold and he's my Dad. One day, my Mom was browsing an auction site and she emailed me, Brenda, you will NEVER guess what I found, look at this. It was one of our old cream cans, and it was in Kentucky! -- We lived in Nebraska back then, and it had Dad's name on it. Well, I couldn't believe it -- Boy the story it could of told about the traveling it had done. Well, I bid on it and snatched it up. Now it is in my home and it will eventually hold some silk flowers or maybe hold a potted plant, but right now-----we use it for an extra seat, when someone comes to visit -- like a neighbor!

Technorati: New Year's Resolutions 2005

Technorati: New Year's Resolutions 2005
My New Years Resolution is to try and be more organised :P and sell more and more stuff!

Here is my Shop

Well I thought you might want to see where I work, the above is a clickable link to it. I have a shop online that I sell items on for people like you who want to find memories of days gone by, or have a wonderful collection you want to add to. It is called Five4us Is The Antique And Collectible Shop. I Love all these items, but you will notice that I don't have any flower frogs or black amethyst glass on there because that is what I like to collect. I keep those for myself .
I meet so many people that have found fun things on my store and I have heard some great stories. I hope to add some of there stories on here - anonomously of course- but I think you will enjoy hearing some of these stories of people finding something that meant so much from their past. I have a couple of my own that I will be telling about and if you have a special find or story about something you have found that is special, interesting, or unbelievable, please email me and I will add your story!
I know we will have fun reading these-- so tell me about you, and your story, and share the moment.

Hello and Welcome Lets Talk!

Collecting antiques and various collectibles almost becomes and obsession and a disease, but WHAT A FUN ONE! It is the hunt... the search for that item that makes your heart go THUMP, THUMP, THUMP and hoping that the person selling that item doesn't have a clue of what it is.
This is my parents fault! I blame Mom and Dad for this obsession of mine. You see, they are great collectors too, and since I was the youngest, the "Last of the Mohicans" as Mom would call me, I ended up loving Antiques and Collectibles too! They would come home and I would ask "WHAT IS THAT??!!!" and so it began. They would tell me what this treasure was, and there was sometimes a story to go with it, like -- " I used to use this when I was a kid" or "Grandma used to use that butter paddle to swat my behind when I got caught smoking in the outhouse"- oh yeah, Dad, I heard about that story. It was a great way to learn some family history that maybe you never heard before. I remember a WWII item brought out the story of my Great Aunt Malinda who worked in one of the factories in war times. What a wonderful way to learn family history, and have something in your hand, or in your collection, to remind you of that history. Now, I do the same to my children, bringing home that wonderful treasure, that memory from my childhood, and now I share these stories with my kids--or I try to.