autumn – In the Vintage Kitchen: Where History Comes To Eat

Fall Preview: Autumn and the Vintage Kitchen Shop

Published on August 28, 2022 by In The Vintage KitchenLeave a comment

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the feel of the air (Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall). Albert Camus describes beauty in the leaves (Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower) and Jane Austen describes the sentimental atmosphere that envelops September through December (Autumn.. that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness). Isn’t it wonderful how one season can inspire so much?

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been slowly transitioning from August to autumn over in the Vintage Kitchen shop. Excited to celebrate the cool, cozy cooking season ahead, we have been collecting vintage and antique heirlooms for the shop all summer that highlight the beauty of a season spent with food, friends, and festivity.

Above, is just a glimpse of a few fall-themed items that have recently been added to the shop. Below is a sneak peek of more cozy comforts that will be added shortly…

A sneak peek of just some of the new old heirlooms coming to the shop soon.

As summer winds down, and we gear up for our busiest months of the year, we just wanted to send out a quick reminder to let you know that the Vintage Kitchen shop sends out a weekly email highlighting new arrivals, seasonal inspiration, vintage recipes, and ITVK updates.

We send one email a week, and each week it’s a different theme or topic, so if you haven’t signed up yet please head to the shop and click on the weekly update button on the home page here. If you prefer to receive the weekly update via your mobile device, please text +1 (833) 244-2272 and include the keyword: JOIN to be automatically signed up. Mobile updates tend to be delivered faster, so if you are a “hot off the press” kind of reader you might prefer mobile vs. email.

Researching this antique vegetable dish led to uncovering a story about child labor during the Industrial Revolution in Victorian England. Read more about it here.

For those of you who are new to the blog and the shop, you might not know yet how crazy we are for history. Just like the blog posts, a lot of research (hours, days, sometimes weeks) goes into telling the story of each item in the shop, which basically turns each listing into a little mini blog post in and of itself. That means if you are a fan of the longer-form storytelling found here on the blog, then chances are you might enjoy perusing the shop and the weekly email for quick bursts of interesting historical insights as well.

We never want anyone to miss out on all the fun we have around here. We hope you’ll join us for a festive and fascinating time this fall over in the shop.

Hope your last few days of summer are magical ones. Cheers to new beginnings and happy endings.

So Timely: All About Wishlists, Quick Cooking and the Biggest Sale of the Year…

Published on October 12, 2020October 12, 2020 by In The Vintage KitchenLeave a comment

It seems like a bit of a rush to talk about the holidays already. Autumn has just arrived and it’s not even Halloween yet. But time flies faster this last quarter of the year, and I didn’t want it all to blaze by without sharing some fun things that have been brewing in the Vintage Kitchen recently. Especially since they might be of help when it comes to celebrating the holidays this year.

Add to Wishlist

It’s here! It’s here! Your very own Vintage Kitchen wishlist is here! Launched just last month, you’ll notice a heartshaped icon on all product pages in the shop, both in the upper right corner and underneath every specific item’s title on each product page. If clicked, the item will be saved to your own personal wishlist where it will sit until you decide to remove it. Whether you are deciding about a vintage or antique piece for yourself, or you want to share your favorite gift ideas with friends or family, this will keep everything you love all in one organized place.

Shop Sale – November 2

Our BIG shop sale day is just three weeks away! Enjoy 40% off site-wide on Monday, November 2nd during our annual one-day-only All Souls Day sale! This is the only sale in the shop all year, so if you have your eye on something special, November 2nd is the day to capture deep discounts and get a head start on your holiday shopping. Discounts will automatically be applied upon checkout which means no coupon codes are needed. The sale begins at 12:00am, November 2nd and ends at 12:00am, November 3rd. Hope you find something that speaks to your soul or reminds you of a dearly departed loved one from days gone by:)

The Quick Cooking Chronicles

For all the busy cooks out there who are short on time these days, but still long for interesting, home-cooked foods, I’m excited to announce a new series of fast-acting heirloom recipes – The Quick Cooking Chronicles.

Not every fantastic vintage recipe I make in the kitchen actually makes it to the blog. This is a true travesty and something I have been trying to figure out a way to remedy for over a year now. So many marvelous heirloom recipes get left behind just because there is not enough time to research and write about their history in a thoughtful manner.

In an effort to continuously share good food, especially during hectic times, these not-enough-time recipes will now have a new home on the Vintage Kitchen Pinterest board, aptly called The Quick Cooking Chronicles. All the vintage recipes featured here are made with simple ingredients and simple steps. They are heirlooms that have been around for decades and have been sourced from old cookbooks, or passed down from family members, or shared between readers here on the blog. They are the good foods, the new (old) favorites, the time savers, the uncomplicateds. All made with just a handful of everyday ingredients yet arranged in interesting, unexpected ways. Super helpful, they are foods made for days filled full with gift wrapping and snow shoveling and turkey prep and hanging lights and decorating trees and clinking glasses and celebrating life. It’s a continual work-in-progress so check back often here if you are in the search for some quick, good recipes. I hope they will help bring ease to your kitchen and keep you fed and fueled! Here’s an example of such a meal… the recipe that instigated it all…

And finally,

The algorithms have been changing again on Instagram, which means that the Vintage Kitchen content is getting covered over. I have no interest in being a slave to these constantly ever-changing metrics with their unpredictable highs and lows and their peaks and valleys. I just want to bring good stories and good food to you:) The best way to help shed light on vintage kitchen history is to comment and to share posts if you feel so inclined or generally like the content. This will help our community of cooks and readers grow more vibrant each and every day and for that I’m so grateful! There are a couple of VERY EXCITING things in store for the Vintage Kitchen, all which will be unveiled soon. I can’t wait to share the news! In the meantime, cheers to Autumn and to appetites and to schedules that keep us on our toes 🙂

So excited for impromptu summer bouquet season:)

UPDATE on this morning’s story about the baby bird who fell out of his nest. We are so excited (and relieved) to say that he is doing great! ⭐️ He’s nestled into the straw in our raised bed between the pepper plants and the tomatoes, with a big umbrella offering shade from the sun. His mom and dad have come an amazing eight times to check on him over the course the day. 💛 And at each visit they’ve fed him many bugs and worms. He’s moving around quite a bit in his own and he has no problem chirping and calling out for his parents to come with more snacks. It’s been so heartwarming to watch this little robin family overcome the super tough hurdle that is early bird life. 💛 I hope once this guy finds his wings that he’ll come back to visit us all summer long. 💛 A big THANK YOU to everyone who offered tips and advice. With your help, it turned out to be a marvelous day for saving a songbird:)

Now that our final greenhouse diary entry of the season is posted on the blog our mighty little growing station is taking a well deserved rest.🪴 In this last post, we discuss all the greenhouse helpers that got us through our first New England winter and shared more insights from the life of Katharine Sergeant Angell White (1892-1977), our gardening inspiration for this whole series. We learned so much this past year in the way of greenhouse gardening. Hope this info helps other new gardeners too. 🪴 And can’t wait to be back with more greenhouse adventures in the fall! Until then, a zillion kitchen history stories await:) Hope you’ll join us all summer long.

Our first harvest of rapini from greenhouse seed to garden plants 🌱 New blog post coming shortly with our final greenhouse update of the season 🪴 This was such a fun blog series and we learned SO MUCH we can’t wait to bring it back again this fall highlighting new adventures and experiments.

A sneak peek at what we’ve been up to lately! We are pretty certain that 1750 House didn’t start out with a butler’s pantry 273 years ago, but it’s so exciting to make a space for one now. Can’t wait to share more renovation photos soon!

The simple joy of a bread and butter weekend, 1950s style! 🍞 This vintage butter dish was made by Universal Potteries for their Ballerina series. It features the popular Moss Rose pattern - a bestseller of the 1950s that touted an advertising tagline that was straight out of the Don Draper school of marketing… Ballerina lends itself - blends itself - to reflect your way of life. 🩷

Cheers to all the moms out there who feed us, show us, encourage us, teach us, support us, and enjoy with us all the beauty and the bounty and the joy and the adventures that the kitchen has to offer. Happy Mother’s Day!!! 💛

The end of April 2023 and the beginning of May marks a new significant milestone here in the land of 1750 House. ♥️ It’s the celebration of our first full year of living in this beautiful state, in this lovely old house. It also marks the first birthday of our greenhouse and the first full year of gardening. Over on the blog tonight, there will be a new post with updates about what we’ve learned so far when it comes to growing nature and new ideas. Cheers to year one! 🥂

The Hi/Bye Month and the New {Old} Collections

Published on October 14, 2018March 15, 2021 by In The Vintage Kitchen2 Comments

Photograph by George Marks – Getty Images

Happy September, happy October and happy Autumn everyone! That’s three cheers, two months and one season that has happened since the last post. Oh my. The majority of September around the Vintage Kitchen was spent curating and collecting items for the shop and went by in such a hurry I officially coined it the hi/bye month because that’s exactly what it felt like. Here one minute, gone the next.

October started in the same way, with the same humid temperatures and the same busy schedule. Hot summer weather has hung around with gusto until just a few days ago, making this new season and curating for it, a bit of a challenge. My heart was wrapped up in the idea of Fall – all those colorful leaves and pumpkins and baking projects – but my head couldn’t quite get over the fact that it was still 90 degrees outside during the day and looked very much like August instead of October. New arrivals in the shop over the past 30 days reflect those dueling situations. Fall that feels like Summer.

New (old) items that fit into the Fall 2018 Collection are wrapped up in all the traditional touchpoints that ignite sentimental feelings of nostalgia and embrace the cozy, crisp months to come…

Cozy is the name of the game around here. New Autumn inspired vintage (from top left): 1930’s feedsack quilt square; 1970’s Jack Daniels whiskey glasses; vintage wood pocket shelf; 1920’s National Ivory teacups; vintage restaurantware plate, 1960’s World of Nut Recipes cookbook; 1950’s botanical prints; vintage enamelware bowl; 1970’s glass spice jars; 1970’s Mikasa Duet pattern plate; 1960’s Cookie Cookery cookbook; 1960’s red plaid tin.

Vintage spice jars, whiskey glasses, quilt squares, mixing bowls, teacups and fall foliage art prints help set the mood for the season in your kitchen, while homemade cookie recipes, holiday menu guides, and nut-themed delicacies help satisfy the seasonal cravings in your belly.

Some highlights from this collection include this 1960’s whiskey decanter made by the Van Winkle family in Louisville, Kentucky – one of the few distillers legally able to operate during Prohibition…

This 1960’s dinner plate – one of the very last patterns made by Salem American Ironstone in 1967 just before their pottery closed its doors forever…

This vintage quilt square table topper made in the 1930’s from recycled feedsack materials…

These National Ivory teacups made in the 1920’s during a similiar point in time when women’s roles, rights and liberties were also being redefined…

This 1970’s cookbook – the delicious work of internationally recognized pastry chefs/ husband and wife team, John and Hazel Zenker, who shared over 300 cookie recipes containing old-world charm and European heritage…

New arrivals in the shop that fell under the still-feels-like-summer category include this batch which I call September Skies…

…named for the matching colors found in the pretty sunsets that blushed over the city throughout September and October. They include floral serving pieces, ceramic planters, travel cookbooks and embroidered linens that bloom in thread. It is somewhat ironic how each piece in this collection speaks of all the pretty elements of this past summer but also really reflects the colors in the September/October sunsets…

Perhaps this was Lady Nature’s way of reminding me to be patient – that Autumn would come eventually because it always does one way or the other.

A new pal to the patio this week – butterfly dressed in Halloween colors but feasting on summer flowers!

Whatever weather you are experiencing in your neck of the woods this Autumn – hot, cold, crisp or humid, I hope you are having the happiest of Octobers. And that you are finding beauty in the season and celebrating it in style.

Fall in love with history and its many assorted faces in the shop here. Up next on the blog is a sweet treat recipe for Plum Cake circa 1963, from one of the most famous American cookbooks of all time. It’s a lovely Fall dessert that combines spices, baked fruit and a thin layer of cake that is light in constitution yet heavy in flavor. Stay tuned!