Terrace, In Progress

We've been undertaking a huge project around here lately: turning our inhospitable dirt yard & non-functioning driveway into a backyard space that will not only grow tasty food, but also be home to many fabulous garden parties and ultimate relaxation. Up there, through the window, that's the Before.

While the former goal, as you know, is well on its way, we have yet to hang out back there. I've only just begun to find some things that will spruce up the place and turn it from dingy driveway into a place for sitting. And already, I sense a bold color palette emerging.





We're still configuring all the disparate elements and in the end we hope to have an outdoor dining setup. But I dare say, the thing is well on its way. Assembling patio-type furnishings that are neither plastic nor expensive is tricky business it turns out, but our luck is finally changing. We're now the proud owners of 2 loungers, 2 benches, 2 chairs (plastic, but forgivably) and a ceramic Swan, all of whom are becoming acquainted. With a little finesse and some rigged lighting, I think they'll get along swimmingly.

I can almost taste the mojitos we'll be sipping out on the Terrace.

Solid Saturday

In heaven, all Saturdays would start with a half dozen Golden Gate donuts eaten in the car en route to five estate sales, culminating with a fancy Floral brunch in the early afternoon. In fact, if every day in heaven went something along these lines, I wouldn't much object. Especially if I had such stellar company as Roxanne, Marianne and Jen for each go around. Groundhog Day, I say, bring it on.

A sampling of today's loot, in order of acquisition:

Square Ceramic Floral Dish with Lid + 2 smaller dishlets

Shell shaped vinyl placemats in avocado, the kind you can wipe down with a damp cloth and they're good as new. Perfect for those of us who are laundry-deficient.

Long coveted first volume of the Julia Child staple in any cookbook collection. I spotted this one despite the key information faded entirely from its spine.

Linen placemats with pockets for their contrasting napkins. I may need a larger table in the near future, so that I can mingle both sets simultaneously. Goodness, do I love to set a tidy table.

The other purchases are more the outdoorsy type if you catch my drift. They'll make an appearance in the next post, so stay tuned.

Treasures

I hit 5 estate sales and a thrift town on Saturday with Marianne and Chad. Last weekend's scores were almost unanimously kitchen oriented, are you shocked? These were the brightest stars by far:

A good old can that still smells faintly of laurel leaves. Very orientalist, as you can see faintly from the illustrations on the side panels.

And this little book, published 1960 by Harcourt Brace & World. The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken, drawings by Hilary Knight. Though written with sly sincerity, this book is chuckle-worthy from cover to cover and features such classics as "Bisque Quick", a bulked up version of the Campbell's original and "Homebody Beans" which boasts a handwritten notation deeming it fabulous! An excerpt for your dessert:

A parenthetical note here. It is understood that when you hate to cook, you buy already-prepared foods as often as you can. You buy frozen things and ready-mix things, as well as pizza from the pizza man and chicken pies from the chicken pie lady.

But let us amend that statement. Let us say, instead, that you buy these things as often as you dare, for right here you usually run into a problem with the basic male. The average man doesn't care much for the frozen-food department, nor for the pizza man, nor for the chicken-pie lady. He wants to see you knead that bread and tote that bale, before you go down cellar to make the soap. This is known as Woman's Burden.

But sometimes you can get around it. Say, for instance, that you are serving some good dinner rolls that you bought frozen and then merely put into the oven for a few minutes, as the directions said to. At dinner, you taste them critically. Then you say, "Darn it, I simply can't make decent rolls, and that's all there is to it!"

If you are lucky, and have been able to keep him out of the kitchen while you were removing the wrapping, he will probably say, "What's the matter with you? These taste swell."

Then you say, in a finicky sort of female voice, "I don't know--they just don't seem as light as they ought to, or something..." And the more stoutly he affirms that they're okay, the tighter the box you've got him in. Admittedly, this is underhanded, but, then, marriage is sometimes a rough game.

That Peg, sure knows how to tell it.

Extra Bakeware

In a house with only two mouths to feed, there comes a time when you really have no foreseeable use for another cake pan. It is a dark day, indeed.

So when I came upon a bundle of old Bakerex and Ovenex pans a few months ago, I knew I couldn't really use them in my own kitchen but also lacked the willpower to leave them be. They have the most incredible pattern embossed in the metal, I think to aid in even baking and in removing finished cakes. I conidered selling them, but it turns out they're neither rare nor dime a dozen and not worth much in any case. Since I found mine for fifty cents apiece, I decided to keep them and figure something out.

Someone on etsy, I can't remember who, was selling a piece of bakerex and suggested framing something in it. Interesting, no? Cake pans doubling as frames? This daughter of framers had never thought of such a thing, but decided to give it a go.

I selected some better than average photos I recently got developed to float inside the four round pans. Using Elmer's Craft Bond Multipurpose Spray Adhesive (Acid Free) to attach the photos to the pans and contact cement to attach sawtooth hangers to the center backside of each, the project couldn't have been easier. By now of course you know, it worked like a charm.



In this bundle of bakerex & ovenex, I also got some bread pans, which are similarly embossed in the repeating crown pattern but also look like origami, becuase the metal is folded on itself to produce corners.
These are currently storing bits and bobs in our bathroom with a too-small medicine cabinet.

How-To-Do-It Encyclopedia

I picked this set up from an estate sale this weekend. It's only A-D of the set (which apparently includes almost 20 books) by Mechanix of how to do almost anything. The illustrations are amazing, monochromatic usually and a mixture of drawings and diagrams, with very dated photographs interspersed. This edition is from 1961.

Treasure Trove

Miriam took me to the Oakland Museum's annual White Elephant Sale last Friday, open only to friends of the Museum for the first month. After that it opens to the public. We only made it through the sewing section before they closed. As you can see, it was pretty epic:














What's crazier is that they had several old ladies testing them all out and the condition of each was written and certified on a tag. If only I were in the market...

Typography Lessons

After watching recently Helvetica my eyes have been newly peeled for typographical elements. John came home from our favorite local junk store with this typeface brochure and we've both been rather taken with it.




The example phrases, strung together, form the most unbelievable poems. Combined with their mid-century typefaces, they're downright pleasing.

The Shafter House

Shafter is in fact, only a street here in Oakland. But the little hand tooled sign posted over the door of a house holding an estate sale yesterday seemed to still chuckle at the play on words; I like it when a person's sense of humor can linger from beyond the grave. As the advertisement read, "Family home of an architect, shopper and foodie," and the house was only 20 blocks or so from our place, it seemed like it could be a good one. And for me, an eerie foreshadowing of what my own house might look like someday if all my current plans do hatch.

It was a great little house, full indeed of tons of kitchenwares. Sadly the accompanying cookbook collection was mysteriously absent and the architecturally relevant items were fairly out of my budget. I came away with two rather lovely pieces all the same. One, a Corningware bake & broil tray like the one pictured here which was buried under a stack of unremarkable serving platters. The other this precious tart pan, ceramic and unmarked but along the lines of what I've begun to consider the Retro NoCal chic.



They are all a speckled ceramic with brightly painted or printed flowers. My kitchen aesthetic has already shifted since moving; there's a lot more Earthenware in my cupboards than there used to be. I'm just afraid if I live here too long I'll end up with quite the collection of these, as they do beckon! We're adorable they say. I'm just not my other east coast self would agree.

If all else fails, I'll just collect flatware.

While I was home in Neenah, WI over the holiday, I hit up one of the good thrift stores looking for small, lightweight things that I might convince myself I could reasonably take back to Oakland with me. Flatware seemed perfectly justifiable; we're always running out of forks and spoons. Especially when I found so many wonderful pieces, it was nearly impossible to resist. And at 20 cents a piece, sometimes less, they fell well within my very limited unemployed spending limit. I used to buy all the same ones, but then found it too painful to ignore the lone knife or fork that happened to be perfect except for its mismatching. So now I have a motley bundle of silverware in our drawer and they seem pretty happy.

These are the newest bundles of joy. I happened to find an odd group of seven pieces of one pattern packaged together; a handsome set of simple, mod elegance.