Cavalcade of Food: Stove Swap

Kevin and Ralph along with their friend Todd replace a range in the kitchen corner of the Cavalcade private museum.  Kevin likes to do this every so often; his place is full of dozens of old stoves and other appliances.  Check out the wonderful sliders they use this time to eliminate the strain of lifting the ranges with a dolly - wow, how easy that is.

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Cavalcade of Food: Vintage Kitchen Tools

When I was a teenager, my mom had a kitchen with blue Formica counters and coppertone appliances, similar to the ones above.  The cabinets were knotty pine.  She put yellow gingham curtains in the kitchen window, which I realize now was just the right homey touch; she had a knack for that sort of thing.
See the entire 1957 American Kitchens catalog here.

Your Head Trucker is taking a break from political blogging to clear his head.  It's better for me to tend to our quiet life in this little bungalow instead of repeating all the outrage and uproar of the big world outside, which I can do nothing about.

In this video, Kevin shows and tells us about a wide range of kitchen gadgets, most of which I remember from my mother's and grandmother's kitchens.  The camera work is a bit wobbly, but it's all fascinating if you enjoy cooking.

 

Bonus: Here's an array of useful gadgets from the 1940 Sears catalog, the rest of which you can browse through yourself at Catalogs & Wishbooks, a wonderful website full of more than 300 old catalogs from various mail-order stores.

N.B. - for equivalent prices in today's money, multiply by about 20.  See Measuring Worth for more conversion factors.

Click to enlarge.

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Cavalcade of Food: Vintage Percolators

Appetizer: For us folks of a certain age, this happy little tune has always been stuck in our heads:

 

Main course:  Kevin shows off his huge collection of coffee pots in his private museum up in Michigan.  He also demonstrates how to use them.

I think I or someone in my extended family owned all or most of those at some point across the decades.  What a trip to see them all together.  There's actually nothing wrong with percolators except that the Mr. Coffee machine is slightly less messy to empty and refill.  And you see can at a glance how much coffee is left in the pot.

But I miss the perka-perka sound!

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