Creative Kitchenry


I’ve been working on my kitchen for some time now, on a string bean budget. The last time it was remodeled was 1953. I was 5 years old then, and north of the Mason Dixon Line. But I gotta tell you that whoever built the kitchen cabinets was anything but a carpenter. My only recourse was to turn them into open shelving. I also had to paint over wallpaper, which was a challenge of its own. And why would I do that, you wonder? Well beneath the wallpaper is linen, and beneath the linen are rough hewn boards that make up the walls of the kitchen. They’re made of Heart Pine, which doesn’t exist any longer. Sheet rock wasn’t invented then. Having limited resources caused me to be creative, and I came up with a few good ideas.

Every few weeks, Elaine and I drive to Pearl to the thrift stores. We both enjoy looking at other people’s junk and it’s an inexpensive way to entertain ourselves.There’s a business on Highway 80 we pass, called Hub Cap Heaven. It never fails to amuse me. The owner of the store has hundreds of hub caps hanging up, inside and out. I couldn’t resist taking his idea into my kitchen. 

The pots I cook with are Revere Ware. My mother and grandmother passed them down to me and I have never had much desire to buy new ones. Over the years, I stopped cleaning the copper bottoms. Now that I’ve hung them on the wall, I’ve started the long process of bringing them back to their original state. Thanks to the Internet, I know how to do that now. I'm not there yet, but soon!