I have been going through my kitchen, cleaning dishes, donating dishes I don’t need or want slowly. Part of my kitchen is in my living room. I have a rather large wood stove that provides heat, tea kettle water, and a wonderful cook stove in the winter months. This past week, most of the daytime temperatures were in the upper 70s. That is entirely too hot to run a wood stove. Now that it has dropped into the 20s, I have had it running all day and have had free hot tea water.
I have done several loads of dishes. I estimate that at least half of my kitchen needs to be downsized. Whether that be by donation or selling the items, I don’t know. I used to cook for an army of hungry children. It wasn’t unusual for me to have my six to feed and the neighbors’ three and one or two friends of my children over. All totaled, I often had 10 to 15 youngins over to eat. Just a couple of years ago, I was cooking for 25 to 30 people every week for the reading program. Now it’s just me, my son, and sometimes Paul.
What do I need three tea kettles for? I have two tea kettles for the wood stove, one fancy and one practical. I have an electric kettle because ain’t nobody has time for that wood stove come summer. I have a toaster oven and the old toaster oven that Ian refuses to let go of. I believe he has an emotional attachment to the thing. I have two tiny crockpots and two large crockpots. Then I have my fermentation crock. I have my enormous All-American Canner and canning supplies everywhere.
Let’s not even talk about baking supplies. I told you I love to bake, right? Well, at one time, I would bake enough for a week in one night for a family of twelve. That’s at least three loaves of bread, sixty muffins, and one or two sheets of cookies. All done in one day, so I didn’t have to bake for another week. At the height of my baking, I made seven loaves of bread, sixty muffins, one dessert pie or dessert treat like apple turnovers, a pan of popovers, a pan of biscuits, two sheets of cookies, and at least two loaves of nummy ugly bread per week. It took the entire day and a dedicated team of children to wash, dry, and put up dishes. Occasionally, an elder daughter had to take over one or two recipes and bake them as I was baking too.
Those days were filled with crockpot soups like lentil soup, split pea soup, chili, white chili, vegetable soup, or the like. I didn’t usually have time to cook a real meal because of all the baking. Unless I started early in the morning, there wasn’t time, and when I did start early, I didn’t have the money for a roast, or ham, or chicken to just toss in with some veggies.
I did give away half my muffin tins. I had enough tins to make almost 72 muffins without washing a pan to refill. I gave away half my cookie sheets. I still have too many muffin tins. I don’t make muffins anymore. I make egg bites. Twelve egg bites, two small muffin tins, are enough to take care of Ian and me for almost a week. If I made twenty-four, we would have an abundance. Nothing prepares you for that moment where a lifetime of skill and equipment are no longer of any use to anyone.
I won’t be giving it all away, though. My son, in his infinite wisdom, suggested I take this equipment and lifetime of skill and put it to use at the Farmers’ Market. I am mulling that over. Making a small business, a market stand, with some sort of baked goods would be a good use of my talents. I’m not certain I would want to sweat it out over a woodstove in the house in summer. If I did that, I would have to use the solar oven or build an outdoor wood oven. I have been wanting to make an outdoor grill, oven, and BBQ pit. It’s a lot of work with skills I have not mastered…stone masonry. It would be a fun project for Ian and me, though.
For now, I aggressively clean and downsize for anything I don’t think I can use or have far too many duplicates.