collecting - cast iron pans

I bought my first cast-iron skillet as a fledgling baker in high school, looking for a proper vessel for making pineapple upside-down cake. It was actually a completely uneducated buy; I was at the late, lamented Lakewood Antiques Show, saw a wonderful, smooth 9" cast-iron skillet for $18, and talked them down to $12 (it was a Sunday, the last day of the show, after all). I didn't know anything about seasoning the pan, and I bought it in part because, frankly, I didn't know that new cast-iron pans were still manufactured. It's turned out to be well worth its $12 price, and sits permanently on top of our stove, stacked with a number of other cast-iron pans that could double as anti-burglary implements, if it ever came to that.

small collections: amber glasses

My last small collection post - am working on some tutorials to come soon!

This (small) collection started simple enough: picking up one of these glasses at the thrift store, coming home, loving it and deciding, "I love this and I'd love to have all my glasses be amber glass," and making it happen. I suppose that's probably the story for most any collection. So here it is, my amber glass tumbler collection. With the exception of the vertical ribbed two on the right (from Anthropologie), each glass was bought independently. I'd like them to be all sorts of styles but keep coming across this circle ones. Again, I really just keep an eye out at thrift stores (or the sale section of Anthropologie) and am building it slowly.  The internet tells me that three of them (not the ribbed, and not the top middle glass) most likely are the El Dorado pattern. The internet also showed me they exist in avocado color which I'd really like to meet one day.

small collections: blue & indigo patterned plates

This is a very small collection, but it's new and growing! I'm on the hunt for patterned plates in blues and indigos. As usual I am mostly thrifting them - makes it a more valuable (though not monetarily) collection for me. It becomes a journey; when you're on the hunt and a collection comes together slowly and each find is exciting and memorable. I buy what I like and then Google it up when I get home to see if it's a real treasure - one I can take to Antiques Roadshow one day. So far, not that much luck, but I've got a lovely group regardless.

The bottom plate I did buy on its own, new - I loved it and it was $3. The top three plates were all bought for 50 cents to a dollar a piece and I have a few of each. The middle two plates are the best of the bunch and though they aren't highly valuable they are being sold online at vintage shops on Ebay and Etsy, their marks shown below.

So this is it for now, but the hunt continues!

small collections: royal albert tea cups

Hello tea cups. This is a small, small collection. I got my first one (the pink flower on the left) thinking it was actually sort of kitsch and wanting it for just that reason. But I fell in love with it and the idea of having dainty tea cups (because I'm becoming noticeably girlier every year). So I continue to keep an eye out for them at thrift stores and flea markets.

The Royal Albert company has been around for a while, of course. It is now owned by the Royal Doulton Company who actually still sell some of these tea cups. I believe most of these I have are from the 1970's (though the blue inside one is likely earlier, late thirties perhaps). Actually, one isn't even Royal Albert, but it fits in the collection, I feel. They are not incredibly valuable; a cup and saucer usually sell for about $15-$20 - I don't have any saucers. I just enjoy them and pick them up for a dollar or so. My favorite, with the blue inside, was fifty cents! Here are the insides of the cups and the marks on the bottom. There is a great resource for the marks here.

I love them, and I'm at peace with my girliness (16-year-old me would be shocked).

small collections: non-electric coffee makers

I've put together some posts on some of the small, probably only important to me, collections that I have. Many of which arose out of thin air. But that's not true for this one. I love coffee. I'll admit I'm a snob about it from time to time. But I'll argue that good coffee is good. Like good wine, good cheese or good craft beer. It's worth the money, it's worth walking the extra blocks to a place that won't serve you soap suds for $4. Silky, creamy, smooth micro foam lattes, cold-brewed iced coffee and just beautiful fresh drip coffee (at L'Aroma, Flat Black, Espresso Royale, Simon's Coffee Shop and 1369 in the Boston area).

I love all the ways there are to make coffee - without a terrible plastic countertop-disgracing electric machine. Being so many, it makes me wonder how we (hello, product designers) ended up ever moving past these devices. They already did the job, and I'd argue they're not any harder than an electric device. The only disadvantage I can see is that they may take a little longer, but I think that's negligible and, far more importantly, they look so much better. Who really celebrates the form and function of a Mr. Coffee?

After the jump I'll go through the kinds I have and the way they make coffee.

collecting: copper cookware

In keeping with my part-old-school-bistro, part-northern-Italian-home kitchen fixation, I've become obsessed with copper cookware. I'm the first to tell you that I'm no accomplished cook, and part of me feels like I have no business cooking with such great stuff.

Images at top:
Left: Copper pots hung on the Place St André des Arts, Paris VIe, France, by Julie Kertezs. Right: Julia Child's kitchen, via the Smithsonian.