A Few Kitchen Treasures

This sugar bowl belonged to my paternal grandparents. I spent quite a bit of time at their house on weekends and during the summer until Grandma died when I was 10. This sugar bowl never had sugar in it. Instead it held marmalade which was always on the breakfast table. It is the only piece of Syracuse China that I own. I don't remember grandma having any other matching pieces, although she may have.


At their house there were always arguments over whether you should put the sugar on the cereal before or after the milk. I can’t remember which was correct, but whichever way grandpa said was the way you best do it! As kids we were always fascinated by their “milk door.” It was a pair of small doors. The milk man would open the outside one and put the milk and butter inside and my grandparents could retrieve them through the inside one. Being in the city they had huckster’s trucks come up the street on a regular schedule. Fruits, vegetables and bread brought right to your front porch.

This is my little pie bird / vent collection. My mother always bakes a little black bird into her pies. When we were really little we'd sing Sing a Song of Sixpence everytime she made a pie. None of these were hers, she's still using the ones she has!

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?
The king was in his counting house counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!

In the next picture are three egg cups that also were Grandma's. Does anyone eat soft boiled eggs anymore? Just visible in the back is the sugar / creamer set that my parents had. The pitcher in the back has no story attached to it other than I need to do some polishing! The wooden thing is a butter mold. It has never actually been used but it is very similar to the ones we used on the farm.

After my parents divorced my Dad remarried and ended up on a small farm in Clayton, NC. Quite something for a city boy! I spent some summers there and my freshman year of high school. I learned where food really came from there. We had a mean guernsey that produced the sweetest milk I've ever had. One of the many things I learned to do there was to churn butter. Some other time I'll write more about my times on the farm. After my time there it's amazing that I'm trying to garden at all.