Covid Journal, Day 238: A Fun Day with the Sisters, Virtually

57 with sun early, but rain showers by 9:00am. Looks to be an overcast, wet day. 

We did it. The fruitcakes are done, and five sisters gathered to do it together, online.

It wasn't as much fun as our usual gathering, I have to admit. But it worked to bring us together for our annual cake-making ritual.

I prepared in advance, making sure all my ingredients were on the table or close at hand. 

I zested and juiced the oranges and lemons beforehand too, as that process can take a while. I was ten minutes late to the gathering because I forgot our kitchen clock was 10 minutes slow, but I quickly caught up, and my cakes were the first in the oven. The advance prep really helped.

Almost mixed...notice my rigged-up place for the laptop. I have to leave it hooked to the modem because my satellite internet wifi signal is not really good enough for Zoom. So to get the computer in a good spot and high enough up, I used a little table I'd just painted and a cardboard box as a stand. It worked.

Preparing the pans is a lot of work. I planned to do that in advance too but ran out of time. Each pan must be greased, then lined with parchment paper, then the parchment paper greased. I didn't have any parchment paper this year, but used aluminum foil in its place, which worked just as well.

Into the oven of my old 1950 Tappan stove.

And done. Aren't they pretty?

Thirteen cakes later, I could sit down with my coffee and visit. We stayed online together until almost all the cakes were baked, a long, leisurely few hours. Most of my sisters and I get together weekly on Zoom, but this time we stayed longer and really got to cover all the bases. 

Our get-together was certainly different this year, but it worked. Some things were better, in a way. I didn't have to travel hours to do it, and I had all my familiar tools and my own kitchen to work in. I am pretty efficient in my kitchen, but cooking in someone else's...well, you know how that is. When it was over, I was right here at home, not facing more miles of travel. This might be the way I participate as we get older, since I live at least 5 hours from any of my siblings. It's nice to know I will still be able to do it if travel is no longer an option.

Time with my sisters. What a precious gift.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

For the Love of Tappan

My stove, being checked out at my son's house
before he brought it to me.

I was waiting on my routine checkup at the doctor's earlier this week when my phone rang.

"Hello," said a male voice on the other end. "Is this Granny Sue?"

"Yes it is."

"My name is Mike, and I'm in Texas. A friend showed me your post about your Tappan Deluxe stove on a Tappan website. I have one and had some questions. I hope you have a minute to talk."

"Sure," I said. "Do you have a Tappan?"

My Tappan, at home in my kitchen

"I do," he said. "It's a 1951 Deluxe model. My grandmother bought it the year I was born. I've moved it all over the country with me. Right now it's in a storage unit. I am wondering, do these stoves have any value? I'm moving soon to Oregon, and wondering if it will be worth the cost to ship the stove there. I got it from my grandma in Buffalo, New York. Then I moved to West Virginia for a few years, then back to Buffalo, a few places in between and now I'm in Austin. This stove is like an albatross that I drag behind me everywhere I go, but I hate to part with it. It's so cool, looks like a space ship or something when it's all lit up. And it was my grandmother's, you know?"

What a story. I had to know more, so we talked about our stoves for a few more minutes, discussing the potential value of the stove versus the cost of moving it one more time. "I am still so in love with mine, and cannot imagine selling it, I told Mike."

Then I asked about Mike's time in West Virginia. He named a place not far from where I live, and that he'd moved there in the mid-70's.

"We might have known some of the same people, then," I said. West Virginia is, after all, like a small town--talk to someone long enough and you'll find someone you know in common, and sometimes even a common relative.

Mike rattled off some names, all familiar to me from those days 40-some years ago when many of us moved to these mountains to escape the world. Homesteaders, hippies, back-to-the-landers, call us what you will, we were all in flight from a world we thought had gone mad. (My husband and I were a little different from most of the newcomers, because he had a job and we had four children. We didn't do drugs, drink, or have radical political views--we just wanted land and a good place to raise our sons. a lot of the newcomers were like us, just looking for a place to call home.)

Suddenly I realized that I knew this guy! I asked him his name, and when he told me, I said, "I knew you back then!" I named where he had lived, and as we talked he slowly remembered who I was too.

The nurse came out and called my name. "I've gotta go, Mike. It was wonderful to connect with you again."

"Yeah!" He said. "If you ever come to Oregon, call me. You've got my number now."

That just might happen. We'll be in Oregon this summer, just three hours from where Mike will be living.

Such a small world, really, isn't it?

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Kitchen Stuff

A couple weeks back my kitchen faucet began to leak around the place where it swivels. Not a big deal, really, or so I thought. Just replace the washer, right? Only this was a washerless faucet. It looked like a new faucet was in the offing.


Then Larry remembered that when our oldest son remodeled his kitchen, he took out his white enamel sink and faucet to install the new one that would match all the brushed steel they were adding with new appliances. (You ought to see that kitchen--they had a designer to plan it. It's beautiful.) Where was that white sink? Why, up in our cellar top. As it has been for lo these past, ummm, 9 years? Hard to believe it's been that long! We brought it home with us because we figured we'd need a new sink sometime, and here was a perfectly good one...the junker's mind is a dangerous place.

So while I was away last week, Larry put in the new sink. Now we only needed a faucet, but he figured he might as well change the whole thing. The sink is pretty cool--it's VERY deep and wonder of wonders, the sprayer works! It doesn't take much to get me excited, does it? My sprayer has never worked since we put it in back in 1997. Or maybe it was further back than that. The memory gets hazy.

But guess what? The "new" faucet leaks in the same place! This one, however, has a washer so it should be an easy fix.

The other change is even smaller. You know I love my Tappan Deluxe stove, the one that's as old as I am. One of the things I love is the lights on the back. They make such a pretty glow in the kitchen. One burned out a while ago so I found a replacement and after much finagling in a very tight spot, I got it in. But it didn't work. Disappointment ensued. I figured we needed to have a look at the wiring or maybe replace the light socket. But then I turned on the oven, et voila! A new light, one I didn't know was there, came on!

What I had done was replace a different burned out bulb. Now the other two lights are both out, but I've got this cool OVEN ON light. As soon as I can remember them when I'm in town I'll buy more replacement bulbs and do some more finagling to see if I can replace them. This time, though, I'll unplug the stove because last time I stuck my finger in some place I apparently should not have and got a little tingle. Larry thought it was right funny. I did not.

Speaking of my stove, this is how a 25-pound turkey fits in the oven:

It's a close fit, but the turkey cooked beautifully. That's the one I canned today. Did you know a 25-pound bird will fit into 6 quart jars? When all the bones and skin and etc are gone, the meat can be packed into a pretty small amount of space. I like having canned meat in the cellar for fast meals or unexpected company. I'm canning venison this evening.

Enough rambling for this evening!

Around Home: Rain, Pets, Cooking

Life has been pretty busy in a simple way for most of the past week. Here's a few pics of what's going on.

1. Rain--and rain and rain and rain. We've had a few sunny spots but basically, it's rained. The early garden is doing all right, although the cabbages and broccoli almost drowned; I am not sure they're going to make it.

2. Walks--Larry usually takes a daily walk, accompanied by various of our pets. Yesterday he had a lot of company on his way up the driveway. You can see the irises we transplanted a few weeks ago, coming into bloom:

3. Roses: The Knockout roses Larry planted for me last Mother's Day are coming into their own this year:

Don't look at the grass! I assure you it was neatly mowed and trimmed on Friday, but it's growing so fast and the continuous rain isn't helping. There's no way to mow when the mower gets stuck in the lawn. And it has.

4. Cooking: I have been cooking! It is so pleasant to have time to plan meals and make good use of the food we have on hand. Yesterday's cooking was blackberry pie with berries from the freezer:

It tasted ...like summer:

Even more than just cooking, I love cooking on my Tappan Deluxe and using vintage kitchen tools. Recently at the Salvation Army Store I discovered a big yellow bowl like my mother used to have. I have always wanted one because of my many good memories associated with cooking in the kitchen with Mom and using her bowl. This one was priced right ($4) and I took it and the cherry red smaller bowl ($2) home with me.








5. Herb Garden and Patio: I finally got the patio cleaned up, pressure-washing it in the  rain but what the heck, I was going to get wet anyway. It looks a lot better for the cleaning; of course, we found places that Larry needs to repair in the process. No good deed goes unpunished!

The herb garden is still really muddy. I hoed out some weeds and mudded in a few plants after this photo was taken because they were starting to look puny in their pots. Whenever the ground dries and the weather warms up a bit, I'll plant my seeds. Today it's 49 degrees...and raining.

Which brings us back full circle to number 1, doesn't it--rain. Are you getting drenched in your areas like we are?

Remember the Tappan?

It's finally in! After weeks of work getting the gas line run for a half mile down the hill, installing odd things I've never heard of like drip tanks and all sorts of fittings, Larry finally has the gas in to the house and running. Best of all, he got my new old stove hooked up and operating!

Isn't it beautiful? This is a 1950 or 51 model Tappan Deluxe range (hmm, same model year as me!) and it has so many bells and whistles that we're still finding them. Like a timer that actually works, controls that light up with a beautiful red when they're turned on, even a place to put a room freshener. Who even knew they had room fresheners in the 50's?

When I first moved to this farm, I had a Tappan like this only not nearly so fancy. I loved that stove but it was propane and several things broke on it and I gave it up. I was sorry later because I could have found parts and had it fixed. Chalk that up to dumb youth. So when we found out we'd get free gas from our gas well, I knew what I wanted: another Tappan. Our son Aaron found this one on a porch near where he lives with a sign on it that said "$50.00." My good son bought it and gave it to me for Mother's Day. It's been sitting in a corner of my kitchen waiting to be hooked up.

I still have a lot of cleaning to do to get it back in shape. There's some grime, a little rust but overall I do not think this stove was used very much at all. The oven is spotless and so are the burners. (They're chrome!). It's a lot bigger than most ranges so Larry had some furniture moving to so to get it in.

This was inside one of the (chrome) drawers:

Yes, the original owner's manual in its original envelope. It has recipes for all kinds of things, and even a section on how to "can on your Tappan." A stove I can can on! I have missed that so badly with the electric ranges--I've been using a turkey fryer burner out on the porch because heavy canners will ruin most newer stoves. Now I can can in the house if I want to--although I think we're going to hook up the little utility stove Aaron got with the Tappan--it's rough but sturdy, and perfect for canning.

What an exciting evening. I think I'll go read my new owner's manual now.

Gas at Last

Well, almost. After almost 3 years of procrastinating, Larry is running the gas line. It's no small job--a half mile of pipe that has to run over some steep terrain. He's almost done with this part, and now we need to get our neighbor here to figure out how to install a furnace/AC unit and how and where to run the gas lines for the hot water and cookstove. Once he's done though, we'll have FREE gas from our gas well.

I can't wait. We are thinking about one of those tankless water heaters because of space considerations and also because they just make sense. If you have one, I'd like to hear about your experiences. We're also going to have taps for the garage and the greenhouse, and maybe one for the chicken house too--might as well keep those girls warm! The best part of all this, really, is that I don't have to worry about Larry cutting firewood when he's 80. We'll always need a little wood for the fireplace, of course, but the big work of cutting a shed-full of wood every year will be over.

The second best part is getting my Tappan stove hooked up. I've been patiently waiting all summer, and now I am hoping that I will have it by Thanksgiving. I better, because my electric range is down to one burner since Larry "fixed" it last month. It will not be fun to cook Thanksgiving dinner like that! So keep your fingers crossed that all goes well and the free gas will be flowing smoothly by the end of October. That's my goal, anyway.

Keep your fingers crossed. I hope there isn't a big boom when this is all done...

Tappan Deluxe

photo from flickr.com

Years ago, when we first moved to West Virginia, I bought a used gas stove for my kitchen. The salesman at the used appliance store said, "This is an old stove, but I guarantee you'll like it better than these new ones. I bought the stove he recommended, a large, curvy white Tappan from the early 1950's.

He was right. I loved that stove. I used it hard for the next 8 years and slowly, things began to break--one burner would not work, the oven hinge broke, things like that. I decided I needed something newer and bought an avocado green stove that was smaller. I thought I'd made a good decision. Soon we went to an electric range because LP gas became so expensive. As the years past, I remembered my Tappan and realized it had really been a very good stove. I should have fixed it, I thought. Ah well, it was gone and that was that.

When we learned that we would have free gas, I thought about my Tappan. Could I find another stove like that? I started looking a few months ago, and found them all right--for prices ranging from $250 up to $3000! Apparently I was not the only person who understood the value of these heavy, well-made stoves.

I mentioned my quest to my son Aaron one day and he said, "You know, I've seen a stove like that up near my house. It's out under someone's gazebo with a for sale sign on it."

A week later, Aaron's wife Jaime called. "Okay, I'm standing in front of this stove. It has chrome burners, chrome trim and it's kinda rounded looking."

"That's it!" I said. "Will you see how much they want for it?"

"Says right on the sign, $50."

"Buy it! We'll figure how to get it here later."

Jaime bought the stove for me, and Aaron picked it up--along with another 3-burner gas stove that is really an odd little thing, but for $25 he figured we might want it for a canning stove.

Aaron delivered my stove today, and I am so happy! The gas isn't hooked up yet but the stove is ready when we get it done. Best part? These two stoves turned out to be my Mother's Day gift from Aaron. What a guy.

This one is a 1950 Tappan Deluxe. It looks like it has been used very little because it's so clean. The original owner's manual is still in one of the chrome drawers.

It has three chrome drawers on one side, one labeled "Crisper." The burner covers, with a pretty design on the reverse side so they can be used as trays, are stored on the side doors, ready for use.

One the other side is storage for baking pans, a slideout drawer for utensils, and towel racks for drying kitchen towels. The broiler pan is chrome and looks unused. There are slide-out trays for cleaning under the burners, and lovely scrolled cast iron burner grids. The burners and burner pans are chrome, as is the oven door and the bottom kickplate. On top is a clock, a scrolling list of cooking times for many foods, and a light that still works. Best part? When the light is turned on, the red glass behind the burner controls lights up!

Looking online, I found a blog called TappanTalk that is devoted to discussing these stoves; various owners post photos of their stoves, along with questions and restoration projects. There are, I have found, many devotees of this stove, and I am now among their numbers.

I am in love again with a Tappan Deluxe. I've got a little cleaning to do, but I can't wait to get it hooked up and start cooking.

The last red light eventually came on, Aaron said. Isn't she a beauty?

Welcome home, Tappan!