Tag: second-hand

Weekend Recap

Manning my first stall at Russell Flea was a lot of fun, and it was definitely a learning experience! I learned that the lights that I bought (from Dollarama, since a lot of people have asked) don’t fit through the bottom slats of all of the display crates, so I’ll have to widen a spot for them. I learned that it takes a really long time to pack and unpack a table’s worth of glass and stoneware when you have to unwrap and wrap every single item to prevent damage in transit. I learned that paper is great for wrapping delicate items if you only need to do so once or twice, but it disintegrates really fast (you’re better off using old fabric — blankets and towels are best — if you’re going to do it repeatedly). I learned that an apron with a lot of change in the pockets which ties around your neck can make your neck really sore if you wear it all day. I learned that people have really fond memories of old Tupperware and Pyrex.

Oh yeah, and I learned that I should be careful not to cram all of my tablecloths as tightly as possible into one bag, so that they effectively have the wrinkles pressed into them by the time I arrive at the venue. Whoops.

But I did have a good time. I got to chat with some friends who stopped by, and meet the vendors around me with a great deal more experience than I. I may even have met someone who can teach me how to spin if I ever manage to get my spinning wheel repaired.

One of the nice things about working for myself is that I can knit and mind a stall at the same time, once it’s all set up. That’s not something you’re generally allowed to do in a traditional retail setup. I find that it’s a great conversation starter. I managed to get about a third of a sock done that day.

Since I was away all day working, my husband did have to make dinner which was, at the request of the kiddos, pancakes! Hubby had never actually made pancakes before, although I was sure that that was a basic thing that everyone around here knows how to make if they cook at all. My husband is an unenthusiastic cook at best, but he has learned the necessary skills. His pancakes turned out really lovely! Fluffy and delicious, and smothered with fruit and maple syrup.

Speaking of syrup, apparently the sap has been running since that weird warm spell back in February, so the local tree farms should be getting a great harvest this year. Note to self: I need to pick up some more local maple syrup when I’m at Russell Flea again two weeks from now. I’m pretty sure it’s McCannell Craftwork was the farm that brought the syrup on Saturday, and I hope they’ll be back again.

My First Market!

Tomorrow will be my first ever flea market as a vendor, and I am so excited! It doesn’t matter that I’ve worked retail off and on since I was old enough to get a job, or that I’ve worked in a second-hand shop, or that I’ve put together what seems like dozens of successful garage sales. This is the first time I’ve run what is essentially my own little shop. I’m both excited and nervous, as if I’m prepping for a really important job interview. I really, really hope I don’t mess it up!

I’ve set up a trial run of my booth in my half-finished basement so that I can be sure that I have everything together that I’ll need. At the same time, I have to make sure I don’t take more than I need (although I’ll need a bit of overstock to replenish the table as the day goes on), since I have to cram everything in my little hatchback. It’s really a balancing act.

My first market is at Russell Flea, which runs this Saturday, March 24th from 9:00am to 3:00pm at Russell High School (982 N Russell Rd, Russell, ON). I’ll be in the atrium this week, straight down the hall from the main entrance, on the right (in an classy spot directly across from the bathrooms).

Basically, I’ll be taking my passion for found, free, and flea, and turning it on its head to work behind the counter. I’ll even be bringing a few upcycled creations of my own to put on the floor. (No pics of those yet, since they’re small furniture and I don’t have an appropriately large area to photograph them at home free at the moment.) So please wish me luck!

Vintage Tupperware

As I write this I am fighting symptoms and hoping to heck that I’m not coming down with whatever the kids had, so I thought I’d just make a quick post about my recent awesome thrifting find. I managed to come into a whole lot of vintage Tupperware:

Okay, some of it is more modern than vintage, and the Pick A Deli (the olive green tall, rectangular container) is missing the lifter/strainer bit, but it was a really awesome find. I was especially happy with the colourful 1970’s stacking spice containers on the left, although the parts of the 1980’s picnic set with the yellow plates with and the stackable container with the orange sunburst were a close second. I’ve only started collecting this stuff recently, and I didn’t realize until I started how much a part of my childhood these containers were.

Cleaning Up a Tiny Cast Iron Pan

Not too long after I got the cast iron Nomar braiser, I found over the course of my thrifting a lovely little cast iron enameled pan. It’s only about 6.5″ (16.5cm) across, so I guess it’s individual-sized for frying. But a very popular baking trend at the moment is to bake and serve cakes and breads in cast iron pans, and this little pan would make a lovely serving for two for that kind of dish.

The inside doesn’t look half bad! There’s only a few scratches on the shiny enamel. And a bit of a squint at the handle reveals that it’s actually a Le Creuset, which means top-of-the-line workmanship. They don’t currently sell a pan this small, but one that’s about twice the size is $210.00, which does give an idea of how much it would have cost when new.

The bottom of the pan, however, needed some TLC. Luckily it’s not as bad as last time.

I used the baking-powder-and-lemon-juice paste technique again, and it worked a treat. It didn’t make too much of a difference to the inside…

But now the outside looks lovely too! There are a few scratches that can’t be removed, but all of the gunk is gone. And this time, it only took one application of the paste and a good scrub, instead of a couple days of soaking and scrubbing. Works for me!

Cleaning Enameled Cast Iron

I picked up a box of old, used kitchenware a while back, and buried down deep at the bottom was what looked like an enameled cast iron casserole dish. It was in pretty rough shape.

The inside wasn’t too badly off; there seemed to be some staining, but no chips or pits in the coating. The outside, however, was a mess:

My best guess is that the previous owner(s) had regularly cleaned the inside where food would actually touch, but were lackadaisical at best about cleaning the exterior. There was a brand name on the bottom, but it was so covered in gunk that I couldn’t quite make it out. But it seemed like a solid piece, so I decided to give cleaning it up a shot.

(I was also going to write about two vintage Pyrex dishes from the same box that had cleaned up really nicely with a lot of elbow grease, but yesterday I managed to bump into them and send them crashing to the floor. They hit each other on the way down and shattered into teeny tiny little pieces. They were only Cornflower Blue dishes, probably about 30 to 40 years old and not terribly rare, but after all that work I was — and still am — rather pissed off that I made such a stupid mistake. Anyway, that’s why there are Pyrex casseroles in that photo as well.)

One of the suggestions that I found online was to coat the piece in a paste of baking soda and lemon or lime juice, so I tried that first. If nothing else, it smelled nicer than any other cleaner I tried!

It actually made a pretty good dent in polishing up the interior.

However, it didn’t have the penetrating power to get a the worst of the exterior’s years of caked-on grease. I’m going to keep this technique in my arsenal for future reference, though, since it did do wonders for the areas where the damage wasn’t so bad, like on the outside of the lid.

The next tip I tried was to soak the pot overnight in a solution of two parts water to one part vinegar. This made so little difference that I didn’t even bother taking a picture. It was just a waste of time.

My friend suggested that I fill the sink with water and add two dishwasher pods, which did end up being the technique I was looking for. Even so, I had to soak for 12 hours, give it a scrub, change the water, and then return it to soak. This technique took three days, but just look how it turned out!

While it was soaking, I was finally able to get a good look at the logo. It’s a Nomar braiser, and my research dates it from the late 1960’s to early 1970’s:

At some point Nomar was bought out by Staub, which is a competitor of Le Creuset. Apparently, back when they went by the Nomar name, the brand was an even stronger competitor. And Le Creuset is the be-all and end-all of cast iron ware these days!

My roaster holds about 2.5L, which puts it between Le Creuset’s 1.5L and 3.5L braisers… Which retail for $200 and $340 CAD, respectively. So my piece old Nomar was definitely worth the work I put into it!

And I have to say, it’s awfully pretty.

Cleaning Glass

Because I am passionate about thrifting, a lot of second-hand items come my way from friends and family, garage sales, thrift shops, charity stores, estate sales and moving sales. I’d like to say that everything that I get comes in tip-top shape, but unfortunately that’s not the case. A certain amount of wear-and-tear is expected, especially when it comes to vintage or antique pieces that have seen everyday use. That doesn’t bother me at all. What I will not condone the level of filth of some of these items.

That isn’t to say that I won’t work with something that is scuzzy. On the contrary — but I won’t keep an item that I can’t get clean. Luckily, a lot of kitchen items are metal, glass, or plastic, which can all be recycled in this area if I can’t bring them up to an acceptable level. But I much prefer to put some elbow grease into it to get things spic and span again if I can. Reuse before recycling, if possible, as it were. If you factor in the time it takes me to clean pieces like this, it’s probably not cost-effective, but to me it’s still worth it to keep something perfectly serviceable out of a landfill or recycling center. Those teachers who repeated, “Reduce, reuse, recycle!” to me as a child should be happy that something stuck.


Before and after cleaning of some glass cookware that I came by recently.

Clear glass, especially Pyrex and Anchor ware, are some of my favourites when it comes to bringing things back up to snuff. The heavy, clear glass is impermeable, so even long-standing coatings of dirt and grease don’t sink under the surface. This glassware is dishwasher-safe, so often I can get the machine to do a lot of the work for me. I mean, there are all kinds of tricks online to help remove different kinds of gunge, but in my experience a lot of soap, hot water, soaking, and scrubbing usually does the trick. I’ve discovered that one of the best things to use to scrape off stubborn, caked-on food is bamboo skewers. You can put a fair amount of pressure behind the wood, but it’s still fragile enough that it will break before scratching or etching the glass.

There’s just something terribly satisfying about seeing what was once a shamefully dirty dish become something you wouldn’t hesitate to use to serve your grandmother.

Own Two Hands: The Flea Market Stall

I’ve been giving it a lot of deliberation, and I have decided that it’s time to branch out with my passions. Much as I enjoy cooking, I don’t think I’m skilled enough to do it as a business. However, possibly as an offshoot of my enjoyment of food, I love thrifting for vintage and antique kitchenware and houseware. But I have been doing it for so long that I don’t really need anything anymore! So I’m opening a flea market stall where I can sell some of my fantastic finds.

I’ve started with the Russell Flea market, which is a new market that runs some Saturdays from 9:00am to 3:00pm at Russell High School (982 North Russell Road, Russell, ON). Here’s my schedule so far:

Own Two Hands at Russell Flea
Saturday, March 24th, 2018, 9:00am to 3:00pm
Saturday, April 7th, 2018, 9:00am to 3:00pm
Saturday, May 19th, 2018, 9:00am to 3:00pm
Saturday, June 2nd, 2018, 9:00am to 3:00pm
Saturday, June 16th, 2018, 9:00am to 3:00pm
Saturday, June 30th, 2018, 9:00am to 3:00pm


Some of the vintage Tupperware that will be appearing in my stall.

I’m also planning on participating in other markets, like hopefully 613flea, and perhaps Stittsville’s Carp Road Flea Market, and McHaffie’s Flea Market. I will keep an updated list of where I’ll be on my About page. For now, though, I’m taking things slowly as I am on the steep end of the learning curve.

So what does this mean in terms of my blog? Not much, to be completely honest. I will still write about cooking, and food, and recipes, and thrifting, and family. I’m basically expanding what I do out of the blogosphere and into the material world.

I look forward to seeing you at the market!

But What Is It? The Sequel

Over this past summer I found a tool at the cottage my parents were renting and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was. After posting But What Is It? and But What Is It? Part 2, the general consensus was that it was some kind of homemade chopping tool, probably to aid someone who had limited hand strength.

Today I have a new quandary. I picked up a piece of Tupperware when I bought a big box of second-hand plastic containers, and I have no idea what it is. Here are some photos for your reference:

As you can see, it’s actual Tupperware brand (around here we often call any plastic container “Tupperware”, no matter the brand, so I had to specify). However, it doesn’t have a mold number, so it can’t easily be looked up online. Because of this, I suspect that it may be part of a larger item. Because of the colour/texture, I suspect that it’s of relatively recent manufacture, not vintage. It’s solid plastic, and one end tapers sharply, scraper-like. It measures 19.8cm (7 3/4″) at its widest point and is about 13cm (5″) tall at the highest point at the center of the arch.

I’ve asked my friend who is into collecting Tupperware in a big way, and she has no idea. My Googling has yielded nothing. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

EDITED TO ADD:

Karen and Peter over on my Facebook page pointed me in the right direction: it’s a food scoop! Its meant to scoop up food after you chop it so it’s easily transferred from food to pan. This makes sense, because the scoop was originally packaged with a five-slot knife block that had an attached recipe card holder. There’s a good example over on eBay. Mystery solved!

New Toy

So I have a bit of thing for hunting for interesting vintage kitchen gear. Part of this is the love of the hunt, part of it is because I love the look of older pieces, and part of it is because I actually use a lot of these things and I just can’t afford to buy them new. And, let’s face it, the phrase “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!” was beaten so thoroughly into my head as a child that I just can’t shake it free. My new toy is a case in point: a Oster Regency Kitchen Center, circa 1983.

Oster Kitchen Center Slicer Shredder Salad Maker
Kitchen Center with slicer/shredder/salad maker/French fry cutter attachment and four cutting discs (shredder, French fry cutter, thick slicer, and thin slicer).

I adore the styling of the KitchenAid and Smeg stand mixers, but heaven knows that I can’t afford one. I do have a beautiful Dormeyer Princess mixer, but so far I only have the mixer attachment for it. My new-to-me Kitchen Center has slicer/shredder/salad maker/French fry cutter, mixer/doughmaker, and blender attachments. Actually, it originally came with a grinder as well, but that part went missing sometime in the last 35 years.


Kitchen Center with blender attachment.

Also missing: the mixing bowls! Well, two bowls that looked about right came with it, but it turns out that they weren’t the correct ones. I shopped around at my local thrift stores and found a total of four that work for about $20, which is reasonable when you consider they’d be about $70 on Amazon.

I was a little worried when I took the machine apart to clean it and realized that some of the gears are plastic. I have a bad habit of putting too much strain on my machines and stripping plastic gears. I’ve ruined a couple of blenders that way. Luckily, the gears for the blender attachment are all metal. We’ll see if the other attachments’ gears are durable enough to withstand my not-so-tender ministrations.


Kitchen Center with mixer/dough maker attachment.

I have to admit that the part I am most enthused about is the stand mixer/dough maker. So many recipes and instructional videos just call for you to use one. I mean sure, it’s possible to do it all by hand, but sometimes I just don’t want to put in all that effort. Also, it can sometimes be a bit tricky to translate directions (especially timing/consistency) from machine mixing to hand mixing.

Apparently there were a whole lot of other attachments that were additional, optional purchases. The one that interests me the most was the pasta accessory, which included five processing discs for thin or thic spaghetti, lasagne, rigatoni, and fettuccine. Unfortunately, it looks like it attached to the (missing) grinder. So I’ll be keeping an eye out for these pieces during my future thrifting expeditions. There may be homemade ramen in my future yet!

Vintage Stand Mixer

It’s come up before that I like old things, not just because they’re old, but for reasons that are:

a) stylistic (some of them are just pretty);
b) environmental (why buy new and add to pollution when there are working older versions of the same thing out there?); and
c) budgetary (old/used items tend to be cheaper than new, unless they’re very rare)

So it’s no surprise that when I recently found a really cheap vintage Dormeyer Princess stand mixer from the 1950’s up for sale, I jumped on the opportunity. I took the chance and bought it based only on some pretty bad photos, but I figured the risk was worth it. As I suspected, it needed a bit of work, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

The main part of the mixer needed a bit of cleaning.

However, what I was most worried about was the state of the power cord, which was dangerously frayed. It looked like it had been poorly repaired more than once. So I went out and bought a completely new cord and installed that — a fairly painless process, as it turns out.

When I opened up the main body, it was disgustingly gungy inside. I took it apart as much as possible, washed all the non-mechanical bits in hot soapy water, and wiped down the motor and all electrical/mechanical bits down thoroughly.

Now it’s clean inside and out, the wiring is safe, and it works like a charm!

It’s pretty, too. I think the styling is very reminiscent of an old Chevrolet.

In the end, the total cost to me was about $30, plus an hour or two of work. Not bad when a nice modern KitchenAid stand mixer costs about $600. Apparently there was originally a juicer and a meat grinder attachment for this model, which I’ll keep an eye out for while thrifting. I wonder if I could find a dough hook that would work with it as well? That would be lovely.