(This post is about life in Mineral King rather than the place itself. If that isn’t what you were looking for, you might want to change channels.) I cook on a wood stove while in the Land of No Electricity. The oven doesn’t work, the thing is not beautiful, but the stove top has served us well and it warms the kitchen. (Old photo, no bangs, same ‘ol Slop in a Skillet, and I’m sure that my baggy clothes are making me look fat.)
Twenty six years ago, Trail Guy was looking to buy a new wood cook stove. He had a brochure of the most beautiful antique reproductions ever – really elegant. We got married, I became more familiar with the cabin, and then I thought about how fine that new stove was and how much it cost.
Buying that stove for our cabin would be sort of like parking a Rolls Royce in a tool shed. I just couldn’t agree and asked if we could wait to find a good working genuine antique. Being a wise and frugal new husband, he agreed.
For twenty-six years it kept the kitchen warm, it cooked, it helped to dry paintings.
Twenty four years later, we had a bad night with our very old wood stove. We survived, the cabin survived, the stove even survived. Trail Guy did some work on the beast (said “with all due respect” which is what people say when they mean “yuck” but don’t want to offend anything or anyone and when “bless her heart” doesn’t quite fit), and although I was reluctant to use it, there was no alternative.
Our cabin neighbors had bought a stove, then changed their minds. They sold it to us. It sat in the workshop AKA painting studio for 2 years. We don’t jump into things impulsively at our address.
The weekend that I was losing my hearing and sweating my brains out at the show in Visalia, Trail Guy and Cowboy Bert installed the “new” stove. The Steiger & Kerr Toledo (that beast, with all due respect, of course) is gone and now we have a bee-yoo-tee-full Wedgewood!
6 Comments
Jennifer, I have an electric stove/oven in my “real” house. The wood stove is for the summer place.
Styrofoam cups feel so horrible that they affect the flavor of even the best coffee! (if anyone is reading this besides Jennifer, click on the link to her blog so you know what we are talking about.)
And, there is a button on the top left of my blog, third from the top, that is a Google+ connect thingie which I don’t really understand how to use.
Cabinart,
So is this stove in your get-away cabin, or the one you use to cook every day, all day, all ways? It is lovely and peaceful-looking.
You make me smile, and I’m so glad to hear from you! Yes, the styrofoam cups — I knew you would appreciate that too.
Mark is taller than me, but he was also on the top two steps of the cement stairs. I was dangling further down, and would have landed on uneven surfaces, a metal ladder, and some random junk in our garage had I tried to jump. Mark’s other arm was holding onto the doorframe so he could keep us both balanced and safe. Funny, huh?
I enjoy you, Jana. Hey, where can I subscribe as a google friend-connect on your site? I couldn’t find that.
Jennifer Dougan
http://www.jenniferdougan.com
Hi Jana!
When I was really little, I remember my mom cooking on the wood stove at the Homer cabin. We made bread and pies and actually used the oven and she knew how to do it!!! We too survived. Now we have a gas stove and the old one is gone from
most of my already failing memory and who knows where it ended up. Wedgewoods are great. A friend has one and loves it! Welcome to the 20th century!!! LOL!!!
Hugs and Happy Birthday Jana, you are the dearest and most wonderful of friends and I treasure you! Have a great day, you deserve it!
Love,
Mel
Melissa, shhhhhh. . . (and thanks, dear friend!)
It’s good to finally be in the 20th century in the kitchen. 😎
My mother grew up during the depression cooking on a wood stove. In the ’80s when they moved into an old farm house in Northern Virginia, she got a wood stove to cook on even though they also had an electric one. She said she preferred the way the wood stove cooked, that it was better. So, from one coast to another, cooking on a wood stove is not weird — it is probably gourmet!
Becky, since “gourmet” means “well-prepared”, perhaps I can accept that. I’ve cooked on a gas stove, an electric and a wood. Electric is my preference, because the fire box doesn’t have to be continually fed. Thanks for sharing your story!
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