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This is where I note my efforts as I try to recreate some old recipes. Most are taken from my small collection of handwritten recipe books which date from the late 1700's to around 1922. I also have a collection of old tatty old recipe books, well thumbed and heavily splashed from years of use. I love all of them.

The old-fashioned very stylised handwriting writing is sometimes difficult to decipher, measurements and cooking instructions are minimal, no tin sizes given. Luckily I enjoy a challenge. Just to complicate things I cook and bake on my wood-fired Rayburn, which can be... unpredictable.

I suspect this blog is less about the food and more about my passion for these lovely old books and the wonderful women who wrote them.


Wednesday 29 March 2017

Parsonage Cottage Pantry



You can see from the header photograph, I don't have many cupboards in the kitchen.    What I do have, in the adjoining Boot Room, is a walk-in pantry.

I keep dried and tinned food, spices and herbs, bread, cereals, dog and cat food, glassware, some spare china and several kitchen aids in there.  

It could quite easily become a repository for 'stuff' but I fight hard to keep it reasonably well organised, after all, the cats need me to be able to put my hand on their favourite brand of cat food immediately.   

I had always wanted a large pantry and when this was finished I thought that I would never fill all those  miles of shelves...   Ha!

One thing I hadn't banked on though, was having to share the room with a cat.

Little Miss Pinkerton quietly slips in after me, goes to her favourite corner (just behind the plastic crate on the floor) and sits quietly.   She doesn't climb on shelves, so I don't mind too much.   Mostly I don't mind, because I don't notice her doing it.

Which means that she sometimes gets locked in.

The first time it happened, I was alone in the house.     Suddenly the silence was broken by the sound of a door latch being rattled...never mind the latch being rattled, I was rattled.      Heart pounding, I opened the pantry door, only to have Miss Pinkerton trot out, tail in the air, with a demand for food...NOW!

"Butter wouldn't melt in my mouth, honest!"

Ha!  Just one minute after I clicked on the button to post this, the door was rattled.   Yes, she had sneaked in there again.   I thought she was outside.   Little madam.









4 comments:

  1. I love your pantry. That is one thing I would love to have and am always jealous of NZ houses which seem to have them built in now as a basic requirement.

    Wouldn't want to hear that door rattling though. Boy, would I be spooked. Reminds me of hearing the goats outside once in the middle of the night when I was alone. Took me quite a while but I did eventually throw open the shutters to see what the noise was. It needed a lot of courage!!!

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  2. Miss Pinkerton won't mind being locked in as long as you are in hearing distance. :)She's pretty cute, indeed. I love the pantry although I would have far too many blue and white tea-cups in there.

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  3. At the old barn we've recently been converting, I built a quite large larder. Unfortunately this has now become a junk room, and I can't ever see it being used for its intended purpose. What a shame.

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  4. Linda, Mine isn't a pretty sight, I admit, but it is very practical. Good old NZ. I wonder whether the use of pantry's is homeowner/cook or architect led.

    I'll bet it took quite a while to get back to sleep after the incident with the marauding goats! Impossible to just ignore noises in the middle of the night, but it is very scary when you are on your own.



    Deb, She'll be in trouble the day it happens and I am away in my craft room, playing!
    If you had the pantry it would be a vision of loveliness, I can quite well visualise it! Most of my china, everyday and very best plus fun ones for the grandchildren, is kept in the two big blue-painted dressers.


    Cro, That is a pity. Perhaps you could claim a few shelves for your wonderful pickles and preserves...
    I wish we had also thought to build a 'broom' cupboard when we altered the place, but other than that it has worked out really well.

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