Thrifted Cookware

Maureen kindly commented on my last post, saying how much she liked my enamel dish.  Yeah, I thought, I found that at a jumble sale when I lived in Nottingham (15 / 16 years ago now.)  Then I got to thinking that, actually, pretty much all my cookware is from jumble sales or boot sales,

Four enamel baking dishes - three from the jumble in Nottingham and one other from goodness knows where, possibly my aunt when she moved into a care home (I've certainly got her metal colander which is used pretty much every day, plus another green and cream enamel one which, again came from a jumble in Nottingham.)

A large black, white and grey speckled enamel baking tray which came from a jumble sale approx. 20 years ago at the church hall in Warmley near Bristol.  I love this tray, there's something rather French about the speckled enamel and it is big enough to roast all sorts of things in the oven on it.  Next to it is a round enamel pie dish in cream with green edging which I paid 5p for at a car boot sale two or three years ago.  It has also proved to be incredibly versatile for baking smaller amounts on in the oven - though I've never actually used it to bake a pie as I'm not very keen on pastry.

Three smallish Pyrex dishes - all found since I've lived in Wickford.  These get used A LOT to cook things in and to serve things from at the table.  One or other of them is often used as a salad bowl or a vegetable dish when we're having our evening meal.

An enormous Pyrex dish which I paid 50p for a year or so ago.  I hesitated about buying it as a) I had to cart it home in a bag and it was tres heavy, and b) I thought it might be too large for us but, no, I use it quite regularly.

And the ubiquitous rose-print Pyrex which I was given many years ago by a friend who was clearing out her parent's house.  I've used this dish almost as many times as I've had hot dinners since!!

And that's just the cookware, I'm pretty sure all my crockery is thrifted too - with maybe the odd mug as an exception - as is most of my cutlery, except the odd piece of gorgeous Habitat cutlery that I bought nearly 30 years ago and which I still love just as much now as I did then.  Wish I'd been able to afford to buy a whole canteen of it all those years ago, it's fabulous. 

Very occasionally I have to buy something for the kitchen new in a shop (I'm particularly good at dropping Pyrex measuring jugs on our stone-tiled kitchen floor - they inevitably smash with a sound akin to a small nuclear explosion) and the price of cookware retail always give me an attack of the vapours - thank goodness I like thrifting.

Comments

[kathleen]

This was such a fun post to see! I have a few pieces of enamelware which I inherited, and tend to use them to decorate with rather than cook with. I'll have to try actually using them for their intended purpose. :)

[Maureen]

I love them all and recognise most of them. It's hard to imagine the stuff made these days lasting anywhere near as long.

[Kay]

I can remember my mum getting out her old enamel pudding dish every time she made a rice pudding, so enamelware has a wonderful, feelgood, comfort-food factor built right into it for me!