Roasting a Turkey in a Tasha Tudor Tin Kitchen!

An Old Fashioned Feast to Be Thankful For!

And News About a Corgyncombe Giveaway!

Diane used her Tasha Tudor Reproduction Tin Kitchen for roasting the turkey in front of the fire. Here it is shown with the door open for basting. Isn't that turkey a beauty!

 

  Whilst tending the turkey, Diane's husband kept making toast using the old fashioned wrought iron toaster. The toaster has a swivel so that you can turn it around and toast the other side.

 

  A view of the turkey that faces the fire.

 Using the Tasha Tudor Reproduction Tin Kitchen is such a delight!

Diane hopes to soon acquire a tin baking oven for baking in front of the fire.

 

  Regularly the spit is turned and put in the next hole to ensure that the turkey is done evenly all round.

 

  At the proper time potatoes from the Corgyncombe Vegetable Garden are peeled and set over the fire to boil. Even though a lid is placed on the kettle, these potatoes cooked over the fire have a mild smoky taste that is just delicious!

 

 

Cranberries cooking over the hot coals.

 Cranberries have to be done the day before if you put them in a mold as they need time to chill and set whilst in the cold.

 The above photograph was taken last year.

 

 

Some of the acorn squash harvested from the Corgyncombe Vegetable Garden. Corgyncombe Cottage always has squash at Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

  Cranberry Sauce after being chilled and set in a yellowware mold.

What a pretty addition to the Thanksgiving table!

 

  In the bowl are Red Pontiac mashed potatoes, made according to the receipt in "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook". The turkey on the platter, all set for carving! Diane uses her Grandmum's platter for the turkey with bay leaves from Diane's bay tree tucked around the edge.

 As Tasha Tudor herself said, a turkey roasted in a tin kitchen is "Simply unsurpassed!"

 

 

These pie photographs are from last year's Thanksgiving post, as I did not have time to photograph making a pie this year.

 Diane made pumpkin pies from pumpkins grown in the Corgyncombe Vegetable Garden. 

 

The photographs below show the steps in preparing the pumpkins for pumpkin pie.

 Extreme care must be taken whilst cutting the pumpkins.

 

  After the pumpkins are cut in two, the seeds are scraped out and the pumpkin is then put on a baking pan and put into the oven. The seeds were dried and saved.

 

  After cooling, the outer skin is peeled off and the pumpkin is mashed.

 

  The pumpkin is then put into cheesecloth and tied up.

 

  The cheesecloth bag is put into a colander in a bowl and pressed with a weight overnight in the ice box to remove the excess liquid. In the morning the cheesecloth bag with the pumpkin in it is squeezed to get the rest of the liquid out.

 

  The pumpkin is put into a bowl and the rest of the ingredients are added.

 

 Cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and a little bit of nutmeg make the Corgyncombe Cottage kitchen smell delightfully like Thanksgiving.

 

 

The pumpkin pie before baking.

 

 

After barn chores pumpkin pie is served with cheese.

 

Louisa May Alcott wrote a story called "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving". Diane's 5th great grandfather Eliakim May was 1st cousin to Louisa May Alcott's great grandfather Samuel May.

 

 In Tasha Tudor's "Around the Year", Tasha has illustrated a tin kitchen with traditional Thanksgiving food around it. In "A Time to Keep", Tasha Tudor illustrated a lady basting the turkey in a tin kitchen in front of the fire. Hungry corgyn gather round, hoping for a taste of turkey. "The New England Butt'ry Shelf Cookbook" written by Mary Mason Campbell and illustrated by Tasha Tudor, also features an illustration of a woman using a tin kitchen with a table of Thanksgiving food.

 

Stay tuned dear readers, as The Corgyncombe Courant will soon be hosting a giveaway of one of Diane's favorite things to use about the kitchen! We know that you will love it!!!

 

 

In "First Poems of Childhood", for the poem "Over the River and Through the Wood" by Lydia Maria Child, Tasha Tudor illustrated Thanksgiving food and a family going over the covered bridge with horse and sleigh to a lovely old house and barn where they will enjoy Thanksgiving dinner. The old house and barn remind The Corgyncombe Courant of Corgyncombe Cottage and barn. 

 

An old fashioned Thanksgiving for those at Corgyncombe Cottage, a delicious feast to be most thankful for!

 

Here is a link to: Our Thanksgiving Page on Our Favorite Things

 

Here is a link to a YouTube video where they prepared pumpkin for pumpkin pie using a similar method with the cheesecloth:

 

Pumpkin Pie from Scratch on YouTube 

 

It has more instructions on cooking times and preparation. 

 

Here is the link to Tasha Tudor and Family where you can purchase your own:

Tasha Tudor Reproduction Tin Kitchen. 

 Click on "Kitchen and Home" and then click on "Tin Kitchen".

 

Carl Giordano is the talented tinsmith who made Diane's Tasha Tudor Reproduction Tin Kitchen (sold by "Tasha Tudor and Family"). 

 

Here is a link to: Carl Giordano, Tinsmith 

 

Tinsmith Carl Giordano makes two different tin kitchens. The Tasha Tudor Reproduction Tin Kitchen can be ordered through Tasha Tudor and Family. 

 

The Corgyncombe Courant hopes that all its dear readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

 

 

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Breakfast Over the Fire on Thanksgiving Morn!

Up with the Sun Preparing for the Day!

A new day, a new sunrise, a new land...
Many reasons to give Thanks!

Diane and her daughter Sarah have several direct Pilgrim ancestors.

Bread that Diane made using the Tasha Tudor receipt for "White Bread" was toasted in a reproduction toaster. The toaster was made by a blacksmith related to Diane through the Spaulding family line. Diane's 6th great grandmother was Mehitable Spaulding who married David Shepard. Their great grandson Elisha Lyon Shepard and his son Lynus Eliakim Shepard were blacksmiths also. Elisha and Lynus were Diane's great great great grandfather and great great grandfather, respectively.
Some things just seem to run in families!

On Thanksgiving morn Diane was up with the rising of the sun, preparing stuffing for the turkey to roast in her tin kitchen in front of the fire. The stuffing was spooned into the turkey. The turkey was trussed, the spit was put through the turkey, and the skewers were attached and secured. In "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook" there are instructions for "Turkey Roasted in the Tin Kitchen". Diane's husband had already started the fire. After chores and milking, Diane made breakfast over the fire. The bacon grease from breakfast was rubbed on the turkey.

Isn't toast pretty done the old fashioned way!

A tin kitchen, which is also called a reflector oven, is so much fun to use! Diane's tin kitchen is a reproduction of Tasha Tudor's antique tin kitchen. A turkey cooked in a tin kitchen is so delicious!!!
As Tasha Tudor herself said "Simply unsurpassed!"

Amy and Natalie at Tasha Tudor and Family were so attentive to see that we received our Tasha Tudor Reproduction Tin Kitchen before Christmas 2009! The packaging was just great and it arrived in perfect condition!

Here are links to last year's posts on The Corgyncombe Courant
about Diane's Tasha Tudor Reproduction Tin Kitchen:

Delivery Men Bringing Tasha Tudor Delights!

Diane's Tasha Tudor Tin Kitchen!

Here is the link to Tasha Tudor and Family where you can purchase your own:
Tasha Tudor Reproduction Tin Kitchen.
Click on "Kitchen and Home" and then click on "Tin Kitchen".

Whilst at the Tasha Tudor and Family web site you can purchase "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook". It is such a joy to read and use! A few days before Thanksgiving Diane misplaced her Tasha Tudor Cookbook and was frantic until she managed to find it! But find it she did!

There will be more Thanksgiving Posts to come of the turkey roasting on the tin kitchen and other Thanksgiving preparations.


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Homemade White Bread from "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook"

Corgyncombe Cottage Kitchen Smells So Good!

The dough has risen nicely!

Diane used honey and water saved from the boiling of potatoes to make this bread.

(The potato water was not in "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook".)

In "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook" Tasha drew an illustration of her cat asleep on top of the towel covered bowl of dough.

The loaves of bread from the oven smell so good!!!

More Thanksgiving Posts to come...

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"Little Runt" by Della Lutes, An Old Fashioned Story!

Roast Pig for Thanksgiving Dinner!

A few weeks ago, whilst at one of The Corgyncombe Courant's favorite places for delightful finds, I stumbled across a book with a red plaid cover called "The Country Kitchen" by Della T. Lutes. They weren't going to sell it to me, as it didn't have a price, but after a bit of pleading they decided to sell it to me for $2.00. I had a book at home in The Corgyncombe Library that had a green and white gingham cover, called "Home Grown", and I knew that it just had to be by the same author. In "The Country Kitchen" and "Home Grown", Della Thompson Lutes writes from her memories of life as a child in the 1870s living in Michigan. In both books she includes recipes or receipts as they were known in the old days. Both of Della Lutes' books were ex-library books... discarded I suppose because no one checked them out of the library, and I'm sure that the library had more, ahem, "exciting" books to replace them with. Well, welcome they are indeed at The Corgyncombe Library!

In "The Country Kitchen" there is a special Thanksgiving story, titled "Little Runt". As Della Lutes explains herself: "That year a young sow mistook, in the exuberance of her youth, the proper season for mating and, in early fall, presented herself with a lively litter of thirteen husky pigs. All but the thirteenth. The thirteenth was one too many for the calculations of nature and he, being shriveled and feeble was rooted out of place by the others and repudiated by his mother."

"Little Runt", as he was called, was brought into the kitchen where he was warmed and fed by sucking warm milk from Delly's mother's finger. Little Runt grew and thrived and became like a pet to Delly and her Mother. Delly took great delight in bathing him and tying a pink ribbon about his neck to give him a festive look. Her Father wanted to fatten the pig up for Thanksgiving dinner. Father kept looking at recipe books for ideas on how to roast a pig and how to make the stuffing. Father was intent upon impressing Uncle Frank with a superior roast pig and insisted that Little Runt be fed the best of food. Father had had roast pig at Uncle Frank's house and thought it an inferior meal and laid it to the fact that Frank was too cheap to feed the pig properly. As Della Lutes wrote: "So Little Runt was fed on sweet milk, fresh cornmeal, and vegetables and he throve to a state of porcine beauty beyond all rightful expectation, considering his early state."


As a little girl Diane always felt a strange mix of excitement and fear around her grandpa's pig pen. Perhaps it was the gap in the fence that had Diane worried.

Little Runt followed the women folk around and after awhile, when Father started scratching his back, Little Runt followed him around, too. Delly couldn't understand how her father could even consider eating Little Runt but father seemed obsessed with having Little Runt as roast pig for the Thanksgiving table.

As Thanksgiving approached Mother took all of Father's licking his chops over Little Runt, with guarded but cool, quiet reserve until Thanksgiving Day when Father had served all his other guests and told Mother he was going to cut her "a nice juicy slice"...


At Corgyncombe Cottage we always have turkey for the Thanksgiving meal.

The Corgyncombe Courant loves this story and knows that its readers will enjoy it, too!

Where we have left off talking about the story is on page 237.
Oh my, as you read on in Della's book, what an unexpected ending to Little Runt becoming the highlight of Thankgiving dinner!!!

Here's the link to the book, you can read almost the entire story, but alas, take note, some pages are missing:
"Little Runt" by Della T. Lutes in "The Country Kitchen"

Tasha Tudor also wrote and illustrated a little book about a special, friendly pig named Dorcas Porkus who wore a collar and wasn't at all fond of baths.


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Little Hands Busy at Old Fashioned Tasks

Two little girls, both busy at hand work, one knitting, one spinning...

On a recent Autumnal trip in the mountains The Corgyncombe Courant acquired this lovely old painting of a little girl busy about her knitting. Whilst sitting on a bench amongst some pretty wild flowers she is knitting in the round on several needles. Over her arm is a basket that holds her yarn. The colors in this painting are just beautiful! She reminds The Corgyncombe Courant of Heidi in a meadow of wild flowers.

The painting of the little girl knitting also reminds The Corgyncombe Courant of a photograph taken by Diane Shepard Johnson of Sarah when she was a little girl. At age five Sarah started spinning wool on a drop spindle.
Two little girls, both busy at old fashioned tasks.

In "Mother Goose" illustrated by Tasha Tudor, there is a little girl spinning flax from a distaff on a flax spinning wheel.

In "Corgiville Fair", written and illustrated by Tasha Tudor, sweet little Katey Brown the Corgi's paws are busy knitting a garment for her "rag puppy", to enter in the fair.


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The Corgyncombe Courant Salutes Veterans! Revisited!

"With a Zeal and Fervor"...

Illustration of Paul Revere's Ride from "Stories of American History and Home Life"

The Corgyncombe Courant reports on an article found in an 1901 issue of "The Otsego Farmer":

The Otsego Farmer, January 11, 1901
Gilbertsville
"The firemen have much improved their hall by repainting and papering it and covering the floor with matting. Last Saturday evening, at the regular monthly meeting, there was an unusually large attendance. After the business meeting the veteran fireman, O. E. Taylor, by invitation, recited Paul Revere's ride, rendering that grand old poem with a zeal and fervor which elicited much applause."

Oh, how The Corgyncombe Courant reporters wish they had been there to hear the poem recited with "zeal and fervor" by a grandson of Revolutionary War soldier Elias Taylor and great grandson of Revolutionary War Soldiers Joseph Peters and Nathaniel Swift. O. E. Taylor was a great great uncle of Diane's and Elias Taylor was Diane's 4th great grandfather. Elias Taylor served under Gen'l George Washington. Joseph Peters and Nathaniel Swift were both 5th great grandfathers of Diane.

The Corgyncombe Courant is sure that many others in attendance at the firemen's hall were also descendants of Revolutionary War soldiers and one can imagine the roar of applause in response to such "zeal and fervor".

The Corgyncombe Courant reporters have gone out on the Corgyncombe Cottage lawn on Independence Day and read "The Landlord's Tale, Paul Revere's Ride" written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Some favored lines, read with much "zeal and fervor" from the lawn at Corgyncombe...

"Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal-light, -
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm."

continued later in the poem:

"A hurry of hoofs in the village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat."

Some of The Corgyncombe Courant reporters' Revolutionary War soldier direct ancestors were:

Levi Adams Sr.

Serg. Levi Adams Jr.
Benjamite Greene
John Hale
Stephen Harrington
Henry Head
Cyprian Keyes
Nehemiah Lyon
Eliakim May
Joseph Peters
Jared Robinson
Ziba Robinson
William Scott
Stephen Smith
Nathaniel Swift
Thomas Weaver
Elias Taylor

There are several other Revolutionary War soldiers that The Corgyncombe Courant Genealogy Department is researching, also.

In "Wings from the Wind, An Anthology of Poems Selected and Illustrated by Tasha Tudor", Tasha illustrated some farmer soilders at the bridge for the poem "The Concord Hymn" written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. There is also an illustration of an old gravestone.

Diane's great great grandfather Carlton P. Taylor served for the Union in the Civil War. He was brother to O. E. Taylor mentioned above, who with "zeal and fervor" recited "Paul Revere's Ride".

Truman Head, a close relative to Diane's 4th great grandmother Martha (Head) Robinson, was a famous and legendary sharpshooter for the Union in Berdan's Sharp Shooters. Truman Head was known as "California Joe". (Not to be confused with Moses Milner who was also called "California Joe".)

The Corgyncombe Courant has photographed their own copy of "Harper's Weekly".
Above is the engraving in Harper's Weekly of Truman Head, aka California Joe, of Berdan's Sharp Shooters.

Before World War II Diane's father helped his parents on their farm "Lug Tug Hollow" and he also worked for the elderly widow lady next door.

About 325 years after his ancestors left the old world Diane's father returns. Here he is, way a top the tank, looking somber as he approaches enemy lines somewhere in the Rhine Valley.

Following in the patriotic tradition of his ancestors Diane's Father left the life of a farmer and volunteered for military service in World War II. After he completed his training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, he was sent to Europe. He was a gunner in the U.S. Third Army, Company "B", Patton's Troubleshooters, 702nd Tank Battalion.

Private
Corporal
Sergeant
Staff Sergeant

Diane's father served valiantly in the Battle of the Bulge. Diane and Sarah are very proud of his skill and service! The Corgyncombe Courant is thankful to all the Veteran's who have served and are serving for the United States of America. The Corgyncombe Courant prays for the safety of all of our country's soldiers serving today.

The Editresses of The Corgyncombe Courant

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The Gathering of the Sage

Emily & Ethlyn's Potions & Perfumery

Sage from the Corgyncombe Garden of Herbs, gathered in a Shaker carrier and photographed in "Emily & Ethlyn's Potions & Perfumery". "Emily & Ethlyn's Potions & Perfumery", also known as "E. & E.'s P.& P.", is the corgyn's pretend apothecary in Diane's old kitchen at Corgyncombe Cottage and Corg'ery. Sage is used in poultry dressing throughout the year at Corgyncombe Cottage.

Corgyncombe Cottage & Corg'ery is a little farm in the valley where the corgyn dwell. Corgyn is the word Tasha Tudor used as plural for corgi. A combe is a valley, dale, vale, or hollow. Diane and Sarah made up their own exclusive word: "Corg'ery" ....... a corg'ery being a farm where an abundance of delightful corgyn dwell. Some spelling variations of their own word Corg'ery include: Corgiery, Corgi'ery, Corgery, Corg'ry, Corgi'ry.

According to the "American Dictionary of The English Language" by Noah Webster, 1828, a potion is: a draught; usually, a liquid medicine; a dose.

We named our Corgi Ethlyn Maria (pronounced Mariah) after Diane's great grandmother Ethlyn Maria Weaver who descends from a long line of Welsh Kings. Ethlyn's first Weaver to come to the New World by the 1630's was Clement Weaver and his wife Rebecca (Holbrook) Weaver. Ethlyn's husband descended from the 1st Earl of Pembroke.


Ethlyn Maria Weaver


We named our Corgi Emily after Diane's great great grandmother Emily Jane (Jones) Shepard and Emily (Jones) Shepard's cousin Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, as well as Emily Dickinson's mother Emily (Norcross) Dickinson.

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Hens in the Butt'ry!

Egg Delivery!

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