My kitchen windowsill

Goslar town square, Lower Saxony

As I was cooking last night I began to think about the things on the kitchen windowsill. They all have some sentimental meaning for me and may say something about me. As I spend so much time in the kitchen it’s nice to have a few meaningful objects close by.

On the left is a little collection of bottles. The long tall bottle came home from Germany a few years ago and contains white vinegar, the Germans use this in their cucumber salad and coleslaw (rather than mayonnaise). T-W-O had a German mother, now departed, and we visit the area in Lower Saxony whenever we can. This is flanked by 2 smallerbottles, one came from my Mums house many years ago and I think is an old ink bottle with a stopper that’s been added from somewhere else and the other we dug up from the garden in our old cottage. I keep dried lavender in that one. The last little pot contains dried petals from my 40thbirthday party, they were in a bouquet of red roses and I couldn’t part with them.

Further along the sill is a garlic jar our middle daughter brought for us in (I think) Portugal many a year ago, maybe I will be corrected about the origin. The neighbour to these is a small Wedgwood ashtray (no we don’t smoke) which is occupied by a model chicken and some dried apple pips. The chicken was a birthday present from a neighbour and the pips……….I don’t remember how they arrived but I will plant them in the spring.

Centre stage are an old fashioned black and brass set of salter scales with weights. Followed by a 1920′s Noritake gold leafed bonbon dish where I keep my washing up liquid bottle. The only things left are two plants and an old stone jar, again dug up from the old garden.

On the subject of cucumber salad here is the recipe. It’s rather nice with cold meats or sausages and boiled potatoes, rather appropriate for boxing day even if cucumber is very out of season.

You need

Half a cucumber peeled and sliced

White wine vinegar

a few teaspoons of white sugar

Salt

a few drops of olive oil

Pour in enough white wine vinegarto to give the cucumber a shallow bath.

Add a couple of teaspoons of sugar, a few drops of olive oil and a pinch of salt.

Stir well, add the cucumber and leave for at least a day if not two before serving.

Serve with cooked sausage or cold meats and potatoes boiled with a stock cube in the water

Like this:

Be the first to like this post.

Granny Sue Says:

December 11, 2008 at 11:06 pm

You remind me of my mother’s kitchen windowsill. She had one of those jars for sprouting avocados, a pie bird, some pretty red glass pitchers, a little milk glass duck, a neat vinegar and oil bottle that kept the two liquids in separate places, with the center glass shaped like grapes (now on my windowsill), a few bits of plants being rooted in water, and other odds and ends. It spoke volumes about her–as yours does about you.