Five Years on Substack
And in the Time Travel Kitchen. All of them.
Five years ago when I’d tell people I was writing a newsletter on Substack they’d generally say “What’s that?”
Now when I mention I’m “on Substack” there’s usually immediate recognition and sometimes even an enthusiastic “I subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson!” So do I, by the way. Reading Letters from an American right now is a bridge to sanity.
I’m co-opting wedding anniversary gift traditions (five years is the wood anniversary) and marking this milestone by celebrating the 100-year-old wood cutting board/breadboard that inspired this newsletter.
Every mark on it holds a story. It echoes a century of all the hands that touched it, cut the vegetables, cooked the dinners and kneaded the bread on its surface.
It was built into the cabinetry of my 1927 kitchen, the original “Time Travel Kitchen.” When I moved four years ago, the apartment management granted permission for the cutting board to move with me.
And now, after a New Year’s Day flood that felt a little heavy on the “washing-away-getting-a-fresh-start” symbolism, followed by weeks of living in a hotel while the entire apartment floor was replaced, I’m back home.
But not for long.
I’ve been looking for a new place and found one. I’m moving in mid-April to a 1924 building with the sweetest kitchen. I love it and can’t wait to show it to you.
Of course my culinary talisman, the wood cutting board, is moving with me to this third Time Travel Kitchen.
It feels a little bit like announcing the upcoming season of Doctor Who, only the new Time Lord is a kitchen.
Wood is a symbol of strength, growth, and renewal, so I like the idea of celebrating it as I start a sixth year writing this newsletter and am on the move to a new home.
When I looked back at my earliest post, I saw that the very first thing I made in my 1927 kitchen was a Pineapple Upside-Down Cake from Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes, 1926.
They called it an Upside-Down Pineapple Cake, which feels like a good name for a dessert right now as we’re all navigating our own time’s turbulence.
The next time we meet it will be from my new kitchen, TTK #3, with the cutting board firmly rooted on my counter.
Wood is also a symbol of comfort. I want to thank you all for the warmth you consistently bring here by your presence, through your comments and your good will. Cheers, everyone. 🥂
All my best,
Jolene
Congratulations on five amazing years, dear friend! I know Time Travel Kitchen V.3 will inspire many new posts and recipes ... and I was just speaking with a friend about pineapple upside-down cake this afternoon which shouldn't surprise me too much as you and I have always shared a bit of synchronicity!
Hi, Jolene, your Substack was added on to another I signed up for, and I suspected from the title that I would like it. My wooden cutting board is pushing 50--It was a Christmas gift, new, in 1978 or '79. But most of my pots and pans are my parents' late-'40s aluminum. Of course I have their 1947 wedding-gift MixMaster. Also have a tea kettle and coffee pot--the kind that you put in the grounds with the water, plus an egg--from Swedish neighbors of my grandparents' era, most likely 100+ years old. The showpiece is a Civil War-era hutch, found in the basement of an antique shop when I was on a quest for a Hoosier cabinet. But you know what you're looking for when you see it. Love at first sight. Had that about 50 years. So this Chicago kitchen is an eclectic mix of vintage and antique with a decidedly hippie vibe. I look forward to reading more from you!