Home Fridges and Pastry Kitchen Collage

Hello World...

One side of my dad’s fridge taken the week he died/Denver,
Colorado/circa 2019

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This post from

Angelina Ruiz

of Lucid Dreaming made me happy today.

What’s on your fridge?

More fun where that came from below and from Angelina on Fridge Deco.

A bunch of these magnets from the photo above are on my fridge now. A little bridge in time. Since my parent’s separation in the early 80’s my dad had a smorgasbord up there, adding a little more to the mix piece by piece year by year. Everything from comics cut from the paper to friends' kid photos to arts+crafts my sister and i made to candy wrappers. Marking time, history recorded. I swiped a few of those wooden ones before he moved to Colorado and i saw him clock them when he was back at my place for a visit. Not too many words but plenty of evidence every where you look.

I see this kind of personal biographical installation art as a close relative of the ephemeral notes, stickers, blue tape, food scrap animal sculpture, and miniature altar making you see in professional kitchens, bars and host stands. Democratizing the space in tiny little bits as long as they happen to survive. So take a picture, it does last longer.

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Home fridge/circa 2020

Work Oven/City House/Nashville, Tennessee circa 2022

Work Mixer/City House/Nashville, Tennessee/circa 2019

Home Fridge Recipes/Today

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I’m off till next Wednesday so i got a bug to make eggs and bacon and pancakes this morning, and when i say morning i mean it was around 11:30 by the time i lazed around, had coffee and got out of the shower. This time i cooked the bacon in the oven at on a cooling rack laid on top of a quarter sheet pan so i didn’t have to mess with all three on the stove top. I like how it stays flat and evenly cripsy above the oil baked low at 350 or so. Soft and slow scrambled eggs went in the 9” cast iron and i made one palm sized pancake at a time in the baby Lodge cast iron. It’s crazy that i don’t have this and the cornbread memorized by this point so there it is up there tacked to the fridge! I multiplied the recipe above by 1.5 so i’d have extra to fry off tomorrow and threw in a splash of bubbly water to lighten them up just a bit. Today’s toppings were some soft butter, Spring Valley Farms 100% Maple Syrup and some extra Lambrusco Cranberry+Bourbon Cherry compote i brought home from my City House New Year's Eve Menu. Tomorrow i’m thinking lemon juice and lots of powdered sugar dutch baby style.

The work oven photo up there has a new dessert bullet point list for my assistant who will be making it the next day i’m off and i’m pretty sure this guy below was taped up somewhere in my grandfather’s truck stop back in the day.

My Grandfather’s Truck Stop Hot Cakes/Dirty Pages/circa 2015

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You can read more about my and our beloved old recipe cards at Dirty Pages, co-created by Jennifer Justus of The Grace Before Dinner.

I have so many photos and scraps i need to dig out on this subject! I would love to see yours if you’ve got em!

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Thank you for reading my first real post here and see you next time!