The grandchildren were visiting, and we decided to bake some cupcakes on a rainy, cold afternoon.

The smell of a cake or pie baking always perks me up, and I figured the same would be true for the young uns.

I pulled two cupcake tins out of the cabinet, and noticed how discolored they’d become.

Those cupcake tins, practically brown from 40 years of baked-on grease, have served their purpose well. They’ve allowed us to bake hundreds of cupcakes and corn-bread muffins.

One year, I melted all the bits and pieces of crayons in the boys’ room in the tins and made discs of color for coloring book fun.

The baking sheets are in the same worn shape. Some are warped but they still provide a great baking surface for chocolate chip cookies and Thanksgiving rolls.

Tonight, I found myself re-looking at a lot of things in the kitchen and in the house. Stacked on the shelves were the now-faded Pyrex mixing bowls I’ve had since the late 1970s.

I’ve seen the exact bowls in antique stores, but I’ve never thought of not using the bowls that have come in pretty handy all these years.

My favorite memory of the green Pyrex bowl is coming into the kitchen one morning and finding my 3-year-old with the bowl between his legs, his hands stained red as he scooped up red Jell-O by the handfuls and slurped them down.

There’s the plastic spatulas in the drawer, and every single one is burned in the middle from where I put them down on a burner or the side of the frying pan.

Years of being in the dishwasher has bleached them out, but as long as they’re useful, I’m still going to flip burgers and pancakes with them.

Our dishwasher’s done a number on a few more of our more seasoned kitchen utensils. There’s no more red writing on the side of the Pyrex measuring cups. We just guess – yeah, that looks like a half a cup – and dump the water in the green Pyrex bowl.

Looking around, there’s a lot of Pyrex in our kitchen from the gold and avocado small casserole dishes to the white cookware with blue flowers on the side. I’ve broken a few of the lids, but there’s replacements online, so I’ll keep using them, just as I have for the last 20 years.

All our drinking glasses are etched. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s in the glass, but the cheapskate in me can’t throw away those glasses when they’re still usable.

They’ve been doing their job for about 25 years and, until I accidentally break them, they’ll keep showing up on the breakfast and dinner table.

There’s some Corell dishes still in every-day use here. Sure they have an outdated pattern on them, but who cares. They hold sandwiches and mashed potatoes quite nicely, so they’ll stay in use until we literally wear the strawberry pattern off the plate.

All true Louisiana cooks have at least one Magnalite pot in their cabinet. I’ve got a big one I use for gumbo, a smaller one for jambalaya and a pot for simmering gravies. I got those pots in 1975, and even though they’re a little pitted and no longer shiny, no way they’ve outlived their usefulness.

I’d like to believe that, like their owner, the dings, scratches and worn spots add character and in no way detract from their usefulness.

That’s how I am – a little worn around the edges but still quite capable of doing my job – making cupcakes, gumbo and, best of all, memories.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.