I noticed today that a coworker of mine has really excellent all-caps handwriting.
That made me think of my father, who must’ve taken a drafting class at some point in his life. He always wrote in all caps, using only the most pristine and perfectly-angled letters. Maybe he was an architect in a previous life.
Last summer, my mother gave me all of her old spice jars, many of which still have labels that were handwritten, in all caps, by my father. He was very meticulous about spice labeling:
- CINNAMON (GROUND)
- CINNAMON STICKS
- CINNAMON SUGAR
- PEPPERCORNS (SZECHUAN)
- PEPPERCORNS (GREEN)
- PEPPERCORNS (BLACK)
- NUTMEG (WHOLE)
- NUTMEG (GROUND)
- CUMIN (GROUND)
- CUMIN SEED
Etc. He built a special rack to create a double-decker spice drawer for easy access to spices underneath, and as you can see from the small sample above, there were a lot of spices underneath (probably about 50 or 60 jars in all). Our kitchen was practically a warehouse for the British East India Company.
Those spice labels are some of the few remaining examples of his handwriting (and also of his detail-driven organizational skills — which I did not manage to inherit, unfortunately). I already have my own spice rack, so think I’m going to use the jars to save seeds for next year’s garden. I’m sure my father would approve of that — I’ll just need to make sure I store them in an appropriately organized way.
That is all. It just seemed like a good afternoon for a memory.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jim // Jun 29, 2010 at 12:15 pm
How about some pictures of the labels? And the whole spice rack? Sounds like a beautiful piece of work.
2 mydogischelsea // Jun 29, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Ooh! I’ll take some pictures of the labels/jars tonight. The spice rack probably doesn’t exist anymore — my mother renovated her kitchen last year and a lot of things got lost or tossed. It wasn’t necessarily beautiful (it was basically a wooden rack that divided one large drawer into two smaller ones) but it was pretty damn functional. But he did create his fair share of beautiful pieces of woodworking — the handrail going up the stairs, a bookcase in my brother’s room, etc.
3 malahat sunset // Jul 1, 2010 at 8:21 pm
Yeah, please do take some pictures of the jars! That will bring back some good memories of cooking for the family.
I’m a little sad that you got the spice jars but not the two boxes/racks they nestled in for so many years.
4 mydogischelsea // Jul 8, 2010 at 11:10 am
Update: Can’t find my camera at the moment. Will post pictures soon, I promise.