Latest / Family Tree Food Stories / Aprons: The Most Powerful Object in the Kitchen You’ve Never Been Taught to Understand. Here's Why.

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Aprons: The Most Powerful Object in the Kitchen You’ve Never Been Taught to Understand. Here's Why. · Family Tree Food Stories

0:03
Nancy May: Hey there everybody.
0:04
It's Nancy and Sylvia once again.
0:07
How
0:07
you doing Sylvia?
0:08
Sylvia Lovely: I'm doing just fine.
0:10
Nancy May: Before we start, I want to share that we have created a survey for
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0:33
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0:38
And it's not just about Mo and Boo if that's a thing,
0:42
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, it's great idea.
0:43
I'd love to hear from folks.
0:44
Nancy May: And then we have a special gift for you as well
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0:48
But in the meantime, please do not forget to subscribe and share the show
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0:55
We're also on Facebook and Instagram.
0:57
And let's get on with the show because this one is near and dear to
1:01
my heart, although I never wore one.
1:04
I shouldn't say never, but not in a formal sense.
1:07
We're talking about aprons and objects of love in the kitchen, which bring
1:12
back lots of memories and traditions and all sorts of pictures and images
1:16
came back in my mind on aprons,
1:19
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, I know.
1:20
It's it's just apron.
1:21
You know, I started wondering, wonder what that means.
1:23
'cause it's an odd.
1:24
Word, I should have looked that up.
1:26
But apron as an object, apron is memory and tradition.
1:30
You don't think much about an apron, but it really holds more
1:33
than just flower, dust and gravy.
1:35
And it's got plenty of that, right?
1:37
It holds memory, identity, and over the years, even fashion,
1:42
Nancy May: Oh, I saw in the New York Times the other day that they're taking the
1:45
apron style and actually turning it into runway fashion, which I find interesting.
1:50
So that whole nostalgia thing is coming back in many ways.
1:53
And there's some really high end aprons that are expensive.
1:58
They're big brand names now.
2:00
And every time I go into, I wouldn't call it junk shop, but I
2:03
love going into consignment shops.
2:05
The other day I saw one that looked like a Turkey, and of
2:08
course we've been doing aprons.
2:09
It's like the red car syndrome.
2:11
you think of a red car, you wanna buy a red car, there are no red cars, and
2:13
all of a sudden there are red cars.
2:14
Guess what?
2:15
There are aprons everywhere.
2:17
Now that I see.
2:19
Sylvia Lovely: There's such an heirloom, they're like rolling pins,
2:21
biscuit cutters, serving spoons.
2:24
There are all kinds of things in those, antique kinds of places.
2:28
It's just fascinating to see all the little gadgets that are out there
2:32
and apron as more than a gadget.
2:36
It's a lot of fun to look back on this.
2:38
Plus, you know, you mentioned trends.
2:40
Of course the tra wife trend is coming on too, so you know that
2:45
advertisers are gonna take that the next step, and make aprons a thing.
2:50
And so that's what's going on out there.
2:53
Now I'm anything but a trad wife, but,
2:56
We're too sassy for that, aren't we?
2:58
Nancy May: absolutely.
2:59
Oh my gosh.
3:01
So have you ever seen the aprons that well?
3:03
I have to say, I saw an apron when I was in, in Italy a number of years ago,
3:08
and they had them like dressed as well.
3:11
The, they were print on the front cover of the apron and it was
3:14
eight pack AB Roman gladiators.
3:17
Sylvia Lovely: Oh, I know there's.
3:19
You know, there's some really fun things, just like t-shirts, , people
3:22
with lions on their front.
3:24
so it's like anything goes right.
3:27
Have you ever really worn an apron though?
3:30
Nancy May: Not on purpose.
3:31
not at least at home, although there was a little.
3:35
I's a luncheonette place that I worked at in college and we had to wear an
3:39
apron, but it was more like those aprons, like the fancy chef aprons that you
3:43
wear around your waist and you tie, you probably have some of those at yours.
3:46
The white ones that tie in the front wrap around like 5 million
3:50
times in tie in the front.
3:51
and then in high school, while it was in high school, it was junior
3:54
high school, we had home ec.
3:56
Did you have home ec?
3:58
Sylvia Lovely: I never took that.
3:59
I never did.
4:00
I wished I had, yeah, that's one.
4:02
that's what a lot of people were, but I, for some reason I didn't do that,
4:06
which probably would've been good for me.
4:08
Nancy May: Right.
4:09
Sylvia Lovely: taking shop would've been good for me too.
4:11
Nancy May: We were forced to take home-ec and shop, so the boys took
4:14
home-ec as well as the girls, and then the girls took shop as well as the boys.
4:19
So we had a junior high school.
4:22
home EC teacher, Daisy Flower Garden.
4:24
Her real name is Miss Daisy and she referred to herself as Daisy
4:28
Flower Garden and she was from the south, I believe, Georgia Darling.
4:32
And she was just a hoot and a half.
4:34
She made sure that we wore our aprons and we were proper in class
4:39
and that we made our shrimp toast.
4:41
I still don't know what shrimp toast, even though I made it back then is.
4:46
Sylvia Lovely: I can imagine.
4:47
Nancy May: This was a very high tech homeit class shrimp toast.
4:50
So you get the idea.
4:53
But anyway that's my experience with wearing aprons.
4:57
Sylvia Lovely: Alright, you know what a drum roll.
4:59
I just had one on the other night.
5:01
We, yes.
5:02
My Kentucky Access to Justice Commission, for which I have
5:05
a tiny little part-time job.
5:07
We did an appreciation event for our volunteers.
5:11
I was the greeter.
5:13
I had also cut the cake, which was a mess.
5:16
But anyway, that's an art.
5:18
But I had on an apron as I greeted people at the door and I was the greeter.
5:23
and it was held at a barbecue place, which I'm sure at a barbecue place.
5:27
You need that apron.
5:29
So I've done cooking demos with my chefs over the years, and I have on an apron.
5:34
And I don't typically wear them.
5:36
My grandmother did.
5:37
My mother didn't much.
5:39
I think she just didn't think about it, but my grandmother did
5:42
and I it was always my image.
5:43
And it must be where they got those cartoons for little kids
5:46
where, you've seen them, they're really demeaning to grandmothers.
5:49
Nancy May: I know they're terrible.
5:51
Right?
5:51
Sylvia Lovely: Like these gray buns and then they always have on a
5:54
little apron and , all that kind of
5:56
stuff.
5:56
But yeah.
5:58
Yeah, little wire rim glasses, , the whole nine yards.
6:02
And so there it was.
6:03
But I did buy one once at the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis.
6:09
' cause that's where wheat was first started to be processed.
6:12
' when it came off the planes.
6:13
It said I couldn't resist, so I'm not Betty proper deal.
6:17
No.
6:18
So I'm not Betty Crocker deal with it.
6:21
Nancy May: I like the Fapa.
6:22
I'm not Betty proper.
6:24
Sylvia Lovely: I'm properly not.
6:27
Nancy May: That is one for the blooper books, but it was perfect.
6:30
So Betty Crocker, gosh, remember our show from icons on Betty Crocker and
6:36
Icon Brands Betty Crocker was not an AI character and she wasn't even real,
6:41
but it's interesting to see what's been going on over the years with the smell
6:45
of biscuits and baking and everything.
6:46
It just brings back home, even though I'm not from the South originally, but.
6:51
Apron stir up a lot of memories and I'm gonna share that.
6:56
One of my friends, Kathy, when I was growing up in the
6:59
neighborhood, her grandmother, grandma Fern, I remember this woman,
7:04
Sylvia Lovely: we love it.
7:04
Nancy May: thin and stern and had gray hair, but it was the blue,
7:08
gray, blue dyed gray hair.
7:11
Blue horn, women glass.
7:13
They weren't horn room glasses, they were blue cat's, eyeglasses that
7:16
sort of peaked up on the edge with
7:18
a few little blings.
7:19
Sylvia Lovely: a glass, some of those now
7:21
I want that retro look.
7:23
Nancy May: she was always wearing an apron.
7:25
An apron every single day for a different,, outfit that she had.
7:29
She's always perfectly dressed, smoking a cigarette,
7:32
Sylvia Lovely: I can hear.
7:33
I can see it.
7:34
I can see it.
7:34
Nancy May: a cup of coffee, not too far along and.
7:38
Ironing, but always in an apron.
7:41
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
7:43
Nancy May: I just, obviously, I remember it now more than ever,
7:46
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
7:47
And then you had your giant Turkey.
7:50
Nancy May: I have, I don't remember her cooking too much, but I do remember
7:53
her ironing in her apron and, the more I see the homemade ones, the more I
7:58
get nostalgic about the whole thing,
8:00
Sylvia Lovely: Oh yeah.
8:01
That's so cool.
8:02
You wanna hear about the history though?
8:03
Nancy May: Please tell me about the history
8:04
' of
8:04
aprons.
8:05
'cause I think it's gotta be fascinating.
8:06
It does a good date back to the Romans, like everything
8:09
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah,
8:10
I suspect they probably do, but yeah, , I think the quintessential ones for
8:14
me are the ones with the, , print maybe of like little tiny flowers or
8:19
something.
8:20
I can see a And the little ruffles, yeah.
8:23
Yeah.
8:23
Feminine and all that kinda stuff.
8:26
But so.
8:27
The earliest cooks, mostly women, were aprons for the very same reasons we
8:31
do safety and practicality, especially when they were cooking over open fires.
8:35
And imagine that truly the, you know, you had the hearth and that's the image I have
8:40
of a country woman cooking on the pot.
8:42
And then what happened?
8:44
Came the twenties.
8:45
What happened then?
8:46
Nancy May: I'm gonna ask you a question.
8:47
So aprons, they wore aprons in open fire cooking, but they were designed
8:55
predominantly to keep the soot and.
8:57
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, that
8:58
too.
8:59
Nancy May: it.
8:59
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
8:59
Yeah.
9:00
Nancy May: New Yorkers would call it schmitz all over your outfits
9:02
as opposed to safety though, right?
9:04
Or is it just
9:05
Sylvia Lovely: I think it was everything.
9:06
Protection from sparks, blood, hot water, all of those things.
9:10
And you said Bob even wore
9:11
Nancy May: he wore an apron while he did his blacksmith iron work.
9:14
And that was a, like a leather one for protection for sparks.
9:19
His fancy jean duds blue.
9:20
He wasn't wearing when he was doing that work, but still.
9:23
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
9:24
And then after that, aprons became what you were saying in the beginning, aprons
9:28
have regained their stature as a fashion
9:31
statement, haven't they?
9:32
Like in the twenties, that's what they were, that look, the dropped
9:36
waist all of that kind of thing that kind of made them look fashionable.
9:40
And so they were a hit and
9:42
then
9:43
Nancy May: very simple.
9:44
It's a very simple line.
9:45
So without the frills, it can be kind of body hugging if it's done tied right.
9:50
Sylvia Lovely: Absolutely.
9:51
Yeah.
9:51
And , you just have that one little thing you have to put over your
9:54
head, but it isn't a great big deal.
9:55
And then you tie it in the back.
9:57
No, that's probably the biggest challenge, right?
9:59
Somebody have to tie it or you put it around the front.
10:02
But the the Great Depression hit hard and people were repurposing
10:05
everything, including flower sacks, and those sacks became a
10:10
lot of everything, aprons, dresses.
10:12
Curtains, and I always think of quilts, quilt aprons are a little bit like quilts.
10:16
I'm sure they used fabric from other, , clothing that they had.
10:21
Nancy May: I
10:22
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
10:23
And they became curtains and they become, became a lot of different things
10:26
because I just knew a lot of people.
10:28
And talk about kitchenware, the whole idea of repurposing broken plates.
10:33
That was what a woman told me once.
10:34
That's what they did.
10:35
They repurposed broken plates and used them.
10:38
Very resourceful.
10:39
And then the 1950s, what happened there?
10:42
Nancy May: That was the 1950s, I guess, was the golden age of the true trad wife
10:46
because The men came back from war in the forties and then the baby boom hit.
10:52
Moms didn't work.
10:53
I guess some, I shouldn't say moms didn't work.
10:55
Some did.
10:57
One of my mom's close friends and Mrs. Madarasz she worked in sales
11:02
at Bride Magazine, of course,
11:05
Sylvia Lovely: How
11:05
Nancy May: She, apparently, she says she, her entire career, she was on maternity
11:09
leave, but she was always working.
11:10
So,
11:11
But she was a very forward, progressive woman of her day . But the trad wife is a
11:16
whole new thing that's going on right now,
11:19
and people are giving up their careers, MBAs and PhDs and
11:23
doctors and everything else to
11:25
Domestic goddesses.
11:26
Sylvia Lovely: To each their own, I guess.
11:28
But you get down to people having contests on how many babies they can have.
11:31
Eh, it
11:31
Nancy May: ouch.
11:32
No, not me.
11:33
Not me.
11:34
Sylvia Lovely: leaves me behind, but, oh, and think about now
11:36
I remember this very well.
11:38
My mother sewed.
11:39
You know, most of the women in the fifties had sewing machines and I
11:43
remember she had McCall's patterns, remember McCall's patterns and they
11:48
had, , two or three versions of an apron.
11:50
' I'm not even sure why you would necessarily need that.
11:52
'cause aprons are can be very plain and ordinary, but if you wanted to dress it
11:57
up, then adding the ruffles and all of
11:59
that kinda stuff would be in the pocket.
12:02
And they say even some of them had padding.
12:05
You know what I'm saying?
12:06
Padding
12:07
Nancy May: the padding like in, in the top or.
12:09
Sylvia Lovely: a little bosomy, you know?
12:11
Why not?
12:12
Nancy May: I never thought about padding
12:14
Sylvia Lovely: that's true.
12:15
Nancy May: Ooh, lift and separate.
12:17
We're back to Jane Russell again.
12:19
Sylvia Lovely: But then, you know what, we had the feminist backlash but
12:23
aprons became the canvas for slogans.
12:25
Some of those you can't even say on air.
12:27
And of course it's just like t-shirts, right?
12:29
They made a statement and then there was the French maid look.
12:32
Hmm,
12:33
Nancy May: asking for that.
12:34
Sylvia Lovely: I, yeah.
12:35
An interesting thing would be to look up.
12:37
How popular the French made outfit is for Halloween parties.
12:42
of, yeah, It's a fun thing, , but it's, serious because
12:46
that kinda says something.
12:48
it.
12:48
says something.
12:50
Yeah.
12:51
Nancy May: No, I'm doing, I'm not doing that.
12:52
Sorry.
12:53
TMI, at least for this show.
12:56
Sylvia Lovely: Should that ever happen, I'd love a picture.
12:58
Okay.
12:59
So yeah.
12:59
And then, so it's rev edited itself today.
13:01
So what do we have who wears aprons today that you run into
13:04
Nancy May: Oh.
13:05
So the butcher, if you have a, if you go to a meat store, right?
13:08
Butcher
13:09
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
13:09
Nancy May: mongers you don't really see aprons in the the
13:13
grocery store, in the butcher area.
13:14
They wear the, those white coats that are all
13:17
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
13:18
Nancy May: looking.
13:18
Sylvia Lovely: Doctory.
13:18
Yeah.
13:19
Kind of
13:19
Nancy May: But baker bakeries
13:21
Can do that
13:22
Sylvia Lovely: Bartenders
13:22
Nancy May: bar bartenders.
13:24
That's right.
13:24
I never thought about bartenders.
13:26
Sylvia Lovely: Drag queens.
13:27
Nancy May: Oh, drag queens.
13:28
Sylvia Lovely: Talk about French maids.
13:31
We have a lot of that going on here.
13:33
Nancy May: Some of them are very trendy and very expensive.
13:36
You see the chefs on the TV shows that are wearing them, that have a particular
13:40
brand and they've got the leather straps and they're a thick, heavy duck material
13:45
in the pocket with the brand name on it.
13:47
And they're quite the thing if you see it and you know the brand, you definitely.
13:53
You like, oh that's that one.
13:55
And so they're branching out to doing some very interesting and expensive
13:59
things in a very simple way that, that we should go into the apron business.
14:04
Sylvia Lovely: yeah.
14:05
Let's do it.
14:05
A biz op,
14:07
Nancy May: I'll, I'll get a sewing machine.
14:08
I'll dust it off my mom's sewing machine and I'll take it from
14:12
Sylvia Lovely: The, hey, the year I made my kids dinosaur Halloween
14:16
costumes was the last I ever sewed.
14:18
They were hard.
14:20
Why?
14:20
I thought I had to do that, I don't know.
14:22
Nancy May: Yeah,
14:22
I know how to fix something every now and then, but it's been a long time since I've
14:26
actually purposefully made anything with the sewing machine, Daisy Flower Garden.
14:30
Thank you very much for teaching me how to do that.
14:33
Sylvia Lovely: I love that name.
14:34
I love that.
14:35
But it's identity, it's like everything people do is about identity, you
14:39
know, branding themselves and it's self-branding kind of thing.
14:43
Nancy May: It's a personal statement in the kitchen.
14:44
I have to say.
14:45
I do have an apron that I unintentionally got just before our Christmas show,
14:49
and I did the whole Mrs. Claus outfit.
14:53
It actually came with a Mrs. Claus apron
14:56
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
14:56
She always had one on.
14:57
Yeah.
14:58
Yeah.
14:59
Nancy May: we're gonna take a quick break and I've got a story about somebody I
15:02
met who was an apron manufacturer or an apron creator on an airplane ride
15:07
once
15:08
Sylvia Lovely: and the Apron Museum, we'll talk about that
15:10
Nancy May: Yeah, we'll talk about that too.
15:11
Hang tight.
15:12
We'll be right back.
15:34
Okay, Sylvia, before I tell my apron story let's talk about the
15:38
Apron Museum and the whole history of aprons, because I think this is.
15:42
Fascinating.
15:43
They have become a very big collectible
15:46
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, this place has, the Apron Museum and , these people
15:50
decided to retire to her old hometown and it's looks like it's LUKA, but it's
15:56
actually IU a capital I looks just like capital L, just FYI UK y. So it's UKA.
16:03
So it's, I yuca.
16:04
Mississippi.
16:05
All right.
16:06
Keep that in mind.
16:07
So you only gonna go
16:08
Nancy May: That sounds like an old horn from a car.
16:10
A
16:10
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
16:11
Aah.
16:12
Visitors come from all over the world.
16:15
One man teared up as he looked at a apron that had been donated
16:18
and they reminded him of it.
16:19
So it's you know, memories by association even.
16:22
So, so yeah.
16:23
Yeah.
16:24
Tell us about who founded it though.
16:25
Nancy May: The apron regime was founded by Carolyn and Henry Terry after
16:29
they retired, as you'd mentioned.
16:31
And it has such a heartwarming story, the proof that the whole dream of the thread
16:36
of what happens with an apron can really bring, like you said, people to tears.
16:42
But it's something that's truly meaningful because.
16:46
Like my friend's grandmother Fern who wore these aprons.
16:49
These were very personal statements that women were wearing at the time, and today,
16:55
even the more modern ones are becoming.
16:58
I would say statements of identity in many w ays.
17:01
I think the French laundry they wore, you know, that the fancy restaurant
17:05
out in California, they wore aprons.
17:06
And these were big statements, not just from a professional perspective, but from
17:10
a very personal perspective in your home.
17:13
And, it was not a house code, it's.
17:16
Which I can't imagine people wore anyway to begin with, but it's even still, it's
17:20
an apron that protects and preserves and I think it's a tool that actually
17:25
takes care of the person that wears 'em,
17:27
Sylvia Lovely: It's a repository of memories.
17:29
These people started collecting aprons in 2006, and it all crystallized
17:33
around one very special apron.
17:36
It was an apron shaped like a bunny.
17:38
It reminds me of your Turkey.
17:40
Nancy May: Oh right, the Turkey.
17:41
I'll have to put the
17:42
picture of that one up.
17:43
Sylvia Lovely: It was given to them, by an 81-year-old woman who had
17:46
received it as a gift at age four.
17:49
She tried, this is awful.
17:51
This is painful.
17:52
She could find no family member who wanted it.
17:56
It was an orphan apron, and They took it in, and that was the beginning,
18:02
and now it houses over 6,000 of them from 18 hundreds to today
18:06
Nancy May: so the bunny was the first apron that they collected.
18:10
Sylvia Lovely: Yes, it was, , it really, I think they had collected them before,
18:13
but it gave birth to the idea of a museum and putting these things on display.
18:19
Even, you know, I think she may actually sell some aprons and things like
18:23
that, but she has them on display and
18:25
Nancy May: I wonder whether Hugh Hefner had any
18:27
Sylvia Lovely: there you go.
18:27
There's an apron.
18:30
Nancy May: and Gloria Steinem, who was a bunny.
18:33
I'll have to have to reach out to Gloria and see if she happens to have
18:36
a bunny apron in the closet somewhere.
18:39
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
18:39
Nancy May: Talk about padding, right?
18:41
Sylvia Lovely: yeah, these were made from everything, flower sack,
18:43
plastic, Muslim, and As we said before, repurposed clothing that was
18:48
just laying around in your closet.
18:51
And then we have modern times what's going on with aprons, and this is
18:57
one of my favorite stories FLO.
19:01
Nancy May: Oh, I love that.
19:02
I have to say I never realized or never even thought that Flo was
19:06
wearing an apron until we started to research and discuss this.
19:10
And when I really looked at that commercial,
19:13
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, they're all wearing
19:15
aprons.
19:16
The men, the women, and it's all supposed to evoke this idea of a
19:21
diner, that, , you come into the diner, it wasn't set in a diner.
19:26
It was set in a big box store kind of thing.
19:28
Like you could buy insurance products and big
19:30
Nancy May: Originally that was the original commercial.
19:33
cause they're everywhere now.
19:34
they're out
19:35
in the fields and doing
19:36
Sylvia Lovely: Everywhere.
19:37
Yeah.
19:38
Yeah.
19:38
But anyway, I love this story too.
19:41
Nancy, I just love this story.
19:43
She started the role in 2008
19:45
and she Yeah.
19:47
Stephanie Courtney, Yeah.
19:48
The who plays and she said the word that so captured the job for her and
19:56
look at this woman I was reading that she's one of the wealthiest.
19:59
Not well-known actresses.
20:01
It's not like she's in big productions or anything like that, but it just,
20:05
here she was and she said the word wow.
20:10
Nancy May: And that's what got her
20:10
Sylvia Lovely: And she said it in such an evocative way that they
20:14
didn't interview anyone else.
20:16
And so she became what she was.
20:19
, And you notice she has that eyeliner the stereotypical diner waitress that we see
20:24
Nancy May: I love it when she poses, I guess they, they redress
20:27
her, like her sister wearing the
20:29
big pants and chewing the gum and the teased hair and she doesn't have time
20:34
to do anything 'cause she's on her treadmill or a bicycle, whatever it is.
20:37
Sylvia Lovely: Moving very slowly.
20:39
Nancy May: Yeah.
20:39
She's doing her workout.
20:41
I just think that's hysterical.
20:42
I guess you could work out in an apron too.
20:44
It
20:44
doesn't matter.
20:45
But even still working out in the kitchen is sometimes It's a lot of work.
20:50
Sylvia Lovely: That's right.
20:50
So it's the same warmth and reliability that we associate with
20:54
going into your favorite diner,
20:56
Nancy May: I did not know that.
20:57
That's why they use the apron.
20:59
Sylvia Lovely: It's very symbolic.
21:00
And then how she just looks so ordinary?
21:03
Nancy May: she's very approachable, and I think the idea of an apron makes
21:07
somebody feel a little bit more familiar
21:10
Sylvia Lovely: I'll have, yeah, I'll have a piece of that pie flow.
21:13
Nancy May: If somebody is cooking for you.
21:15
You've gotta trust them.
21:17
And if they're wearing an apron, you hope you gotta trust them.
21:19
You know, a little slip of the whatever.
21:21
But All that tapping into the old and the same warmth and reliability
21:25
associated with her grandmothers in the kitchen, it's, I, my grandmother,
21:30
I didn't know her in the kitchen.
21:32
She was in a wheelchair, as I always remember her as a kid.
21:35
And I don't know if, don't remember my mom ever wearing an apron.
21:39
So that's interesting.
21:40
It was always
21:41
Sylvia Lovely: don't either.
21:43
I don't know.
21:43
Nancy May: down the street.
21:44
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
21:45
so our aprons reaching in the past for shape, color, and grounding in
21:50
a world that seems disposable, maybe aprons still have some saving to do.
21:55
We should
21:55
go into the apron business.
21:57
Nancy May: although, wait a second.
21:58
I would say, is this an apron or is this a bib?
22:01
When you go
22:02
eat lobster.
22:03
Sylvia Lovely: get a bid.
22:03
Nancy May: You get a bib, that's not an apron.
22:05
So that's a throwaway That's a little different, but it still
22:08
gives me the idea that you're still being covered type of thing.
22:12
I don't, I haven't really seen throwaway aprons.
22:15
Sylvia Lovely: No.
22:16
Nancy May: kept
22:16
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
22:17
Nancy May: reused.
22:17
Sylvia Lovely: Think of that poor bunny.
22:18
Nancy May: No.
22:19
I feel so bad.
22:20
Sylvia Lovely: I know how special
22:23
Nancy May: But I guess that's part of the apron's endurance.
22:25
It's not something that you just toss away, even if nobody in this poor woman's
22:30
family didn't want her bunny apron, seeing that apron designed to look like
22:35
a Turkey in the consignment, antique consignment shop the other week, I felt
22:39
I feel bad for the Turkey.
22:40
I was like, oh, that poor Turkey.
22:41
Are you crazy?
22:42
Yes, I'm crazy.
22:44
Sylvia Lovely: I know.
22:44
Nancy May: apron.
22:45
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
22:45
You know, we lead such strange lives today though.
22:48
It's really hard to keep everything
22:52
Nancy May: I did leave.
22:52
the apron at the store as much as I didn't
22:55
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
22:55
What do you do?
22:56
, You got only so much space and I guess I lament the fact that I didn't save
23:00
one of my grandmother's aprons 'cause it's such an image in my mind of her.
23:04
But, over the years, through all this stuff you go through
23:07
to get where you are in life.
23:09
But, try to do that.
23:11
cause you'll, someday you'll regret it not to special things like that.
23:15
. Nancy May: So I've got a story about a woman that I met.
23:18
Flying down from New York to Florida to taking care of my parents.
23:22
'cause there were lots of those trips back and forth.
23:24
If anybody's taking care of an aging parent from long distance,
23:27
you know how that challenging can be, but it's also, it's a labor
23:30
of love, I would say for sure.
23:32
And I always ended up sitting next to somebody who was interesting to talk to.
23:36
Not that I was the yapper on the side seat, but this woman was the yapper.
23:41
And she was lovely,
23:42
And as we started to talk, , why she was going down and what was going on, she was
23:47
also taking care of some aging parents.
23:49
She mentioned what she did on the side, and she had started
23:54
an Etsy shop and was sewing and creating her own style of apron.
23:59
And she sh she happened to have some and she showed me.
24:03
I felt so bad I should have just now.
24:05
I look back, I should have just bought an apron from her right then and there, and
24:08
I didn't have cash on me because.
24:10
That was the thing I tended not to do.
24:13
Not a good thing, but I did and I look back and, her story was
24:17
so beautiful about all the detail that she put into her aprons.
24:21
They were the half aprons, you know, not the big fold that go
24:23
over your head kind of thing.
24:24
And the thrills and how she looked for the antique fabrics and everything
24:28
that brought back the nostalgic.
24:31
It's just I don't know.
24:32
Um.
24:33
In
24:33
Sylvia Lovely: How long ago was that?
24:34
Nancy May: of hotcakes.
24:35
The
24:35
other, which I don't think of hotcakes as a thing, I think of pancakes,
24:39
but hotcakes is more nostalgic.
24:41
And I
24:42
that brings back just warmth and especially when I was going down to
24:44
take care of mom and dad, that made
24:46
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
24:47
Nancy May: warmer and cozier.
24:49
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
24:49
How long ago that, so that was several years ago.
24:51
Nancy May: Oh, that was a while.
24:52
Mom's been gone now five years.
24:54
Dad's six.
24:55
So I'm gonna say it was probably about seven or eight years ago.
24:59
Sylvia Lovely: You know, Nancy, if you make something.
25:02
Somebody out there is gonna buy it.
25:04
No.
25:04
If you have
25:05
Advertising ability and you can spread the word wide enough,
25:09
there's someone sitting in front of a computer screen gonna buy it.
25:12
It's just fascinating to me.
25:14
Like I, I noticed that on cable television, people advertising
25:17
these things like the muddy map.
25:19
I want a muddy map 'cause my
25:20
dog's feet get that.
25:21
Yeah.
25:22
Or the pet rock and some group of people will buy those things.
25:26
Nancy May: Think of all the crazy things that have been sold on QVC and
25:29
HSN and all those networks, right?
25:31
And now on Amazon, there are tons of things that I think,
25:34
why would anybody want that?
25:35
But sure enough, they're
25:36
selling
25:37
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
25:38
Nancy May: hotcakes nostalgia.
25:39
Again,
25:41
Sylvia Lovely: So, yeah, so there's all kinds of interesting things going
25:44
on with memories and traditions.
25:47
Nancy May: do you
25:48
Sylvia Lovely: here we go.
25:48
Nancy May: in your restaurant?
25:49
Sylvia Lovely: Oh
25:50
Nancy May: So all
25:50
the waiters and waitresses have aprons, or do
25:52
Sylvia Lovely: I think they do.
25:53
Nancy May: of some sort?
25:54
Sylvia Lovely: No, they have to wear uniforms.
25:55
They have the shirts that have azura on them.
25:57
They're black.
25:58
And I know the bartender wears an apron
26:02
and
26:02
Nancy May: apron, or is it just like a waist tie around the
26:04
Sylvia Lovely: no, she wears a full one.
26:06
Then the chefs have their chef coats, but when they're actively cooking,
26:11
they have on aprons black aprons.
26:14
And I think I've seen some of the servers in aprons, like the food
26:20
runners, , people that take the food out of the window and deliver it.
26:23
So I don't that, that got me to thinking, I'm there every day.
26:27
Why didn't I notice that?
26:28
Nancy May: I think I'm gonna have to go back to trying an apron, one of
26:31
those kind that you tie on, like the chef waiter ones, because I'm always
26:35
pulling out a dish cloth to wipe my hands on and it's, and then I'm throwing
26:39
it on the floor and it's getting messy and it's cleaning stuff up.
26:42
But it would be very handy just to have something other than
26:44
my jeans to wipe my hands on.
26:46
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
26:46
I think we just don't think about it.
26:48
You know?
26:49
It's
26:49
Nancy May: No,
26:50
it would be very helpful.
26:51
But I'm gonna go back real quickly to the idea of cooking over an open
26:55
stove because or over, or a hot stove.
26:58
I shouldn't say cooking over a flame.
27:00
And have you ever cooked over a fire or even a, have you ever cooked
27:05
on a regular cast iron wood stove?
27:08
Sylvia Lovely: No, I've been on campfire kinds of things where you
27:12
do that outside, but no, not on any
27:14
kinda.
27:14
Nancy May: I had the experience of doing that once I can understand why.
27:19
Women or even men who were cooking, wore some kind of apron of some sort.
27:24
Whether it's a cloth one or a leather one, probably a leather
27:27
one would be a lot better.
27:28
But the amount of work that goes into cooking on a wood stove, we did it
27:32
up in Maine with friends who had a family cabin and the only kind of
27:36
stove that they had on this island,
27:39
Mounty Mountainy Pond was, and then they had a family compound as many
27:42
families did around that particular pond.
27:44
And it was your regular, traditional.
27:46
I guess it was a cast iron, but it was an iron wood stove with just amazing.
27:51
We cooked spaghetti and Turkey and biscuits.
27:54
I was surprised what we could cook on that thing.
27:57
Thankfully, Jeanette the guys.
27:59
Wife or girlfriend, actually girlfriend, eventually wife,
28:03
knew how to use these things.
28:04
But it's a lot of work and sparks do fly
28:09
and it's quite interesting and quite an education.
28:12
Honestly, I think everybody should have at least one experience in their
28:16
life trying that because it gives you a different appreciation of the
28:20
ability to, oh, this is, talk about tradition, the ability to slow down.
28:25
And just take in the moment of what you
28:28
Sylvia Lovely: And just chatting with people and and all of
28:31
Nancy May: waiting and the time it takes to actually put the wood in the stove.
28:35
In the morning we would take turns each morning.
28:38
We would get up one morning and stoke the stove and take care of it.
28:41
And then they would get up the next morning.
28:42
'cause we had to start at six o'clock in the morning to heat that thing up
28:45
and make sure it was hot enough to do everything that we needed to do.
28:48
But wearing an apron, I probably could've seen myself wearing an apron and
28:52
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
28:53
Nancy May: maybe not a long skirt, but I would not want to do that for a lifetime,
28:57
Sylvia Lovely: Now.
28:57
My only experience with doing that was not a good one.
29:00
So Bernie and I were traveling, we were doing a grand tour of the
29:04
West before I started law school, and we went to the Grand Tetons
29:09
and we were gonna rough it, right?
29:11
We were gonna have our fire, we were gonna make bacon and eggs.
29:15
After four hours of not being able to sustain the fire or get it going,
29:20
we gave up and found a restaurant.
29:24
So
29:25
there you have.
29:26
Yeah.
29:27
Yeah.
29:27
No, that, that didn't work out for us, but I can see the point of, taking your time
29:33
and just, that's what people do when they gather together and just, that, that's
29:37
Nancy May: It gives you time to pause and think about probably too much, but
29:43
typically what's in front of you only,
29:45
which is very helpful I think from a.
29:47
Sylvia Lovely: Mindfulness.
29:48
Nancy May: Um, yeah, mindfulness.
29:49
Not even a mindfulness, but just being able to take a moment to
29:52
take a breath and stop everything.
29:54
So, on that note, stop.
29:57
I'm glad you're here.
29:58
We're both glad you're here.
29:59
Subscribe to podcast at Family Tree Food Stories.
30:04
How's that for a pause?
30:05
Sylvia Lovely: You're into
30:06
Nancy May: I
30:06
Sylvia Lovely: world now.
30:07
Nancy May: the zone, right?
30:09
Go get your book, my Family Tree, food and Stories.
30:12
Take a pause, write your stories.
30:16
Remember what you did when you were kids, maybe even grandma's apron.
30:21
And if grandma didn't have an apron, maybe somebody else you knew had an apron,
30:24
or friends had friends', grandmother had an apron, write that in your story.
30:29
With your recipes that you want to have passed down for
30:31
generations to come because it's not our family tree food stories.
30:35
It's your family tree, food and stories.
30:37
And please don't forget to also like and share this show and others with your
30:42
friends and family and take our survey so that we can bring even more wonderful
30:47
stories and memories and traditions to your house and to your kitchen.
30:51
And better yet, your table.
30:53
Take care.
30:53
Bye-bye.
30:54
Sylvia Lovely: Thank you.