Been awhile

Folks you'll have to forgive me for not posting. With work, winter and life I have not had much time to do much of anything. Long long days at work, we had a snow storm here and my 70 year old tractor wouldn't start, 80 mile hay run for the horses in snow and icy roads, and getting ready for Christmas. That pretty much took it's toll on me and I have just flat out collasped on the couch after work each night. I hope to get some more work going on the stove real soon and have been cooking up a storm for the family. Made a lobster pie, whiskey pork chops, mashed patatos, and a chocolate butter cake with run sauce for my mummy in law, plus a few dozen kick butt chocolate chip cookies from my mothers old recipe. Talk to you all when the dark clouds of life clear up a bit.

Lid photo

Jim here is a pic the top of the lid. As you can see it has an unusual lifter hole.

Busy busy busy

I have been very busy at work and pulling long days so I have not done anything with the stove. I have however done some research and I can't seem to find an oval adaptor pipe for this stove. Lucky I have a friend that has another friend that does sheet metal work so I think I can get him to make me one. I also found and bought the proper lid lifter for this stove and just for fun bought an old time 4 slice top of the stove toaster to play with. After reading a post by Jim, I found and ordered a copy of the wood stove cook book he was talking about. Very nice book with lots of great information. Well the weekend is here and I do hope to play with the stove a bit more as well as do some cooking. I have a pork tenderloin defrosting and picked up a duck as well. YUM YUM time!!!!

A little about me



Me and my 1964 Ford Falcon

 I was asked a few questions about who I am. Well I am 49 years old and married to an awesome woman named Joanne, we have been married for 14 years now and own a small horse property in Chester NH. We have 3 horses, 2 are wild mustangs from NV and the last is a 1/2 mustang 1/2 morgan. I have worked in the semiconductor industry for the last 20 years mostly as a field service engineer so I have traveled pretty much everywhere in the world. In the last couple of years I have moved into R&D testing so I have not had to travel and I really like that. Being that I am in the high tech high stress world, I have really come to love the simple things. I have a 1964 Ford Falcon convertible for my fun car as it is clean, simple and elegant. I can feel relaxation as soon as I sit in it and start the engine on a nice summer day. I also restore old fountain pens, have old wrist watches and pocket watches and of course love to cook old school. I think the cooking really helps me unwind as it is fun, relaxing, and gives me a feeling of accopmlishment. So there it is, a high tech man who does not like high tech things. 

My 20 year old wild mustang Vinny

My horses give me peace and tranquility via their unconditonal love. There is nothing like pulling into the drive after a long day and seeing those 3 goof balls come to the fence and ask for cookies. No mater how bad of a day you have had, they make you smile and feel good inside.<

We have fire

There it is folks, fire!! I spent a lot of the weekend fixing holes, cleaning out and replacing bolts that had gone missing over the years, but yesterday I decided it was time to try a real fire and see what was what. She heated up just fine. A little smokey in the beginning, but when she heated up all the smoke went away. I figure some of it was crud burning off from all the years it sat idle. I put a small pot of water on the stove and it made it to rolling boil in about 4 minutes!! The oven reached 3 on the needle which was about 350 degrees. All in all very happy with everything. Now I have to try and get a tile floor down in the house before it gets real cold and the snow starts to fly.

More info on the new stove

I did a little research on the stove. It is a model CA and they were built in 1933. The interesting things about this stove are that it was the first model that Home Comfort welded the back portion of the oven to the formed sides, top and bottom of the oven. All older models were bolted together. It also was the first to have an interlocking stove top that was hand laid and adjusted for perfect fit and proper sealing during expansion and contraction due to heat ranges. I think I lucked out getting this model. I also got my hands on a VERY nice original copy of the 1933 Home Comfort cook book that featured the model CA. This is where I was able to find out all this wonderful information about this stove. This weekend I plan on taking a good amount of the stove apart for cleaning and inspection. I don't think I will take it 100% apart, but I hope to be able to inspect the entire stove and make a list of what needs repairs. I will photograph the steps and post them here in case others would like to have an idea of how to take the stove apart.

Meatloaf made from the Home Comfort cook book recipe

Lastly I made an awesome meatloaf from the recipe in the Home Comfort cook book. Even my wife said it was better than hers and she is a great cook! Here is the page from the book for the beef loaf recipe.

The stove is here



At last I have a real antique wood burning cook stove

 Well it has arrived!!! The stove is home and in the garage for now. Of course being me, I could not wait to see it work so even without stove pipes I put a real small stick fire on and watched her run. Smoky as all get out! Going to take some cleaning up and some repair work which I will post here as it may be of interest to some as to what is inside a stove and how to repair old ones for use.
For now it will sit until I can get some time to work on it and it does work!!! Happy happy happy here!!!

A stove has been bought

The 1925 Home Comfort cook book

After searching for parts and info I have decided to buy the Home Comfort stove. I made the deal with the owner and will be picking it up this coming weekend. It will go in the garage until I have time to do small repairs and to make the spot in the house ready for it. I have to put down tiles on the floor and wall where it will be and have to punch a hole through the wall of the house to the outside world for the stove pipe. I am not looking forward to making a hole in my house, but it has to be done. I did not get the chance to try the peach and pecan pie last weekend like I had hoped to. I was able to think of some ways to do it and I got a copy of the 1925 Home Comfort cook book. It is a reprint of the original and since it had a list and photos of all the parts of the stove, it helped me decide to buy the one I had looked at. Another update when the stove is home.

First recipe attempt

My Wife Joanne had an idea that I really liked and I hope to give it a try this weekend. Peach and Pecan pie! What flavors could go better together than that? Well, ANYTHING with Bacon of course, but pie wise this has to be tops. I am going to use a 100 year old Pecan Pie recipe and then play around using small pie tins and different techniques until I figure out a real good one and then I will post the recipe here. Sadly I will have to do this on the modern stove and oven as I don't have the wood one yet, but I am itching to get cooking so it just has to be. At least the recipe is old.

It begins

Welcome folks, The first post! I don't really know how to start.This is about old school food. The way it used to be. There is something special about food made the old fashioned way. It just tastes better. A propane grill or even a charcoal grill can't compare to an open fire and cast iron cookware meal. Nor can it compare to bread baked in an antique wood fired kitchen stove. I already have an outdoor wood cooking site on our property, but have yet to buy a wood fired stove for the kitchen. So the first steps in this instructional blog is going to be finding, buying and installing an antiques wood fired cook stove. So far I have looked at 2 stoves, a Kalamazoo Prince and a Home Comfort. The Kalamazoo had a huge crack in the front of the stove so that the oven door would not close. The Home Comfort was in nice shape, but was missing some key parts. If I can find a source for the parts, I am going to try and buy the Home Comfort stove and do the repair work myself.

This is a Kalamazoo Prince stove. A very nice model and pretty easy to find.

This is the Home Comfort model. I prefer this model to the Kalamazoo. Both were made in the 1920s or 1930s and both are enameled models. Both have warming ovens and both can burn wood or coal. Either one would work well, but for some reason I like the Home Comfort one better.