If I was younger & wealthier, I'd buy a hobby farm so I could raise chickens & pigs and have a custom-built kitchen with double upright freezers, a six burner restaurant range, three sinks.... Oh, and a floor drain in the kitchen so I could hose the floor down.

Ci lantro, the idea of a drain in the kitchen floor has long been my ideal in kitchen design!

I might buy the services of someone to clean up after me so I could make all the mess I want.

I have to agree with Ci lantro and sushipup. We are farmers, but not hobby farmers, sounds great and I would definately have someone clean up for me!!

younger and wealthier - with better knees and back: a couple of acres in the country with room for chickens and a garden, plus hired help to man the tiller. I'd build a new house with a large kitchen, room for a big freezer, baking section with marble work surface, a large pantry/mud room/laundry room and........an outside shower!

All of the above!

I have been toying with the idea of getting a few chickens, but I am devastated if the deer nibble a hosta, I can't imagine how I would react if I had chickens and a fox killed one.......

Alexa

Ladies:
If you had your wish; being young, by the time you got all the things done, that you want,

You will be old again.??? LOL!!!

Keep wishing but be happy with what you got.
I think that was a Song ?
LOU

Question............What is the HF where Carol (readinglady) posted on the Maslin pan? Thanks.

Oh yeah, now that I've thought about it and y'all have whetted my appetite...I'd love a huge kitchen with an island that has a cooktop so I could visit with everyone while I'm cooking (after the sous chef has prepped everything for me) and eating space nearby. Forget the dining room, just give me enough open space for a long table with extension leaves so my whole family can gather round. And a really good sized pantry. Like the idea of the floor drain too. Still thnking.....

The HF is the Harvest Forum and she posted the link on the Mes Confitures thread.

jude

Well, I'd like a maslin pan, but I have no room to store it.

Truthfully? I'm happy, pretty much. I have my little farm and 7 head of cattle and a dozen chickens and my horses. I have my garden and eventually Elery and I will build a house there and sell both of our individual houses. I'll have a big kitchen and a new refrigerator instead of my 20 year old used fridge with the bungee cords where shelf fronts used to be.

I'll have a porch that faces west and I have Elery and we can sit and watch the sunset and I'll have my horse in my backyard and The Princess and Bruvver will be able to walk across the road to help me bake cookies.

Until then I'll work to pay for my bad farming habit because the world isn't perfect. I know it isn't because in a perfect world, I could make a living farming!

So I don't need to be younger or wealthier or healthier, just patient....

Annie

When I started this thread the 2 things I mentioned were certainly within my reach but I couldn't justify, in my mind, buying them at this time in my life. I'm 79, still in reasonably good health, just really getting into canning and preserving but, like you Annie, I don't know where I'd store the Maslin pan if I had it. And... I may not continue to put up as much food as I have been for just the 2 of us. I do share it with my children but there's still more than we need.

As for the mixer, what I have does all that I need it to do and a big mixer would just be something else to sit on my countertop because there's no other place for it. The one I have fits in my appliance garage.

All in all I'm content, the other things I mentioned were in a fantasy world.

jude

I like how you think Annie!

I would love to have the hobby farm that others have mentioned. Funny, I grew up on a hog farm. In addition, we had horses, beef cattle, chickens, and rabbits. I hated it. I wanted my father to buy a house on a wealthy lake near by where some of my friends lived. He never did.

Now I live on a lake (not wealthy) and I would love to live on a farm. (Funny how the grass is always greenier). My house is small and so is the kitchen. But I love to cook and I'm learning, more and more everyday from you wonderful folks. Thanks!!!
I'm happy where I'm at in life. And, feel blessed everyday! (I would love to have some chickens though.)

Karen

jude31, I'm not too far behind you in age.
And I think that, having worked and earned what we have,
we also have the right to indulge in some things we want.

If the stand mixer and the pan are within your reach,
you aren't depriving anyone of any necessities by buying them,
and you really would like to have them,
then go for it!

I don't can or preserve any more,
haven't in years.
So the pan doesn't interest me at all.
But my stand mixer is a necessity in my world,
even though I mostly cook for two.
I can not handle a hand mixer.
Because of severe arthritis.

"Things I might buy if. . .. .?"

I don't know.
Like annie1992, I'm pretty content where I'm at.
Most of the time. :>)

Well, I might like my back porch to face east rather than west.
Afternoon and evening sun is just too blasted hot here to enjoy a summer sunset!

Rusty

"Well, I might like my back porch to face east rather than west."

That's my thinking, Rusty. A porch to catch the morning sun and take the nighttime chill off would be a nice place to have coffee and get the day started.

Jim

Now that I've had a while to think about it, Annie needs two porches, one east and one west.

Jim

Jude, thanks for the reply. I visited the HF, and now I am even more inspired than ever to try canning/preserving.

The 2 things I would want to try are the Harbenero Gold and readinglady's peach preserves. I swoon every time someone mentions them in a post. So, regarding this post, I guess I'd like to outfit myself with the basic items to make those things up. And, to carve out time to learn how to do it.

Jude -- my mom is 92 and just bought a Le Creuset french oven for about $225. She's always wanted one and could easily have afforded it at any time. I guess she decided the time was right! You are never too old to fulfill your wishes.

Jim:
I was going to suggest 2 porches but you beat me to it.

There are 2 picture windows on the SE side of my house and small deck on the NW side, so I'm OK.
I'll second what Rusty said.
An old song "enjoy yourself, it's later that you think."
Google the Theme.
I know this first hand too.
Lou

Amck, glad you got inspired by the HF. You picked two good things to get excited about.
Rusty, the 2 things I mentioned are certainly within my reach if I only had the space to put them where I COULD reach them.LOL My counter top space is very limited.
We added a sunporch several years ago...one of the best things we ever did. We spend most of our free time there from April through October,and at our age there's a good bit of it. We added heat and air 3 or 4 years ago and that let's us use it even more.
Pam, I heartily agree with you about fulfilling your wishes. Most of mine have been about traveling, something my DH doesn't care about, but he's okay with me traveling and I have taken advantage of that.

jude

Dream kitchen! Drawers instead of doors... lots of wasted space in back. If structurally possible (might be), would totally eliminate dining room and open up kitchen into that area. Six burner stove and massive fridge/freezer. Spare fridge/freezer... in garage!?! ENough counter space that it rarely gets cluttered. Someone to clean up after me!! Though not in ideal climate, a super outdoor kitchen.

Jude, do you travel with friends, alone or with a tour? I'm interested to know how you do it.

I have all those things I bought when I was younger and don't use half of them. Now, though I am 46, I am paring down.

I would want a good size fully equipped kitchen right next to a gigantic greenhouse, so that I can have lots of fresh herbs and veggies.

dcarch

I just talked to hubs about building a 1600 sq ft home to replace our 2,050 one that is ten years old. We've never lived in a place more than 10 years when we were corporate. I look around. Maybe have a large deck off a drop to a river, but down there would be water moccasins, raccoons, and possums. We have two out of three--no water moccasins here. I love this place and we probably will stay here.

Must have good hospitals and doctors. Hubs has had 3 kinds of cancer from Agent Orange. Jacksonville would be ok--good hospitals up there. But where I would want to build wouldn't like the size I want. And it gets a lot colder up there. We were there last January and it was 23 degrees. Hubs scheduled his surgery in February thinking it would be warmer. It was not a bit warmer in Feb.

Oh well stay here south of Daytona a block from the beach and suffer.

"if I only had the space to put them where I COULD reach them."

That could definitely be a deciding factor.

:>)

Rusty

If I could go back to when I was younger, I would have bought less kitchen/household stuff rather than more.

The older I get, the more valuable a simple life with a minimum of baggage to tote around in it becomes. We've already divested ourselves of many of the items that seemed like necessities at the time but turned out not be to substantial contributors to improving our quality of life.

My wish: To live on a family compound where all six of our kids would live with their families, in and out of each others' homes, cousins playing together, with me at the helm cooking and baking everybody's favorite things in my enormous kitchen/dining room where we would all fit easily at one time!

Nowadays I only use all my "stuff" (stand mixer, food processor, etc.) when the gang's all here, which isn't often enough to suit me. I still need and use it all, just not as often as I used to. I can chop enough onions and mince enough garlic for the two of us faster with my trusty old knife than with my gadgets.

I was in a great kitchen store the other day and felt sort of sad-yet-pleased that there wasn't one thing in the entire store that I wanted or needed. Felt kind of strange.

Sherry

I'm in there with those that want to get rid of stuff, rather than accumulate, but since we purchased our "hobby" farm a little over a year ago, but can't move there until 1.) Dh retires and 2.) I find a job there. I guess what I want most right now is a job where our hobby farm is. I'm probably crazy to start a hobby farm at my age, but then, I'm not really my age - I'm a whole lot younger! (At least, that's what I keep telling myself.)

As for fantasy fulfillment, I'd like to have a separate kitchen without cats in it, so if I wanted to do something to sell, I could pass inspection, or accomodate whatever regulations that are involved in selling food products, but I'll have to get a WHOLE lot better at baking or whatever before I even consider something like that.

Sally

Pam, I've done both...with friends and with tours..I don't travel alone simply because I prefer to be with someone, like I don't really enjoy eating alone.

In the past I have traveled with a "Garden Group" that has a member who was with a with a travel agency and he and his wife arranged the trips. We did a Tuscan garden tour in Italy 2 or 3 years ago. Relatively small goup, we stayed in interesting places, for instance one was a B&B that had been a monastery. Last year they planned a Rhine River Cruise and a couple of friends and I went a week early, rented a car and tooled around in Germany, staying in very small B&B's. I actually enjoyed that more than the river
cruise. Friends and I have made shorter trips to New England several times, to Virginia, North Carolina etc. I go to Charleston, SC at every opportunity.

A few years ago a friend and I traveled with a high school group to England and France and another time we went to Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy.

I don't remember who posted about a trip to Italy this spring with her son and was joined by her husband, but that would be the epitome of traveling to me if my tired old legs would let me make it...and if I had a driver.LOL

Thank you for your interest.

jude

For some of you who would like to have a farm, I will be glad to sell you mine. It had a brick house on it and I'm sorry, but I've already sold the house. It had a giant U shaped kitchen. No drain in the floor though and no six burner gas stove. It's twenty miles from the city and that's just waaaay to inconvenient for me.

If I were young, wealthy and healthy and could find one I would buy a farm right in the middle of the city. Since it's difficult to find that I would probably buy a house in the city with an acre or two. Since I can no longer do garden work I would hire a gardener to do both the vegetable garden, flower garden and yard. Knowing me, it would take a couple of people because I want a large variety of trees, flowers, vines and bushes and a vegetable garden large enough to help feed my neighbors. In the house I would have a maid just to clean up after me and then leave everyday. No matter how hard I try, I'm just plain messy. And while I'm dreaming I'll take a sous chef too.

BF and I just got back from a trip to MI. Saw lots of hobby farms for sale. In fact, half of MI is for sale. If we were younger we would have met and married and had a hobby farm and lots of babies. Now we'd still buy one, if we were both steadily and gainfully employed . . . Oh how I miss the big vegetable gardens I saw along the way, the ones of my youth. I was too sick this spring to put one in. I'd have fruit trees and berry bushes. I'd experiment at least with a cow, and definately chickens. And I'd have a summer kitchen.

Threads like this are interesting and prompt me to think about what I would like that I am missing. And the answer is... very little. I'm pretty happy living the way I do. I pretty much have all the kitchen appliances and gadgets I want. I remodeled my kitchen in 2004 and it is still exactly what I wanted with only about two very minor changes I would make if I wanted to bother.

I admire Annie's farming immensely but would never want to do any farming myself. I can't even bring myself to grow a small garden! I just don't have it in me to tend to something like that every single day which is what would be required in order to be successful.

So.. Things I might buy if I were... unlimited by my bank account: fix my driveway and remodel my bathroom are the two things on my list I am really hankering to do and will, I hope, in the foreseeable future.

Not kitchen related! But I think I really do have that covered! I feel very fortunate to be able to say that!