Cake pan with a pivot arm

Having recently unearthed every. single. thing. in my last kitchen, I found two cake pans, each one has a flat metal swivel arm attached to the inside center. I recall vaguely having used these, maybe a thousand years ago, to bake layers of a cake and you rotate the arms to free it from the pan. Of course, this swing-arm is not paper thin nor is it really flat against the bottom of the pan so you rough up the top of the cake, which is why I consigned them to the far back of a lower cabinet.

I'm going to suppose everybody has seen these... does anybody use them? Or, know why this seemed like a good idea?

Yup, seen them certainly. My impression is that they were more popular before the advent of non-stick surfaces and the widespread use of parchment paper.

[Jenise]

Yes! My mother had some like that. And they were fine until I figured out that a circle of wax paper was a much better solution.

OK, good, so these can become part of an art project or simply be recycled.

I still have a couple of those; they worked great. Haven't baked a cake in decades, should give them away. Life sure changes when kiddos are out of the house for a long time, and a spouse passes away. There is not one week here that goes by that I am not tossing something out or giving it away. Sad thing is, that today's kids don't want the fancy china, silver, or the beautiful crystal that was the THING back in my day. I have beautiful stuff, and no one wants it. They entertain these days differently, and it is all about how fast I can get out of the kitchen and use fewer pans and pots. Probably a good thing is some way, as my cousins wanted to go on a trail ride with the family in beautiful country. Another family wanted to take the family to a Garden of Lights and spend the time there. Better than being in the kitchen for sure.

[Jenise]

I fully relate to the rate at which things are being given away. I'm very proud of myself for the amount of stuff I cart out of here and yet, when I look around, I still feel like I'm drowning in things I don't need or want.

Having more or less moved out of our house and then moved back in due to the Eternal Remodel, we've thrown what seems like a huge amount of stuff away. Kitchen, bedroom, living room stuff, furniture, you name it. We have come up with a fun way to do this, though. When we get enough of a load of stuff to fill the trunk of the car, we take it down to Lodi. (Yes, the same place John Fogerty was stuck in.) We started doing this because it's the nearest place with a Salvation Army donation center, and we prefer going through them rather than Goodwill. So we drive down to Lodi, about 40 minutes away, and first have lunch. There are several old-fashioned diners there that have been around for decades and offer good versions of diner cuisine (if you can call it that). Then we drop our stuff off and head for a winery or two. We've been to a bunch of wineries around there now and have been really impressed at what some of the winemakers there are doing, working with obscure grapes (varietal bourbelanc or clairette blanche, anyone?) and going for wines that are far more interesting and food friendly than the monster zins the place has been known for.

But despite many Lodi liunches and many tasting room experiences, the house still seems to be way too full of stuff!