Some of you have asked me about my vintage stove* (the backdrop for many a cake picture on my blog). It's a c. 1950 Chambers, manufactured in Shelbyville, Indiana, and once called the "Cadillac of Stoves."
Its tag line was Cook with the Gas Turned Off!, which was designed to "liberate" the housewife. It is so well insulated that supposedly when the oven reaches the desired temperature and the chicken (or whatever) is placed inside, the oven can be turned off and the cooking will continue just fine. I've never tried it, mostly because I didn't want to risk removing a half cooked chicken (or whatever) when it was time to serve dinner.
Still, it is a fabulous appliance: The three burners have a lot of btu's and it has a Thermowell, a recessed well (complete with pots and a rack) where one can bake muffins, cook soup, and more. The top broiler is very convenient, and you can use its aluminum covering as a griddle. And it has a real, old-fashioned pilot light, which was very handy during a NYC blackout a couple of years ago when my daughter wanted an omelet. Most modern stoves have electronic ignition and don't work without electricty.
The Chambers oven is a bit small, which is why I also have an electric baking oven. But I'm on my third modern oven in 12 years; they keep breaking, while the 60-year-old Chambers hasn't failed yet. (In fact, during a multi-month Kafka-esque nightmare with Con Ed when my electric oven wasn't working and I was supplying cafes with cakes, it was the Chambers oven that kept me in business.)
Chambers stoves have become quite popular in the past few years. Rachel Ray uses one on her television show, and there are a number of internet sites devoted to them.
We've had ours for nearly 20 years. When we were renovating our kitchen, I fell in love with a vintage stove -- a gorgeous robin egg blue 1939 Quick Meal -- but simply couldn't afford it. (Those were the days when I believed in delayed gratification.) Anyway, we found our now beloved Chambers on Long Island, where it was being sold by a family who had just modernized their own kitchen. I've never looked back,
*Full disclosure: No one asked me about the stove. I just wanted to write about it.
god forbid our daughter shouldn't have an omelet in the middle of a blackout!!! egads!!
ReplyDeleteSusan after hearing about your incredible chambers a few months ago, I went on a mad search for one. I bought one off craigslist and have been refurbishing it since. Mine is just like yours but yellow. I can't wait to move it out of my garage and into the house to start cooking. Those websites devoted to chambers stoves chambers rangers and chambers commune were really helpful in the restoration. And they have recipes for cooking with the gas turned off.
ReplyDeletefirst cake porn, now appliance porn. where will this blog go next?
ReplyDelete@Lydecker: Congrats on your Chambers! And the yellow ones are lovely. I'm impressed that you're restoring it yourself. After we had our moved from Long Island to Brooklyn, and it was installed, it wasn't working properly. I called an appliance repair place from the yellow pages (remember those, pre-Google?) and asked them to send out their oldest repairman. Sure enough, the old guy recognized the Chambers immediately and solved the problem in minutes (the tube that connects the pilot to the burner had shifted).
ReplyDelete@Margaret: Now that's a challenge. Tranny porn, perhaps?
nice guide! thank you!/I love it ! Very creative ! That's actually really cool Thanks.
ReplyDeleteGas Appliance Repair
Hi - could you post the name of the appliance repair place you used? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI truly can't recall the name, but these are rather uncomplicated stoves so any old-timer should be able to do it.There's a place in NY called Belgrove Appliances that specializes in vintage stoves. I called them once years later (can't recall why) and remember being a bit underwhelmed by them.
DeleteI love the fact that the stove has a porcelain top. . . easier to maintain than the chrome and very clean looking!
ReplyDeleteI remember the first time I fell in love. I was a very young little girl and it was at my grandparents home. It was their chambers stove. It seemed to be larger than the ones I’ve seen but it was all copper and stainless steel. It is one of my biggest regrets not claiming it when my grandparents died. I was just twenty and to afraid to speak up. I am sure that people can relate to a family of vultures. I was the closets to them then anyone in the world and yet I was terrified of the rest of the families greed. To this day at seventy I still miss the memories of living a considerable amount of my life with them and cooking on that stove. As a child I didn’t like beans but when my grandfather made them they were the best. Great memory to this day.
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