"CHambers" news and stories

Corn and tomato salsas. Photo: sporkist, Flickr.

• With just-picked farmers' market ingredients, the Salsa Lady makes sinfully spicy salsas.
• After a class-action lawsuit was filed against Dannon for overstating Activia and DanActive health benefits, the company reached a settlement.
• The Star Tribune thinks a warm September is perfect pinot grigio weather, and suggests Scaranto Delle Venezie Pinot Grigio 2007.
• Warming up the cool fall kitchen with fresh corn fritters.
• Is there such a thing as wine that works for everyone?
• Minneapolis has the largest group of Hmong people in the U.S., but their ethnic food is still underground.
• In metro dining news, Chambers gets a new look and tasty new menu, Loring Kitchen & Bar gives great views of Loring Park, and OM Restaurant dishes up fresh and complex Indian food.
• Weekly restaurant pick: Lyndale Ave's Prima.

Having grown up with, learned to cook on and generally taken for granted the vintage gas stove in my family's kitchen, you can imagine my surprise when I saw a red one just like it on the Food Network, crouched behind Rachael Ray. Stoves like our 1952 Chambers Model 90C (above) have become all the rage and it's no surprise. They're beautiful, obviously durable and hey, what good cook doesn't like cooking with gas? When restored, these stoves can command upwards of $4,000.

We acquired ours in the mid-70s while our house was being restored. As you can imagine, the house has evolved around the stove, which hasn't really moved in a few decades. While it still cooks just fine, there's a bit of finesse involved. There's no pilot, so the oven and ranges must be lit by hand. This usually results in a fun "booof" sound that makes most guests back away from the stove.