Scale

 This scale has been in my family for a long time.

It first belonged to my grandfather, Kurt Abramowski.  He was a butcher by trade and he used it to weigh and measure his ingredients for sausages and salamies and all manner of other yummies.

My grandmother, Minnie (his wife), used it in her kitchen.  The scale on the counter is one of my earliest memories.

As my grandma got older, the scale ended up in my mom's kitchen while she and her sisters got together to bake stollen and honishcuchen at the holidays.  Everything in those german recipes has to be weighed out.  I remember coming home after school to my aunts and mother laughing and working together getting the baked goods ready for Christmas.  I can still feel the warmth and security of that scene as I type it.

I hadn't really given the scale much thought until my mom took it out of the garage cupboard to weigh out the peaches for the pie fillings.  The memories washed over me.  I just had to take a few pictures.  And now a fourth generation is using it to measure.