Sun. Jan. 25 1-4 p.m. Getting a Taste For History: Open Hearth Cooking at Durand-Hedden archived

This year Durand-Hedden welcomes a new cook skilled in 18th and 19th century foodways to our annual historic cooking program honoring late longtime trustee, Irene Kosinski. For over 20 years Carlotta Defillo has demonstrated open hearth cooking with flair and dedication at Historic Richmondtown in Staten Island and she looks forward to working at our kitchen fire. Irene, a gifted educator and lover of living history, oversaw the restoration of Durand-Hedden’s beehive oven in 1981. She went on to establish our perpetually popular open hearth cooking program, which for thirty years has drawn visitors who are ‘hungry’ for history. On the menu this year will be a chicken roasted in a tin reflector oven, crumpets fried on a griddle, tasty “cobblestones” and preserved foods from the fall harvest. Children will be able to try their hand at old-fashioned cooking chores like kneading dough and making butter.

Visitors can still catch the intriguing exhibit, The Maplewood Theater: Its Forgotten Saga, which explores the ever-changing 87-year history of the Maplewood Theater, spanning silent films, vaudeville, talkies, a famed era of live theater, neighborhood cinema, and the current sixplex. Out in the carriage house the Country Store will be selling historic- themed treasures: early American children’s games, books and toys, facsimile documents, quill pens and ink, historic cook books, cookie molds, tin lanterns, reproduction decorative ceramics, vintage photos, hiking sticks and more. The hard- to-find original Doors of Maplewood poster and Smile, the history of Olympic Park, will also be available.

The Durand-Hedden House is dedicated to telling the history of the development of Maplewood and the surrounding area in new and engaging ways. It is located in Grasmere Park at 523 Ridgewood Road in Maplewood. For more information or to arrange group tours call 973-763-7712.

Irene Kosinski , who passed away in January, two years ago I believe was an amazing person in the community .
Her wit and dedication to the town , along with her steadfast honesty are deeply missed

The events at Durand Hedden keep her alive in our hearts ...I miss her engagement and quick humor ...

I look forward to this every year.
I just made a New England spider cake and I knew that it did NOT have any spiders in it thanks to this demonstration and historical info event! ;-) #:-s

We went today. Such a good time. Thanks you to all those who gave their time and effort to make this a success! Alot of thought, time and effort go into these programs.

Thank you so much for recognizing this. And -- we are all volunteers. It is a labor of love!