22 hours Ago
Portland resident Lucy Denton holds up one of several aprons she recently inherited made by relatives decades ago. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald As a little girl growing up in Readfield, writer Elizabeth Penney wore aprons to keep clean at mealtime — “pinnies” (for pinafore), her British mother called them. Her mother sewed the aprons herself and still makes the occasional apron for her now grown-up daughter.
Penney wears them when she remembers to. “When I don’t, I regret it. I’m such a slob when I cook,” she said laughing.
But it was a visit to Walmart that sparked the idea for Penney’s three-part apron shop mystery series, set in the fictional Maine town of Blueberry Cove. Penney had been searching for an idea for a new series, researching trends, checking out other books in her same cozy genre and brainstorming. When she saw aprons for sale at the superstore, she made a mental note.
“And one day it just popped into my head, an apron shop!” The resulting books — “Hems & Homicide,” “Thread and Dead” and “Bodies & Bows” — star the plucky Iris, who runs a quaint apron shop in Blueberry Cove. Iris is “practical and level-headed but also creative and friendly,” Penney said. “When she finds herself in a jam, she’s brave enough to try to figure it out herself.
” And find herself in a jam she does — often: There was that time renovations at the shop uncovered a skeleton. In another book, Iris discovered a corpse with an apron tied around his neck. Snug, comfy settings juxtaposed with dead bodies are stock-in-trade for cozies, of course, but for most of us, aprons evoke grandma, pot roast, pies and love.
Falmouth resident Deborah Luhrs sewed a special tag into the apron of her daughter Bronley Luhrman. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald The love part is clear to Portland resident Laura Burden. Among her favorite aprons are two given to her by good friends.
“One speaks to me of femininity and strength, the other of the MOST supportive friendships a person can have!” Burden wrote in an email, adding that she is positive the aprons improve her cooking. For professional cooks, “aprons are kind of — I don’t know — our way of expressing ourselves,” Portland’s Lil Chippy co-owner Will Durst said. “It’s not necessarily what apron we wear but how we wear it.
Because when you wear a uniform, everybody’s wearing the same thing. But these little tweaks you can do with the apron separate one cook from another cook, give you character, a little personality. “There’s a term in the culinary scene where we say soigne,” Durst continued.
“It’s French. It’s, like, elegant. So yeah, we refer to a lot of things as soigne.
We refer to food being soigne. We refer to another cook — ‘Oh that’s a soigne look.'” Seamstress Katrina Kelley, of Amphitrite in Newcastle, makes elegant linen aprons for both home cooks and restaurant staffers, the latter inspired by her late brother, who was a chef.
Her food industry clients include Erin French’s The Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Buttermilk Kitchen in Camden, and farm/catering company Shovel & Spoon in Limington. She likes to think her customized aprons make the lives of chefs “enjoyable and easier and happier.” “You want to talk colors? Let’s talk colors,” Kelley said.
“You want to do different kinds of pockets? You want a loop on it somewhere? You want shorter ties? I can customize things specifically for what they want so that they don’t have to just buy the same old garden variety.” Using email and telephone, we asked a few dozen Mainers, both home cooks and professionals, to tell us about favorite aprons. Read on for some of their stories, edited for length and clarity.
Lucy Denton folds an apron in her living room at her apartment in Portland. Denton recently inherited over a dozen aprons that were sewed decades ago by her mom’s two grandmothers and a great-aunt. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald DANA BALDWIN, Portland “My daughter Lucy Denton (26 years old) and I just got back from a trip to my parents’ house in Ohio.
My parents (84 and 83) are slowly making decisions about what to do with things in the house they have lived in since 1975, as they plan a move to Maine. One of the treasures uncovered was a fleet of aprons that my grandmothers (on both sides) had made and worn over the years. Some smock style, some ‘fancy’ fabric to wear tied at the waist over a dress while zipping in and out of the kitchen during a party and even some that tie around the waist but go down to the floor if you’re wearing a floor-length dress (I guess?).
Dana Baldwin, right, and her daughter Lucy Denton go through the pile of recently inherited aprons at Denton’s apartment in Portland. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald “Some of them have a special nostalgia, because they are made with fabric that was also used in dresses my grandmother made for me that also shows up in quilts that she made. Lucy and I brought back almost all of them (maybe 15 total?).
Lucy is a great cook — I am definitely not — and she already had some of my grandmothers’ aprons in her kitchen, but now she’s got these others in regular rotation.” Chef Will Durst, far right, in the kitchen in his favorite apron at Jacqueline, the restaurant where he cooked in Portland, Oregon. Now the co-owner of Lil Chippy (in our Portland), he says he eventually replaced it with a Patagonia apron and a few Hedley & Bennetts.
“I’m a gearhead too,” Durst said, “so I have some nice things as well.” Courtesy of Will Durst WILL DURST, co-owner, Lil Chippy in Portland “So when I was starting cooking in Vermont, the aprons were always supplied by a big company. They were cheap aprons.
And then when I moved out West, there were no house aprons. You had to bring your own apron, which was kind of cool. I started shopping around.
Everybody had the Hedley & Bennetts, the Tilits, the Bragards, all the big names. And I found this one on Amazon. I was a broke cook.
I had just moved out West and spent all my money getting out there, so I found one on Amazon for 10 bucks or something like that. And I was like, ‘Oh, everyone is going to make fun of me, wearing the cheap apron.’ “But it came in.
It was pretty nice. I’m like, ‘Alright, well this is my apron.’ And I drove to work and everyone was, ‘Oh, that’s a really nice apron.
’ It’s lightweight. It was in the middle of summer in Portland, Oregon, so it was really hot. This apron really stands out.
Everybody was, ‘Where did you get it? I need to get one!’ I’m like, ‘Eh...
it’s kind of my apron.’ I don’t want anybody to steal my style. It was pretty funny how everyone’s in the $100 aprons, I’m wearing a $10 apron and getting all the compliments.
I have no idea what brand it was, but I wore that thing to rags.” ELLIE CHATTO, South Portland “My Dad, born in Portland, the son of Italian immigrants, gave me a wonderful gift one year for my birthday. It was a box of Italian olive oil.
He knew how much I loved to cook, and he loved to come over for dinner when I cooked his favorite pasta sauce. Inside the box with the bottles of olive oil was an apron. It’s a humble, white, dish-towel-like long apron, with the name of the olive oil company woven into a green stripe along the sides.
It’s a comfortable, easily washed staple in my kitchen. My Dad passed away last May. But I have the apron as a memory of his love for me (and my cooking!).
It’s a hug from him each time I wear it.” CATHY TAYLOR, Waterville Cathy Taylor made this apron for her mother, who cooked Sunday dinners for friends and family, while everybody watched the Celtics games. Courtesy of Cathy Taylor “It was the era of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish, Dennis Johnson, and the Boston Celtics were the hottest thing in Boston.
“My brother and I had moved away, but my sister was still at home with my mother. My dad had passed away, and one of the things my mother missed most was cooking Sunday dinner. We always did this as a family — roast beef, leg of lamb, all the trimmings.
Sometimes the ‘good’ dishes. So, it seemed a natural combination when my sister invited her friends over to watch the game that maybe there should be something to eat. “A weekly tradition was quickly patched together.
Everyone chipped in. Mom bought and cooked dinner and they all cheered on the Celtics from the living room. Things got serious when, as a group, they bought a season ticket package and took turns going to the ‘Gahdin’ to see the team in person.
As an added bonus, they all started a fund for a season-end celebration dinner at a fancy location, like the swanky castle restaurant at the Sheraton Tara Hotel in Framingham (Massachusetts). Ordered anything they wanted — there was enough in the fund to pay. “So, this week, while unpacking the St.
Paddy’s decorations, I found this apron in the bottom of the box. I remember thinking that the Celtics dinners surely needed an appropriate Celtics apron, so I made it for mom. I got it back after she died and wore it more than once for Corned Beef and Cabbage.
Seemed like the story was meant to be told this week (she wrote the week of St. Patrick’s Day), when the request came around for an apron story. Like the Celtics, it’s a winner.
” CHRISTOPHER GOULD, co-owner, Central Provisions, Tipo and Finestkind, Portland “I like Bragard aprons, personally. They’re generally made very well. The material is heavy.
They’re stitched well. They hold up really nicely to a lot of heavy abuse and a lot of heavy washing. I like the Hedley & Bennett ones too, although they can be pretty pricey, like $85.
We supply aprons for our cooks at Central Provisions. We go through 100 aprons a year probably. If you’re spending $85 each, that’s, $9,000 a year on aprons, which is crazy.
“For the cooks, I try to buy stuff that’s in more of a $40 range. Bragard has a line that I use that’s in that price range, although for a while they stopped selling in the United States, so I switched to Chef Works, which I wasn’t as big of a fan of. The material is a lot thinner, and they don’t hold up as well.
They don’t hang as nicely. If you have thinner material when you’re working, sometimes they ride up on you where they’re tied. A pocket is nice for work ’cause you can put your marker in there or a thermometer in there.
So I do like a pen pocket, not a bib pocket. For cooks, you want a longer apron so that you don’t get burned if you spill oil. I hate short aprons.
Has to be at least knee-length.” Deborah Luhrs holds up a graphic she found on a card that inspired her to sew two aprons for her daughters years ago when they were having a disagreement. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald DEBORAH LUHRS, Falmouth “My daughters were in their mid-30s and starting out their families, and they had a big argument.
It was one of those serious sibling situations where they stopped speaking to each other for a while, and they were really quite upset. As the mother, I’m always in the middle trying to make peace. “I happened to be in a card shop.
I found a card that said ‘Life is messy. Wear a smock’ with a great image of a woman in a smock. I got a card for each of my daughters.
Because I like to sew, I decided I would make them aprons — not smocks because I didn’t think they’d wear a smock. I made the aprons, both the same except in different colors, and I sent them the card with the apron. I adjusted the card to say, ‘Life is messy, wear a smock — or an apron at least.
’ They thought it was a nice gesture, and eventually they did make up. You know, things things go up and down in families all the time. They still have the aprons and still wear them.
Deborah Luhrs and one of her daughters, Bronley Luhrman, wear aprons sewn by Luhrs. Luhrs gave Luhrman and Luhrman’s sister similar aprons, hoping it would help heal a rift between the sisters. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald “One daughter lives in London and one lived in New York and New Jersey (she’s since moved back to Cape Elizabeth), and I was in the middle as always.
Geographically and emotionally, it’s always like that. “I have to say the card really gave me the idea. If I hadn’t seen that card, I wouldn’t have thought to do that at all.
I would have kept making phone calls. Not that (the apron) solved the whole thing by any means, but it lent itself to there being more negotiation.” KRISTA KERN, owner/chef Bresca & the Honeybee in New Gloucester, Purple House in North Yarmouth (closed for now) Chef Krista Kern in her favorite apron, the Bragard blue Travail, shown here plating at Bresca, the tiny, much loved restaurant she ran in Portland from 2007 to 2013.
Courtesy of Krista Kern “I’m always in my blue Bragard Travail cooks apron. I have had this apron for decades. I roll my knives in it when I travel to cook.
It’s funny that it is now so iconic with it being the apron of choice for the cooks at The French Laundry and on the (TV) series ‘The Bear.’ But all that aside, it’s a well-made, tough apron that has aged beautifully and lived through some pretty crazy food mishaps and not torn or held a stain. “This apron came into my life while working in Aspen as the chef of a fine-dining restaurant around 2000/2001.
I was wearing a long, full-white Bragard apron for service but purchased the Travail blue for prep. I still wore a long white apron through my years in Vegas for service as well, but the blue Travail was my comfort zone for pre-service work. “Once I moved back to Maine and opened Bresca, I began wearing my blue apron regularly and never looked back.
I’ve purchased a few of the newer style Travail blues over the years, but they are a bit different than my first, and while they are well-made, they don’t hold the same feeling for me that I get with my original when I place the well-worn neck strap over my head and into place and pull the soft waist ties back and cinch myself in with a perfect floppy bow to start my day.” RICK HILL , Portland “Up until I was 6 years old or so, I wouldn’t leave the house to play without wearing a ‘cape’ (usually a towel secured by a safety pin), such was my love for Batman and Superman. About four years ago, my dad (with whom I have a solid but not particularly warm relationship) gave me an apron with this lettering on it ‘An apron is just a cape on backwards’ — probably the most ‘I get you’ thing he’s ever (obliquely) said to me.
” Lucy Denton has a dedicated apron drawer in her living room, where she keeps the aprons made by relatives decades ago. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald NANCY ATWELL, Cape Elizabeth I have two aprons that I hardly use anymore because they were made for me by our first two granddaughters when they were in preschool (in South Portland) and attended something called Gymboree. For each apron, there are hand and footprints of the granddaughter with the child’s name printed on it as well.
I’ve had the aprons about 20 years and used them a lot when the girls were still around us. Both granddaughters are now living in Dublin. I don’t wear them now because I don’t want anything to happen to them, so I just keep them in a drawer with the aprons that I actually use.
They are remnants of the wonderful time we had with our first and second granddaughters (when they were small). NANCY JENKINS, Camden, cookbook writer and olive oil expert : “I could tell you a story about my apron, but it would be neither long nor colorful. It’s just an old denim apron with deep front pockets into which flour and sugar can hide when they escape from the pastry board.
Its other feature is ties that are long enough to wrap around my back and then tie in front — with an ever increasing waistline, this is very useful. It seldom gets washed, only when I remember or when it is truly disgusting. I have had it for at least 30 years.
I have been given other aprons over those years, but they don’t have the comforting feel of this old denim apron. It is my comfort blanket, my blankie in the kitchen. You would not want a photo of it, nor would I.
It would embarrass me.” Chef Ilma Lopez, left, and her grandmother Ilma, who sewed all the aprons for Lopez’s former restaurant, Piccolo. Courtesy of Ilma Lopez ILMA LOPEZ, co-owner of Chaval and Ugly Duckling, Portland “I have my grandma’s apron, which she made for me 12 years ago when we opened Piccolo, and it’s perfect all around.
I have it and don’t wear it now because it’s so special that I cannot lose it. She’ll be 88 this year, and I’m pretty, pretty lucky. She had two strokes so far, but hey, she’s fighting it and she’s doing it and I’m so proud of her.
Her name is Ilma. In my family my grandma is Ilma, my mom is Ilma, I’m Ilma, and my daughter is Ilma. Four generations.
And I cook because of her. She taught me how to cook. “So I got pregnant.
And we opened the restaurant (Piccolo, which closed in 2020) two months to the day after my daughter was born. And my grandma was in town, and I have a really hard time finding aprons that don’t bother my neck, that are my size because I’m really short, where the fabric is not too thick. I was just talking to my grandma, telling her I cannot find an apron that fits right.
“And she made me my apron, and she made all the aprons at Piccolo — for the whole team. My apron, because I don’t like anything touching my neck, she made like overalls. So the top of my apron are little overalls that I hook in the front, and my pockets are just wide enough and deep enough that I can put my pens inside or any other things that I need.
The fabric was jeans but not regular jeans. It’s a really thin fabric so I can move around, and because I like my aprons covering my knees but not too low, it was just below my knees. It was just perfect for me! “My grandma is super handy.
I have towels made by her. My kids have clothes made by her. But since she got super sick last year, I have stopped wearing and using anything because I don’t want them to get ruined, because I know that I’m not going to have a second chance to have it.
I don’t wear it now (not) because I don’t love it. It’s just that I don’t want it to get ruined. If you told me five years ago, I would have said, ‘Yeah, no problem.
She can make me another one.’ But I know it’s not the case anymore. Honestly, I still have the apron.
I have all the towels. I have everything she ever made us.” Deborah Luhrs’ spools of thread.
Luhrs has sewn aprons for her daughters and for her grandchildren. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald Have a crush on your Le Creuset? Here are the kitchen items these Mainers love most We believe it’s important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way.
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