Chuck Williams Museum in Napa

If you love looking at the tools for cooking and baking and kitchen tasks, you are going to love this post!

Along with a delightful visit with family from the East Coast and some from near Sacramento and Vallejo CA, the third week in February, we visited Napa and had lunch at Grace's Table, which I highly recommend. 

After lunch we went the fairly short distance to CIA at Coppia, a combination culinary school and museum. The whole building was fragrant with the smell of pizza baking, thanks to some of the students at the Culinary Institute of America class being held that afternoon. Upstairs, too, is the Chuck Williams Museum, which houses over 4,000 culinary items. Chuck Williams is one of the founders of Williams-Sonoma, a long time purveyor of all kinds of culinary tools and machines and some ingredients. My Kitchen Aide mixer was a purchase from them at a time when I really didn't have money for such an extravagant purchase, but I really needed that mixer to allow me to grow in my baking skills. It's been over 40 years and it still works and I still bake!

All of those 4,000 items seemed to be displayed either in the body of the museum space or in additional display cases in the hallways near the culinary academy and downstairs near the restaurant and wine bar.  It was a bit overwhelming! 

There were dozens of rolling pins, 

lower ones are embossed, for cookies

Hung one the wall are many dozens of tools to crimp dough and cut wavy lines of dough, even a double-wheeled one.

 Some had wooden handles, some metal and the shapes of the handles differed, too.  I wonder if the tops of some of the handles were used to shape pie dough. Looks like there are leaves and stars and maybe a fish.

Egg beaters were another set hung on the walls. There were also stand mixers, but I don't remember seeing one like mine...these were older ones.

One of the things that first catches your eye when you enter the museum is a wall hung with dozens and dozens of copper molds, many of them very intricate. I'm not sure how some of them would release the elaborate configurations on top. Many of them were probably used for gelatin and cold mousses, but even these would have been difficult to unmold. Bet there were tricks for removing the contents.

In cabinets around the room there were so many other items of interest, from toasters

and waffle irons

to casseroles and soufflé dishes

Sets were a big thing, from mezzalunas to pie plates

One of the things that I most enjoyed looking at were the various molds used for cake, or perhaps candy. They were so intricate and graphic and I could just imagine them making a statement at Easter, or Thanksgiving or Christmas or another special occasion.

Space was given to the items that would have been used on the hearth

and to show kitchen furniture and equipment like this Hoosier cabinet and tiled stove

as well as work horses like copper pots (including that monster one on the tiles stove)

and copper double boilers

Specialty items were plentiful, including an espresso machine, flour bin (that included a sifter!), dough crock, and large flour sifter, and a fascinating knife grinder that looked like it sharpened multiple knives at a time. The apple press could, of course, be used to press juice from other fruits, plus there are some lovely citrus juicers near by in another case.

                                        

I enjoyed seeing that some things, like cookie cutters and icing implements are very similar to ones that I used as a child and still use sometimes.

The ceramic tart pans stacked up here are also fairly modern looking even though they are fairly old.

When I was talking about sets of things I neglected to show you the mashers and grinders and churns and beaters, but they are sure an interesting group of tools.

As you might imagine, it became a bit overwhelming, all of these culinary tools and implements. A few that I took close ups of because I liked the way they looked as much as their use were some more molds. This collection has a large proportion of molds!

The first couple have a recipe right on the outside...pretty handy.

I love fish designs and really like this one

And as a baker I find this one charming

Last, but not least, is my favorite poster from the museum

After we left the museum and headed downstairs, I discovered another couple of cases outside the wine bar. One had this beautiful drinks cabinet and the second had the stunning cordial server.

This ends my virtual 'tour' of this wonderful museum of culinary delights. If you are in Napa, CA near the downtown, consider a visit yourself!