((PKG)) FEMALE COPPERSMITH ((Banner: Female Coppersmith)) ((Reporter: Faiza Elmasry)) ((Camera: Sara Dahman)) ((Video Editor: Lisa Vohra)) ((Map: Grafton, Wisconsin)) ((Main characters: 1 female)) ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Courtesy: Sara Dahmen)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) As far as I can tell and find, I am the only woman building copper cookware from scratch, both the vintage ways and more modern rendition of copper cookware. ((NATS)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) I had never taken a shop class. I didn't know how to operate power tools. I didn't know any of the terminology. ((NATS)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) As a historical fiction writer, it's important to get your facts right and to really dive into the past in order to bring it to the future. ((Courtesy: Sara Dahmen)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) So, when I started to write Widow 1881 and eventually Tinsmith 1865, I was writing about Pioneer women and discovered so much of what they did. And where they spent their time was in the kitchen. ((Courtesy: Sara Dahmen)) ((NATS)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) So, over time, I started to do more and more research about Pioneer kitchens, American cookware and how was it made and what was used? Eventually that became me saying to my husband, ‘I want to start a cookware line. I want it to be American made.’ ((Courtesy: Sara Dahmen)) ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) Flash forward a few more months and I decided to do even more research and ended up discovering Bob Bartelme, who is a traditional tinsmith, who lived a few minutes from my home. He was generous enough to take me under his wing and I ended up going there, multiple times a week, and I still do even though it's been over four years now. I’m learning from him. ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) In my new book, Copper, Iron and Clay, A Smith's Journey, I talk about the process of starting a cookware line. I had to ask a lot of questions and screw up and redo things over and over and over again. I will build traditional reproduction cookware that is built exactly the way it has been done since the 1700s. I will also create more modern heavy-duty pieces. I'll do custom designs based on people's specs that they give me. ((NATS)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) All these machines are originally from the early 1800s, starting about 1810 to 1820s. So, they still work. I still use them and I’m still able to use them to build custom pieces from scratch and everything still works the same as it did 200 years ago. ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) There’s a lot of pieces that go into the elongation and the heat treatment and that's all poured and done and ground out on the West Coast and then shipped back here to Wisconsin. ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) After that then, they're in my hands and they're raw. I have to prepare them. Once I get a piece of copper cookware over the tinning fire, then we can apply that very necessary interior lining of tin which will make the cookware food- safe. And when you're done with that, you still have a beautiful piece of cookware, but there's usually a little bit of clean up on the edge. There's definitely some polishing that needs to happen to this piece, both on the buffing wheel and hand polish. And once that is done, then, then this can go home and be used for the next several hundred years. ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) The reason many chefs especially are gravitating towards it still after all this time, is because of the precision you get when you're cooking with it. Tin-lined copper cookware is 25 times more conductive than stainless steel. So, for a fraction of the heat, you're getting the same if not better results. So, it is not only energy efficient, but it allows for extreme precision when you're cooking. ((NATS)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) It all comes down to using the right tools for the meal that you're preparing in order to offer nourishment that is correctly and beautifully and well prepared. ((NATS)) ((Sara Dahmen, Founder, House of Copper and Cookware)) So there's investments, there's fearlessness and there's asking a lot of questions. And eventually over time, over mistakes, over trial-and-error, you can eventually start calling yourself a coppersmith. ((NATS))