Cape Cod Kindling | Newspaper Knots

Useful stuff from 75 years of Yankee. Edith Hunter of Waitsfield, Vermont, submitted this in January 1991.

One of the most vivid pictures of my father that I have in my mind is of his making newspaper knots in the living room before laying a fire in the fireplace.

He called them “Cape Cod kindling” in honor of the region’s famous parsimony. For people like us with an ample supply of newspapers and an almost insatiable need for kindling (our woodstoves are our primary source of heat), the Cape Cod solution is ideal.

To make newspaper kindling, take a section of about six pages, hold it by the centerfold, roll it, and tie it in a knot. We keep ours in the kitchen in an old wooden tub. That tub of knots is a great conversation piece. Visitors constantly ask us, “What are those?”