Knitting - Lace Patterns from 1916

From the Woman's Home Companion, May 1916.  Left-click to enlarge, or go to Google Books for the entire year's issues.

Vintage Advertising - Heinz 57 Varieties

From the Ladies' Home Journal, September, 1922.

Caturday!

They're Not Just Cheeseheads Anymore

photo from Reuters

Milwaukee is experimenting with something new as a sidewalk de-icer.

Quote of the Day

photo from Shorpy

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true. ~ Francis Bacon

Grrrsday

Plus Ca Change

I should like to be home this Christmas night.~ Lt Elisha Hunt Rhodes, 1862.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.  ~ Isaiah 9:2.

(vintage Czech creche here).

Vintage Images - More Christmas Cards

(Copyright-free, from Dover).

God Rest Ye Merry (But Not TOO Merry)

"The writer was once inclined to the common opinion, that dancing was harmless, and might be properly regulated; and she allowed a fair trade to be made, under her auspices, by its advocates.  The result was, a full conviction, that it secured no good effect, which could not be better gained another way; that it involved the most pernicious evils to health, character, and happiness; and that those parents were wise, who brought up their children with the full understanding that they were neither to learn nor to practise the art.  In the fifteen years, during which she has had the care of young ladies, she has never known any case, where learning this art, and following the amusement, did not have a bad effect...

It is encouraging to those who take this view of the subject, to find how fast the most serious and intelligent portion of the community is coming to a similar result.  Twenty-five years ago, dancing was universally practised by the young, as a matter of course, in every part of the Nation.  Now, in those parts of the Country, where religion and intelligence are most extensively diffused, it is almost impossible to get up a ball, among the more refined classes of the community."

Catherine Esther Beecher, A Treatise on Domestic Economy.  And a depressing read it is, too.

Caturday!

Quote of the Day

"When we wish to speak of our "good friend or friends," in our enlightened tongue, we stick to the one form and have no trouble or hard feeling about it; but with the German tongue it is different. When a German gets his hands on an adjective, he declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all declined out of it. It is as bad as Latin. He says, for instance:

·        SINGULAR

·        Nominative — Mein guter Freund, my good friend.
·        Genitive — Meines guten Freundes, of my good friend.
·        Dative — Meinem guten Freund, to my good friend.
·        Accusative — Meinen guten Freund, my good friend.

·        PLURAL

·        N. — Meine guten Freunde, my good friends.
·        G. — Meiner guten Freunde, of my good friends.
·        D. — Meinen guten Freunden, to my good friends.
·        A. — Meine guten Freunde, my good friends.

Now let the candidate for the asylum try to memorize those variations, and see how soon he will be elected. One might better go without friends in Germany than take all this trouble about them. I have shown what a bother it is to decline a good (male) friend; well this is only a third of the work, for there is a variety of new distortions of the adjective to be learned when the object is feminine, and still another when the object is neuter. Now there are more adjectives in this language than there are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be as elaborately declined as the examples above suggested. Difficult? — troublesome? — these words cannot describe it. I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective."  ~ Mark Twain

More Stuff for Germans

(I had to read this out loud to get the full flavor of it, and the woman in the next office is convinced I'm off my rocker.  Although it's possible she's felt this way before).

GERMAN FOR BEGINNERS...

German is a relatively easy language. If you know Latin you're used to declensions and can learn German without great difficulty.

That's what German teachers tell you at the first lesson. Then you start studying the der, die, das, den... and they tell you that everything follows a logical order.

So it's easy. And to prove it, let's look at an example more closely:

You sign up for first-year German and go out and buy the textbook.

It's a beautiful, expensive, hard-bound book, published in Dortmund. The book mentions the customs of the Hottentots (Hottentotten in German).

The book tells us that when opossums (Beutelratten) are captured, they are placed in cages (Kasten) with bars made of wood slats (Lattengitter) to keep them from escaping.

These particular cages are called Lattengitterkasten in German and when there are opossums inside them they are known as Beutelrattenlattengitterkasten.

One day, the Hottentot police arrested a would-be murderer (Attentater), who allegedly tried to kill a Hottentot mother (mutter).

Her son is a good-for-nothing stutterer (Stottertrottel), so his mother is, therefore, a Hottentottenstottertrottelmutter and her would-be murderer is a Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterattentater.

Easy, right?

So the police captured the suspect and put him, temporarily, in an opossum cage (Beutelrattenlattengitterkasten) for safe-keeping until they could take him to jail, but the prisoner escaped!

A search ensued and a Hottentot warrior cried out, "I have captured the murder suspect (den Attentater)!"

"Yes? Which one?" asked the chieftain.

"The Beutelrattenlattengitterkastenattentater!" replied the warrior.

"What? The murder suspect who was in the opossum cage?" asked the Hottentot chieftain.

"That's right," said the warrior, "the Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterattentater."

By now you know enough German to understand that he's talking about the would-be murderer of the mother of the good-for-nothing Hottentot stutterer, right?

"Oh, I see", says the Hottentot chieftain, "why didn't you say so right away? You could have begun by saying that you had captured the ... wait for it.......

Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterbeutelrattenlattengitterkastenattentater!" 

(sent by Jen in Oz).

Grrrsday

Vintage Accessories -- Belts from 1949

When tiny tummies and fancy fobs were all the rage.

Send This To Everyone You Know Who Speaks German

Vintage Image - Christmas Cards from NYPL

One of the vintage Christmas cards that this blog is posting from the NY Public Library.

Full Knee-Deep Lies The Winter Snow

We've gotten about seven inches so far, and it is still coming down.  Reserve Cat gave me a disbelieving look when I informed him that making it stop was not in my skill set.  Her Majesty is sulking.

The spousal unit has gone to a pancake and sausage breakfast that the American Legion is holding about three towns away.  Huddled by the woodstove and clutching my coffee cup, I ventured the opinion that it would probably be cancelled.  Nonsense, quoth he, or words to that effect.

"They're veterans!  They'll be open!" he shouted as he bounded away.

(What's annoying is that he is often right).

Quote of the Day

If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls,
but do not show love to my family, I'm just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies,
preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime,
but do not show love to my family, I'm just another cook.

If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home and give all that I have to charity,
but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.

If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes,
attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir's cantata
but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the spouse.
 Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn't envy another's home that has coordinated Christmas china  and table linens.
Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the way.
 Love doesn't give only to those who are able to give in return
 but rejoices in giving to those who can't.
 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost,
 golf clubs will rust, but giving the gift of LOVE will endure.

~ author unknown

(h/t to Mennonite Girls Can Cook).

Grrrsday

Vintages Images - Christmas

Christmas has snuck up on me this year, so I figured I'd better post some nice Dover copyright-free holiday clipart.

Cheap and Easy

It has been snowing since just before dawn today.  The Drama Queen went out the back door and set a land speed record coming back in.

(And then, cat-like, proceeded to the front door expecting the weather in the front yard to be nicer).

I don't usually cook breakfast, as the spousal unit is a cold-cereal man, but this morning I hauled out my new electric skillet and made French toast. Also known as pain perdu and (to our cousins across the pond in both directions) as Poor Knights of Windsor, it's the ultimate in cheap and filling food.  If eggs are out of season and therefore expensive, as they used to be before we all got used to a year-round supply of eggs, the frugal housekeeper just used a bit more milk (probably condensed, in those days before a year-round supply of milk).

The eggier the better, says I.  My copy of Better Home and Garden's Easy Skillet Meals has a recipe that calls for French bread, powdered sugar and grated lemon peel, but this slightly simpler one kept us happy. It literally melted in our mouths.

FRENCH TOAST.  Preheat the skillet to 300°.  Beat three eggs into one cup of whole milk.  Add 2 T. sugar, a pinch of salt, and a teaspoon of vanilla.  Take slices of bread (Sunbeam's Texas Toast works a treat) and dip them briefly in the batter.  I only do each side to the count of three, and if you're using flimsy store-bought bread, don't soak it any longer, no matter what the King Arthur Flour people say.  It'll fall apart.

Cook for two and a half minutes on each side.  A little longer won't hurt it.   10 slices fed the two of us and I blush to tell you which percentage I consumed. Serve with syrup, cinnamon sugar, or the following fruit compote (also from Easy Skillet Meals).

PINEAPPLE-GLAZED BANANAS.  Cut up 2 cups fresh pineapple over a bowl, catching juice.  Add water to juice, if necessary, to make 1/2 cup (screw it, used canned).  In skillet combine pineapple with juice, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons honey, and 1 tablespoon butter (electric skillet 350°).  Cook and stir 2 minutes.  Reduce heat.  Peel and halve 5 bananas lengthwise.  Add to skillet, simmer until heated through and glazed, turning once.  Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Caturday!

Sign Of The Times

I could have used either of these this morning.

Grrrsday

Vintage Advertising - Martex Towels

From the Ladies' Home Journal, September, 1922.

Maybe He Can't Cook

But he can sure follow directions.

I have spent the entire weekend on my backside (knitting) with my foot up and an icepack on my knee. Brian cooked the Thanksgiving dinner, from turkey to pies.

Okay, I helped (I opened the can of cranberry sauce).

Caturday!

You Can Take The Boy Out Of The Marine Corps, But....

It's fairly early but the winter evening has already settled in.  The spousal unit comes back in the house after a prolonged period out of doors.

He:  Finished raking the side yard.

Me:  Um...it's pitch-black outside.

He:  (charging up the stairs) 50 percent of your training is supposed to be in the dark!

That Heavy, Overstuffed Feeling

To all of my fellow Yanks, a Happy Thanksgiving.  To everyone else, happy Detroit-beat-the-Packers Day.  Will miracles never cease.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Scream

I was sent home early by the Red Cross due to what may...note I say may...turn out to be a torn medial meniscus.  I'm back at the office, sitting with my foot propped up, when our singularly clueless senior staff member wanders in.

She:  So, how bad is it?  Can I see?

Me:  (Obligingly pulling up my pants leg over my swollen and squishy knee) It feels kind of like a water balloon.

She:  That looks awful.  (Jabbing it with her finger.  Twice)  Does it hurt?

I'm Sensing a Trend, Here

I will be spending the next week or so deployed with the Red Cross.  Hmmm...where was I last November?

Code Red

1.  We're sitting out a tornado watch/high wind warning.

2.  Annabelle just bit Her Majesty's tail.

(Upgraded to a tornado warning.  Don't worry -- we're in the basement).

13:07 EST. Updated to add:  We're ok, it went west and north of us.  But I'm glad we bought that generator this summer.  The rest of town is without power.  I can't believe we still have Internet access, that's usually the first thing to go.

Caturday!

Quote of the Day

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane. ~ Rudyard Kipling

And Now For Something Completely The Same

Doc, Wyatt and Annabelle in the process of climbing the spousal unit like a tree.  That monkey has taken a lot of abuse this week.

Doc has the biggest paws of the bunch.

Kate getting career advice.  She is a little pistol -- she attacked Funnyface when they were introduced, and when Her Majesty hisses at her, Kate puts on her Apache face, puffs out her tail, and hisses back.

Wyatt is a little love.  When you pick him up, he immediately assumes the dead bug position and waits for you to start rubbing his tummy.

And he likes to keep an eye on me when I'm on the computer.

All of them wrestle and chase each other constantly.  It's the Charge of the Kitteh Brigade around here, night and day.

Reserve Cat has grave reservations about the whole affair. 

 Her Majesty comes down, hisses at them all, collectively and individually, and then goes behind the stove when she sees me pick up the camera.  Needless to say, she is Not Amused.

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day

In A Rare Moment of Sanity

I decided NOT to work on that beading project this weekend.

UPDATE:  Sweeping the basement wasn't a really great idea, either.  Kate kept banzai'ing the dust-bunnies.

Happy Birthday, Marines

Caturday!

They've been racing around the basement since 0630, and have finally fallen asleep.  Storing up energy for the next five-hour stint, one assumes.

It is still almost impossible to get a decent photo of Doc.  He's wall-eyed, which may account for his reluctance to pose.

The one I really want to photograph is Her Majesty, as the expression on her face is priceless.

Grrrsday

Embroidery - Making Run Net Curtains

Embroidery on net for curtains (and probably many other applications as well).  From Ladies Home Journal, September, 1922.  Enjoy the gentleman in the natty nightshirt!

Right-click to enlarge.

Vintage Advertising - Cream of Wheat

You don't suppose he's looking for some honey to put on that Cream of Wheat?

Tripe and Onions (or, How To Clear Out Your Kitchen - Quickly)

"The Spanish onion, which is now in season, seems to be the established favorite for both cooking and for salads, although the young Bermuda is also delicious in flavor and specially adapted for the salad. The Spanish onion scalloped is excellent when cooked after this recipe: Peel two pounds of Spanish onions; put them over the fire in sufficient boiling water to cover them, with a teaspoonful of salt and boil them until tender. Meantime, grate an equal quantity of bread crumbs and just moisten them with cold milk. When the onions are tender, pull them apart with two forks and put them into a buttered earthen baking dish in layers with the moistened bread crumbs; season each layer lightly with salt and pepper; let the top layer be of bread crumbs. Put a tablespoonful of butter over it in small pieces and place the dish in a hot oven until well browned over, then serve at once.

Baked and stuffed, the Spanish onion is also a most agreeable dish. For this, take six medium-sized onions; take out the centers with a scoop; parboil them for three minutes and put them upside down on a cloth to drain. When drained, fill the inside with forcemeat of bacon, or sausage mixed with the heart of the onion minced very fine; also bread crumbs, pepper, salt, mace and a spoonful of cream. Stuff the onions with this and simmer in the oven for an hour, basting often with melted butter. When done take the onions up carefully without breaking, place them, open ends uppermost, in a vegetable dish. Add to the gravy in the baking pan the juice of half a lemon, four tablespoonfuls of cream and a little browned flour. Boil up and pour over the onions.

Closely allied with the onion in the black list of foods is one frequently served with it, namely tripe. It is capable of wonderful effects in its preparation and strangely enough with epicures is a distinct favorite. The famous amateur cooks who prepare terrapin and oysters for their bachelor parties also cook tripe in various forms, especially in the chafing dish. Tripe with oysters is a delightful dish cooked in Creole style, broiled lyonnaise or curried. With oysters it may be cooked after the following method and will be found excellent: Thoroughly wash a pound of double tripe in cold, well salted water, drain and scald it. When cold cut it into narrow two-inch strips and let it simmer an hour in a quart of clear soup stock, with a stalk of celery. Roll four ounces of butter into little balls; roll them in flour, add one at a time to the tripe, stir continually and as soon as one is melted add another. When all are used let it simmer half an hour longer. Put the tripe into an earthenware dish and when cold place in the icebox until next morning. When wanted, warm the tripe (at table is best), add about thirty medium oysters, let it simmer three minutes, season with salt and white pepper and serve on thin toast.

 Tripe, New Orleans-style. The New Orleans fashion of preparing tripe is very much in favor. Cut one and a half pounds of tripe into small pieces and fry them in a pan with two ounces of butter, one chopped onion and half of a green pepper, also chopped. Brown them slightly for six minutes; then transfer them to a saucepan with one chopped tomato and one-half pint Spanish sauce and season with a pinch of salt, a half-pinch of pepper and a crushed clove of garlic and a bay leaf. Cook for ten minutes and serve with a spoonful of chopped parsley on top. Spanish sauce is a mixture of butter, flour and good broth, stirred till smooth, simmered for about an hour and put through a sieve, when butter is added." ~ Thomas Murrey

From Click Americana, a site well worth exploring for US trivia addicts.