A Tale of Two Sundays - November

A very robust menu from 1927 – Scotch broth, pork chops in casserole, baked apples, turnips, potatoes and boiled onions, a lettuce salad, and Washington pie. And a nap afterwards, I should think.

Where “Washington Pie” gets its name is a mystery, since it is not a pie but rather a cream-filled white cake. It was at one time a very popular dessert. This recipe has unfortunately been modernized and is missing the layers and filling (there’s a shortcut on the King Arthur Flour website that’s closer to the traditional version).

Washington Pie. Beat 3 eggs for 1 minute, add 1 ½ cups sugar and beat 5 minutes. Add 1 cup flour measured after sifting and beat 5 minutes. Add ½ cup hot water, another cup of flour which has been sifted with 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and beat 1 minute. Bake slowly in a deep pan. Cut in squares and cover with whipped cream sweetened and flavored.

The 1953 menu is lighter but more elaborate. Quails baked in wine, duchesse potatoes, baked broccoli (why would one bake broccoli?), avocado fruit salad and pumpkin Alaska pie. The salad recipe is fussy fifties cooking at its finest.

Avocado Fruit Salad Bowl

2 grapefruit
2 oranges
French dressing (oil and vinegar, at this epoch)
Romaine
French endive
1 avocado
Cottage cheese mayonnaise
Peel grapefruit and oranges, removing segments whole. Marinate in dressing; chill. Line salad bown with romaine and endive. Pare and half avocado, removing seed. Cut one half into serving portions, and place in salad bowl. Fill cavity of remaining half with mayonnaise. Arrange orange and grapefruit sections around avocado. Serves 4.

Notes From a Conference

Mental Health Professional (leading panel discussion on compassion fatigue): Because fantasizing about bad things happening to toxic co-workers really doesn't help.

Public Health R.N. (very quietly): Oh yes it does.

Caturday!

Quote of the Day

Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor
But was a race of heaven. ~ William Shakespeare

Grrsday

The Online Bookshelf - The Slizzers

From 1953, and the story doesn't appear to have anything to do with the wonderful BEM (bug-eyed monster) on the cover. From Project Gutenberg.

The Difference Between Cats And Dogs

Patterns of the Past - School Days

Pattern ad from Smart Knitting, 1953. You, too, can make all your children's school clothes!

Mad About The Boys

Thing One has taken to calling me Mom. Thing Two prefers Boss Lady, and occasionally, Frau Kommandant.

Sewing - A Half-Circle Skirt and Stole from 1949

From Smart Sewing, 1st Edition, 1949. A half-circle skirt and matching stole to make from instructions on my Flickr account.

Vintage Advertising - 1920's Fashion Ads

From Dover.

Home on the Range

This little cookbook was published in 1953 as a promotion for Wear-Ever aluminum cookware sets. The recipes are standard 50’s fare, but the book is attractively illustrated and nicely designed.

Something I found interesting? Two pages of instructions on how to use aluminum pots and pans in the different types of kitchen stoves that were in wide use back then, including coal ranges. The gas and electricity we take for granted today were still not common in rural areas.

“Use First Section over Fire Box:

• To heat all utensils for browning meats
• To brown roasts, steaks, chops.
• To pan broil steaks, chops.
• To start fresh fruits, vegetables until cover becomes hot to touch.
• To steam dried foods over water until water boils.
• To heat #825 rectangular roaster when used as an oven.* See baking directions
• To start direct top of range baking. See banking directions.
• To heat pan for baking griddle cakes.

Use Back of Range or Less Heated Section:

• To cook all meats after browning.
• To cook fresh fruits, vegetables after cover becomes hot to touch
• To steam dried foods over water after water boils
• To do direct top of range bakin after utensil has been heated. See baking directions.
• To bake griddle cakes.”

*Part of the set was a roaster that could be used as a top-of-range baking device for those who had coal ranges with no ovens. You were to preheat the roaster over high and then move to a medium heat source once the cake or pie was placed inside. Rather a handy idea for camping, I think.

Someone’s hand-written recipes were tucked inside. Here are her directions for ham loaf.

2 lbs lean pork steak—ground
1 ditto smoked ham
Salt & pepper
1 c. cracker crumbs
2 eggs

"Mix well & add ½ can tomato soup. Dent top & pour in milk so that it will run over the top. Bake slow about 1 ½ hours.”

Caturday!

Murphy's 1st Law of Travel

The order in which you climb into the airport shuttle is never the order in which you have to climb out.

On the Road (Again)

Who knew that being a living bulwhark against the forces of evil required so dang many conferences? Blogging will resume on Caturday.

Sewing - A Hostess Gown from 1949

From Smart Sewing, 1st Edition, 1949, a hostess gown to make of some soft, warm fabric for these chilly autumn nights. The diagram and sewing directions are on my Flickr account.

Vintage Images - Halloween

From Dover.

A Tale of Two Sundays – October

In 1927 our dinner menu consists of grape-fruit as an appetizer, roast young chicken, gravy, stuffing, duchesse potatoes, string beans, currant jelly and celery, with cinnamon apples and nut bread for desert. I’m not sure about the grapefruit but everything else looks delicious. The potatoes would have been a bit of extra work, but worth it.

Duchesse Potatoes. Mash freshly boiled potatoes with butter, hot milk, pepper and salt until like a thick cream. They must be beaten free from lumps. Put through the pastry tube, and carry the mixture around and around to make attractive little baskets. Brush these with the yolk of egg beaten with milk, and set in oven until browned.

The 1953 dinner is robust, but not quite as elegant. Clear tomato soup, beef a la mode, cabbage and potatoes, fruit salad in orange ice rings, and damson plum pudding. Hmmm…the dessert book for the series doesn’t list damson plum pudding, but there is an English Plum Pudding in the Steamed Desserts section.

English Plum Pudding

¾ cup sifted cake flour
1 t. salt
¾ t. baking soda
1 t. cinnamon
¼ t. nutmeg
½ t. mace
½ pound raisins, chopped
¼ pound citron, chopped
1/8 pound lemon peel, chopped
1/8 pound blanched almonds, chopped
½ cup fine bread crumbs
¾ cup hot milk
½ pound brown sugar
5 eggs, separated
½ pound suet, chopped
¼ cup fruit juice, any kind (I guess you could use damson juice, if you could find it)
½ glass currant jelly

Sift flour, salt, soda and spices together; stir in fruit and almonds. Soften crumbs in milk 10 minutes. Beat sugar into beaten egg yolks; add suet and crumbs; stir into flour-fruit mixture. Add fruit juice and jelly and mix well; fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour into greased mold, cover tightly and steam for 3 ½ hours. Serves 12.

(All those chopped ingredients makes me think of Calvin Trillin’s snarky comment that the reason the British boil their food to death is in case a dinner guest should happen to arrive without his teeth).

I’ll vote for the 1927 dinner, even with the grapefruit.

Man's Best Friend

The spousal unit is assembling the computer desk we bought this afternoon, and Babyface is cowering under my feet.

Me: I don't know why she's always so terrified when you get out the power tools. I'm not terrified when you get out the power tools, and I have far more reason.

Caturday!