Food

Food - 20-35 per cent of income (the smaller the income, the larger the percentage that must be spent for food)

This is going to be the shortest of my budget posts as I've taken an in depth look at this category in the past. Last winter, I spent a month tracking my food expenditures - adding the total amount spent and breaking it down by food group. Six months later, I tried the mission again and the difference my reducing plan had made was dramatic. The total amount I spent on food for a single month had dropped from $375.67 to $286.25. The majority of my "food dollar" (37%) was spent on fruits and vegetables. Six months before, the majority of my spending (66%) went toward fats, sugar and miscellaneous items!

I'd like to try this mission again sometime just to keep myself honest, but the information from August's tracking should be helpful in estimating how much I spend on food today. If I'm spending something like $286.25 per month on food, that's only 8% of my gross monthly income of $3666.67 --- a far cry from the 20-35% recommended by the authors of The Manual. Part of the reason my food expenditures seem so small is that I'm not using one income to feed six mouths. My income only has to feed me. The other reason is quite simply that food costs a heck of a lot less now than it did during the 1940s. When you allow for inflation, the average American bag of groceries is astonishingly cheaper now than it was in grandmother's day. This is good news for the hungry, but bad news for the family farm. Government-subsidized agribusiness has pushed the inflation-relative cost of food so low that the small family farm is no longer viable.

At any rate, I guess I'm in good shape when it comes to food. Next up: Advancement.

Power Marketing

As I was doing my marketing yesterday evening, it occurred to me that this biweekly trip to the grocery store is a great opportunity to burn some calories. Having a tough time trying to figure out how to fit a workout into your busy schedule? Make your marketing work for you!

1. Park on the edge of the parking lot.
Do you drive to the grocery store? Well, put your legs to work next time and park your car at the very edge of the parking lot - as far from the store as possible. Not only can you avoid all the congestion near the closest parking spots, but you'll burn some extra calories walking to and from your car.

2. Take that cart up and down every aisle.
Every aisle - whether it contains items you need or not. Weave it in and out every stack of fruits and veggies in the produce section, too. And don't forget the bakery! As your cart gets more and more full, you're adding resistance to your workout. Not only is this a great opportunity to burn some calories and tone leg muscles, it keeps me from forgetting anything I need at home. I always take a list to the grocery store with me, but there's inevitably something that slipped my mind as I was making up my list. Walking up and down each aisle reminds me of anything that I'm low on and need to add to my cart.

3. Return your cart to the cart corral.
It's always been a pet peeve of mine when people leave their grocery carts willy nilly all over the parking lot --- ripe for rolling right into other cars or blocking off just enough of another parking spot that it has to be bypassed when spots are scarce. Take an extra minute and return your cart to the nearest corral. You'll be doing your fellow drivers a favor and burning a few extra calories at the same time. A win-win!

4. Take your time getting the groceries into the house.
The fact that my apartment is on the second floor of my complex gives me a chance to combine a stair-climbing workout with my marketing. Instead of trying to carry every one of my grocery bags into the house in one trip, I take just two bags at a time. One in each hand. If I've got a particularly heavy bag that needs to be hoisted and carried in my arms, I'll take that up by itself. I carry my bags all the way into the kitchen. Set them down on the table, then head back downstairs for the next (small) load.

I've never used a pedometer to try and calculate the amount of calories burned by adding these extra steps to my marketing trips, but all these little steps have got to add up when taken week in and week out. Think of it as "power marketing."

In a February 1944 advertisement, the Borden Company (think Elsie the Cow) offered up four tips of their own for weary wartime housewives. These tips were designed to make marketing a little easier during an era of food shortages and ration points, but the last one would be a great power marketing tip for those of you who live close enough to a grocery store that you might be able to turn a "quick run for a few things" into a workout. The Trader Joe's I shop at on Wednesday evenings is just two blocks from my apartment complex and I've always stopped there on the way home from work to do my shopping. Maybe it's time I start driving all the way home, then walk back to the store to pick up my groceries and carry them home in my own two arms. I never buy more than one bag worth on Wednesdays...

1. DO YOUR WEEK-END SHOPPING EARLY IN THE WEEK! Miss the Saturday mob - and get better service.

2. PLAN YOUR SHOPPING LIST AT HOME! Means less time in the market - and helps budget ration points.

3. KEEP UP-TO-DATE ON POINT VALUES! Check ration calendars... Know when points expire. Your grocer will love you for it - and you'll get your points' worth, too.

4. CARRY YOUR PACKAGES! Then you won't have to worry about slow deliveries.

51 + 1 = 52

There's another week - and another hard-earned pound - under my belt. (I should probably say out from under my belt!) I weighed in at 142 this morning, making a total weight loss of 52 lbs. since beginning my vintage fitness and reducing plan eight months ago.

A co-worker and I were looking at some pictures from old holiday parties the other day and I gasped aloud when I saw a picture of myself from the 2007 party. I was at my heaviest then (208 lbs.) and looked just as miserable as I remember feeling. My face in particular --- the skin looked as if it had stretched as far as it possibly could to contain all that flesh I'd packed under it. I'm paying today for all that trauma I put my skin through when I gained weight. There are stretch marks on my arms, my breasts, my legs, my belly. I wish I could exercise these away, but I'm afraid they're going to be permanent reminders of a very sad period in my life. A friend has suggested I try applying apricot kernel oil. That it won't make the stretch marks disappear entirely, but it may fade them a bit. I'll let you know how it works.

I've been reflecting a lot these days on my weight loss during the past year and wishing I had something profound to say about it. Something that would magically sum up all that I've learned. I'm not sure how profound any of this might be, but I'd like to try and put down some of the things I've been thinking about. If any bit of it sparks an idea or reflection that helps somebody reading this, it will have been worth every keystroke...

One of the things that has surprised me most about weight loss is how much of it is mental. True, there's plenty about this process that's physical. I'm reminded of that every time I drag myself to the park for a walk when I'd much rather be doing something else. Or when I'm dead tired and would like nothing better than to go to bed, but there are evening exercises that must be finished. Nevertheless, I'd say I've waged the better part of this battle with my brain. Reducing has been in many ways a mental exercise. I've devoted lots of space on my blog to writing about the physical exercises I do, so here - for a change - is what you might call my mental exercise routine.

1. The people working out nearby are not your enemy.
(1 rep per day for the first month)
The single most important thing that kept me from walking at the park before beginning this plan was my belief that the other people walking there would be thinking critical things about my weight, my appearance, or my pace. It blows my mind that I once let something so incredibly wrong - a figment of my imagination, really - keep me from improving my health and my life. There may be mean-spirited people wherever you go who think critical things of everyone around them, but they certainly aren't restricted to the park or gym where you work out. I very quickly came away from those early walks with a feeling of support instead. I met encouraging smiles from the people I walked by on the track --- and always felt such a spirit of camaraderie. We're all there for the same reason. We're all doing daily battle with the desire to sleep in or to lie on the sofa and watch a good movie instead of getting bundled up and going out in the cold to burn some calories. This is one mental exercise I no longer have to practice. Once I realized how wrong I'd been, I never looked back.

2. Invest in your health. (2 reps per week)
You could apply this exercise to the price of a gym membership if that's the best way for you to get a regular workout, but what I'm referring to here is the investment I make twice a week in fresh produce. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, I pack myself off to the grocery store to re-stock my kitchen shelves with every variety of fruit or vegetable that strikes my fancy. I used to feel guilty indulging in produce like this. It seems so much more expensive than some of the "diet food" or 100-calorie snacks you might pick up on aisles toward the center of the supermarket. But when you factor in what that produce does for your body in addition to being low in calories... No longer! I'm worth every penny. Fruit in particular is my constant indulgence. I allow myself to snack on fruit any time I like, so it's critical that there's always lots of variety at home. This rule of thumb applies to every kind of grocery I purchase. Whole grains may generally cost more than refined grains, for instance, but they're far more effective in providing the fiber your body is screaming out for --- and you just can't beat a great piece of toast made from a whole grain bread. (I can't imagine going back to white bread!) I indulge when it comes to the flours and cereals I keep about the house as well. As we speak, my pantry is stocked not only with white flour, but with buckwheat flour, wheat bran, graham flour, rolled oats, cornmeal, oat bran, and farina. With a good variety on hand, I'm much more likely to prepare the whole grain cereals and baked goods that get my day off to a good start and usually keep me from feeling hungry 'til lunchtime.

3. Tomorrow is not Day One. (repeat as necessary)
This is a biggie. It has been since the day I started and probably always will be. My diets used to look a lot like this: a) off to a great start, b) cheat, c) beat myself up about it, d) vow to start fresh tomorrow, and e) binge for the rest of the day since I'd screwed this day up anyway. Sound familiar? I still can't explain exactly what it was that allowed me to short this mental circuit, but I consciously took a different tack when I started this diet in April. Tomorrow can no longer be Day One. There is no starting over when it comes to life - and there's no starting over when it comes to my lifestyle. This lifestyle is going to be mine from here on out. If I cheat or if I indulge on a special occasion, the trick is in not calling the rest of the day "a wash." I can pick myself up at any moment and say: "Well, I wish I hadn't eaten that, but I can't go back and undo it. I can try and learn why I cheated in that particular way - and maybe avoid this mistake the next time 'round --- but I still have the power to save this day by using all the techniques I know until bedtime." I can't tell you how many of these conversations I've had with myself! I'll probably be doing this mental exercise for a long time, but it's made a huge difference.

4. Information is power. (1 rep per day)
It took me a few months to figure this one out, but a daily weigh-in has been such a help to me. Going seven days without knowing - really knowing - where I'm headed now seems like driving in the dark without any headlights. You have to get used to the rollercoaster that things like water retention might do to your results, but by and large the scale reliably reflects my behavior the day before. I might be able to relax in this area when I've lost all the weight I need to and I've shifted into maintenance mode, but while I'm actively trying to reduce this kind of daily feedback is critical. You'd be amazed how often thoughts of cheating can be put aside in the late evenings when I know I have to get on that scale in the morning!

5. You can live comfortably with the feeling of hunger. (repeat as necessary)
I'm still limbering up when it comes to this mental exercise... It used to be that the slightest sensation of hunger - or any kind of discomfort, mental or physical - would find me running to the kitchen to find something to stave off the pain. But there's a major difference between the sensation of hunger and actual hunger pains. One of the things I'm learning is that you have to learn how to live comfortably with the sensation of hunger in order to reduce your calories enough to lose weight. It feels good to me now to wake in the morning with actual hunger pains. I don't think I've allowed myself to feel what an empty stomach feels like in years. And it's okay. Sitting down to a meal with genuine hunger makes it possible to savor the taste and texture of genuine food. Empty stomachs should be satisfied, but it's those early sensations of hunger that need to be worked around. You don't need to start pitching food down the gullet the minute your stomach has a little bit of space inside and calls out for more.

A Few New Finds

Does shopping for the perfect skirt in a size 12 count as marketing?

I sure hope so. Then I can happily check Wednesday's mission off my list for the week! Actually, I did make a super quick stop at the natural foods store on my way home, but the better part of my evening was definitely spent shopping for new clothes. For the second time this week no less. My boss has come back to work and I've been spending all my newfound energy trying to replenish my wardrobe. There's nothing worse when you've lost a lot of weight than feeling scrummy in clothes that just hang on you, so it was off to the stores this week. Yesterday, I found a darling little plum-colored sheath which is flattering as can be --- and machine washable! Tonight's find was a little brown skirt with pleats along the hem at the sides and a fabric buckle-y doodad just above each set of pleats. Way too hard to describe, but I love the way it looks on me. I was awfully tempted by a gray skirt, but it was a bit loose around the waist and I know there's only one direction I'm headed when it comes to my waistline! Better to buy things that fit perfectly now - as they'll (hopefully) be too big for me before long.

The more time I spend cruising the racks, the better I get at shopping for clothes. What seemed awkward to this reforming frump a few months ago now feels like a skill I'm learning. Trying things on is a must. No matter how scared I am by the lighting in those dressing rooms! (Is it ever not absolutely frightful?) If it doesn't fit me perfectly, back to the rack it goes. And as I experiment, I'm getting to know what kinds of coverage I need in order to feel feminine without feeling immodest. What different colors do for my complexion. And how you can't always predict while a garment's on the hanger how it's going to look once you slip it on. I've been pleasantly surprised from time to time. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I enjoy clothes shopping - I'm too thrifty to ever really experience "retail therapy" - but it doesn't wear me down like it used to.

I guess these would have been the kind of skills a woman of the 1940s would have been practicing since she was a girl and accompanied her mother to the department store. True, there were plenty of women still making their own clothes at home, but there were probably just as many who never learned to do any dressmaking and purchased all their clothing ready-made.

The Manual describes clothing - like food - as a "flexible expense." Though about 15% of the average household budget of the era was spent on clothing, a skillful housewife could spend a little less when times were tough and some of that 15% was needed on other expenses. Here's one area where endless Mondays in the laundry room and the ability to think ahead could truly pay off:

...every wife knows the importance of her husband's appearance being suitable to his vocational position; and every mother knows that children involve sacrifice of parental outlays in dress or other items.

However, many factors affect the amount that must be spent for clothing - climate, activities, interests and social or business obligations, all are involved. A list of the year's needs should be made for each member of the family, and the items on hand checked off. It is often necessary to look ahead two or three years in order to plan wisely for a major purchase such as a winter coat. An estimate of the cost of items to be purchased can then be made. Actual expenditures depend upon your ability to compare quality and price, to watch for sales at reliable stores, to read labels and to follow directions for care. If you know the best methods for laundering, mending and pressing, you can prolong the useful life of clothes.

Now if I could just find the perfect new pair of brown shoes to match my new skirt...

The Housewife's Tool Box: Thinking Ahead

Let's hear it for persistence... I nailed that vintage lunchbox menu today. (It's about time!) And just because I want to make sure these vintage menus are really and truly better for me, I'm going to compare the basic nutritional stats to one of my typical pre-mission lunches. I used to love having one of those table-ready cans of Campbell's Creamy Tomato Parmesan Bisque with probably two or three servings' worth of Rosemary and Olive Oil Triscuits and Trader Joe's Chunky Olive Hummus. Yummalicious! And yet:

Typical pre-mission lunch
Calories: 640
Fat: 36.5g
Sodium: 1,480mg *gasp*
Carbohydrates: 82g
Protein: 16g

Vintage lunch, adapted
Calories: 360
Fat: 23.5g
Sodium: 370mg
Carbohydrates: 27g
Protein: 17g

Yikes. My vintage lunch menu today was a no-holds-barred improvement on a typical pre-mission lunch. So far, these 1945 lunches - with a little tweaking - are undeniably a change for the better. Here's the adapted menu for tomorrow:

Organic Creamy Tomato Soup
Open-faced Cheese Sandwich with Mustard and Lettuce on Whole-grain Bread
Celery
Olives
Fresh Pear

All this fuss over lunches here at the Jitterbug household has made me think about just how important forethought was to the 1940s housewife. You might have the latest washing machine, a state-of-the-art vacuum, and an amazing storage closet, but you couldn't run an efficient home without the ability to think ahead. To anticipate the needs of tomorrow and the day after that. To plan, to remember, to always have a foot in the next meal while cleaning up after the last one. The kitchen - the basic, never-ending demands of the battle to put nutritious, affordable meals on the table three times a day --- the kitchen probably requires more forethought than any other facet of housekeeping. And when it came to rationing - a family couldn't have survived without the forethought an experienced mother and wife had ready to apply to the challenge.

My own vintage meals are several days in the making. Before doing my twice-weekly marketing, I sit down to plan my menus for the week ahead. Buying produce especially can be a trick. If I buy it too far in advance, it'll spoil before it hits the table. Produce that keeps or that needs time to ripen can be purchased a little farther in advance. How many eggs have I got on hand? How many days 'til my milk expires? Can I get a better deal on spices at the supermarket or at the natural foods store? All these questions must be weighed as I make my way through the store. I'll bet most successful housewives constantly carry about in their heads a running inventory of their pantry!

In the evenings, I must look ahead to the morning. Have I got enough space in the dishwasher for tomorrow's breakfast dishes? Is there anything which needs to be taken out of the freezer to thaw? Anything to soak overnight? My latest question: What can I prepare in advance for tomorrow's lunch? If a vintage dinner is in the works: Are there any dishes I can make up before I've finished cleaning up after lunch?

I don't think this kind of forethought has to come naturally... If it did, I'd be in serious trouble. It's a learned skill, I think. Something you just become better at with lots and lots of practice. I haven't picked it up completely myself. There are plenty of moments where I wish I'd thought of something hours ago - or days ago. But those kinds of moments come fewer and farther between these days. See? There is hope for all you last-minute types like me!

My Fruit Dollar

Housecleaning and laundry aren't the only topics covered in exhaustive detail by America's Housekeeping Book (1945). The Manual also includes a chapter on the household budget. Sixty years ago, groceries cost much, much more proportionally than they do today. In fact, the authors of The Manual note than sometimes "the entire budget must be built around this item." The housewife was charged with a vital mission, then, in planning menus that could make the best, most efficient use of every article brought home from the market. Shopping for the best price, food preservation, creative use of leftovers --- these were topics of great importance to housewives and their husbands.

It helps also occasionally to keep a detailed food record for a couple of weeks or a month with separate totals for cost of cereal foods; fruits and vegetables; meats, fish and eggs; milk and cheese; and in a final class, fats, sugar and miscellaneous items. On a modest income, in order to get a balanced diet, not far from 1/5 of the food money should go for each of these five groups.

So I undertook an experiment last winter to shed some light on my own "food dollar." Not only for budget reasons, but because this kind of spending reflects the kind of eating you're doing. For one embarrassing month, I tracked my own grocery expenditures. And it was not a pretty picture. At the end of the month, I realized that I had spent $375.67 for groceries - about $100 to $125 more per month than I thought I'd been spending. 66% of my food dollar had gone toward Fats, Sugar and Miscellaneous Items --- the category where I'd lumped in all the processed, packaged non-single-ingredient foods that hadn't even been thought of in 1940. I spent 11% of my food dollar on Fruits and Vegetables, 10% on Cereal Foods, 8% on Milk and Cheese, and 5% on Eggs, Beans, and Soy.

Fast forward six months. In late July, I started tracking my food dollar again. For one month. I've made lots of changes in my diet and should be able to see a difference in my marketing, right? Well, here are the results... My total spending on groceries for the month was $286.25. That's a significant drop - $89.42 per month I can put to a better use. (Like all these new clothes I have to buy to fit my new figure!)

Fruits and Vegetables: $105.55 (37%)

Fats, Sugar, and Miscellaneous Items: $96.03 (33%)

Breads and Cereals: $33.28 (12%)

Eggs, Beans, and Soy: $25.92 (9%)

Milk and Cheese: $25.47 (9%)

I'm not surprised that my spending on Fruits and Vegetables has risen so dramatically. I absolutely spoil myself these days with as much fresh fruit as I can possibly bring home. If I have it handy, I'm much less likely to do any snacking that ends up on my hips. I am surprised, however, that Fruits and Vegetables took the lead. And that my spending on Fats, Sugar, and Miscellaneous Items has been cut in half!!! Maybe I'll celebrate by sharing the recipe for the Rolled Oat Muffins I tried out last week. Though I was a little skeeved by soaking the oats in sour milk, they turned out incredibly. Moist and nutty and super easy to make. I ate two of them that first morning, then popped the rest in the freezer for rationing out from time to time.

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ROLLED OAT MUFFINS

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup white flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 1/2 cups sour milk or buttermilk
2 tablespoons melted shortening

Soak 2 cups rolled oats in sour milk overnight. Sift dry ingredients together. Beat egg; add milk, shortening and sifted ingredients. Mix only enough to dampen flour. Fill greased muffin pans 2/3 full and bake in hot oven (400 degrees F.) 25 minutes. Makes 12.

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I wish this lunch packing thing came more naturally to me. I spent a while on Sunday evening prepping Monday's lunch and promptly went to work without the Hard-cooked Egg that was sitting in the fridge. This morning I was feeling antsy about a day-and-a-half-old egg - and realized at the last minute that I'd left all my plastic containers sitting in the dish drainer at work! - so took along one of my leftover frozen lunches instead. I'm determined to grit my teeth, though, and make a success of this second lunch box menu - so I'm going to cook another egg tonight and try it one more time tomorrow. The good news is that the Peanut Butter and Lettuce Sandwich was yummy! I'm looking forward to having that again.

All this talk of food is driving me crazy. I've got a basket full of ironing calling my name. Catch you later!

Dollars and Distractions

In late January, I began tracking my "food dollar" for a month-long experiment. Based on some vintage advice on budgeting for groceries, I started keeping track of my expenditures on food and beverages. Each item ended up in one of five categories: Breads and Cereals/Fruits and Vegetables/Eggs, Beans, and Soy/Milk and Cheese/Fats, Sugar, and Miscellaneous Items (this category included most pre-packaged, processed foods or restaurant meals). The idea being that at the end of the month I should see about 1/5 of my food dollar falling into each category. Wrong! At the end of the month, I tallied everything up and was dismayed by the results. Not only was I spending $100-$125 per month more than I thought I'd been, but my food dollar was wildly skewed with 2/3 of my spending going right into that last category (Fats, Sugar, and Miscellaneous Items).

I decided to try the experiment again in six months and hoped to see some better results after making some positive changes in my eating habits. It's been six months, so I've posted a new food dollar tally in the column to the right. I think it'll be real interesting to see what kind of progess I've made in another month!

After cooling off from my workout this morning, I got myself all gussied up for the 9:00 Mass. I actually do belong to a parish. Though I've attended church erratically in the various places I've lived as an adult, I hadn't been a member of any particular parish since I was living under my parents' roof. When my sister asked me to be Poppet's godmother last spring, I had to settle down somewhere. So I joined the church I'd attended with my parents when they spent the winter here two years ago. I've even got the printed collection envelopes and everything - though it did take some time to find 'em this morning!

I felt a bit self-conscious as I walked to my car in the parking lot of my apartment building. Most of the people out and about were dressed in jeans or shorts and T-shirts. But that self-consciousness disappeared once I got to church and saw plenty of folks in their Sunday best. I usually listen to CDs or the radio when I'm driving, but it didn't feel quite right this morning. Like I was breaking some sort of spell of silence or something. Maybe it'd be a good idea to turn off the radio on Sunday mornings. Just so I'm in a more reflective place by the time I arrive to church. Come to think of it, there was a lot of static this first Sunday morning. I was so distracted by the usual discomforts that it was hard to really slow down and enjoy the experience. I've always hated going to church by myself. And it stinks when you end up sitting in a section with a bunch of non-singers. I like to sing along to the hymns but feel so self-conscious (there it is again!) when most of the people around me are silent.

The biggest distraction of all was physical. One of the nasty side effects of carrying around the kind of weight I have is high blood pressure. For two years now, I've treated that problem with two medications - one of which is a diuretic. When I saw my doctor three weeks ago, she suggested that I stop taking the diuretic at some point soon. My blood pressure is lowering naturally as I lose weight and eventually I'll be able to taper off both medications. That's great news, right? I've been hesitant to do it, because I knew I'd probably gain a few pounds of water weight. Well, my blood pressure dropped so low this morning that I almost fainted during church. Just after the homily. We were kneeling down and I started blacking out. Sat back up, took a mint from my purse, and blessedly made it through the Mass. It was a frightening experience though, so I've stopped taking the diuretic.

Let's just say my first Sunday of regular church attendance was not a wild success --- but I'll be back! With my envelope.

In Stores and Shops

As the time for a new mission draws near, I find myself wondering what I've learned when it comes to marketing during the last couple weeks. First, I undershop. That's from years of never picking up more than a basket of things (okay, sometimes a very heavy basket of things) when I went to the grocery store. In this era of roomy refrigerator-freezers and skyrocketing carbon emissions, I need to make my weekly trip to the supermarket count. Can't be afraid to pull one of those grocery carts out of the carrel. And I wouldn't want to shop without a list, but making at least one trip up or down each aisle often jogs my memory about items I may be running a little low on at home.

Mind you, I don't want to overbuy. Something I've noticed about modern grocery shopping is that I never see anybody walking about the grocery store with calculators anymore. And I can't remember the last time I saw anybody using - or used myself - one of the scales in the produce department. Since cash was replaced by checks, debit cards, and credit cards, people have probably become a lot less conscious of the amount they're spending on groceries. I wouldn't have really given this any thought until my wallet was stolen and - while waiting two weeks for my new checks and debit card - I found myself shopping on a cash-only basis. When you've only got a finite amount of money available to you at the checkout counter, you become super conscious of every dime! Things you thought you couldn't possibly do without when you were grocery shopping with a debit card, i.e. real maple syrup, become a little easier to sacrifice when you're actually looking at parting with a five and two ones for it. (Suddenly, store brand artificial maple syrup looked pretty good to me!) Shopping with cash only is definitely anxiety provoking, but it does force you to reassess your priorities.

I'm launching a new mission on Thursday. While I continue working away at this kitchen-cleaning/weekly grocery shopping thing, I'm taking a brief side trip from new housekeeping missions and venturing into the world of vintage beauty. Stay tuned...

I'll leave you with some advice from Lily Haxworth Wallace's New American Etiquette (1941) on etiquette for the shopper. These tips are geared toward women shopping for clothing and other items, but they have some value, too, for those of us making our way to the grocery store.

Many women who make a pretense of fine manners become rude yokels in the department stores and specialty shops. They hunt for what they want with the culture of hungry wolves stalking their prey. They order salespersons and other store employees about, they seize and handle many articles they do not want and discard them carelessly, they rant and complain and shower their indignation upon an offending salesgirl if anything at all should happen to displease them. They act as though the possession of a few dollars in their purse or an A1 credit rating gives them the right to determine the policies of the store and to insult every one working in it. [I guess the A1 credit rating was the '40s predecessor of the FICO score!]

A lady is never rude to subordinates and those who might be classed as her social inferiors. She knows that the men and girls behind the counters are trying hard to please - their jobs depend on it - and their jobs are important things to them and perhaps several others. Accordingly the lady addresses the salesgirl with a smile and is free with her courtesies. "Please" and "Thank you" come as naturally to her lips in the store as they do in her drawing room.

The lady never takes the clerk to task because the accounting department made a mistake in last month's bill. She is directed to the proper clerk or official for that mistake and she politely asks for a correction. She does not raise her voice and she does not insist, "...that I believe this store employs the most stupid people in the world."

Growing Up

I was getting a little worried about my new houseplants this morning. Especially the coleus, which had lost a little of the brightness to its color. So I decided to give them a weekend, too. They spent the afternoon lounging about on my sunny landing. Fresh air, warm sunshine... I hope it did them good! It still gets pretty chilly here at night, so I brought them back in until tomorrow afternoon.

Though I ended up spending the morning with my nieces at a storytime, I cleaned my kitchen this afternoon in about two and a half hours. Mind you, I have lots still to add to this particular routine - floors, small appliances, etc. - but I'm encouraged by being able to do it all "in one sitting." Without having to take an extended break about 2/3 of the way through. Maybe I just need to get things started really early on Friday evenings.

Well, I dashed off to the supermarket while I was still feeling so energized (strangely enough). Reminded myself after picking up the shopping basket that it was time for me to approach grocery shopping again like a grown up and headed back outside to start anew - this time with a shopping cart.

It felt very good coming home to put my groceries away in a clean kitchen. And knowing that, with the exception of some "light marketing" on Wednesday evening, I won't be making any rushed trips to the grocery store to pick up one thing or another that I forgot. I had planned my breakfast menus for the week, planned my vintage dinner for tomorrow night. My shopping list in hand, I felt an unusual sense of control as I wheeled about the supermarket. 50s gal has mentioned this sense of control-over-her-own-destiny in her own blog, and today is the first time I've really experienced that feeling myself. I don't know quite how to describe it yet, but there's something about all those chores I did today - and shopping with a big ol' cart - that makes me feel like a grown up. What is it about housework that makes the difference?

On a shallower note, I was thrilled to spy some chicory in the produce section. That's mentioned time and again in these '40s salad recipes. It's totally not what I thought it would look like! Speaking of salads, here's the menu for tomorrow night's 1945 dinner:

Mashed Potatoes

Boiled Cabbage

Fresh Tomato Salad

Brownie a la Mode

Weekends Only!

Here's my new rule: No baking yeast-raised recipes on a weeknight.

What a mess! Even with the things I did along the way to try and clean up the kitchen. By the time I finished, it was late - I was tired - the evening chores hadn't yet been done --- I threw in my towel and hit the sack.

Which is not to say the Yeast Cinnamon Rolls didn't turn out pretty darn good. I wrapped eight of them up in aluminum foil as soon as they were nearly cool and popped them in the freezer. They'll be ready and waiting for me the next time this dish turns up on my menu. The rest are still tender and delicious today! I could have been a bit more liberal though with the cinnamon and sugar. The recipe didn't lay out any exact measurements for those ingredients, so I tend to end up on the safe side when that happens.

I wonder how 1940s housewives fitted something like baking yeast-raised breads into their daily schedules. I mean, I know most housewives weren't baking their own bread any longer, but they still made lots of rolls. Parker House rolls, cloverleaf rolls, sweet rolls, coffee cakes... Maybe once you were an expert at it you just found a way to work each step into the rest of your work about the house. You'd start a "sponge" then go to work tidying up the bedrooms. Knead the dough, set it someplace warm to raise, then head back upstairs and give the bathroom its daily once-over.

These vintage cookbooks can be a bit tricky. They have a lot of general information about certain types of foods towards the beginning of a mini-section of those recipes. The recipe for the Rolls, for instance, was a variation on the Standard Roll Recipe, but you really needed to refer back to the initial section on breadmaking in order to flesh out what looked like a scant set of instructions. That was the case for me too with the Soft Molasses Cookies. I should have read the intro to rolled cookies before even starting the recipe. I guess all of this basic stuff is the kind of thing a 1940s housewife would have learned in a home economics class, the kind of stuff she'd have learned from watching (and helping) her mother cook three meals a day.

Here's something mission-related I learned several days ago. If I'm going to make a trip to the supermarket only once a week, I need to give up fooling myself with a shopping basket. You know, the little plastic one - "I'm just here to pick up a few things!" - that you fit over your arm. It's time to let it go and resign myself to the big ol' shopping cart.

Week Nineteen: The Mission

It's become a habit during the last couple of years to spend time with my nieces at their home - not mine. Partly because it's so convenient. Their toys are there, their clothing, their special foods, their diapers --- all the gear you need to babysit a two year old and a ten month old. To be perfectly honest, though, part of the reason is that when your home is as chaotic and messy as mine used to be, you stop extending invitations. Because having somebody over means having to clean like a maniac before they arrive.

Last weekend, my sister brought my nieces over on Sunday. They're having some work done at their house and the washing machine and dryer have been disconnected, so she brought some laundry over to my place. It was a wonderful afternoon. Kitten fluttered about, investigating all of Auntie's knick knacks and jumping on the bed, while the baby - I'll call her Poppet - played patiently with a deck of cards. Picking them up, passing them one at a time to whomever was near, messing the pile about. The nicest thing about their visit was just how relaxed and un-tired I felt. I had a few things to do before they arrived to put my living room and bathroom to rights, but the housekeeping routine I've been carving out for myself has made such a difference! I guess I hadn't realized how far I've come until I was suddenly seeing the place through new eyes. My kitchen was clean, the bedroom was clean, my living room was tidy. And all this before I made any special preparations for their arrival...

What a change in just four months. My morning and evening chores have become practically natural. My weekly chores on Mondays through Thursdays still make me groan on occasion, but they don't seem nearly as tough as they used to. And the feeling of going to sleep at night having accomplished all of my missions for the day is so good. Just like a great day at work, where I'm busy, busy, busy - but knowing come 5:00 that so many of my "to dos" are done. My weekly cleaning-of-the-kitchen is far from a habit, but that, too, will come in time... One of my fondest hopes is that my nieces will have lovely memories one day of Auntie's house. That it was a cozy, clean, happy place with good meals and pretty things. It's amazing how children (even when they're one step removed) make your future a fixed target. Suddenly, that future is right in front of you and it's time for me to create that home I want them to enjoy visiting. Even Aunties feather their nests!

While I'm adjusting to the kitchen work and the dinners, it seems kind of convenient that my next mission is not a labor intensive one.

Do the bulk of the weekly food marketing on Saturday afternoons.

As I mentioned some time ago, the manual recommends that the housewife do the bulk of her marketing "on a day when local stores offer special prices. Often Friday and Saturday are bargain days." The authors of The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947) also advise their readers to do some marketing twice a week, but suggest that Mondays and Fridays would be the most efficient days to do so. My plan is to do the bulk of my grocery shopping at the supermarket on Saturdays - probably Saturday afternoons - and to supplement it with a quick stop on Wednesday evenings at one of the stores where I buy organic milk, free range eggs, etc. The Wednesday trip alone hasn't added much in the way of efficiency to my household, but I'm hoping that the two in tandem will make a real difference.

Taking Stock

I’m working away at the week’s ironing this evening - but I’ve got a few moments while my iron heats up from the “Nylon” setting to the “Polyester” setting, so I thought I’d share a few tips from the manual on cleaning refrigerators.

The authors of America’s Housekeeping Book (1945) acknowledged that many American kitchens still contained "ice refrigerators" and wrote up lots of instructions - completely mysterious to me - for removing accumulated "slime" from the drain pipe and refreshening the ice supply with an occasional bath of baking soda. (Boy, am I glad not to have to worry about slime in my kitchen!) Here is some welcome advice on caring for "automatic" refrigerators:

Daily:
Wipe up any spilled food at once.

Wipe top of refrigerator with a cloth wrung out in soap water. Rinse with a cloth wrung out in clear water. Dry.

Remove any fingerprints around the handle of the door with mild soap and water. Rinse and dry as above.

Weekly:
(This cleaning is usually done after defrosting. Unless your refrigerator is equipped with an automatic defrosting device, it should be defrosted whenever the accumulation of frost is ¼-inch thick.)

Empty the pan under the freezing unit, wash in warm suds, rinse thoroughly and dry. Remove freezing trays, empty and wash in hot soapsuds. Rinse with scalding water and dry. Remove racks or shelves and wash in the same way.

Remove racks or shelves and wash them in hot soapsuds. Rinse with scalding water and dry thoroughly.

Wash interior with a cloth wrung out of cool water in which borax or baking soda has been dissolved. (1 tablespoon of borax or soda to 1 pint water.)

Wash exterior with mild soapsuds. Rinse with a cloth wrung out of clean water, dry thoroughly.

Follow the manufacturer's directions for oiling the motor at regular intervals. (With most new models no oiling is necessary.)

This last Saturday morning was the first time I'd cleaned my refrigerator since the middle of last summer --- and then only because I was expecting houseguests. Though cleaning it every week still sounds a bit excessive to me, it's definitely a little easier when you empty all the food at once as well as the racks and bins. Plus it's a great chance to face your scary leftovers and get rid of any expired foods you might have forgotten about. The fact that the manual suggests that the kitchen be cleaned the day before the housewife does the bulk of her marketing makes good sense, too. She'd be able to check on the freshness of whatever produce she might still have on hand. And if she's running low on something she keeps in the fridge, here's her chance to take stock and add it to the grocery list!

Have any of you ever cleaned with borax? I've never used it before. Is it safe? Is it useful in cleaning other items?

A Wash and a Trim

Today was Marketing Day and for the first time in two weeks, I've brought some vegetables home - a bag of organic carrots, two bunches of celery hearts, and a bag of pre-shredded cabbage. (I'd have bought this by the head, but went to a smallish grocery store this evening and they didn't have any heads of cabbage.)

Those of you who've been following my blog may have noticed that the breakdown I've been keeping for "My Food Dollar" isn't exactly heavy in the fruits and veggies. Part of the reason is that I eat a lot of prepared or frozen foods and decided to clump these into the Fats, Sugar, and Miscellaneous Items category - unless they quite obviously belonged to another category.

The reason I brought home so much fresh produce today? I'm planning on preparing the first of the 1945 dinner menus in a few days. Friday, at the earliest. The difference between my usual groceries and today's groceries is pretty striking.

At any rate, one of the recommendations in The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947) is that the housewife wash and trim the fresh vegetables she brings home on Marketing Day before putting them away. That way they'll be ready to go whenever she's preparing a meal. Makes lots of sense for some veggies, I think. I puzzled a bit over what to do with the carrots. I could definitely wash them, but should I scrape and trim them now or wait until just before using them? Wouldn't the carrots get all dried out? As I was washing them, I suddenly realized something that should have been obvious. Most 1940s housewives would have brought carrots home with the leaves still attached! Trimming that bit off would have made storing carrots much easier even if you didn't do anything else. The carrots I buy these days haven't any leaves, so some of the prep has already been done for me.

When it came to the celery, I cut off the base and cleaned out all the soft yellow stalks on the inside before washing the celery. The clean veggies are drying now on a clean towel. I haven't yet decided what kind of container I'll store them in... Should I be storing them lose in the crisper? I'm embarrassed to feel so unsure of myself about such basic things. It forces me to face just how little my meals resemble whole, natural foods (breakfasts now excluded!)...

Okay, I just took a look in the fridge. The crispers are going to need a thorough cleaning before I store anything inside 'em!

Investing in the Home

The serving of fruit in my 1944 breakfast menu this morning was a berry-licious first!

Strawberries
Poached Eggs on Toast

Tomorrow, I'm heading one more year back in time to a menu published in 1943...

It's Wednesday - which here in the Jitterbug household means I did a little marketing. I made a couple stops on the way home from work. Picked up a few groceries, and started collecting some of the items I'll need to build my cleaning basket: a large cellulose sponge, a flannel polishing cloth, and a new pair of scissors (so I don't have to keep using the scissors from my mending basket on household jobs!). These "light" marketing trips on Wednesdays haven't done much yet to make my pantry more organized, and I suspect they're not going to make a real difference until I've added a longer trip to the supermarket on Saturdays. For now, I'm just content to try and make a shopping on Wednesday evenings a matter of routine.



As I was taking another look at the bedroom cleaning routine today, I realized that the manual recommends using either a carpet sweeper or vacuum cleaner when giving each room in the house its daily once-over, but when you clean each room more thoroughly once a week only a vac will do. Boy, do they make good use of the attachments. Mine can go untouched for a year, but the authors of the manual advise using your attachments every time you turn around! The vacuum is used to brush fabrics, dust in all those tall or hard-to-reach places - and of course to clean the carpet. Housewives in the '40s who were able to invest in a vacuum cleaner must have felt as if the appliance replaced several hours of work per week that hired help might have provided their mothers a generation before. Vacuum cleaners were a hefty investment. The $48.50 price tag on the Hoover above (plus trade) would be equivalent to more than $700 today!

Plugging In...

One of the best things I've learned at the ironing board sounds so simple: if you're a rightie (like me) and you plug in the iron to your left, you'll inevitably end up with a miserably kinked-up cord. All it takes to prevent that is just to plug in the iron to your right. And vice versa for lefties. That's it! The cord to my iron is now smooth and straight - and sooooooo much easier to use. What a difference that one little change made.

As I was doing my ironing last night, it occurred to me that the casual clothes so many of us wear these days are actually not as easy to iron as were the more formal clothes of the '40s. So many of the "blouses" (for lack of a better word) that I wear are some sort of cotton blend with a soft knit texture. And anyone who's tried to iron a tee shirt knows that you're fighting a losing battle against wrinkles. As soon as you iron 'em out, they pop up again in new places! Ironing a fabric with a little more substance to it is much more simple. It sounds kind of ironic - as I'm sure all those vintage collars and plackets and pleats took time - but the fabrics must have been much satisfying to iron.

This morning's breakfast:

Prunes

Graham Muffin (the last of the leftovers)

Baked Eggs

I've never baked eggs before, so I wasn't sure what I'd find when I opened the oven. I didn't have any of the "individual baking dishes" recommended in the recipe, so I used a mini loaf pan and they turned out just fine. A little rubbery - I think I'll bake them at a slightly lower temperature next time - but still good. Do you think I could use something like a popover pan or muffin pan to make Baked Eggs next time? Or would they turn out better in some kind of ceramic or stoneware?

I set forth on my new mission this evening as I stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home from work with a very small list in hand. The manual doesn't have any recommendations for the homecoming shopper, but there are a few words of advice in The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947):

Use all the time you need for marketing for these days and putting the food away. Wash and trim fresh vegetables and put them in the refrigerator ready for use.

That's a great idea. It'd certainly save you some time when it was time to put supper on the table or pack the family's lunch boxes. I didn't get any veggies this trip. Guess I'll have to get those crispers in my refrigerator ready for use next time...

The Business Center

One of the things I love about the manual and lots of vintage women's magazines, cookbooks, etc. is that they give total props to the work of housewives as a profession. They get it. They get that these women spent seven days a week on the job. And we all need a corner office - or even just a corner of an office - to call our own. In this case, it makes perfect sense to locate the housewife's "business center" in the kitchen. It's the place where she spends hour after hour preparing and cleaning up after meals. It's the place many a housewife stores the tools and solutions needed for cleaning the rest of the house. The first stop when she gets home from doing her marketing and sometimes even the place where she does the wash and the ironing:

The kitchen is one logical location for the homemaker's "office," which need not occupy much space if it is well planned.

Every homemaker needs a desk of some description, where accounts can be kept, shopping lists made out, recipes copied and quiet planning accomplished. Files of bills and receipts, manufacturers' direction booklets, guarantees, etc., should be located here, as well as reference books on homemaking problems.

A calendar is a necessity in this business center, and a small radio and extension telephone might well be part of the equipment. A bulletin board to keep the family posted as to each person's whereabouts, to hold reminders for the forgetful ones, to hold order lists, and to give news of general interest, may be hung on the wall.

Where should I make a little "business center" for my new job at home? I don't have a whole lot of room in this one-bedroom apartment, so I think I'll let my kitchen table do double duty - actually it's triple duty now since that's where I'm doing my ironing! There's a tall cabinet just a couple steps away from the table which has been serving as kind of a catch-all for me, but I'm going to clean it out a bit and clear off one shelf for just the kinds of things the authors of the manual describe: my cookbooks, my recipe file, the operating guides for some of my small kitchen appliances. I've already got a radio on the table and a magnetic notepad on the fridge where I keep track of the groceries and supplies I need to pick up next time I'm out. Now that I know that the drawer under my range doesn't have a broiler inside, I'm going to use that space to store some of the pots and pans I'm not using every day.

I made the Broiled Grapefruit again this morning with just a sprinkling of brown sugar. It was a little better, but I'd certainly rather just have it fresh from the icebox. It's hard to improve on Mother Nature in this case! Humble Labor made a great point though in her comment to my blog two days ago. A warm fruit dish is very fitting for chilly winter mornings.

Spending the Food Dollar Wisely

America's Housekeeping Book (1945) has lots of advice on the topic of budgeting for groceries. Some of it dated, as food used to be more expensive than it is today. Some of it might be very useful, though. For starters:

If the income is small, food costs loom large in proportion. Sometimes when the family is large the entire budget must be built around this item… If menus are planned and written down several days ahead, marketing will be easier and less costly. You will find it possible to take advantage of “week-end specials,” to plan for leftovers, and to provide for more variety in the meals you serve to your family. Cooking ability is a big help in cutting food costs, because inexpensive foods, skillfully prepared, often top higher-priced foods in flavor, health value and “appetite appeal.”

There's nothing old school about that. Simple foods can make wonderful meals, and experience in the kitchen can make a small budget go a long way. No matter what the proportion of your income you spent on food - families were expected in the '40s to spend anywhere from 20 to 35% - there are some rules of thumb as to how to spend it:

It helps also occasionally to keep a detailed food record for a couple of weeks or a month with separate totals for cost of cereal foods; fruits and vegetables; meats, fish and eggs; milk and cheese; and in a final class, fats, sugar and miscellaneous items. On a modest income, in order to get a balanced diet, not far from 1/5 of the food money should go for each of these five groups.

The author of my 1945 cookbook is in complete agreement on this point. You should find your "food dollar" split five ways:

ONE-FIFTH or more for whole milk, cream, cheese and cod-liver oil for growing children. Plan to give each child 1 quart and each adult at least 1 pint of milk in some form, per day.

ONE-FIFTH for vegetables and fruit, with emphasis on the green leaf and yellow fruits and vegetables. Serve at least 1 cooked vegetable, besides potatoes, and 1 fresh vegetable each day. Serve fresh fruit twice a day, with citrus fruit at least once.

ONE-FIFTH or less for meats, fish and eggs, serving liver in some form at least once a week.

ONE-FIFTH for breads and cereals, especially the whole grains.

ONE-FIFTH for fats, sugar and other groceries.

I've decided to keep track of my own food expenditures for the next month so I can find out if my "food dollar" is supporting a balanced diet. I never even keep my grocery receipts, so I'll have to remind myself not to just throw them away! I'll keep a running tally on the sidebar. It'll be interesting to find out how it all breaks down at the end of a month. Since I'm a vegetarian, I think I'll include things like eggs, soy, beans, and hummus in that third category - the protein-packed foods. Prepared foods that are a combination of things really ought to go into the last category. I made a quick stop at the supermarket today, so I'll start the tally right away.

By the by, have any of you ever broiled grapefruit? It's on the menu for breakfast tomorrow morning and I've never even used a broiler! Should I cut it in slices? Cut all the peel off? I guess I should start by actually looking inside my broiler. I have no idea what it looks like in there...

Week Ten: The Mission

I was planning a quick trip to the grocery store after work yesterday - just a few things on my list. One of them was grapefruit for this morning's breakfast. Happily, it's grapefruit season here in the Southwest, and a coworker brought me in a bag of grapefruit from the tree in his yard! It's interesting how different these grapefruit look from the ones we buy in the store. They're kind of pear shaped, for one. You can see just by looking at 'em how they hang on the tree. The fruit is heavier at the non-stem end. They also have a much thicker pith. In fact, there was probably about 50% less fruit. Lots more juice, though.

Here's this morning's menu (and tomorrow's, as I have leftover biscuits):

Grapefruit

Baking Powder Biscuits

It was a tasty breakfast. Not as filling as a whole-grain cereal or eggs might have been. The Biscuits were super quick. A cup did the trick today, but I'll have to add a biscuit cutter to my growing list of needs for a vintage home.

Speaking of shopping, my mission for this coming week will be to do some "light" marketing on Wednesday evenings. Housewives in the '40s made multiple trips to multiple stores over the course of a week to buy groceries, toiletries, and household supplies. They might have been able to have groceries delivered in a pinch - and this was still the era of door-to-door salesmen - but they probably spent a fair amount of time walking or driving to the pharmacy, the bakery, the green goods grocer, the shoe repairman, etc. Today, our supermarkets and discount department stores are so massive that we can find most of what we need under two roofs.

I probably make three shopping trips per week (unless something special comes up). A trip to the supermarket, a trip to Trader Joe's, and a trip to Walgreen's. I buy my eggs and dairy and a few other odds and ends at Trader Joe's. There are some incredible prices on produce at another natural foods market, so I stop there sometimes. (They also have a good selection of flours - which has been such a help with these 1945 breakfast menus.) So my own habits in this respect fall quite easily into vintage marketing patterns.

The manual has one recommendation as to timing:

The bulk of marketing should be done on a day when local stores offer special prices. Often Friday and Saturday are bargain days.

I might be wrong, but I don't think any modern supermarkets have sale prices effective just one day per week. They seem to offer sale prices that change once a week, but are effective all week long. I'm going to set aside some time on Saturdays to do the "bulk" of my marketing (a trip to the supermarket) with Wednesday evenings dedicated to a shorter trip to either Trader Joe's or the natural foods store. Those two trips - at opposite ends of the week - should keep my pantry in good order. Wouldn't it be nice never to run short of things? Not to have to make any emergency stops here and there to pick up what I might have been stocked up on with better planning?