How the Housewife Stole Christmas

My inner vintage housewife went toe to toe with my former self two days ago in the kitchen.

You see, my ol' reliable holiday gift for coworkers has always been quick breads. Wrapped with the most festive of trimmings, but always baked from a mix. I guess I just never trusted myself to bake anything better! Last year, I found a gingerbread mix that I really liked the looks of and it seemed to get good reviews from the folks I gave it to --- so as the holidays rolled 'round again this year, I thought I was all set. I stocked up on several boxes of the same mix along with the right size tins and an extra box of eggs. Even found a mix for spiced apple bread made by the same manufacturer, so picked up a couple boxes of that as well.

My first batch of breads on Sunday evening came out looking - and smelling - just as good as they usually do. I wrapped 'em up and handed 'em out. Not feeling a lick of guilt that they weren't homemade. I'd never have confessed the truth to the people I gave them to, but then again they never asked.

Monday evening, I went back to work on a second batch of breads. This time, I was curious. The gingerbread was yummy. The spiced apple bread --- well, it was okay, but nothing to write home about. Kind of dry, actually. And there was no mistaking from the texture that this was not homemade. I couldn't give any more of these spiced apple breads away! And just then - standing in the middle of my kitchen with all the remnants of "baking" surrounding me - my inner vintage housewife took over. Do you know the scene in How the Grinch Stole Christmas where the Grinch's heart grows three sizes at once? That was my inner vintage housewife three nights ago, coaching me through this domestic crisis.

"You can do better than this," she told me. "Come on. Think back. You've baked some great things over the past year. The Dried Apricot Cake, the Blueberry Pudding. You know how to do this." I leafed through my vintage cookbooks, looking for just the right recipe. The breads needed to be ready on Tuesday, so I was restricted to just the ingredients I had in the house. This in and of itself would have meant disaster one year ago when I didn't have anything in the house! This year, my pantry was stocked with all the baking essentials and my fridge was full of fruit. I finally settled on the Blueberry Pudding recipe from The American Woman's Cook Book (1941). It's a Cottage Pudding - cake, really - with fresh blueberries in the batter. (I added a streusel topping.) I washed up the dishes I'd need to bake with in the morning and went to bed.

Early Tuesday morning, the battle began. Adrenaline was coursing through my body as I sifted the dry ingredients, creamed the shortening and sugar, measured out the vanilla, and washed the berries. Was I actually going to give people something I'd baked from scratch? Better make enough to sample it before I gave any of it away. I petitioned the Range Gods for mercy: "Oven, don't fail me now." Much to my surprise - but probably not to my inner vintage housewife's --- the Blueberry Puddings were ready in plenty of time. And tasted very good if I do say so myself! I felt an unusual sense of pride as I gave this batch of goodies away. Even tried to homemade up the gingerbreads by adding some cinnamon icing I whipped together while the Puddings were in the oven.

If y'all could sit down and visit with me this afternoon, I'd cut you a slice. Merry Christmas, dear readers! Best wishes to you all for a wondrous, joyful holiday.

And the Grinch, with his Grinch feet ice cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling:
"How could it be so?
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
He puzzled and puzzed, till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before:
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store--
Maybe Christmas--perhaps--means a little bit more."

And what happened then--well, in Whoville they say
That the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day.
And then the true meaning of Christmas came through,
And the Grinch found the strength of ten Grinches--plus two.

And now that his heart didn't feel quite so tight,
He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light.
With a smile in his soul, he descended Mount Crumpet,
Cheerily blowing Who! Who! on his trumpet.

This Ain't Your Mother's Farina!

Cream of Wheat is so good to eat
That we have it every day.
It makes us strong, so we sing this song.
It makes us shout "Hooray!"

It's good for growing babies
And grown-ups, too, to eat.
For all the family's breakfast,
You can't beat Cream of Wheat!
(Advertising jingle, 1942)

I've been eating my daily vintage breakfasts for several months now and farina has definitely become one of my favorites... You may know it as Cream of Wheat. My mom used to dish this up during the winter when I was a kid. It wasn't a favorite, but I remember preferring it tenfold to the oatmeal my mother made from scratch. (Sorry, Ma!) When I was a teenager, instant Cream of Wheat would sometimes appear in the pantry, usually in the maple brown sugar variety.

These days, I'm loving the cooked version, and - as luck would have it - Cream of Wheat is now available in a whole grain variety. I think it finally qualifies as a healthy breakfast. One serving prepared with water (100 calories) contains 15% of the recommended daily allowance of fiber, 50% of the recommended daily allowance of iron, and 4 grams of protein to boot! This is the kind of breakfast that sticks to your ribs and keeps you from feeling hungry for the rest of the morning.

Sometimes, I take my Cream of Wheat straight up. Especially if I'm having fruit along with it, like a dish of berries or half a grapefruit. Other mornings, it's all about the accessories. If you prefer a little crunch with your hot cereal, how 'bout sprinkling on some flax seed or crushed walnuts? Raisins, bits of date, or dried cranberries would be fantastic in farina --- especially if you added them to the cereal as it was cooking and gave 'em a chance to plump up. My favorite way to eat farina is with a smidge of margarine and a sprinkling of brown sugar. Heaven!

The key to cooking farina is to remember your whisk. Use the whisk to stir the cereal as you cook it - which only takes two or three minutes after adding the cereal to a soft boiling water. In fact, it cooks up so quickly that you can have a hot breakfast in the summertime without heating up your kitchen! Whether you rinse your pot right away or leave it to soak for a bit, it's super easy to clean up after. The ever-thrifty author of The American Woman's Cook Book (1945) even has a suggestion for leftover farina (as if!): "Mold... for tomorrow's luncheon dessert. Sweeten with brown sugar or honey and add vanilla." Farina Pudding should be served with Sliced Bananas and Top Milk.

"...when we knew them by the shape of their legs"

Here it is Friday and I haven't posted anything yet about last Sunday's vintage dinner! Thank goodness for "Independence Day Observed" - it gives me the chance to do some serious catching up on all fronts. (I'll do my observing tomorrow.)

Eggs Scrambled with Chopped Chives or Parsley
Salad of Shredded Lettuce and Carrots and Chopped Sweet Pickle
Roll
Blueberry Pudding

Recommended by The American Woman's Cook Book (1945) as a menu for a Saturday evening, this was a wonderful change of pace after a hot summer's day. Just the kind of the meal that would allow a housewife some extra time to get her children through their Saturday night baths... I added some Parsley to my Scrambled Eggs. Most of you could probably scramble eggs with your eyes closed, but I thought you might enjoy seeing a '40s take on the recipe.

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BATTERED OR SCRAMBLED EGGS

In a frying-pan, place one teaspoon of butter for each egg. Beat the eggs until the whites and yolks are well mixed. Season with salt and pepper and add one to three tablespoons of milk or cream for each egg. Pour into the hot fat and cook slowly, stirring constantly until the eggs are of the desired consistency. Serve at once. A little onion-juice or chopped parsley may be added to the eggs, if desired.

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I made the salad using iceberg lettuce, carrot, and chopped sweet gherkins. The whole-wheat roll was purchased at the supermarket --- a nod to the foods commercially available by the 1940s. The Blueberry Pudding was a simple cottage pudding with fresh blueberries added to the batter. It was so good, but I'm afraid it'll be the last of my desserts from these dinner menus for a little while. (The leftovers are way too tasty!) I'm going to substitute either a baked custard, sherbet, or pudding for the vintage suggestions.

The summer rains have moved into this part of the desert. I use the word "rains" loosely - it rains for about 5-10 minutes in the late afternoon - but the storms do stir up some lovely wind and cloudy skies... So it was time to clean my bedroom yesterday evening and a storm had just passed by. For the first time in all these months, I had to find an alternative to airing my bedcovers and pillows on the landing outside my door. The railing was wet and water was still dripping from the roof. Hmmm. What's a good housewife-who's-not-a-wife-and-works-outside-the-home-five-days-a-week to do? I reached for The Manual. Aha!

Remove all bed covers; stretch over end of bed, or over chairs, off the floor.

That - I could do. And at least it gives you a chance to open the windows and air the mattress. Making up my bed again afterwards wasn't quite as satisfying an experience as it usually is. I didn't get to beat the pillows or give the bedcovers a good shake - didn't want to stir up any fresh dust indoors - but it was a decent trade in a pinch.

Have you ever read Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon books? I'm reading the second one, Leaving Home (1987), and there's a thought he expressed in passing that's making me especially mindful these days of the way my legs look. (Mindful to the point where I may have overdone it with my new exercises yesterday --- my legs are aching this morning!) It's a passage in the opening essay to the book that made me think of my legs. A beautiful passage in more ways than one. It makes me laugh and weep a little at the same time. I laugh, because I'd like to be known by my nieces as the aunt with fabulous legs!

When I was little I didn't think of grownups as having bare skin; grownups were made of wool clothing, only kids were bare naked...

Every time I read a book about how to be smarter, how not to be sad, how to raise children and be happy and grow old gracefully, I think "Well, I won't make those mistakes, I won't have to go through that," but we all have to go through that. Everything they went through, we'll go through. Life isn't a vicarious experience. You get it figured out and then one day life happens to you. You prepare yourself for grief and loss, arrange your ballast and then the wave swamps the boat.

Everything they went through: the loneliness, the sadness, the grief, and the tears--it will all come to us, just as it came to them when we were little and had to reach up to get hold of their hand, when we knew them by the shape of their legs. Aunt Marie had fat little legs, I held her hand one cold day after a blizzard, we climbed snowdrifts to get to the store and buy licorice whips. She said, "Come on, we can make it, don't slip," and soon she was far behind, a fat lady in a heavy coat with a fur collar, leaning into the wind, wheezing from emphysema, and sometime later she died. She knew that death was only a door to the kingdom where Jesus would welcome her, there would be no crying there, no suffering, but meanwhile she was fat, her heart hurt, and she lived alone with her ill-tempered little dogs, tottering around her dark little house full of Chinese figurines and old Sunday Tribunes. She complained about nobody loving her or wanting her or inviting her to their house for dinner anymore. She sat eating pork roast, mashed potato, creamed asparagus, one Sunday at our house when she said it. We were talking about a trip to the North Shore and suddenly she broke into tears and cried, "You don't care about me. You say you do but you don't. If I died tomorrow, I don't know as you'd even go to my funeral." I was six. I said, cheerfully, "I'd come to your funeral," looking at my fat aunt, her blue dress, her string of pearls, her red rouge, the powder on her nose, her mouth full of pork roast, her eyes full of tears.

Every tear she wept, that foolish woman, I will weep every one before I am done and so will you. We're not so smart we can figure out how to avoid pain, and we cannot walk away from the death we owe.

So true. For all our modern technologies, shopping malls, and miracle drugs, we can't avoid the mistakes and fears and losses that shaped the lives of our grandmothers, our great-grandmothers, and their great-grandmothers before them... If you've never read any of Keillor's books - or listened to his marvelous Prairie Home Companion on NPR - you've got something wonderful in store. He paints such a frank and beautiful picture of life in a small Minnesota town. His bits in Lake Wobegon Days on the scandal of air conditioning and over-ambitious tomato gardeners --- genius!

Symphony

One of the blessings of having turned off my television is getting to listen to something a little different - the sounds of home. Surely, I must've heard these sounds before, but I guess I never really listened to them...

Like the snap of a clean towel when you're folding laundry. I love to give my towels and washcloths a sharp, precise shake before folding them, just to shake any last wrinkles out before they're folded and tucked away in the linen closet.

And the cheery sound of voices when I turn on my radio in the morning. I usually turn it on as I'm heading into the kitchen to get breakfast started. And whether the news is good or bad, the voices are welcome companionship after a long, quiet night with nothing but the air conditioner to interrupt the calm.

Like the tap-tap-tapping of an egg in a covered pan as it bubbles away for my breakfast. And the ticking of my Toastmaster, growing ever faster as the toast gets closer to the finish. Happy sounds indeed after a long snack-less night!

I love the sound of hissing steam as my iron heats up on Tuesday nights... It's a promising sound - one that betokens a closet soon replenished with smooth, neatly pressed garments.

On Thursday evenings, it's a "Whap! Whap! Whap!" outdoors on the landing when - after airing my bed covers and pillows for an hour - I give the pillows a good shake and smack them against each other a few times. Just to get the dust out. (Though it's handy, too, in working out any workaday frustrations.)

I'd forgotten what a satisfying task snapping string beans can be. And it makes another fantastic sound!

Mashed Potato Cakes
String Beans
Salad of Cottage Cheese Stuffed Prunes
Apple Brown Betty

It was all about comfort food for my vintage dinner last Sunday. Mashed Potato Cakes are a clever way to serve up leftovers. Add salt, pepper, and egg yolk to a dish of cold mashed potatoes. Form into patties, place a dab of margarine on top of each, and bake in a greased pan. Just long enough to brown the bottoms of the patties. The Cottage Cheese Stuffed Prunes made for a very rich salad - which would have been even richer if I'd laced it with French Dressing (as instructed by the recipe)! I've never eaten Apple Brown Betty before, so thought it might turn out something like an apple crisp. Not quite. Kind of like a soft apple crisp - without the crunch. Ruth Berolzheimer, the author of The American Woman's Cook Book (1945), must've been nuts about bread crumbs. They show up practically every week! I'm beginning to get suspicious now every time I see them. Hmmm... what kind of missing ingredient is she trying to cover up with bread crumbs this time?

New Routines

Did you ever notice that as soon as people find out you're regularly walking, they come out of the woodwork to try and make you their walking buddy?

First, a co-worker asks me if she can match me up with a friend of hers who needs a walking buddy. Then another person I know through work tries to get me to commit to a walking relationship. I hope I don't come off as impolite, but I'd really rather walk by myself. Let's face it. Sometimes walking with another person can speed you up --- sometimes it can slow you down. The people I pass when I'm walking are almost always in pairs. And the last thing I want to do is to have to rush to the park to sit around and wait for somebody who might be late showing up - and then might show up toting a kid or two. Complete with strollers. I've got business to take care of!

I gathered up all my courage Monday evening and went into the rec center to purchase a membership and take my first indoor walk on the walking track. The rec center may be located just a few steps away from the park where I've been walking on the weekends --- but it's a whole new world in there! It's louder for starts. The walking track is built around a basketball court with racquetball courts nearby. There's lots of testosterone in the air as most of the people using the basketball court are young men in the 15-25 age range. I've only been there twice, but I'd say there's a more competitive feeling indoors than there is with the folks using the outdoor track. (It's actually the first time I've wanted to check my rear view in the mirror to see whether those new exercise pants are flattering or not!) The track is pretty small, so I can easily do 30 laps in a 60-minute walk. Thank goodness for that iPod. I'd perish without it! I'll still have a chance to walk outdoors one day a week. The rec center is closed on Sundays.

As for snacks, I'm doing remarkably better at the only-fruits-or-vegetables thing than I thought I would. Of course, it helps that nectarines are in season here. I picked up some beautiful, small nectarines last weekend at one of the natural foods stores. They've got a great selection of produce and I was in quest of some parsnips for my vintage dinner - but the nectarines caught my eye. Have you seen how big the fruits are in some of the supermarkets these days? They must be breeding super-sized fruits for super-sized customers. And bigger isn't always better. I'm a nectarine nut, so imagine my excitement when I saw these massive nectarines at the supermarket last summer. Ack! They were mealy and bland and never got to that lovely soft stage where the fruit just melts in your mouth. Anyway, I've been having one nectarine every day at about 3:00 in the afternoon. That's it for snacks. This weekend will probably be more challenging than my weekdays have been, but I'm feeling ready to face the enemy.

Here's the menu for my vintage dinner last Sunday:

Parsley Buttered Potatoes
Pan-fried Parsnips
Molded Salad of Cranberry Sauce (canned), Celery and Apples
Butterscotch Pudding with Nuts

I haven't had Parsnips in years. In fact, I remember being slightly traumatized the last time I ate them. It's been a long time, though, so I figured I ought to give them another shot. They have a spicy, celery-type scent as you're working with them, but once cooked they were pretty bland. Didn't taste like much of anything. What I've heard since then is that Parsnips are tastiest in the fall when they're fresh from the soil. Alas, my first attempt at a non-gelatin Molded Salad was a dismal failure. I tried just heating up a can of the jellied cranberry sauce, adding the celery and apples, and putting the concoction in the fridge to chill - but it never quite set. I'm going to track down some of the agar a couple of my readers mentioned and try that next time.

It's Thursday evening, which means that it's time to clean my bedroom. The first order of business will be the daily chores recommended by America's Housekeeping Book (1945). This will be my new weekly routine for the bedroom:

Open windows top and bottom for free circulation of air.

Remove all bed covers; stretch over end of bed, or over chairs, off the floor. Remove soiled bed linen; place near door to be taken out. Place mattress pad over chair near window to air.

Bring in cleaning equipment: carpet sweeper or vacuum cleaner (according to need), dust mop, dust cloth, damp cloth. Bring in fresh bed linens.

Turn mattress top to bottom one week, and end to end the next week. Make bed.

Dust high objects if necessary (mantels, high shelves, window frames and sills, tops of bookcases, etc.).

Dust radiators covers if necessary.

Brush upholstery if necessary. Straighten covers. Plump up pillows.

Dust furniture and low objects if necessary.

Dust exposed wood flooring with dust mop if necessary. Use carpet sweeper or vacuum cleaner on rugs or carpets.

Polish or wash accessories and return to place with other objects removed during cleaning.

Final touches: Straighten draperies, shades, curtains, etc. Take out cleaning equipment and waste basket. Bring back clean ash trays, accessories, flowers and waste basket. Close windows if desired.

I'm kicking off my new monthly chores (recommended in 1945 as weekly chores) by making my bedroom the featured room this week. So here are the extra chores I'll also be doing in there tonight. Brushing walls is a whole new thing for me this week. More on that in another post...

Collect lamp bases, bric-a-brac and dressing table fittings that need polishing or washing, and dresser scarves to be laundered.

Brush walls when necessary. Dust high mouldings, door frames, window shades and Venetian blinds when necessary. Brush draperies (or use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner). Dust mirrors, pictures, lighting fixtures, lamps, woodwork; wash any of these articles if necessary.

Dust radiators (covers and coils) or registers; clean thoroughly when necessary. Brush baseboard or use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner. Dust book shelves and books as necessary. Wash windows when necessary.

Remove cushions from upholstered furniture. Use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner on furniture (getting into all crevices) and cushions. Replace cushions.

Rub wood surfaces of furniture to polish; apply wax or polish when necessary. Polish metal hardware if necessary. Wash glass table tops.

Use vacuum cleaner for cleaning of rugs and carpets.

The evening is short and I've got a bed to strip. Time to shed my dress and get to work!

A Little Bit of Everything...

I'm still slogging away at the bathroom. Ran out of Comet partway through the job yesterday and decided to head on out and do my marketing, then finish the bathroom later. Sadly enough, now it's "later." The Comet has been replenished, I've had a good night's rest, my morning walk is finished. I'll patch off some breakfast and then get back to that miserable room.

My mantra while cleaning the bathroom this week: "It will never again be as hard to clean as it is today." "It will never again be as hard to clean as it is today." "It will never again be as hard to clean as it is today." That's true, I know. As grimy as it is right now, if I'm cleaning it every week - it will never again be anywhere near this bad. Each week, I'll get it even a little shinier. I'm holding on to that! More on bathroom cleaning in another post...

Alas, the coleus I adopted for a houseplant a couple months ago did not survive. It did okay as long as I was taking it outdoors to my landing on weekends. But once it started getting really hot, I worried about leaving it in the intense heat and kept it inside. The colors faded, it shed some leaves, and one day just crumpled up and died. *sigh* My grape ivy is doing well, although one side isn't very perky looking. (That's the side that doesn't even get much artificial light in the corner of the kitchen where I've kept it.) So out it goes! Maybe the fresh air and sunshine will do it some good. I don't want to lose the grape ivy, too!

A co-worker offered me some bell pepper plants last week. Determined to press on in my quest for some great plants about the house - inside and out - I brought home a tiny seedling and a more mature plant, both in pots. I think they might do okay on my landing, but I'll need to water them more often than the succulents. I also picked up a small sansevieria- commonly called a bowstring hemp in the 1940s - to fill the spot near my sink where the coleus used to sit.

Here's one of the things I'm really looking forward to after this interminable summer is over --- my parents will be in town for the winter! They've been doing the snowbird thing and spend a few months most winters at one of the resorts on the edge of the city. I can't claim to be the reason they're here - it's all about the grandbabies - but I love having them so close. And I can't wait to share these vintage dinners with them! (My mother, God bless her, oohs and aahs every time I tell her what I'm up to in the kitchen.) This was last weekend's 1945 dinner menu:

Boiled Rice
Buttered Beet Greens
Orange Salad
Cherry Batter Pudding

I think I've finally got this non-instant rice thing down pat --- now if I could just remember not to make so much. 1/2 cup dry rice is just enough for me + one serving of leftovers. I've always loved Beet Greens - fresh from Mom's garden with a splash of vinegar - yum! The instructions in my cookbook call for you to work with young beets and to chop the roots right up with the greens after they've been boiled. Unfortunately, my supermarket only carries a few raggedy ol' bunches of grown-up beets. So I chopped the tops off these beets - along with the greens - and used those in lieu of young beets. What's great is that the next dinner menu in my cookbook calls for beets, so I may be able to use what's left of 'em in my next homecooked meal.

The Orange Salad was very simple. Chopped orange segments on a bed of greens with a drizzle of viniagrette --- "French dressing" in '40s lingo. I made a substitution for the dessert course. The menu included a Bread Pudding made with Honey. After my last disastrous attempt at Bread Pudding, I just couldn't face it again this soon. So I picked out another recipe in the chapter on puddings and tried to find some way to use up the bottled cherries in my fridge. The Cherry Batter Pudding came out wonderfully - a light, fluffy cake over a layer of fruit - but, between the heat and my unexpected success on the scale Tuesday morning, I haven't had any desire to eat the rest! (Plus I read a horrifying bit of trivia in a magazine the other day. Did you know one cupcake can undo 115 minutes of walking?) I'm not thrilled about wasting food, but I think I should take this as a warning. If I'm going to continue making the desserts for my vintage dinners, I've got to cut the recipe down as small as I would the rice. And I need to invest in some containers for the freezer. There are some things you just can't wrap up in aluminum foil! Speaking of cutting recipes, do any of you know how to cut a one-egg recipe in half?

I've been listening to lots of vintage radio this week, including the second season of The Great Gildersleeve. The second season (1942-1943) is when the program really came into its own. Gildy got a job as Summerfield water commissioner. Leila Ransom, a flirtatious Southern widow, moved into the house next door and stole Gildy's heart. They became engaged and planned a wedding in June - just in time for the season finale and a wild turn of events on the wedding day! Richard LeGrand joined the cast during the second season as Mr. Peavey, the local druggist ("Well, now, I wouldn't say that.") and Floyd Munson, the local barber, pops up every time Gildy heads downtown for a shave. Marjorie got a war job over the winter and began dating a coworker, Ben. At season's end, Ben joined the Navy. Will Marge see other young men while Ben's away?

Kraft spent much of the second season promoting Pabst-Ett, a product that sounds a heck of a lot like Velveeta. Ads often combined a spot for the product with a public service announcement promoting things that might make marketing on the home front a little easier: menu planning, shopping early in the week, and shopping early in the day. Are you a menu maker? Do you find that planning your meals, say, a week in advance, makes feeding your family easier on the pocketbook - or easier on your waistline? Or do you prefer to stock up on the things you like and wait until mealtime to see what you're in the mood for eating?

Couch Carrot

The last few days have been such busy ones and today I'm feeling kinda un-bloggy, but I thought I'd stop in while I wait for my iron to heat up and post an update.

The first week of my first vintage beauty mission ends tomorrow night and it's coming along successfully. I've done four of my five 30-minute walks allotted for the week. On Saturday afternoon, I went to a park about a 10-minute drive from my home to workout. We had some unusual rain that morning and it had ended a short time ago, so the park was dead. Usually there are people all over the track; this time, there were only four or five. It was a little creepy! I was nearing the end of my first lap when I heard some raggedy man's cough about 20 feet behind me. Immediately, my mind jumped to all kinds of terrible thoughts. You know the type: "He must be alone." "He's a murderous thug." "He's about to jump me." "Can I make it to my car on time?" "Oh, there's a car pulling into the lot. Wait! Wait, people!"

Of course, this does get me walking faster - and burning more calories. I made it back to my car, leapt inside, locked the doors... and looked up to see a very undaunting dad-ish fellow with a paunch walking by. All that adrenaline for nothing! So after a few minutes, I got back out and took on a second lap. And then a third. Halfway through the third, it started raining again. No sweat. I've got a hoodie. Three-quarters of the way through, the rain turned to hail. Hail! It was like the heavens opening up and throwing every possible excuse I could use to get out of exercising at me!!!

Excuses aside, I did walk for 37 minutes. Not counting the time I spent cowering in my car.

My vintage dinner menu on Sunday evening was pretty tasty. I wasn't feeling good, though, and didn't enjoy the process or the meal quite as much as usual. Here's the menu, straight from 1945:

Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

Tomato Sauce

Buttered Peas

Carrot Sticks

Baked Caramel Custard

The Cabbage Leaves were stuffed with a mixture of sauteed chopped cabbage, onions, parsley, bread crumbs, and spices (yep, that's all the recipe told me - "spices"!). The cookbook instructed me to garnish them with Tomato Sauce, but I was dying to throw them in the oven just at the end with tomato sauce and parmesan. Those are my modern tastebuds wanting to dress things up in a way that might not have been pleasing to the 1940s palate. These dishes I've been cooking have been fairly - well, I'm not sure how to characterize them. I started to say "bland," but that's not exactly right. The flavors have been very true to life. Not a whole lot of fusion goin' on. Then again, maybe it's just that they're missing all the MSG I'm probably injesting in my modern prepared foods every other night of the week!

It's been ages since I shelled peas, but it came back to me pretty quickly. And, boy, do they taste world's apart from their canned cousins. The Carrot Sticks were a nice break from the weekly salads, and the Baked Caramel Custard was delicious. My big mistake was not in the kitchen. I was feeling so crummy by the time dinner was ready that I curled up in the living room and turned on the TV while I ate. What a change for the worse! I can't remember more than a few bites of what I ate. It's as if television completely short-circuited the connection between my meal and my mind. There wasn't that sense of rest or thankfulness that I'm accustomed to when I've sat down at the kitchen table for one of these vintage dinners. Before I realized it, my plate was empty. And that's with a sour stomach! Strangely enough, my manners changed, too. I caught myself at one point shoveling a piece of Stuffed Cabbage into my mouth with the end of a Carrot Stick - without really tasting either. Gee, I wonder how I gained all this weight?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

This evening's 1945 dinner menu was fairly regrettable. Though I can't say it wasn't a learning experience.

Pie of Carrots, Potatoes, Peas, Potato Crust
Cucumber, Lettuce Salad
French Dressing
Bread Pudding
Lemon Sauce

The Good
Okay, the pie turned out pretty good. My nod to commercially prepared foods was in the canned peas I used in the pie. It was basically a vegetarian version of a shepherd's pie. Instead of flavoring the white sauce for the filling with Worcestershire sauce, I used an herb seasoning salt - and the pie smelled so good! Tasted yummy, too. You know what's funny about the recipe for the Mashed Potatoes that topped this dish? They're seasoned with salt and white pepper. And I think the only reason it's not black pepper is esthetic. That they wanted the Mashed Potatoes to be as pure in color as possible.

My cookbook contained a recipe for a Cucumber Salad and a Tomato, Lettuce Salad, so I combined the two to make a Cucumber, Lettuce Salad. 1940s tastebuds leaned toward salt, so the sliced cucumber was salted and refrigerated before being served on a bed of iceberg lettuce. I prefer my cucumber straight up, but I think that a preference for that fresh, veggie taste is probably a more modern sensibility. '40s cooks tended to really mix things up when it comes to their produce.

The Bad
I think I've only eaten Bread Pudding once before and it was very good. A little moist for my taste, but nice, big cubes of bread with cherries and cinnamon. My mom may even have added nuts. My Bread Pudding? Not so delicious. The recipe called for bread crumbs rather than cubed bread, so I ended up with more of a very thick cake batter. The Pudding was flavored with vanilla, nutmeg, and raisins. When I first read through the recipe, it mentioned setting the baking pan in a pan of hot water and baking the whole affair in a moderate oven. Sounds like steaming, right? I jumped at the chance to do some steaming again, but I think the author of the cookbook actually meant that I should bake the Pudding in a steamy oven. In any event, it was far from finished after an hour in the steamer. I popped it in the oven, but I'd honestly forgotten just how moist a Bread Pudding is supposed to be, so it was two hours later before I decided the Pudding was never going to be dry in the center... Blech! It was tough and rubbery on the outside, mushy on the inside, and the raisins and nutmeg - they're an acquired taste. A very vintage taste, I suppose.

The Ugly
My Lemon Sauce was pure, unmitigated disaster. I've never used a double boiler - never even owned a double boiler - but a larger saucepan set on top of a smaller saucepan did a decent job. I should give the recipe the props it deserves. It looked like it might have been a nice sauce. Unfortunately, I started it in my only remaining pot with that old "non-stick" coating. You know... the kind where the black coating eventually flakes off into your food. (All my other pots and pans are stainless steel.) The recipe instructed me to beat the butter into the sauce and - I could kick myself! - but I reached right for the electric beater I'd taken out for the mashed potato topping on my pie and hadn't used. I soooooooooo should've used a whisk. My lovely Lemon Sauce ended up with all these little black specks floating about in it! Completely inedible.

Time to do a little decluttering of the cookware cabinet.

Love Story

Remember how I said after making my first 1945 dinner menu how much better the food I prepared for myself tasted? Well, I think I'm gonna have to take that back. Two dinners later, I'm finding myself so tired from the workout in the kitchen that I can hardly taste my meal.

And it is such a workout. Balancing a great pot of potatoes as you carry them over to drain in the sink. Twisting about between the pots on your stovetop so you can lift the lid on one without injuring yourself with steam from another. Just working in all that heat is a challenge. I turned my air conditioning up and pulled my hair back simply to try and feel a little more cool. By the time I sat down to dinner, I was wiped - and almost not even hungry enough to enjoy the meal.

Whipped Potatoes

Buttered Beets

Tossed Greens Salad

Chiffonade Dressing

Chocolate Pudding

I suppose this is the same kind of curve anybody goes through as they're getting in shape. Toning the muscles, learning the moves... I have to remind myself that the most I've done in "making dinner" for years has been: Open box. Heat in oven. This is a whole new world for me, and it's going to take some time. I hope! It really makes me wonder what dinner was like for Mother back in the '40s. Could she really enjoy a meal as much as might her husband and children when she had worked sooooooooo hard to plan it, shop it, and prepare it?

The 1940s seem to have been an era when home-cooked and commercially prepared foods both found a home at the dinner table. I'm trying to keep that tradition myself, including at least one item that's somewhat ready-to-eat. Last week: Canned Green Beans. This week: boxed Chocolate Pudding mix. These items were both readily available to most American households and - for a "bachelor girl" like myself - would have been particularly important. What a blessing they must have seemed to a busy '40s housewife! Even one course - made one or two steps easier --- what a gift. We see prepared foods today with such an overlay of their nutritional dangers. The MSG, the sodium, the preservatives and additives, the trans-saturated fats. It's hard to remember how wonderful they must once have seemed. And in their infancy, prepared foods weren't quite as chock full of the not-so-good stuff as they are today. They were still relatively basic, but what a help to knock even a quarter-hour off the time it took to prepare dinner...

Another miracle - the dishwasher. This was an appliance available only in the '40s to those with some serious cash. As hard as you work towards preparing a meal - and as nice as it would be to relax at the table and enjoy your meal - the dirty pots and pans and cooking utensils can absolutely haunt you! In my case, it was the red water from my pot of beets that had splattered all over my nice, clean stovetop. All I could think about was how nice it had been to see my reflection in my stovetop the day before. Would the beet juice stain? What about the cutting board? Would it be forever pink? There was still some milk left in a saucepan since I'd overestimated how much I needed for the Whipped Potatoes. Would it stick terribly to the pan?

Having worked so hard over this meal, it was great to scrape and rinse and whisk those dishes out of sight. I used to think of my dishwasher as my archnemesis. It didn't seem to clean the dishes very thoroughly. There was always that nasty crumb tray to clean out. And I never understood the whole rinse/don't rinse debate. "Of course you don't rinse," I thought. "What good does it do to have a dishwasher if it's not going to do the job for you?" Well, I'm here to tell you... it's all about the rinse. Since I started rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher (per the manual), I've found that only an occasional dish or utensil has a bit of residue and needs to be soaked and re-washed. The crumb tray? I haven't had to clean it in weeks. 1940s housewives who were lucky enough to own a dishwasher must have cleaned 'em 'til they shone and kissed 'em when no one was looking!

Dressing with a Twist

While reading up on kitchen cleaning during the last few days, I came across a bit of advice in the manual that I hadn't seen before. The authors of America's Housekeeping Book (1945) recommend that the housewife complete all possible preparations for lunch and dinner before giving the kitchen its daily cleaning. In other words, after giving each of the other rooms its daily tidying - but before cleaning the kitchen - she "put away all cleaning equipment except that needed for kitchen, and carry out any necessary food preparation for lunch or dinner." That way, she has as little to clean up as possible after lunch and dinner. Anything that can be prepared beforehand and tucked away in the oven or refrigerator can be cleaned up after during this mid-morning cleaning. Once the kitchen is tidy, she sets to work on whatever her weekly chore for the day might be - wash, ironing, etc.

That's the plan, anyway. I'm sure much of this work was kind of staggered, especially the laundry - as you needed to get it out on the line as early in the day as possible. And if you were going to be giving the bathroom, for instance, its weekly cleaning on Thursdays, you might skip giving it a daily once-over that particular day since you'd be spending plenty of time in the bathroom later on.

My vintage dinner menu for this evening contains a couple items I can make beforehand and refrigerate. So in the spirit of making those last few minutes before my meal as easy as possible, I'm going to set to work on them this morning. As a dressing for my salad, I've chosen a Chiffonade Dressing - a variation on the basic French Dressing recipe which looks like it might be a good match for my rather plain Tossed Greens Salad. (I haven't yet figured out where this dressing recipe gets its name. Any ideas?) The French Dressing recipe is included in the following post:

http://destination1940.blogspot.com/2009/03/of-cabbages-and-kings.html

Here's the twist for this evening's dinner. I'm going to try and cut this recipe in eighths so I don't end up with too many leftovers:

*****

CHIFFONADE

Add 2 tablespoons each of chopped green pepper, olives, parsley, pimiento and 1 hard-cooked egg, chopped. Add chopped red peppers and cooked beets, if desired.

*****

The other dish I can prepare in advance is the Chocolate Pudding. My cookbook includes recipes for a Steamed Chocolate Pudding and a Molded Chocolate Pudding, but nowhere does it mention a recipe for a plain and simple Chocolate Pudding - as the dessert's described in the menu. Since the menus are supposed to be budget-conscious, I'm going to guess that the author intended for her readers to purchase a boxed chocolate pudding mix. Not the instant kind - I'm not sure they were around in the '40s. The kind which still needs to be cooked then refrigerated.

"Of cabbages--and kings--"

The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--

Of cabbages--and kings--"

Lewis Carroll, 1872

The Saturday before last, I made the first of my 1945 dinner menus. The ordeal took me two hours of what felt like non-stop work, but I'm sure it'll take a little less time and energy both as I get more comfortable in the kitchen. The only thing I'm really disappointed about is that I completely lost my appetite the next day because I was sick and the leftovers went uneaten:

Steamed Rice
Buttered Carrots
Celery Cabbage Salad
Steamed Molasses Pudding

Mistake No. 1: My cookbook didn't have a recipe for Celery Cabbage Salad, so - envisioning a blend of chopped celery and cabbage with some sort of dressing - I picked up a bag of celery hearts and a bag of pre-shredded cabbage (they didn't have any head cabbage at the store I was shopping at that evening). As the big day drew near, I decided to try looking about online for a recipe for Celery Cabbage Salad and (wouldn't you know it!) I found a page right away on a website called Retro Food:

http://retro-food.com/2007/03/16/celery-cabbage-salad/

The hostess over at Retro Food imagined the same dish I did when she came across references to Celery Cabbage Salad. What we both didn't know was that there's actually a type of cabbage called celery cabbage, also called Napa cabbage or Chinese cabbage. She was able to find a recipe for a salad using this type of cabbage in Meta Given's Modern Family Cook Book, first published in 1942. It turns out to be just a dish of "wheel-like slices" of the cabbage drizzled with French Dressing (like our modern day Italian dressing) or Thousand Island Dressing.

Well, I was able to use the celery up in other ways, but still had a bag of cabbage to contend with. I decided to compromise by serving up a dish of shredded cabbage with a homemade French Dressing on top. It was good. Zesty! I've never made dressing from scratch before. Happily, this is something you can make a few hours in advance then refrigerate and shake up just before serving. Here's the recipe. Be careful: it makes lots of dressing. I cut this one in eighths.

*****

FRENCH DRESSING

1 clove garlic (optional)

1 cup vinegar

2 teaspoons dry mustard

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 cups salad oil

If using garlic, soak it in vinegar 1/2 hour before making the dressing. Mix dry ingredients together and place in a covered jar or bottle. Remove garlic from vinegar and add vinegar to dry ingredients. Pour on the oil slowly. Place in refrigerator until ready for use. Just before serving, shake vigorously for 2 minutes. Makes 3 cups dressing.

*****

The Buttered Carrots and Steamed Rice turned out really nicely. I tried to give this meal a little punch of health by making it brown basmati rice instead of white. Still, it was the first time I've ever made any rice that wasn't instant. The real thing takes a long time to be ready for the table! I've heard people rave about basmati rice and it's well deserved. It smells like buttered popcorn while you're cooking it - and tasted all buttery, too.

Mistake No. 2: I used way too big a mold for the Steamed Molasses Pudding. This was another instance where the cookbook which includes this dish on the menu doesn't actually have a recipe for it inside! (I can't figure that out.) I found lots of recipes online and chose one which was a favorite of somebody's granddad. The Pudding was good, but definitely not sweet. I bet this one was a wartime recipe. It called for a dark molasses and very little sugar. I think I'll try it next time with lighter molasses and additional sugar - oh, yes, and a smaller mold, too!

http://www.familycookbookproject.com/view_recipesite.asp?rid=557542&uid=6300&sid=14446

Whew! What a meal... I'm super glad that I was only cooking for an audience of one this time 'round. Especially when it wasn't ready for 30 minutes after the time I'd been planning it for. I tried to clean things up as I went along so that the kitchen wouldn't be a complete disaster by the time I served dinner. That's one of the downsides of not having a dining room. You can't leave the mess behind while you enjoy dinner in a calm, clean space.

Something I truly didn't expect was that I actually wanted to say grace. There was something unquanitifiably different about eating food that I'd worked so hard to buy and to prepare. I really wanted to take a minute and thank God for this meal. I usually feel like that if I'm eating with family, if it's the holidays - but on a regular, everyday, run-of-the-mill Saturday? Somethin' new. It was like I had a different relationship with this meal. It was harder fought, harder earned than something I'd taken out of plastic wrap and heated in the oven. All that said, though, I do recall waking up the next morning and groaning at the thought of having to cook breakfast. It's hard for me to imagine making homecooked meals for a family three times a day, seven days a week...