Hold the Cream

I tried to do it, I really tried. This morning's 1945 breakfast menu started out with Sliced Bananas with Cream. My arteries won the contest, though, and I ate the Bananas without the Cream:

Sliced Bananas

Poached Free Range Eggs on Toast

Cream and Top Milk were a staple fixture on the 1940s breakfast table. And not just for coffee. People laced their cooked cereals with Top Milk. They served cold cereals in bowls of Cream. Now it shows up with fruit. I guess they didn't have the constant commentary on health running through their heads that we do today. Cream and Top Milk were considered nutrient-dense foods, not cholesterol-laden substances to be used in strict moderation. I hesitated before the Cream in the dairy section at the grocery store last Wednesday. Thought I really ought to taste the dish for the sake of The Experiment. But I just couldn't do it.

At any rate, this was the last of the breakfast menus in the front of my cookbook. When I started trying 'em out a couple weeks ago, I expected these menus to be a little ritzier than the ones in the budget feature in the back of the cookbook. Fresher ingredients, maybe. So how did they measure up? Here's a bit I wrote about the budget-conscious menus:

Nearly half of the meals (43%) were built around some sort of cooked cereal. 27% of the menus were built around an egg dish. Baked goods were the main attraction for 20% of the menus, and cold cereal for the remaining 10%... I'm also a vegetarian, so I've taken any meat dishes out of the menus. This didn't take much time. These were the war years, and only 20% of the menus even include meat.

The menus in the front of the book are only built around cooked cereal 9% of the time. Nearly two-thirds of the meals (64%) feature an egg dish, and baked goods lead the way in 27% of the menus. You can see right away just how useful cooked cereals would have been to the housewife who had to be especially careful with money. Somebody who was a little more comfortable financially could count on having eggs at the breakfast table several times a week. Another major difference is that 46% of these front-of-the-book menus include meat - twice the amount as in the back of the book. The only kind of meat referenced in the budget section is bacon, while the menus in the front of the book include codfish, ham, and sausage. Another glimpse into the kind of pantry a thriftier housewife would have kept in the '40s.

I'm not done experimenting with breakfast just yet. I've been able to find eight more vintage breakfast menus in cookbooks and magazines, so I'm going to try these out and then move on to dinner. The first trio of menus is from a 1944 edition of the Good Housekeeping Cook Book (New York: Farrar and Rinehart). I'm also going to fire up my "new" Drip-O-lator for the first time. A friend bought me this lovely contraption last summer and it looks absolutely fabulous on my stovetop, but it was missing the aluminum drip unit that fits in the top. Until Christmas, that is. It's all assembled and ready to go, but I feel a bit like I'm trying out a new Bunsen burner in the lab. Will it make good coffee?

Week Eleven: The Mission

I'm venturing into the hardest part of housekeeping for me: cleaning. Straightening up is one thing, laundry - you can't get away without doing that --- but cleaning is a whole new ballgame. It's always been something I do sporadically. When I get a burst of energy, when I've got guests coming over, when I just can't stand it any longer. This week's mission - and the missions for the next several weeks - are going to be super challenging.

Now, the authors of the manual suggest that the '40s housewife give each room in the house a daily cleaning shortly after breakfast. Once a week, she should return to each room and clean it more thoroughly. (The day of the week doesn't matter very much, but they do recommend once in passing that bedrooms and bathrooms be cleaned on Thursdays.) Since I work outside the home full time, I'm not going to be able to clean every room on a daily basis. My plan is to hit each room once a week and fold the daily and weekly chores into one.

This week - the bedroom. (There's only one in my place.) On Thursday evenings. The manual walks its readers, step by step, through daily and weekly cleaning routines for every room. I've blended the bedroom routines together and typed 'em up below. There are also several steps marked "if necessary" and "when necessary." What I've decided just for now is to skip those extra items while I work to make cleaning a habit. This is going to be a battle supreme with my inner slob, and I don't want to make things any harder on myself than necessary! So here it is - a barebones once-a-week housekeeping routine for the bedroom:

1. 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.

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

3. Bring in cleaning equipment: vacuum cleaner and attachments, dust mop, cleaning basket, dust cloth, damp cloth. Bring in fresh bed linens.

4. Turn mattress end for end. Make bed.

5. Brush draperies (or use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner). Dust mirrors, pictures, lighting fixtures, lamps, woodwork.

6. Dust radiators (covers and coils) or registers. Brush baseboard or use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner.

7. Remove cushions from upholstered furniture. Use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner on furniture (getting into all crevices) and cushions. Replace cushions. Straighten covers. Plump up pillows.

8. Dust furniture. Rub wood surfaces of furniture to polish. Wash glass table tops.

9. Use vacuum cleaner for cleaning of rugs and carpets.

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

11. 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.

Week's End

I got to play with my new popover pan this morning!

Hot Baked Apple

Popovers

The recipe in the cookbook for Hot Baked Apples wasn't very detailed. It tells me to bake the fruit in a moderate oven (350-375 degrees F), but doesn't tell me how long to bake it:

Sour apples cook more quickly than sweet ones, and summer or fall apples take less time to cook than winter apples.

Thank goodness for the internet. Advice like that would've been meaningful for somebody who'd grown up baking apples, but for me --- not so helpful. (Boy, you skip one generation when it comes to passing down traditional knowledge about cookery and the information is practically lost!) Recipes online suggest baking the fruit for 40 to 65 minutes. With a little research, I was able to find out that Braeburn apples - the kind in my fruit bowl - are a winter variety, so I figured one of those would take at least an hour.

I realized the other night that my closet has become a little segregated. The clothes I've hung up in there since I started ironing my clean laundry on Tuesdays are all neatly hanging on one side of the closet. Wrinkle-free, by the way, even after a week in some cases. That still suprises me! I've been so fearful that the wrinkle-free will be contaminated by The Others - all those wrinkled clothes I haven't cleaned since the days when I only ironed things on my way out the door. So they each have their own sides of the closet. And I'm hoping that the wrinkle-free side will just get bigger and bigger until it takes over the whole place someday...

One of the things that's taken me by surprise lately is just how much I like being in my own home. How much more I genuinely enjoy being here when it's not as messy as it used to be. It's certainly not clean by any stretch of the imagination, but the living room and bedroom are tidy. There aren't dirty dishes all over the kitchen counters and stovetop. My clean clothes are all put away, and the dirty laundry is in its place. There's something about a neat(er) home that makes me want to spend some time here. Fancy that! It's no wonder I always felt kinda antsy at home before this. Who can relax in a messy place?

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...

Are You Sure It's Been a Week?

My first thought when my alarm started buzzing at me yesterday morning: "Monday, again? Already?" Yep, the week makes it's round very quickly. I can remember so easily how happy I was last Tuesday evening when the washing and ironing were done. My clothes were clean and pressed. And not a speck of laundry to worry about for the rest of the week. Liberation! I'm not sure how those five days got by me so quickly. All I know is that the Monday Wash was back in my court in two shakes of a lamb's tail.

What a lot of work. I was up late into the night yesterday handwashing the "Gentle Cycle Only" items. Between sick days and holiday weekends, this is the first time since I took on these missions that I've had both the washing and ironing to do along with two full days at work. No wonder it's feeling like a ton of bricks! Nevertheless, I know the weeks are just going to get more and more rigorous, and I don't want to wear myself to the point of exhaustion every Monday handwashing stuff that could be washed just as nicely in a machine. I'll never have enough "Gentle Cycle Only" clothes in a single week to make up a full load, but what's stopping me from washing similar-colored items in a gentle cycle instead of a regular cycle? It's not like the rest of my clothes are so grimy and greasy that they couldn't relax in the gentle cycle from time to time. I'll still have some handwashing to do, but this should cut down on that a little. I still have to put some thought into sorting my laundry on Sunday nights. Should I bleach my whites this week? Do I need to get creative to put a gentle cycle load together? Which items need to be pulled before going into the dryer? Do I have enough quarters?

Tonight: the ironing. It's one big load of cottons and cotton blends this week. American Idol is just starting - the Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour of the 21st century - so that should keep me entertained... Here are some of the Top Ten Tips I still need to work into my technique:

2. When you straighten material on the ironing board or roll of a rotary ironer, use the palms of your hands and smooth from the center out. Your fingers are apt to stretch the fabrics and pull them out of shape.

3. Iron with straight strokes, with the thread of the fabric.

5. Collars, cuffs, sleeves, belts and trimmings are ironed first, then the flat sections of the garment.

10. Do not use too hot an iron or shoe. Most hand irons are thermostatically controlled. Ironers are also equipped with thermostatic controls so that you can select the proper heat for the fabric... Combinations of fibers - adjust heat to fiber needing lowest temperature.

Oh, yes. My breakfast menu this morning included something I haven't had since I was a kid:

Orange Juice

Scrambled Eggs

Toast

Marmalade

It's been years since I tried Marmalade. (There's something about candied citrus peel that's never appealed to me.) It was okay. A very orange-y breakfast, too. It's not every day that your juice and marmalade coordinate so nicely!

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.

I Came, I Saw, I Broiled

I haven't felt so intimidated in a long time as I did when I turned the page of my cookbook and found this menu looking back at me:

Broiled Grapefruit
Omelet
Graham Biscuit (I substituted the last of my Baking Powder Biscuits.)

Broiled Grapefruit? I've never broiled anything - and wasn't even sure where the broiler was! The word is right there on the controls for my oven. I can set it to "Bake" or "Broil," and just above the 500-degree mark on the temperature control is the word "Broil." But using it? Feels a bit like not stopping for gas when the gauge hits "E." And I wasn't sure whether it was located underneath the oven chamber - you know that drawer where some people store their pots and pans - or whether the broiler was actually the heating element inside my oven at the top of the chamber. Would there be flames spitting out somewhere? Did I need special cookware?

Oddly enough, there wasn't even a recipe for Broiled Grapefruit inside the cookbook which recommended it in the first place. So I had to look about online to see if anybody out there was broiling citrus fruit. Sure enough, I found people chatting about it on a few cookery sites. I also found a tip about broilers that steered me in the right direction. If you have a gas stove, the broiler is usually underneath the oven chamber. If you have an electric stove (like mine), the broiler is usually inside the chamber.

Because the homegrown grapefruits I received the other day had so much pith, I decided to pick up a grapefruit at the store. Setting aside half for tomorrow, I loosened each of the sections, then sprinkled brown sugar and cinnamon on top with a dab of margarine. I set the oven rack in the topmost position and checked to be sure the grapefruit would still be about four inches below the broiling unit. Then tentatively started "preheating" the broiler by turning the oven up to 400 degrees - then to 450 -- then 500. The Omelet was finished by this point, so it was do or die. With an imaginary dash of salt over my shoulder and a note to self that I'd enjoyed my brief life even if it was about to come to a flaming end, I turned both knobs to "Broil." A few minutes later, the element at the top of my oven was red hot, so I slid the pan in underneath and counted the minutes. Just three.

The grapefruit was still in one piece when I pulled it out. The topping had melted right into the fruit. Most of it, anyway. The rest was a sticky, burnt mess in the pan (which should have been lined with aluminum foil). After letting it cool for several minutes, I tried a piece. It was okay. Nothing to write home about. The cinnamon really overpowers the taste of the grapefruit. I guess that'd be alright if you didn't like grapefruit, but I do. And I prefer it fresh and chilled. I can see how Broiled Grapefruit might have been considered a fancier way of serving citrus for breakfast during the '40s. If you had houseguests or were planning a holiday breakfast, it'd really dress up the table. If I try it again tomorrow morning I'll use a little less cinnamon - and a lot more aluminum foil.

Can't believe I lived to tell about it... I'm feeling all kinds of bravado this afternoon over conquering my fears!

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?

Week's End

The deeper I dig into this way of life, the more often it occurs to me how dangerous it was to be a housewife during the '40s. Between hot oil in the frying pan, a searingly hot iron, and chemicals you have to be super careful using about the house and garden - it was a fearsome job. It still is! Not only can you damage property or waste food if you make a mistake, but you could end up with burnt arms or worse... I think many of us look on homemaking as a very simple, gentle, quiet job, but the housewife is actually working with some very dangerous substances and tools. Even in 2009. I'm a pretty clumsy person and tend to rush into things like new recipes, but clumsiness and haste aren't going to do me any favors on this job.

Since adding Wash Day and Ironing Day to my housekeeping routine, I've been spending a lot more time with my clothes than ever before - and am realizing just how intimately a woman in the 1940s knew her wardrobe. And not just where she bought it and how much she paid for it. My '40s counterpart would've known fabrics inside and out - known what temperature water to wash each fabric in, how exactly it should be dried, whether it should be ironed on the right side or the wrong side. If a garment was made from a blend of fibers, it had another protocol entirely. Add buttons and zippers and decorative trim to the mix, and laundry became an intricate balance of needs. And I'm not even counting the time a woman spent on the articles she made herself! There's a whole different relationship to fabrics that this kind of time and attentiveness brought about - particularly to clothing. You'd be so much more likely to guard against damaging your garments, to work earnestly at removing stains before they set. This is foreign territory for me still.

I find myself truly appreciative these days of the encyclopedia's worth of knowlege a '40s housewife carried about in her head. Rules for everything from which batters needed more stirring than others to which laundry required a cool wash. Everything I'm resorting to the manual to find out. Now, she'd probably been absorbing this stuff since she was a little girl, so it'd have come quite naturally. Maybe I'll start to pick up some of this knowledge, too --- at least some of the more general rules. 'Til then, thank goodness for America's Housekeeping Book!

Thrift 1 / Curiosity 0

Yipes! I realized this morning that I haven't blogged about my breakfasts in a couple days. Lest you think the Fried Mush incident scared me out of the kitchen for good, I'll get caught up now. My tastebuds did recover. Tuesday's menu:

Orange Slices

Scrambled Eggs and Toast

Coffee

Nothing wrong with a meal like that one. Here's the menu for today:

Applesauce

Graham Muffins

Hard-cooked Egg

I substituted some of my Graham Muffins - they've been in the freezer since last week - for the Oatmeal Gems that were actually on today's menu. I was curious as can be to try the new recipe, but thrift won out and I decided to eat up some of my leftovers instead. As far as I can tell, the Oatmeal Gems are a biscuity type of muffin with oats sprinkled inside. I haven't noticed any differences in these menus at the front of my cookbook except that there are more baked goods in these menus. Which makes sense. The author is trying to interest her readers in some of her recipes. The very next menu features a whole new recipe altogether! I think I'll stick with today's menu one more time and try to free up some space in the freezer.

Once I've finished experimenting with this first run through the menus, I'm going to revisit that "reducing" plan I found in a '40s magazine. I'll save the baked goods for an occasional treat - once a month instead of once a week! - and take up those vintage serving sizes more rigorously. It'd be loverly if The Experiment had some benefits for my waistline, too!

Top Ten Tips for Ironing

'Tis a sweet, solemn, beautiful day here in the United States of America...



As I listened to President Obama's motorcade making its way to the parade review stands, I fired up the iron and got started on my ironing. After doing some research with my trusty ruler, I decided to position my tabletop ironing board on top of my kitchen table. It's about 35 inches off the floor, so just a smidge higher than recommended by The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947). There's an outlet to the right of the table, so I can plug the iron in without having the cord all twisted about. And plenty of light.

Here's a list of Top Ten Tips for Ironing, courtesy of the manual:

1. Remember that the amount of heat in the iron or ironer does not change the instant you turn the switch from one position to another. For this reason, it is best to start with fabrics needing low temperatures and work up to heavy damp linens which need high temperatures. (Check. I usually iron from hot to cold, so this was a whole new way of doing business for me. I also reorganized the stack of clothes in the basket so the items to be ironed first were on top of the pile.)

2. When you straighten material on the ironing board or roll of a rotary ironer, use the palms of your hands and smooth from the center out. Your fingers are apt to stretch the fabrics and pull them out of shape.

3. Iron with straight strokes, with the thread of the fabric. (I didn't do either of these two things. I was concentrating so hard on some of the easier tips that I forgot the others!)

4. Iron each section perfectly dry before you start on the next. (A reminder of just how damp clothes were after having been "sprinkled" and - in some cases - refrigerated overnight.)

5. Collars, cuffs, sleeves, belts and trimmings are ironed first, then the flat sections of the garment. (I forgot to do this. Not as many of my clothes, though, even have these features. There will be plenty of sleeves in the pile on Tuesdays. I'll try to remember this one next week.)

6. White and light-colored cottons and linens are ironed on the right side, dark cottons and linens on the wrong side; silks and rayons on the wrong side; damask on the right side, then on the wrong side. (Before plugging in the iron, I sat down with my basket of clothes and went through them one by one to decide which category they fell in. I ended up turning several items inside out again so I could iron the "wrong side." Thankfully, I didn't have any damask in my basket this week!)

7. If folds in flatwork are always made in the same place, the wear on the fabric from creasing will cause the fibers to break. Sometimes fold in thirds and sometimes in fourths to avoid this strain. (According to the manual, flatwork = "table cloths," sheets, embroidered pieces, and round doilies. Whoops! I just realized that the decorative kitchen towel I ironed was embroidered. I'll have to be mindful of folding this in a different fashion whenever I wash and iron it.)

8. Hang all ironed pieces on a rack where they may dry thoroughly before putting them away. (In the '40s, many items would still be damp from all that re-wetting! Thank goodness for steam. I was able to hang my pieces as soon as they came off the ironing board.)

9. Save labor in folding and improve the appearance of garments by using coat hangers for blouses, dresses and shirts. (Rats. I only own one coat hanger. Plastic hangers will have to be good enough for my blouses, dresses and shirts. For now.)

10. Do not use too hot an iron or shoe. Most hand irons are thermostatically controlled. Ironers are also equipped with thermostatic controls so that you can select the proper heat for the fabric.

Cotton and linen - relatively hot
Wool and silk - moderate heat
Rayon - low heat
Acetate rayon - very low heat
Combinations of fibers - adjust heat to fiber needing lowest temperature. (My iron is marked with similar temperature settings for each of type of fabric - with additional settings for nylon, acrylic, and polyester. I wish I'd remembered that last bit of advice about blends. Next Tuesday.)

My iron did give off a mysterious sweetish smell towards the end of my ironing that I haven't been able to place yet. There is a bit of scorch on the surface that may have come from having the heat set too high once for a synthetic. I'll have to look for some recommendations for cleaning the iron.

Label Conscious

As I was sorting through my dirty laundry last night in preparation for this morning's wash, it occurred to me that I've spent more time during the last two weeks reading the labels on my clothes than I ever have before. I guess I'm getting to know my clothes more intimately. And after you've seen the label a few times, you almost don't have to look at it again. There were three rayon blend pieces I washed by machine and let air dry. Three handwashables. One silk blend piece I washed by machine and forgot to pull - so ended up running it through the dryer by accident. My bathroom is filled with clothes in various stages of damp, while my clean laundry has been folded and put away.

Except for the pieces that need ironing.

What to do overnight with those? In the '40s, freshly cleaned articles that needed ironing were "sprinkled" with water and spent the night rolled up in the refrigerator. Since I do have a steam iron, I'm not going to create any extra work for myself. I'll start with dry clothes. That's the plan for now. I may change my mind later on when I've been able to work more and more of these chores smoothly into my routine.

The manual does give me one tip that I put to use today:

When the washing is taken down, smooth each piece and fold it carefully, keeping like pieces together. A little time spent now will save a great deal of time in sprinkling and ironing later.

So I folded all the pieces that need ironing - like with like - and stored them in a clothesbasket for the night.

A Big, Scrummy Mess

My plan for breakfast this morning was an unmitigated failure.

It started out okay. The Corn-meal Mush came right out of the pan in a single piece. I sliced it into strips and started heating some oil in a large fry pan. Now, I have almost zero experience frying foods in hot oil, so maybe I used too much oil, maybe too little, maybe the burner wasn't just the right temperature. I don't know. The strips never browned. They just kind of sat there in the bubbling oil and fell apart every time I tried to turn one over. There were actually two different recipes for Fried Mush in my cookbook. The first suggests breading the slices of Mush before frying them. The second suggests skipping the breading altogether.

I'm not sure where I went wrong, but I ended up with a mound of oily, hot-ish, half-congealed Corn-meal on my plate. (Just the thought now makes me queasy.) I was very doubtful at this point my breakfast could be resuscitated, so I was sparing with the Sirup. And after a few bites for penance - I'd had enough. Blech! I'm still trying to banish the sight and smell of it from my mind...

In honor of Dr. King and the National Day of Service, some friends and I spent the morning picking up trash on the banks of a dry riverbed. We had a good time - my legs feel like jelly! - but we managed to clean up one little corner of the Earth. What a lot of litter is out there. I picked up lots of glass and bottle caps and cigarette butts. Plastic bags, pieces of styrofoam, dish shards. A $5 Monopoly bill, a shower curtain rod. What surprised me was how much fast food trash we found. Napkins, receipts, bags, containers. It's as if people are just throwing the remains of their drive-thru lunches right out the window when they're finished. Double Blech!

Fashion Plate

In addition to an adjustable or built-in ironing board, the manual recommended that the 1940s housewife keep her board dressed to the nines in pads and covers that might the job a bit easier:

A well-dressed ironing board is not covered with old blankets and worn-out sheets. That's false economy. Ready-made pads and covers come packaged separately or together to fit ironing boards of all sizes, and the covers have either drawstring fastenings or elastic gathers. Keep an extra cover or two so you will always have a clean one while a soiled one is being laundered. Asbestos ironing board covers are available today, also. They give long service and protection from scorching and burning.

The cover on my own ironing board is so thin that the pattern of the metal board sometimes shows right up on the pieces I'm ironing. And a pad? There's a super thin layer of foam between the cloth and the board, but I don't think it could possibly qualify. (I've honestly never even considered removing the cover from an ironing board to wash it!) Judging from these words of caution from The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947), though, I'm not the first woman to try and make do without the state-of-the-art in terms of equipment. "Old blankets and worn-out sheets" may have been what the mothers and grandmothers of '40s housewives once used to pad the surfaces on which they did their ironing.

This morning's breakfast was super simple:

Stewed Dried Apricots
Corn-meal Mush

I wish I hadn't boasted about having become so good at dividing my recipes, because I promptly whipped together a batch of Corn-meal Mush this morning that yielded six servings. Six servings! Without even stopping to consult that last line in the recipe's instructions. Haste is my downfall when it comes to housekeeping. I end up having to throw away grease-stained clothing because I haven't taken the time to remove the stain before throwing it in the laundry and forget about the stain by the time Wash Day comes 'round. I make six times the breakfast needed because I don't take the time to read all the way through the recipe before getting started.

In the spirit of 1940s thrift, I came up with a possible solution. One of the breakfast menus in the back of the cookbook mentioned turning one day's leftover Corn-meal Mush into a dish to serve at lunch the next day - Sauteed Corn-meal Mush with Cheese Sauce. Apparently, you can ladle the leftovers into a shallow pan, cover and refrigerate, then cut it into pieces, and fry them up. (Sounds a little bit like polenta.) Instead of serving mine for lunch, I'm going to make it for breakfast and serve it with Sirup - which is also suggested in the recipe.

Woman's Dilemma

LIFE magazine teamed up with Bloomingdale's in June 1947 to arrange for a couple of photographs to illustrate a piece called "Woman's Dilemma." I haven't seen the article itself, but it must have had something to do with the question of working inside the home vs. outside. Anyway, the photographs are pretty impressive. Here's the caption:

Housewife Marjorie McWeeney ironing amidst symbolic display of her week's housework at Bloomingdale's store incl. 35 beds to be made, 750 items of glass & china, 400 pieces of silverware to wash, 174 lbs. of food to prepare, some of 250 pieces of laundry on a line, & a ringer washing machine.

Ergonomics and the Ironing Board

There's been nothing particularly lavish or budget-consuming about my "new" breakfast menus so far:

Tomato Juice

French Toast

Maple Sirup

I am getting better at divvying up some of these recipes to make sure I'm only making enough for one or two breakfasts. The first time I found French Toast on the menu, I went in there gangbusters and - before I knew it - had 12 pieces made! Thankfully, the Tomato Juice added an extra punch of health to my meal this morning, kinda balanced off the empty calories on my plate.

Ironing Day may still be three days off, but my vintage housekeeping manuals have lots of advice to offer on ironing - and ironing equipment. Here are some tips on choosing and positioning the ironing board:

The ironing board should be adjusted to correct height - 32 1/2 inches from the floor is correct for workers of average height.

My own ironing board is one of those dreadful tabletop affairs. I usually end up hunched over the board ironing on top of my bed or on the ottoman in my living room - sometimes I just set the board up on the floor. Even the authors of my manuals knew that ergonomics played a part in making ironing a wee bit easier. The best boards (during the 1940s, they were available in both wood and metal) were adjustable so that a woman of any height would be comfortable while ironing. Women who preferred to stand while ironing were encouraged to invest in a rubber mat to ease tired leg muscles. Those who preferred to sit should choose a high stool "with a support at the back and possibly a rung or rest for your feet."

Remember that an electric iron can be plugged into a wall socket anywhere... If the north bedroom is the coolest spot in the house on a broiling July day, that is the logical place to take your ironing.

Both manuals urge their readers to position the ironing board in a some location where they will have good light - whether from a window or from a lighting fixture. And of course it should be close to an electric outlet. It was also important to choose a location where you could keep an eye on the children. Ironing was such a time-consuming task, you needed to be able to keep an eye on children at play in the yard.

For women lucky enough to be planning new postwar homes, they were advised to seriously consider having a "built-in" ironing board installed in a location that met all these criteria.

I think I'll have a look about the house tomorrow and see if I can find a good spot to position my ironing board.

Week Nine: The Mission

There is no getting around the fact that skillful ironing is an art acquired only by experience and patience. No one is a "born ironer" but any one with an ounce of patience and two ounces of perseverance can become expert. It is a really worth-while accomplishment too, because perhaps nowhere else but in the field of cookery is there such a genuine pride of achievement.

With this homespun recipe for success, the manual opens its chapter on "Ironing Procedures." I've never really considered ironing a source of pride. For me, it's always been more about sheer endurance for the sake of not looking like a rumpled mess when I leave the house. Between modern fabrics and standards in appearance that have become incredibly relaxed over the last 60 years, there's never been much in the way of payoff for me when it comes to ironing. Does this week's mission have any surprises in store for me?

Early Forenoon (between 10:00 a.m. and noon):

Ironing

Early Afternoon (between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m.):

Finish ironing. Put away ironing.

For housewives guided by tradition, Tuesdays were quite naturally spent ironing all those fresh, clean clothes laundered on Mondays. I don't think steam irons had been introduced yet, because the manual gives detailed instructions on "sprinkling" every item with warm water before ironing. What might take us an hour today once consumed a good part of the day. Here in 2009, I'm going to reserve Tuesday evenings for ironing. Do you prefer doing your laundry on another day of the week? Not to worry. The manual gives a little leeway to those who don't do the wash on Monday, but the two chores are still in lockstep: "If washing is done on Tuesday, ironing is put forward to Wednesday."

Week's End

It's been more than a week now since I started my last mission, but I'm getting ready to start the next, so thought it'd be a good time for a little wrap up. First, the eats. This is the first of the menus in the front of the cookbook:

Orange Juice
Hard-cooked Egg
Graham Muffins

Have you ever worked with graham flour before? It's kind of a happy medium between wheat bran and your generic sack of flour. One of the side effects of these vintage breakfast menus is that my pantry is becoming quite well stocked with different varieties of flour. Regular, wheat bran, buckwheat, graham flour... Thank goodness there's a grocery store here in town that keeps a great selection of Bob's Red Mill in stock! I wanted to make sure the Graham Muffins didn't turn out as dry as the Corn-meal Muffins a few weeks ago, so I added an extra tablespoon of vegetable oil to the recipe. And it helped. They were much softer than the Corn-meal Muffins. I had no idea what they'd taste like - visions of Golden Grahams were dancing through my head - but they just tasted kinda wheaty.

It was a good breakfast. And wonder of wonders, I had everything ready for the table at the same time! That's the kind of magic only experience can help a housewife work. I had to crow about it when I got to work today. But my co-workers didn't get why it was so exciting. I think most of the people I've told about what I'm doing - at least the breakfast part - don't really understand why. Why would I bother baking on a weekday morning? Why not just eat a protein bar or a bowl of cold cereal? It's not like I have kids to make breakfast for. Or a husband to impress. It's as if they think the skills I'm trying to cultivate are outdated and unnecessary. We've moved past needing a hot, yummy, nutritious breakfast or something.

Obviously, I don't think that's the case. But what's kind of nice is hearing that contrast. It makes me realize why I feel so good sitting down to a swell breakfast or crawling into a bed that's neat as a pin at the end of the day. I feel like I'm treating myself like a queen. Which I deserve! I haven't done that in a long time. And there's something about making my home a palace that makes me feel awfully good. So it's not just pride at work here. I would love to have found Mr. Right and to be making a home for my husband and children, but if that's not in the cards... I need to make a home for myself.

Making my bed every morning has quickly become one of my favorite chores. It's so much easier with the bed moved out from the wall in my bedroom. There's instant payoff when you step back and admire everything tucked in just so and the pillows plumped. I can't wait to be able to invest in some bed linens and blankets, maybe a fantastic vintage chenille bedspread, new pillows. Even if they mean it'll take a little bit longer to make my bed! Bedmaking is especially nice when I'm not completely in a rush and running out the door.

It's been interesting to learn a little something new about laundry. Though the process today is so different, the manual has made me appreciate how arduous Wash Day was circa 1945. It was hard on the muscles (so little of the work was actually automated), rough on the hands, and used a ton of water. I'll bet women consciously planned easier menus for Monday evenings just to give themselves a little less work after a long day over the wash tubs. And socializing on Monday nights. Forget about it! It wouldn't have been possible unless you had one of those new fully-automated postwar washing machines. Or a maid. And if you were able to afford hired help one day a week, it'd be Mondays.

Cubism

You can't say I lack curiosity. I'm dying to find out how the ritzy breakfast menus in the front of my cookbook will compare to the coupon clipper menus in the back. After eating one of my tried and true breakfasts this morning (Stewed Apricots, Oatmeal), I made up a grocery list and realized the list wouldn't be any longer whether I picked the ritzy menus or not. As excited as I am to start trying out some of the dinner menus, I think I'll hold off for a little while longer.

I felt so vintage as I sat at my kitchen table picking menus and making a grocery list. Every time I come across an article on kitchen design in a 1940s magazine, they mention how important it is that the housewife have a comfortable, well-lighted place in her kitchen to sit and do that very thing. A desk or nook where she can store her cookbooks, her recipe box, and plan how to work and re-work the foods she buys into her family's meals.

Taking a side trip into the laundry room, there are a whole list of Wash Day chores in my 1945 manual besides Sorting, Washing, Rinsing, and Drying:

Bluing

Have you ever treated any laundry with bluing? I've never used it before and wasn't even sure if you can still buy it, but - sure enough - found a small bottle of Mrs. Stewart's at the supermarket. Bluing is apparently used to correct yellowing in white fabrics. I guess I don't have many white garments these days that get yellow-y. Do our modern detergents already have bluing built in? Lots of 'em are blue in color. According to the manual, bluing was once available in all kinds of forms, "liquid, solid balls, cubes, powder and in combination with soap flakes. Bluing-soap flakes are used in the wash water; all others are added to the final rinse water... mix it thoroughly with the water, to prevent streaking."

Bleaching

Here's a familiar friend. I added some bleach to a load of whites two days ago. "Use a bottled chlorine bleach and follow directions carefully as to the quantity to use. Mix the bleach thoroughly with the first rinse water."

Starching

Do I even own any clothes that need to be starched? Here's a list from the manual:

Children's clothes

Dresses (cotton, organdy, dotted swiss)

Collars and cuffs (pique, organdy)

Blouses (sheer, cotton)

Glass curtains (marquisette, organdy, net, gingham)

Uniforms

Shirts (collars, cuffs, front pleat)

Slacks (cotton)

Well, I guess I do after all. I definitely didn't see any "starch cubes" at the supermarket, but there were several brands of spray starch. Housewives everywhere must have celebrated when spray starch was invented. The process of cooking a batch of starch, straining it, keeping a "skin" from forming, immersing the garments, wringing out the extra starch... Starching clothes was certainly a fine art. Starched anything lately?

Menu Making

My breakfast menu this morning marks Day 30 in my cookbook's special feature, "How to Feed a Family of Five on $20.00 per Week." Let's see... according to a historical inflation calculator, $20 in 1945 would be the equivalent of about $230 today. That's a pretty decent weekly budget for groceries. Even for a family that size.

Sliced Bananas on
Shredded Cereal

Easy, yummy, and filling. It was so filling, in fact, that it made a small lunch feel just right. I like that. It's been a nice perk from eating breakfast again. I've found this is definitely not the case on the mornings my menu is built around Waffles, Griddlecakes, or French Toast.

Nearly half of the meals (43%) were built around some sort of cooked cereal. 27% of the menus were built around an egg dish. Baked goods were the main attraction for 20% of the menus, and cold cereal for the remaining 10%. I adapted most of the menus to leave out the third serving of carbs. This may have worked for a woman preparing breakfast for several people. She'd be able to enjoy a little serving of several different dishes. I'm cooking for one, so I've been adapting the menus a bit to make sure I don't end up with a fridge full of leftovers and some extra inches on the waistline. I'm also a vegetarian, so I've taken any meat dishes out of the menus. This didn't take much time. These were the war years, and only 20% of the menus even include meat.

So, here's the question: I'm trying to decide what to do next. There are 11 more breakfast menus in a chapter on "Menu Making" at the front of the cookbook. Presumably, these were menus designed for a housewife who didn't have to be as budget-conscious as the one with the $20 grocery bill. They'll probably be a little more elaborate. Fresher ingredients, maybe? I'm not sure. Should I pick up some of these ritzier menus? Or go back to Day 1 of the menus I've been using --- maybe drop some of the empty calorie days? (Despite her coupon clipper menus, even the author of the cookbook says "Doughnuts... jam, jelly, marmalade, and pancakes with sirup should be considered desserts... to be eaten only after more wholesome foods have been eaten.") Should I start working on some of the dinner menus. Maybe make a 1940s dinner once a week? What do you think???

Rinso White, Rinso Bright

Rinso white, Rinso bright,

Happy little washday song!

Did you know the Rinso label has been sold by its longtime owners, and you can buy Rinso bleach now in 99 Cents Only stores? Of course, Rinso used to be a detergent rather than a bleach, but it's awful neat to see the power of 1940s marketing still in play.

I'm taking a sick day today because of my cold, so had lots of extra time to do my wash - including my handwashing. Not exactly a true test based on a typical Monday schedule, but I guess it's a good chance to work up getting the wash done on a regular weekly workday. I did three loads at the laundromat this morning. The whites went in with a dash of Rinso bleach. I was mistaken when I said yesterday that the washers in my laundromat don't have a delicates cycle. They do, but I think it'd probably take me two months just to accumulate a load of delicates!

I pulled the two rayon items after washing them at the laundromat and followed the instructions in my manual for drying rayons (as best I can understand, "turkish towels" are terry bath towels):

Roll garments in turkish towels to remove excess moisture, then unroll immediately and iron when ready... It is safer to allow prints and spun rayons to dry until barely damp, before ironing.

I did my handwashables this afternoon and was surprised by how much water I ended up using... which here, in the desert, is very uncool. It took four rinses to get the suds out of my nylon top, two rinses to get the suds out of my bras, and, well, I gave up after four rinses in trying to get the suds out of my acrylic sweater. Now it could be that the soap I used - a "gentle" gel hand soap - created a richer suds than the soaps recommended for handwashing in the '40s. I'm not sure. The authors of the manual fully expected their readers to have to rinse any handwashables "several times" until they could get a nice suds-free water. I think in the future that I'll follow the modern instructions on the label for garments like these and wash them in a machine with the rest of my laundry if at all possible. My bathroom sink may have gotten a great cleansing along the way, but the water usage was super guilt inducing. And my hands are so dry and raw.

It wasn't such a "happy little washday" here at the Jitterbug residence, but it was educational!

Nylon, Polyester, and Acrylic... Oh, My!

It's Sunday night and - cold or no - time to sort my laundry in preparation for Wash Day.

My pile of white garments and towels is big enough this week to make a full load of bleachables. There is one white article I'm not sure what to do with. It's made of 92% nylon/8% spandex. My manual only mentions nylon once (it had only hit markets in 1939) and this is in reference to nylon stockings. Precious articles that they were during the war years, nylon stockings were strictly handwashable. Well, a handwashing it shall get.

I've got another item which is 49% rayon/48% polyester/3% spandex. One of the things I learned about rayons last week is that they could - even in 1945 - be washed by machine in a lukewarm suds, but there are very specific directions about drying these pieces by hand. I'll have to remember to pull this tomorrow morning and dry it by hand in my apartment. That modal/spandex item from last week will get the same treatment.

A few more to go. I've got a shirt which is 65% polyester/35% cotton. Though chemists were hard at work on polyester during the 1940s, it wasn't introduced to the marketplace until about 1953. So I think it's safe to say I'm not going to find any useful guidance on laundering polyester in any manual from this period. Just going to follow the instructions on the garment's label: "Machine wash warm... Tumble dry." Next is a 100% acrylic sweater. From what I've been able to find online, acrylic wasn't introduced to the market as a textile until 1950, so I'm in the same spot as with the last garment: "Machine wash cold. Delicate cycle... Tumble dry low." There is no delicate cycle on the machines in my laundromat, so I'll have to handwash this item.

A bra is quite a tricky item. One of mine is made up of polyester/nylon/polyurethane foam/cotton/spandex - but more polyester than anything else. I'll trust the label on this one: "Hand wash warm water with like colors. Do not bleach. Line dry." The label on another one is nearly impossible to read, but appears to be some blend of nylon/elastic. I'll handwash this one as I would nylon stockings. These are tough little buggers!

That's it. Two handwashables plus my bras. Two more hand dryables. I'm not sure yet whether I'll do the handwashables while my laundry's in the dryers or whether I'll save 'em for tomorrow evening.

"To make you look your prettiest at bedtime..."

Colored sheets were apparently one of the hottest new trends in home decor during the late 1940s. Pepperell Manufacturing Company published a little booklet called Sheets and Blankets: A Housekeeping Guide in 1948 with tips on everything from making beds to finding the color in bed linens that was most flattering to you. Which color would you have purchased?

To make you look your prettiest at bedtime, choose a tint to set off your own coloring. Golden blondes look lovelier still against a background of peachbloom, maize or ashes of roses; brunettes are more glamorous when their dark beauty is set off by maize or aqua; auburn hair is ravishing on a background of cool aqua; while hyacinth blue is becoming to everyone...

Use a tint to match your blankets. Or a color that will combine prettily - maize sheets turned down over green blankets, rose over blue, and so on. At the same time, carry out the decor of your bedroom by choosing sheets that match or contrast smartly with draperies, wallpaper and other furnishings.

Kitchen Chemistry

What simple luxury it is to make a bed which isn't wedged in against the wall! I was tickled pink to find yesterday's hard work paying off today, and boy does it make me want to buy some lovely vintage bedding. Just to show off my newly-acquired bedmaking skills. I put my ruler back to work this morning and carefully measured off 18 inches from the head of the bed to decide where to fold back the top sheet. My mom still makes beds the way the Good Housekeeping manual recommends: folding down the bedspread, laying the pillows on top of the upside-down portion of the bedspread, then rolling everything back into place. It makes that crease at the bottom of the pillows which looks so streamlined.

I knew this morning's menu was going to be a toughie, so I got started on the dough for the Yeast Cinnamon Rolls last night:

Sliced Orange
Hard-cooked Egg
Yeast Cinnamon Roll (from stored dough)
Coffee

My 1945 recipe only measures yeast in cakes. Fortunately, the packets of "dry yeast" I purchased had a conversion formula printed on the back. 3 packets = 1 cake of yeast. I can't remember the last time I made any kind of raised dough, so my kitchen felt like a chemistry lab as I set to work softening the yeast in warm water and scalding milk in a pan. This was at about 6:00 yesterday evening. By 6:20, the dough had been kneaded and set in a covered bowl in a warm-ish spot to rise. Two hours later - nothing. The dough was still the same size it had been when I placed it in the bowl. My heart sinking, I checked my cookbook for tips - nothing there except the suggestion that I had probably killed the yeast. So I looked around online and luckily came across a website with step-by-step instructions - and photos - on making a raised bread dough. At the very bottom of the screen was just what I had been hoping to find:

"Bread Problem Solving

1. What if it doesn't rise?
Your liquid was most likely either too hot or too cold and you've killed the yeast. Don't despair, this bread can still be saved! Dissolve 1 tablespoon yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar in 1/2 cup very warm water (110°F). Mix in 1/2 cup all purpose flour. Let this mixture stand in a warm place for about 10 minutes. It will turn foamy and spongy. Beat this mixture into your un-risen dough then knead in enough flour to correct the consistency. Cover this dough and place it back in a warm place to rise. Proceed as normal."

http://www.fabulousfoods.com/index.php?option=com_resource&controller=article&article=19904&category_id=223&Itemid=&pagenum=1

Thank goodness. Whoever put this website together saved my dough! And this morning's breakfast. My "lab" looked like a hurricane had swept through it by the time I took the Cinnamon Rolls out of the oven at midnight, but at least I didn't have to throw away the ingredients. I can't imagine how a housewife during the war must have felt if her dough didn't rise - or "lighten," as the cookbook describes it. Throwing away rationed ingredients must have felt so unpatriotic. Then again, she'd probably have been working with yeast-raised dough since she was a teenager.

Chain Reaction

Instead of flinging myself headlong into the next mission, I’m going to give this last one a few more days. Days like yesterday - where the old chaos sneaks up on me and my routine takes a hit - are probably a sign that I need to continuing working away at making the chores I’ve already assigned myself more habit than mission.

And though what happened yesterday is more the result of poor planning when it comes to marketing, the manual does have some advice for the 1940s housewife keen on spending less time making beds: “Are beds set away from the walls so that you can make them easily?” My answer: “No.” My one bed is wedged right into the corner of my bedroom - mainly so that I can have the look of as much free space as possible in there. My bedroom isn’t very big, but I find myself constantly leaving the closet door open so that the room will feel a little bigger. (It’s a walk-in closet so adds quite a big of “space” to my bedroom.) I do hate trying to make hospital corners on the side of the bed that’s right up against the wall. Hey, maybe with a bed that was a little easier to make, I would have been able to do both that and hit the mailbox yesterday morning! I’m changing it around right now…

Well, with the bed moved around, my computer most decidedly didn’t fit in my bedroom any longer. So I did what I’ve been thinking about for several months now - moved the computer into my living room. And while I was doing that, figured I may as well dust the thing and vacuum where my bed used to be. Talk about a chain reaction. One chore creating many. But all for the best. My bedroom feels a little more spacious. I’m going to have a much easier time making it up in the mornings. And my computer feels like it’s in a good spot.

The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947) offers up some vintage tips on bedmaking that might come in handy:

To keep the blankets clean and away from the sleepers face, turn the top down over the blankets about 18 inches or so.

To get a “finished” look, here is the way to fit the spread over the pillows. Make a crease through the center of the pillow with your arm out straight and roll the pillow over in half. Place the pillow on the turned-down portion of the spread and roll it back into its position on the bed, where it will cuddle into shape straight and smooth.

A third sheet on top of the blanket gives protection and warmth, but it does take extra time and extra laundering, so it’s up to you to decide its worth. However, it always is desirable when there is illness or eating in bed, because it’s much easier to launder a sheet than to launder a blanket.

Turning down the beds for the night is a gracious gesture. Remove the spread, plump up the pillows, and turn back the blankets and top sheet across the bed.

Otherwise Occupied

Where - you might ask - are the Fergusen children? Shouldn't they be helping Mother with all this work? Nancy is playing some records while she curls her hair...

Ann is sunbathing with her little friends...

Brother Jimmie is nowhere to be found. But he pops up as soon as Mrs. Fergusen has finished bringing in the laundry. "I'm thirsty, Mom! Can I have some lemonade?" She winces as Jimmie pours himself a glass. He'd better not spill any on that shirt!

Mrs. Fergusen admires a new dress made by a neighbor. "What kind of fabric did you use?" she asks. "Is it easy to wash?"

A Comedy of Errors

My housekeeping routine fell prey to a comedy of errors this morning - all of them mine, of course. I could blame it on my cold. (I am feeling a little foggy and disoriented.) But that wouldn't be entirely accurate...

Before I begin, here's yesterday's vintage breakfast menu:

Apple Juice

Cracked-wheat Cereal

I should mention that I added some raisins and brown sugar to the Wheatena. Normally, I try to stick quite literally to the menus, but Wheatena needs something extra just to be edible - and that magazine article did suggest adding dried fruits to make cooked cereals more tempting!

I knew that Corn-bread was on the menu this morning, so set my alarm 30 minutes early so I'd have time to do a little baking. 2 cups corn-meal, 3 tablespoons baking powder... Wait a second. Baking powder? Maybe it was too early to do any baking, because there wasn't any baking powder in that recipe - or even in any of the recipes on that page of the cookbook! I'm left facing a mixing bowl full of corn-meal covered with baking powder. The recipe actually calls for baking soda which I don't have in the house right now. It's been on my grocery list, but I must have been thinking I wouldn't need it for another few days. So I whip out my 1990s Betty Crocker cookbook. Nope. No emergency substitutes for baking soda. Can I find another vintage recipe for Corn-bread that calls for baking powder instead? I didn't have to look very far, but all this casting about definitely ate up the extra time I'd planned. I ended up using a recipe from a little booklet published by Clabber Girl, probably in the mid- to late 1930s. Conveniently enough, there's baking powder in every recipe.

Tomato Juice

Hard-cooked Egg

Corn-bread, Honey

The icing on the cake? Not a drop of Honey in the house. Turns out I tossed the last jar shortly after using it on my Griddlecakes a few weeks ago and then realizing it was expired.

The Corn-bread was very tasty with margarine - or should I say oleo - so breakfast turned out okay. By the time I'd finished, however, it was high time to be leaving and my bed was still unmade. On any other day, I'd have taken the few extra minutes to make my bed. But I needed to stop by a mailbox on the way to work. Badly. You can guess how that debate won out.

What a morning! Just a sample of the chaos my household used to run on - and had for ages. My kitchen, my wardrobe, my pocketbook... There's no way I'm going back to that place. Ever. My new routine may be a bit more work everyday, but it also brings a kind of serenity along with it that I've become accustomed to in a very short time.

Calling the Maytag Man...

It's funny. I've become so removed in 2009 from the work that a washing machine actually does that I have no idea how many cycles it moves through as it cleans my laundry. It's just a one-button job for me. Since typing up that long list of instructions from my 1945 housekeeping manual, though, I've been curious. So I stopped by the laundromat in my apartment complex tonight to take another peek at the machines there - just to see if there's any mention of cycles on the washers. Nada. The machines are Maytag Neptunes, front-loading commercial washers that were installed no more than 20 years ago when the complex was built. I haven't been able to find any information online specific to these washing machines, but I have been able to learn that modern washers in general run through at least the following cycles (and one less rinse cycle than suggested by my manual):

Wash

Spin

Rinse

Spin

Rinse

Spin

Now I'm curious to find out exactly how my machine operates. I think I'll hang out down there next Monday and listen to it as it moves through the cycles. Knowing the kind of energy that a 1940s housewife put into softening the water for each cycle, preparing a suds, draining and refilling the washer again and again --- it makes me really appreciate the work those Maytag Neptunes are saving me. In some sense, that is. After all, I'm putting my energy in other kinds of work in order to earn the quarters I put into those machines!

One item in my manual that I'm still puzzling over is the bit on "Soaking." Just before describing the process of "Washing," the authors advise their readers that white cottons and linens should be soaked for 15 to 30 minutes prior to washing, and colorfast cottons and linens for as long as 20 minutes. Do modern washers provide this cycle? The manual even recommends that "some authorities prefer a preliminary wash in cool suds to soaking, if a washer is used." Should I be soaking my laundry by hand before heading down to the laundromat?

Hanging the Clothes out to Dry

After running her laundry through the wringer, Mrs. Ferguson hauls it upstairs and out to the backyard, where she hangs it to dry in the sun. The long clothesline is fitted into a notch on a wooden prop so that the wet, heavy clothing won't cause it to sag. Mustn' have those clean towels dragging about in the dirt!

Dry clothes must be brought indoors and folded before starting dinner. Bob will be home any moment...