Dinner Plans

Last Wednesday, I began preparing for my first 1945 dinner menu by doing some marketing with the first of the menus in mind. Looking ahead, I noticed there are lots of steamed puddings to look forward to. Steaming is something we pretty much reserve these days for rice, veggies, and other main dish kinds of things - but dessert? It's very vintage. I wonder why it went out of style...

So I decided this morning that it was time to invest in some steaming equipment. As best I can tell, there are four basic things you need to have on hand: a big kettle-type pot, a rack that can be set on the bottom of the pot above some boiling water, a pudding mold (recycled cans from coffee, vegetables, etc. can be used as can ceramic or other baking dishes), and some wax paper or aluminum foil for covering the mold(s) tightly. I have a new chiffon cake pan that'd be perfect for a pudding mold, but I needed to find a kettle big enough - and tall enough - to hold it!

After spending about an hour in the kitchen aisles at Target, I settled on a 12-quart aluminum tamale steamer. (Luckily, tamales and other Mexican cookery are very important locally, so there were lots of pots available that looked like they would be suitable for steaming small and medium-sized puddings.) The pot has a ledge a few inches from the bottom and comes with a steaming insert that sits right inside that ledge. And luckiest of all, when I brought it home, the chiffon cake pan slid right on in. It's going to be perfect. I'm not yet sure which night I'll put this "new" dinner on the table but there'll be a Steamed Molasses Pudding on the menu for dessert!

I'm sticking with the vintage breakfasts, too - though I'm going to take it very easy with the Griddle Cakes, French Toast, etc. I'm going back through the menus a second time now, but I'm going to try and mix things up a bit by taking advantage of some of the suggested alternatives that pop up every so often. And once the weather really warms up, I'm going to shift from the winter menus to the summer menus. I'll be posting my breakfast menus by the week in the sidebar.

Speaking of breakfast, I left the house this morning with a lemon on my grocery list (see Tuesday's menu). What a wonderful surprise to get to work and find that a coworker had brought in a big carton of lemons from the tree in his yard to share with everybody! You gotta love citrus season. Another coworker asked me if I was a "grapefruit kinda person." Heck, yeah. That should slim down the grocery list!

and Jimmy F. . . .

We thought Mr. F. had it bad! Listen in as Better Homes and Gardens delivers the scoop on the unfortunate son of these breakfast-spurning parents. Can his morning habits be reformed?

and Jimmy F. . . .

Jimmy F., 12, has more A's on his absence record than on his report card. His teacher thinks he's dull, but his real trouble is mineral and vitamin deficiency. Underweight and small for his age, he doesn't pay attention.

At fault is Jimmy's habit of getting up too late to eat breakfast. His stomach has been empty more than 10 hours, since average meal leaves in 4. No wonder he can't concentrate on decimals...

In school, Jimmy can't see the blackboard well, his vision is dim from deficiency of B2. By 10 o'clock he feels drowsy, thinks history is the dullest subject he takes.

During gym period, no one wants Jimmy on soccer team. [Twisting the screws of guilt into that lackadaisical Mrs. F.!] He's weak, bruises easily (Vitamin C deficiency). Vitamin C isn't stored in the body, must be provided daily...

Overhungry at noon, Jimmy eats lunch so fast that his digestion is upset for the rest of the day, trying to care for this sudden heavy load of food improperly chewed.

Boy, 12, 58 inches tall, weighing 85 pounds needs about 2,900 calories a day.

Suggested breakfast
Large orange
2/3 cup flaked wheat
1/4 cup top milk
1 cup whole milk
2 slices toast (whole-wheat raisin bread)
1 tablespoon butter
1 soft-cooked egg
2 tablespoons jam

I guess home economists of the time assumed that kids would like food best that they could pick apart for themselves - oranges, soft-cooked eggs. I ate a modified version of this breakfast myself yesterday morning: orange slices, raisin bread toast with butter and jam, and a hard-cooked egg.

Case of Mr. F. . . .

We met Mrs. F. a two days ago and got to know why even a dieting housewife needs a good day's breakfast. Alas, her disinterest in breakfast has led her to prepare boring meals for Mr. F. every morning, and now he can't be bothered with breakfast any longer. Can Better Homes and Gardens save the day?

Case of Mr. F. . . .

Mr. F. has no appetite for breakfast, often goes to the office without eating anything, getting coffee and rolls later on. He feels midmorning hunger pangs, yawns at his desk. His hands aren't steady as he lights a cigarette (B1 shortage) [I'm betting that's just the nicotine!] and he's losing his hair prematurely (B2 deficiency).

Breakfasts served were so monotonous that Mr. F. lost interest in eating...

Mineral and vitamin defects lead to his lowered mental activity. Diminishing glycogen reserves (form in which sugar, starches are stored in the tissues) hasten fatigue, important factor in accidents. Most industrial injuries occur before noon.

In evening, at home, Mr. F. is tuckered out, irritable; doesn't want to romp with the children...

Calculated energy expenditure for man weighing 154 pounds, in sedentary job, is about 2,400 calories a day.

Suggested breakfast

1/2 medium grapefruit

1/2 shredded wheat biscuit

Fried egg

2 crisp bacon strips

2 slices toast (whole wheat)

1 tablespoon butter

1/4 cup top milk

5/8 cup whole milk

2 teaspoons sugar

Coffee

I sampled Mr. F.'s suggested breakfast menu this morning - without the bacon, of course. I skipped the shredded wheat as I was already eating toast with the egg. A filling meal, though frying isn't my favorite way to prepare eggs. It's tough to keep them from browning and get that yolk fully cooked. I've got half a grapefruit left over, so I'll give that another try tomorrow morning.

Today is Ironing Day, and I think I'm making some headway with this new craft o' mine. The only one of those Top Ten tips that is still eluding me: "Iron with straight strokes, with the thread of the fabric." You quilters out there must be able to recognize the "thread" right away, but this is still so mysterious to me. And in some of these synthetic blends, I can barely even discern a weave to the fabric. I think I must have learned to iron by puddling the iron about in semi-circles, so straight strokes feel very awkward. Did the '40s housewife have to maneuver the iron about in this way because the irons weren't as smooth and light as today's irons, or are "straight strokes" actually easier on the fabric?

Well, I've just finished ironing my first sheet. I tried it this first time using the "four thickness at once" method, and it didn't take too, too long. It's neatly folded and stacked up with two freshly ironed pillowcases. (They haven't looked this good since they came out of the package!) But what to do with the fitted sheet? The manual gives me no help on this topic as fitted sheets hadn't yet been invented. I'm going to have to do some additional research and leave the fitted sheet wrinkly this time 'round.

Irons in the Fire

No sooner did I get home from work this evening and it's almost time for bed! I don't know how the time away from work slips by so quickly on these weekday evenings... It's going to make some of my weekday housecleaning missions loom large. (Can you tell I'm getting the jitters about the mission ahead on Thursday evening?)

On the other side of the equation, I've noticed that ironing my laundry in one fell swoop has actually created some time in my mornings. How cool is that? I pick out my clothes for the day and just pluck them from their hangers. Ready to go. No lugging out the ironing board. No heating the iron for one or two items. One of the reasons I never used to iron everything at once is because I thought the clothes would be wrinkled again by the time I went to wear them. That they'd get wrinkled while they were hanging in the closet. That's actually not the case - which has been a wonderful surprise. It's been a couple weeks, but it's nice to see some payoff from the ironing mission.

And speaking of ironing, I'm getting ready to do just that tonight. The manual advises me to arrange my ironing area with an eye toward moving the clothes from left to right: "Place the clothesbasket at your left, a clothes rack at your right, and be sure there are coat hangers near at hand." Here are a few of the Top Ten tips I'm still striving to be mindful about:

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.

My breakfast menu for the last two days has been another of the trio from the 1944 edition of the Good Housekeeping Cook Book:

Half of Grapefruit
Omelet
Toasted English Muffins

The secret I've discovered to making a lovely, golden omelet is keeping the heat at a steady medium. A shade hotter and the omelet starts to brown. At least that's how it works on my stovetop. They're all a little different!

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?

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!

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.

Jitterbug's Cooking School of the Web

Have you ever listened to a vintage recording of one of those cooking programs that used to be on the radio? Betty Crocker's Cooking School of the Air and the Pet Milk Program are a couple that come to mind... I want to share the recipe I used for Bran Bread last night, but I'm feeling a bit like Mary Lee Taylor, hostess of the Pet Milk Program, slowly reciting one of her recipes -they were always chock full of evaporated milk, of course! She'd read the recipe one phrase at a time, repeating each phrase twice, and you can just picture frantic housewives at home trying to get it all down on an index card in time. You can hear an episode dating to September 21, 1939 at this link (choose the mp3 for part 5):

http://www.archive.org/details/CompleteBroadcastDay

(By the by, the programs at the link above all date to a single day in 1939 when a radio station in Washington, DC recorded its entire broadcast day for the National Archives. If you want to have an idea of what a typical day of radio fare was like for a '40s housewife, this is an extraordinary record. There are some 18 hours of programs, so you'll have to divvy them up into several batches.)

*****
DATE BRAN BREAD
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups bran
2/3 cup sliced dates
1 egg
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons melted shortening

Sift flour with salt, sugar and baking powder. Stir in bran and dates. Beat egg and add milk and melted shortening. Add dry ingredients and mix only enough to dampen all the flour. Pour into greased molds, cover closely and steam 3 hours. Makes 3 loaves.
*****

I left out the dates entirely and it didn't seem to cause any problems in terms of consistency. I think the author meant for people to use either small molds or cans, as I used small loaf pans and only ended up with 2 loaves. As you can see, the directions when it comes to steaming are very slim...

This was one of those rare mornings when all the stars were aligned and my 1945 breakfast was absolutely scrumptious:

Grapefruit Half
Poached Free-Range Eggs
Toasted Bran Bread

The Bran Bread made wonderful toast. All buttery and hearty and just large enough to serve the poached eggs on top. And now that I've figured out how to pre-segment my grapefruit halves, I don't have to worry about juice stains on my tablecloth!

Are You Eating to Reduce?

"Reducing" was a popular term for dieting in the '40s, and the October 1945 issue of Good Housekeeping carried an article all about reducing: "No fads - no going hungry - this is a pleasant, adequate diet. If it's followed, steady, gradual loss in weight and improved health should result." How does the breakfast menu compare to the ones I've been using in the cookbook?

BREAKFAST
Fruit - Preferably 1/2 Grapefruit or 1 Orange
1 Boiled or Poached Egg on Thin Slice Toast
Or Medium Serving Cereal and
Glass of Skim Milk
400 I.U. Vitamin D

The experts of the day suggested that tea or coffee be taken only without cream or sugar. Dry toast could be made from white, rye, wheat, or whole wheat bread. And just in case this was a burning question, "toast has the same number of calories as untoasted bread."

Another article in a vintage magazine tells us that "wives," "younger children," and teenaged girls should eat a smaller serving of breakfast cereal than did husbands or teenaged boys. They should also be careful to partake in only one slice of dry toast, not two. The standard serving size for cereal was 2/3 cup, so presumably the reducers in the family should only have about 1/2 cup.

I wonder how much cereal I've been eating? Maybe I'll have to break out the measuring cup tomorrow...

Bit-O-Honey

My crazy, no good, very bad, horrible work week continues, but - despite it all - I was able to get myself out of bed this morning at a reputable hour and make it through almost every bit of my new early morning housekeeping routine. Today's 1945 menu:

Orange Slices
Griddlecakes, Honey

I was determined that this batch of Griddlecakes would turn out better than the last, and they were definitely a step in the right direction! I followed the recipe's instructions to a tee, but the batter was still very thick. So added a little more milk and called it a day. Griddlecakes with Honey are very tasty --- though I should probably have heated the Honey to get it to just the right consistency. All in all, a yummy, but slightly heavy breakfast. At least I'm not dreading the leftovers this time!

I think I am going to go ahead and adopt the 1947 Good Housekeeping manual's recommendation to straighten up the living room before going to bed at night instead of doing it in the evening and again in the morning. As a household-of-one, I don't have to worry about anybody else making a mess of my living room after I've set it to rights. It should be pristine when I get up in the morning. Now if there's ever a Mister Jitterbug about the place, I may have to make a change, but for now...

The living room is tidied, the sink is empty, and the dishwasher has plenty of room for tomorrow's breakfast dishes. Time for some well-deserved rest.

Competing Visions

Since I still had a Grapefruit Half left over from yesterday, today's breakfast was more of the same. Once again, I ended up with citrus juice on my tablecloth. I've decided that I'm either going to have to loosen each of the segments at the kitchen countertop before bringing my grapefruit to the table or take the tablecloth off the table when grapefruits or oranges are on the menu! Maybe I'll have pick up some non-vintage table linens for just these kinds of mornings...

I came across an article in a July 1944 issue of The American Home with one woman's routine in keeping house. "I Run My Career Like a Star" was written by Celia Mattox, a mother of three. Here's the bit on her morning schedule:

Whatever day it is, it begins at 6:30. To wash, I slip into a becoming dressing gown - watch the shade, for a strong color gives a pasty look to a face without any make-up. Then I change into my blue denim outfit to prepare breakfast. [She explains earlier that while at home during the day she likes to wear a "becoming cotton blouse" with a blue denim skirt and "gay apron."] That over, the dishes are stacked, the house is aired, and I snatch a few minutes to do my exercises.

There's one woman who opted for a "dressing gown" while she spent some time in the bathroom washing up, but she was fully dressed before hitting the kitchen. I notice that she mentions stacking the dishes (maybe she doesn't wash her breakfast dishes right away either) and airing her house (fresh air is given lots of emphasis in the 1945 housekeeping manual). It sounds like Mrs. Mattox wouldn't have much to argue about with the authors of the manual - at least when it comes to her early morning routine. Heck, maybe she even owned a copy herself!



The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947), edited by Helen W. Kendall, also contains a schedule for housework, though it's not quite as detailed as the one in the 1945 manual. Each member of the household is instructed to "hang up night clothes and put away slippers" before finishing up in their bedrooms in the morning. As soon as breakfast is over, "the dishes should be washed and the kitchen straightened up before you go about other household work."

• Remove dishes from the table, scrape, and rinse under the faucet if they need it. Stack them neatly at one side of the sink.
  
• Put away foods that belong in the refrigerator.
  
• Clear away waste food. Get rid of grounds from coffee or tea pot and empty cooking utensils which have been soaking during the meal.
  
• Clean sink so that it will be ready for dishwashing.
  
• Prepare dishwater and wash, dry, and put away dishes.

Kendall suggests that the living room be tidied up just before going to bed at night. "To start each day with the room neat, take a few minutes before going to bed to pick up newspapers and magazines, empty the ash trays, and take glasses into the kitchen." While the 1945 manual advises every member of the family to do their part in straightening up the living room at bedtime, they seem to have built this step into the post-breakfast routine just in case others hadn't done their part after Mother retired for the evening. Those crazy teenagers and their record players! As a one-woman household, I have more control over this situation, so tidying up the living room at bedtime rather than in the morning is certainly an option.

Kendall recommends that pots and pans be soaked during the meal so they're ready for dishwashing as soon as you are. A great concept, but what if your family's interested in a second serving? This would probably work out fine for me unless I had any leftovers that needed to be dispatched with beforehand. The biggest way in which Kendall's routine differs from my 1945 housekeeping manual is dishwashing. She is adamant that the breakfast dishes must be washed before doing anything else. This is not a bad idea, but the fact that I have a dishwasher which only gets filled up a couple times a week makes it kind of a moot point. I might give some thought to getting the pots and pans washed up and put away right after breakfast. If I straightened up the living room at bedtime, that'd free up some time for dishwashing in the a.m.

What do you think? Have you come across any vintage housekeeping schedules that offer advice for these early morning chores?

Plan B

Alas, I fell off the wagon today.

I tried to squeeze way too much in the way of holiday baking into my evening at home yesterday. Went to bed late and got up extra early to finish doing up the packages for my workmates. Before I knew it, it was time to head to work and I was still trying to clean up the breakfast dishes... So my living room went untidied this morning, and I cursed myself as I stumbled over something walking into my dark apartment this evening. I've gotten used to clean floors very quickly!

Instead of hurtling myself right on into my new mission on Sunday, I think I'm going to continue with these early morning chores for another week - effective tomorrow. Make sure I take the time to really get them down before adding anything new. I've got to kick Ms. Night Owl out of this nest. And be careful not to overextend myself during this busy holiday season.

On a brighter note, my breakfast menu felt positively luxurious this morning:

Grapefruit Half

Prepared Cereal

This is the first time ready-to-eat cereal has been on the menu. No boiling, no stirring - just add milk and enjoy! The menus in this cookbook often suggest Prepared Cereal as an alternative for warm weather, but it only pops up once in awhile during the winter. Cold weather = hot cereal. I found some Shredded Wheat at the grocery store. The old fashioned kind that comes in paper packets. Three "biscuits" to a packet.

My mom served Grapefruit Halves all the time when I was growing up. I remember my sisters and I sprinkling our grapefruit with sugar and then trying to dig out the segments with our spoons without squirting ourselves in the eye with pulp. It was a talent, let me tell you. And you had to have just the right spoon - something with a nice thin edge. Too bad I could figure out how to cut a grapefruit crosswise this morning. I actually ended up with grapefruit quarters!

Paging Emily Post...

My breakfast table became an etiquette disaster area this morning. My menu:

Sliced Oranges
Cooked Barley and Farina Cereal, Milk

An attractive dessert is made by cutting oranges crosswise in quarter-inch slices and laying the slices in an overlapping row on a glass plate, allowing about four slices to each person. The slices may be sprinkled with sugar and moist coconut or served plain.

As you can see, the American Woman's Cook Book gives detailed instructions for making Sliced Oranges, but apparently not detailed enough for me! They made a pretty little plate of fruit, but I guess I've never eaten Sliced Oranges at the table before. I folded them in half and bit right into them - and promptly ended up with two orange juice stains on my favorite vintage tablecloth. What's a girl to do?

After frantically treating the stains, I consulted my 1941 etiquette book. How can Sliced Oranges be eaten without making a messy faux pas? Alas, Lily Haxworth Wallace was mum on the topic of table manners when it comes to citrus fruit. Several other vintage etiquette books I was able to search online had conflicting advice. Nobody seemed to be able to agree on a strategy. I finally came across a recipe booklet published by Sunkist in 1940 which offered some useful information. Oranges should be peeled before slicing. The outer peel and membrane should be removed entirely before the orange is sectioned, sliced, or cut in pieces. The sections, etc. should then be eaten with a fork and knife.

*blushing*

This must have been one of those common kitchen knowledge kind of things that a girl once learned at her mother's knee. Isn't it something I made it to early middle age without having any kind of basic survival skills in the kitchen? My grandmother would be embarrassed.