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...

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.

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?

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.

Catch-up Time

It's high time for one of those lil' bit of everything kinda posts - a catch-up post. The Great Housekeeping Experiment has left me curious about lots of things along the way, and I wanted to report on some of the things I've discovered.

First of all, my decision to straighten up the living room just before going to bed at night seems to work really well for me right now. I haven't forgotten to do it in quite some time, and having that extra few minutes in the morning for bedmaking has come in handy. For now, it works nicely. I'm not sure that'll be the case as I add more chores to my housekeeping schedule. The evenings may become a little more busy. Well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Remember that article on "eating to reduce" in a vintage copy of Good Housekeeping? I was curious about the portions I've been eating and how they compare to 1945 diet advice. According to the magazine, a standard size portion of cereal (suitable only for the men and teenaged boys in your family) was 2/3 cup. Women, teenaged girls and children should have a slightly smaller portion. A few days ago, Malt-O-Meal was on the menu at breakfast, and I prepared one serving according to the instructions on the package. When the cereal was finished cooking, it turned out to be 3/4 cup. Larger than even the serving size recommended for men and growing boys! I think I'll try cutting the size of the portions I'm making by just a smidge and see if I can get the finished servings of cereal down at least to 2/3 cup. I'd love a vintage waistline!

Speaking of cereal, this morning's menu was perfect for a chilly day:

Oatmeal with Prunes

The description is ever-so-slightly different than a similar meal I had a few weeks ago:

Stewed Prunes

Oatmeal

So instead of serving the Prunes on the side, I cut them in pieces and dropped 'em into the pot of oatmeal while it was bubbling away. A subtle twist on words here, but I think the author of the cookbook meant for these to be two different meals. In a vintage magazine article on bringing your family back to the breakfast table, I read that you might make cooked cereals more tempting to Jim or little Patty by adding dried dates, raisins, figs, prunes, or apricots. No doubt.

One of the questions I took up about a month ago was the wardrobe appropriate for a 1940s housewife during the early hours of the morning. Should I be fully dressed and ready for company by the time I start breakfast? Would a housecoat be suitable for morning housework? How 'bout a robe and slippers? Since I head off for work after breakfast, I've been getting dressed before getting things started in the kitchen - but hadn't given up my comfy slippers until yesterday. Let's face it, though. If a '40s housewife went to the trouble of getting fully dressed before breakfast, she probably didn't dumb down her outfit with slippers! So shoes it is. And though I love wearing a pinafore-style apron while I'm working at the stove, it doesn't seem quite right once I'm sitting down to eat. It's funny --- there's nobody here to see what I'm wearing - or not wearing - at the breakfast table, but wardrobe can really have an impact on your state of mind. Breakfast should be a festive meal.

In the homes of workers breakfast always comes at the all-too-brief period between waking and dashing off for the train to the city. It is the unusual commuter who rises early enough to spend much time at table in the morning... Set your table in the sun, if possible. Look out on a garden if you can do so, or, in winter, on a birds' feeding station. It's fun to have breakfast in company with the juncos and blue jays. It's also nice to pull a small table close up to the open fire on chilly mornings, or to set out breakfast on the terrace in summer. Flowers or fruit on the table. Place mats, or a gay peasant cloth. Napkins at left. People should wake up cheerful and breakfast should be serene and gay. Try to manage your household so that your husband enjoys his breakfast and wishes he could stay longer, even as you push him out the door with a kiss on his way to the eight-fourteen.

Lily Haxworth Wallace, ed., The New American Etiquette
(New York: Books, 1941)

Here's my last bit of catch-up for the day. A glimpse of my favorite vintage tablecloth, which probably dates to the WWII years. It makes my table so bright and cheery. Even on days with a menu like the infamous Tomato Juice and Waffles with Butterscotch Sauce.

The Morning After

The living room was the musical epicenter of the 1940s home. The place where teenage daughters swooned over Frank Sinatra records, little brothers practiced their scales at the piano, and Mother and Dad tapped their toes to the Billy Mills Orchestra as they listened to the latest episode of Fibber McGee and Molly. And so my 1945 housekeeping manual reminds me to be sure to pick up any stray "music" or "victrola records" as I'm straightening up the living room after breakfast.

We always had a piano in the house when I was growing up, so any sheet music we were finished playing belonged inside the upholstered lid of the piano bench. The bench was just the right size to hold two stacks of sheet music side by side. And because they weren't as sturdy as music books, they needed a little extra protection. Music books got stacked up in a pile on the top of the piano and the ones that were least popular were kept on a bookshelf nearby. The authors of the manual recognized that the storage of sheet music and phonograph records posed a special problem for the housewife and suggested that sheet music might best be stored in labelled portfolios.

Have you ever handled one of those old shellac records? If so, you know just how heavy and fragile they seem in your hands. One stumble and they can break in two. By the '40s, many recordings were available in celluloid and, later, vinyl. Much, much lighter, but prone to scratching:

Expensive, precious records should be kept in albums or specially designed cabinets, safe from harm. Currently popular dance records that are in constant demand may be kept in open racks, but their paper jackets should not be thrown away. Unless these jackets are put on again after the records are used, dust or careless handling may scratch the records severely.

Our digital tunes in the 21st century don't leave much in the way of a mess about the house. No brightly-colored sheet music, no records, no paper dust jackets. I guess the only places they clutter up are our hard drives and playlists!

I'll wrap up this set with my vintage breakfast menu for this morning:

Stewed Apricots

Hard-Cooked Egg

Toast

Okay, so the menu actually calls for a Soft-Cooked Egg, but undercooked eggs have never been appealing to me. The cookbook included instructions for both. And though it's not how I'm accustomed to making a hard-boiled egg, it was perfect! The secret? Bring the egg to a boil very slowly, then reduce the heat dramatically, cover, and let sit for 20-30 minutes.

An Archeological Dig

I really tried to get some extra sleep last night. I turned out the lights at 9 p.m., but woke up about 3 a.m. and tossed and turned for an hour. When my alarm went off, I was still tired. I'll have to try this again tonight. I think a good night's rest is going to be super helpful as my workload at home increases.

My breakfast menu this morning was very simple:

Stewed Prunes

Oatmeal, Milk

I had some questions about Top Milk last week when the cookbook recommended serving it with Corn-meal Mush one day. Tried some half 'n' half, but it didn't taste very good. So I've done some research online and it turns out that Top Milk (for those who can still get it) has about 7% milk fat, while half 'n' half has 10%. Rather than go overboard, I've decided just to use 1% milk when the menu calls for Top Milk. And it did today. I served the Stewed Prunes in a separate dish and remembered to bring the water and salt to a boil before adding the oats. The Oatmeal turned out perfectly. I'm so happy I've figured that out!

Pick up and replace small articles belonging in the room, such as books, magazines, music, games, victrola records, cards, etc.

This week's mission paints a sweet picture of the kinds of things you'd find in a '40s living room: lots of reading material, sheet music (for a piano or electric organ), board games and a deck of cards, phonograph records, ash trays, potted plants, floral arrangements... I had to laugh, though, as I went down the list this morning looking for items to restore to their proper places - and realized that I have practically none of these things in my living room! One lonely library book which needed to be put back on the shelf.

Here's the motley assortment of items instead that I found in my 21st-century living room this morning and had to put away: opened mail, 1 basket of clean laundry, 1 spice rack (gift from friend which hadn't yet been set up in the kitchen), a quarter, tote bag, purse, 3 pairs of shoes and 1 pair of slippers, ironing board and iron, 1 snapshot of my youngest niece, Christmas present I bought yesterday, and 1 new pair of shoes (still in the box). A strange collection of things! Laying it all out like that, like some archeologist examining the finds from a dig, it really says something about how I use - and don't use - my living room. I don't spend much time there. I pass through. Kick off my shoes, put down my bags and my mail, and pick stuff back up as I go through on my way out. It's not a room in which I spend much time reading or listening to music or playing games. The kinds of things the authors of the housekeeping manual expected people to be doing in their living rooms. Is it that my bedroom seems more cozy than my living room? I certainly haven't done very much in the way of decorating in my living room. When I moved cross country, I had to leave a lot behind. And I haven't yet had any of it shipped out here or bought anything new. The walls are that dreadful apartment beige, too.

As I sat back and looked around this morning before leaving the house, I realized just how spacious it seems when all the little odds and ends that are out of place have been put away. My apartment seems so much bigger than it normally does! Now that's a reason to get to bed early...

Where is the Love?

I have the day off from work today, but I was so tired out after yesterday's revelry that I lost half off it sleeping 'til 11:00! As I realized what time it was - and how wonderful it felt to be so rested - my instincts were screaming at me just to spend the day puttering about the house, warm and cozy in my pajamas and to skip the early morning chores and breakfast altogether... I fought them back successfully and jumped in the shower, vowing to at least put on some clean clothes and stick to my new routine. Instead of skipping breakfast, I'd skip lunch. Twas a close call!

This morning's menu:

Stewed Prunes (saving the juice for another breakfast)
Corn-meal Mush
Coffee

Isn't it funny how we've almost completely removed the prune from modern cookery? There are all kinds of recipes for desserts and salads involving prunes in vintage cookbooks, but the prune has gotten a completely bad rap today. They've been relegated to a bad joke on the playground. I'm just flipping through the index of my 1945 cookbook, and I see Prune Apricot Upside-down Cake, Prune Blanc Mange, Prune Ice Cream, Prune Pie, Prune Chiffon Pie, Prune Rye Bread, Prune Turnovers, Prune Whip, Spiced Prunes, Stuffed Prunes, Stewed Prunes. What happened... when did Americans decide that prunes were to be shunned from our tables?

We still love plums - why not their wrinkly brothers?



Adaptations:
The menu recommended flavoring the Corn-meal Mush with Bits of Cooked Bacon, and this was a no-go for me as a vegetarian. I served the Stewed Prunes on top of the Mush, so they added some flavoring to the cereal. The menu also included Toasted Buns, but the added carbs didn't seem necessary, so I skipped the course.

Lessons Learned:
1.) The Stewed Prunes turned out deliciously, the Corn-meal Mush not so much. I've never made this before so I was flying blind on this one. The cookbook recommended using the recipe on your package of cornmeal. Mine didn't have a recipe for mush, so I had to rely on the proportions suggested in the cookbook. I boiled the water and stirred in the cornmeal slowly. The cornmeal almost instantly turned to mush, but there were already lumps which I was never able to remove. I thought that it would take 15-20 minutes to be ready for the table, so had to leave it on low heat while I waited for the prunes to be ready.

2.) I found myself wondering today how the stewed fruit in this morning's breakfast and in last Sunday's breakfast would have been served. I've dished them up on top of the cooked cereal each day, but I wonder if it'd be more appropriate to the period if the fruit and cereal were served in separate bowls. My mother, who grew up during the '50s, used to serve stewed prunes occasionally and it seems to me that they were always in a separate dish. The dishwashing hater in me is sounding off all kinds of alarms that I don't need to create any extra, unnecessary dishes to wash, but I suspect that the everyone-in-one-bowl approach is not truly vintage. On the mornings I've made breakfast at home, I've consciously used my grandmother's small cups and saucers to try and find a more '40s feel for my breakfast table. They hold a lot less coffee than do modern coffee mugs.

Oatmeal Revelations

There are 41 breakfast menus in the vintage cookbook I leafed through yesterday, so it didn't take me very long to find one that would be compatible with the contents of my cupboards.

Stewed Apricots
Oatmeal
Toast
Milk, Coffee

There are breakfast menus suggested for weekends and breakfast menus suggested for weekdays. I decided to choose one of the weekday menus, hoping they would be easier for somebody just getting started with the whole cooking-a-meal-and-eating-before-noon thing.

I gather the milk is meant as a children's beverage with coffee for grown-ups, so I fired up Mr. Coffee and brewed a pot. This step is definitely something I won't be doing at home on weekday mornings. There's plenty of free java at work - and lots more time while I'm sitting at my desk to enjoy it. Unless I start getting up with at least an extra hour to spare, it's hard to imagine being able to really enjoy a pot of coffee at home. Now, for a '40s housewife, having a pot of coffee on hand would make sense. You and Jim would enjoy a cup or two at breakfast, and you could have a second later on that morning. Jim might read the morning paper at the breakfast table and so he'd be there long enough to really enjoy a cup himself. I don't get a paper here at home, so I turned on my 1950 Zenith tabletop radio and listened to NPR while I ate my breakfast - but hadn't planned my time wisely this morning, so had to eat pretty quickly and head out.

Adaptation
The combination of apricots, oatmeal, and toast seemed a little excessive in the carb department, so I skipped the toast. And the meal was more than filling as is. Looking ahead at a few of the menus, I suspect I'm going to have to make more than a few adaptations in the interest of my waistline. Maybe I should have prepared a much smaller serving of apricots and oatmeal - then a single piece of toast would've seemed okay...

Lessons Learned
1.) My 21st-century tastebuds were screaming for me to add something crunchy to the oatmeal. I had a hard time not adding some chopped walnuts, just to make the texture a little more --- I don't know. Modern recipes are usually packed with such a combination of ingredients that stripping them down to something more plain is difficult at first, I guess.

2.) Dried or preserved fruits would have likely been all there was available in the way of fruit during the winter. It's so easy in 2008 just to pick up a few fresh apricots at the supermarket. While I watched the apricots bubbling away on the stovetop this morning, I wished that I could just have added some fresh fruit to my oatmeal. It would have seemed so much healthier - and tastier! The stewed fruits weren't bad, though. They were a little chewy even after 40 minutes on the burner. The insides were still quite sweet and apriocot-y. My cookbook recommended adding sugar "to taste" during the last five minutes of stewing, but I thought the apricots were fine without any added sweetener.

3.) At last! I think I've finally figured out why my mom's oatmeal was always so gummy (sorry, Ma)... I used the real stuff today - no instant oats, no quick-cooking oats - just plain rolled oats. And the recipe on the carton specifically says to bring the water to a boil first before adding the oats and bringing everything down a simmer. I didn't do this the first time. Just threw everything in together and turned the heat up. In only a few minutes, it was bubbling and already looking just as gummy as the oatmeal I hated when I was a kid. I followed the instructions when I made the second batch, and it was an entirely different bowl of oatmeal. Could that really have made such a difference?