The Evening After

Well, I wouldn't call it the social event of the decade, but my parents cleaned their plates - my dad even asked for seconds - and we had some good laughs afterward as I showed them the cookbook I'd used and shared some of the recipes I spared them! Though I'd planned on serving a 1940s Easter menu, I decided at the last minute to serve up a medley of some of the surprisingly wonderful vintage recipes I've discovered in cooking dinner for myself over the past year. I guess you could say it was kind of like my annual report on vintage cookery.

Lima-Bean Casserole
Mashed Potato Balls
Beet Pickle Salad
Popovers
Honey Rice

Mashed Potato Balls are patties formed from cold mashed potatoes and a beaten egg yolk. Brown them in the oven with a dab of margarine on top. I added some seasoned salt to mine to give them a little kick. The Beet Pickle I used for the salad was a canned version purchased at the supermarket. (Aunt Nellie's is the brand. I like to think of her as my dear old Aunt Nellie who pickled the beets straight out of her Victory Garden last summer.) I sliced the beets and served them on a bed of lettuce with a tiny dollop of mayonnaise. Popovers are an old family favorite and the recipe in The American Woman's Home Cook Book (1945) doesn't disappoint. (Note: If you're using a modern popover pan, the batter only makes about six.)

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POPOVERS

1 cup sifted flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon melted shortening

Sift flour and salt together. Beat eggs and add milk, shortening and sifted dry ingredients. Beat until smooth with rotary beater. Fill greased muffin pans 1/2 full and bake in very hot oven (450 degrees F.) 20 minutes. Reduce temperature to moderate (350 degrees F.) and bake 15 minutes longer. Makes 8.

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Whew! It's been a long time since I had such a heavy meal so late in the day. My eating habits have changed so much over the last twelve months that it felt positively strange to wake up still feeling so not-hungry this morning. I guess I've gotten used to waking up with an empty tummy! I felt so full I couldn't face anything more than Toast for breakfast this morning. My sink is full, too. Full of dirty pans that needed a good soaking. My mission tonight is to finish cleaning up after the party.

Lessons learned? 1) I truly would have appreciated one of those vintage ranges with three or four different oven chambers. You can set each chamber at a different temperature, right? None of last night's recipes wanted to play together when it came to temperature. 2) My apartment is way too small to entertain more than one person at a time. And it's awful tough to serve dinner at the kitchen table when you have to ask one of your guest to stand up for a minute while you open the oven to check on your Honey Rice. (I'm thinking Dorothy Dix would not have approved.) Let's face it. Nobody should be seated right in front of the oven! Talk about a hot seat.

Party Time

Inviting my parents over for a vintage dinner party has been a blessing in disguise. As hard as it's been to drag myself out of this slump, knowing they are going to be here - tonight! - has forced me to open the windows, let the sunshine in, and set my house to rights. It's 6:30 on Sunday morning as I sit down to write this post --- which means I've got less than 12 hours before my guests arrive. In just one more week, my parents will be heading back East for the year. I do so want them to leave knowing I'm back on my feet.

I'm still planning some sort of blend of the Easter menus in my last post, but haven't made any final decisions yet. The women's pages of 1940s newspapers were packed with suggestions for Easter table decor. Putting aside some of the bunnies and candy eggs and calla lilies made from thin slices of turnip and carrot strips(!), some of these suggestions will still work quite nicely for a bit of vintage springtime flair.

The Pittsburgh Press (April 22, 1943)
"A daffodil centerpiece on the Easter table will bring Spring indoors."

The Spokesman-Review (March 27, 1947)
"...huge bowls of gladiola, carnations, and spring flowers..."

The [St. Petersburg, Florida] Evening Independent (April 1, 1947)
"For the table - centerpiece low and modern of pink and white carnations, dawn pink roses with blue lace flowers to accent. Arrange in a crystal bowl. Place on Irish linen cloth in new postwar design. Use the lovely new crystal dessert plates and goblets."

Ottawa Citizen (April 2, 1947)
"By all means use your green tablecloth, a perfect natural background for all colors used in your setting or foods. If possible, have a flower centerpiece, all-white flowers are often used for an Easter table-setting, or an artistically-grouped bouquet of vari-colored spring flowers or make a pert old-fashioned bouquet, small flowers tightly circled about a center rosebud. Or use one large shallow bowl, or two matching smaller ones, holding floating flowers: for example, white and yellow freesias, pansies, hyacinths, daffodils. At each side of the center piece have a dish of brightly colored candies, mints perhaps... Of course use your most colorful china and glass, gleaming silver."

The Miami News (March 24, 1948)
"That means bringing out your delicate china, pastel china... For your table centerpiece you might use a low bowl of yellow gladioli..."

A big trend I noticed in looking for ideas for table decor is the color of the menu. Article after article extols the goodness in having a springtime menu that covers every shade of the rainbow. Not only did the '40s housewife have to plan her menu around ration points and local food shortages, but she also had to make sure the menu included dishes in shades of red, orange, yellow, green, violet, and pink. A colorful menu was just as important as a colorful new outfit on Easter Sunday.

Here's my post-breakfast plan of attack for the day:

1. Clean the kitchen garbage can with boiling water. Leave outdoors to air dry.
2. Finalize the dinner menu (don't forget the color!) and prepare a shopping list.
3. Walk six laps at the park.
4. Marketing
5. Light lunch
6. Wash the kitchen floor.
7. Dust and polish furniture in living room.
8. Vacuum living room and bedroom.

Yipes --- it's already 7:45! I'd better run. Lots to do!!!

Dorothy Dix Says...

This week's column - which dates to January 25, 1940 - is a back-to-the-basics lesson in etiquette. The letter writer must have written the morning after a dinner party she hosted or attended was ruined by a very late guest.

Dear Dorothy Dix - What do you think of a woman who never keeps any appointment or arrives at any function on time? When she is invited to dinner she keeps her hostess and the other guests waiting thirty or forty minutes while the soup scorches and the souffle falls and everybody gets hungrier and hungrier and crosser and crosser and the affair is ruined. Otherwise this woman is charming and pleasant, but she is losing all of her friends by her utter disregard of other people's convenience.

Answer - It is said that promptness is the courtesy of kings, and certainly nothing shows utter lack of breeding as for a selfish individual to make other people wait for him or her. I knew one woman who solved this problem of the dilatory guest very satisfactorily. In her house when dinner was at 8 it was promptly at 8, and the guests who arrived late were served the course that was then in progress, and if they only got in for the salad it was just too bad for them. The result was that as far as Mrs. B., who was noted for her famous food, was concerned, her guests were always on time. I recommend this plan. It always works.

Dinner and Dancing

Mr. and Mrs. Amberg are having the Millers over for cocktails and dinner, and then they're off for a dance at the country club. Probably more of a fantasy for the average American housewife than a reality. Unless they had hired help, the Ambergs would have had dinner dishes to clean up after and kids to get off to bed. They would only occasionally be able to afford an evening out. I suspect these pictures were actually taken over a series of days than being "a day in the life," otherwise Mrs. Amberg's changed her clothing six times in one day!

Jane Amberg, housewife & mother, prepares for dinner party by carrying roast beef platter to dining table she has carefully set w. colorful place mats, silver candlesticks and silver center piece w. flowers & a bottle of Chianti as her guests finished cocktails in living room.

Hostess housewife Jane Amberg (C) chatting w. her dinner guests Mr. Bert Miller & wife, as her husband Gilbert stands behind her, carving a roast beef to be served at table set w. place mats, candlesticks & a bottle of Chianti, at their home.

Jane Amberg dancing w. husband Gilbert (3L) amidst other couples at their country club formal dance.

Jane Amberg mending a pair of socks as she lounges in bedroom while listening to her favorite jazz records during her "leisure" hours (time w/o kids) at home.