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.

Bran Bread Reflections

My 1945 breakfast menu for tomorrow includes Toasted Bran Bread, so I was poking around today looking for recipes - figuring it would be just a quick bread. Well, there is a recipe in my cookbook for Date Bran Bread, but it calls for the bread to be steamed for three hours! I have never steamed anything before, but I'm giving this a try. My largest pot isn't big enough for more than one of the small loaf pans, and I don't have any used coffee cans or other metal cans hanging about, so, after doing some research online, I bought one of those aluminum foil roasters, placed water in the bottom with some stones to raise the loaf pans above the water. Covered the filled loaf pans tightly with foil and slid the whole affair inside a 350-degree oven. I have no idea if this is going to work.

This is another of those instances where the author of the cookbook seems to take for granted that her readers have some basic skills most of us no longer learn from our mothers and grandmothers. Steaming bread. Making jam from dried fruit.

It will be six weeks tomorrow since I set forth on The Great Housekeeping Experiment. Six very interesting weeks. I realized the other day that I have a much healthier-looking, better stocked fridge than I've had in years. There are grapefruits and oranges inside, together with some dried apricots and prunes in sealed containers. A couple varieties of juice - and milk and eggs that are still fresh! (That used to be a rarity.) My cupboards are better stocked than they've been in a long time: Shredded Wheat, Malt-O-Meal, rolled oats, cornmeal, Wheatena, flour, wheat bran... These were the building blocks of a '40s wintertime breakfast. If a housewife kept these items on hand, she'd be able to put a variety of breakfasts on the table.

And speaking of breakfast - these vintage menus are just as carb-heavy as I anticipated, but it's easy to adapt them to be a little friendlier to the waistline. What I've been finding - much to my surprise - is that I've come to feel a real sense of pride in making a pot of non-gummy oatmeal, lump-free cornmeal mush, and farina with just the right amount of water. I've also been getting to know my stovetop better. Just where the heat needs to be set to get the water to boil quickly, how far to lower it to keep a good simmer going. It's funny to feel so accomplished when it comes to things most of my friends wouldn't get very excited about.

Good news! I just checked my oven and the batter I left inside those loaf pans actually appears to be turning into bread!!! I'd say they're just about done. Maybe five more minutes.

Something else I've learned in the last six weeks: when I pick up the things in my bedroom and living room everyday, the job is fairly easy each time. The same goes when it comes to the breakfast dishes. Tidy begets tidy, so when my bedroom is picked up, I don't want to set something down where it doesn't belong. It's kind of nice to keep these rooms picked up by putting things back where they belong in the first place. My living room also seems a whole lot more spacious, and, boy, is it nice to come home to a dark apartment and not have to worry about stumbling over something as I'm looking for the light switch.

I've also discovered that my sleeping habits stink. In the American Home article I mentioned several days ago, the author writes that she wakes every day at 6:30 - no matter what the day of the week. This has got to be a whole lot easier on the body than my own habit of burning the midnight oil and sleeping in as late as possible, getting up at a different time nearly every day. I've got a long road to go, so this will be something I'll try and fold into my routine over time.

As I finish writing this, I'm enjoying a slice of my own Bran Bread, fresh from the oven. I can't believe I pulled this off! It's nice and moist, too. I ended up baking it for about 1 1/2 hours at 350 degrees F. I'm definitely freezing one of these loaves so I don't have to go through this again for quite some time...

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...