Eating Out

You know what I forgot? Those sodium- and preservative-packed lunches actually make it pretty easy for me to get in that workout at lunchtime on weekdays. Today was my day off from walking, but it took me a good 10 minutes to assemble my lunch in the kitchen at work. That's going to be tough to pull off the rest of this week when I've only got about 20 minutes to eat... It also took me long enough to make my vintage lunch this morning that my whole sense of timing was thrown off and I actually had to leave the house without my bed made and with dirty dishes in the sink. Eek! Just one little change and everything's a mess. Here's the menu I adapted from the original:

Organic Creamy Broccoli Soup
Open-faced Egg Salad Sandwich on Whole-grain Bread with Lettuce and Tomatoes
Green Pepper Strips
Fruit Salad (Apple, Strawberries, Blueberries)

First, I'll have to say that it was a yummy, filling meal. Even without the Crackers, a second slice of bread, and the Cup Cake. What I might have eaten for lunch today without this mission in place is an Amy's Broccoli Pot Pie with some fruit for dessert. So let's do some basic nutritional comparisons of the non-raw fruit/veggie components of these lunch menus:

Typical pre-mission lunch
Calories: 430
Fat: 22g
Sodium: 630mg
Carbohydrates: 46g
Protein: 11g

Vintage lunch, adapted
Calories: 260
Fat: 19.5g
Sodium: 690mg
Carbohydrates: 32g
Protein: 14g

Interesting... My vintage lunch was better in every respect except for sodium. Boy, that soup sure packs a wallop! I'd bet if I was making the soup from scratch with a low sodium broth, I could make a difference there. I'm loving the drop in the number of calories. Will my lower calorie lunch make a difference in my ability to resist the temptation to snack tonight? It didn't make any difference this afternoon.

I'm sure I'll get better at packing these lunches. It'd help ginormously if I actually owned some good lunch-packing equipment. The American Woman's Cook Book (1945) has some serviceable sounding suggestions on preparing and packing lunches.

Sandwich-making tips:

• Whole grain breads should be used for sandwiches. Graham, whole wheat, oatmeal, brown, raisin, and nut bread are excellent. [I guess they hold up better to sandwich fillings!]
  
  
• Pack lettuce separately, to be added just before eating.
  
  
• Fillings for sandwiches may be packed in small jars and buttered bread in waxed paper included for spreading just before eating.
  

Adding a hot or cold dish:

• Special vacuum containers make it possible to include hot cocoa or hot soup in the lunch, also a creamed vegetable, a hot pudding, or other hot food. The containers should never be filled the night before the lunch is prepared.
  
  
• In the winter have something hot and invigorating in the thermos bottle: Hot soup, coffee, tea, baked beans, hot chocolate, or stew. Something cool and refreshing in the summertime, such as lemonade, tomato juice, fruit juices, chocolate milk shake, milk, iced tea or iced coffee, canned fruit juices.
  

General packing advice:

• Stewed or canned fruits may be carried in any small screw-top container. Cold puddings, custards or similar desserts may also be carried in this manner.
  
  
• All foods not in containers should be wrapped separately in waxed paper before being placed in the box. The neatly wrapped articles should be placed, so far as is possible, in the order in which the lunch will be eaten, so that those found first may be eaten first without disturbing the remainder. The heaviest foods, however, should be placed at the bottom of the box.
  
  
• Articles should be packed compactly in order to prevent the food from shaking about.
  
  
• Lunch boxes should be washed, scalded and aired daily. Those made of lightweight metal are best. Many attractive boxes are now made with a vacuum bottle which fits the box.

It is a bit hard to imagine toting one of those old-fashioned black metal lunchboxes to work with me everyday. (Imagine if I ran into Curly with one of those in my hand!) And yet most of the soft-sided lunch bags I see out there these days don't provide much support for items wrapped in wax paper. The only tools I've got right now are a few plastic sandwich-sized containers and some custard cups with lids. Usually I just toss a few things in my tote bag --- but they're frozen, so no big deal. That arrangement isn't going to cut it when I've got soup to carry along! I'd like to find something that doesn't really look like a lunch box, but provides the same protection to my noonday meal. Any ideas?

Mistress of My Domain

Here it is just after 6:00 p.m. and my meager supper is finished. It can't have been that much smaller than most of my suppers, but for whatever reason it just felt meager tonight. Rats! Looks like I've got a long evening ahead... I think I'll torture myself and tell you all about last night's vintage dinner, courtesy of The American Woman's Cook Book (1945):

Baked Potato
Buttered Turnips
Beet Pickle Salad on Lettuce
Peach Sorbet

Have I ever even baked a potato in my own oven? I don't think I have. Having prepared potatoes umpteen different ways since beginning these vintage dinners, I was truly able to appreciate just how easy making a Baked Potato is for the housewife. It puts the oven through its paces, but, boy, is it worth it! I didn't like turnips years ago, but wanted to give them a try to see if my taste buds have matured. They weren't terrible. I could take 'em or leave 'em. The Peach Sorbet was my reducing-friendly substitute for Orange Sugarless Cake.

Beet Pickle isn't the kind of thing you whip up on a single day, so I compromised by purchasing a jar of Aunt Nellie's Pickled Beets at the supermarket. Many a 1940s housewife would've been able to jazz up a bland-ish meal by stepping into her cellar and picking up a jar of something she'd put up last summer. My maternal grandparents had an earthen cellar under their house and one of the greatest treats for my sisters and me when we were little was getting to unlatch that door, clamber carefully down the wooden steps, and run about in that cool, dark, mysterious space. At the bottom of the steps was a set of shelves filled with preserves of every variety imaginable, including a lovely pickled watermelon rind which must have been Grammie's specialty. I like to imagine that had I the time and space - not to mention the garden - I'd be pickling beets and watermelon rind for my own household stores! Anyway, my 1945 menu originally suggested that the Beet Pickle be suspended with celery in a lemon gelatin. I skipped the gelatin (as I'm sure you could've guessed), combined the diced Beet Pickle with diced celery, and served it on a bed of greens with a dollop of mayonnaise.



I'm not sure which room I was least looking forward to adding to my housekeeping routine in the beginning, but the bathroom placed in the Top Two. It's funny, because it's actually the smallest room in the house. You'd think it'd be a breeze. I absolutely dreaded having to clean the tub and the toilet regularly. Well, I've been doing that week in and week out for about a month now and I've got something to confess...

It's not that bad.

It helps me to break it into pieces and focus on one part of the tub and shower surround at a time - the end wall, the side wall, the shower wall, the tub. Lather, scrub, rinse. Lather, scrub, rinse. Top to bottom. Top to bottom. The tub is just a free-for-all with my trusty Comet, a scrub brush, and some piping hot water. I have a special scrubby sponge dedicated just to the bathroom. When it comes to the toilet, that's where those modern antibacterial wipes come in handy. They used to be my one and only tool when it came to housekeeping - *hanging my head in shame* --- the only thing I use them for now is for cleaning the outside of the toilet and the seat. Heck, even The Manual instructs its readers to have a cloth reserved for nothing more than cleaning the toilet. I think I'll add antibacterial wipes (for use on the toilet) to my small list of modern innovations that are worth their salt.

Did you ever see The Farmer's Wife? It's an amazing documentary about a struggling Nebraska farm family that aired on Frontline in 1998. An example of the very best that television has to offer... Well, there's a scene where Juanita Buschkoetter - farmer's wife and mother of three - is hard at work on her off-farm job. She cleans houses on a part-time basis. She's bending over and cleaning the toilet in this home so much bigger and nicer than her own and she says to the cameraman, "I don't mind cleaning houses, but I hate cleaning other people's toilets." I think of that scene every time I'm cleaning my own toilet and feel grateful in an instant that it's mine and not somebody else's. Juanita would have considered it a lucky break indeed to be able just to keep her own bathroom clean... If you've never seen this film, it's the kind of life-altering television you'll never forget. Netflix it immediatement.

Symphony

One of the blessings of having turned off my television is getting to listen to something a little different - the sounds of home. Surely, I must've heard these sounds before, but I guess I never really listened to them...

Like the snap of a clean towel when you're folding laundry. I love to give my towels and washcloths a sharp, precise shake before folding them, just to shake any last wrinkles out before they're folded and tucked away in the linen closet.

And the cheery sound of voices when I turn on my radio in the morning. I usually turn it on as I'm heading into the kitchen to get breakfast started. And whether the news is good or bad, the voices are welcome companionship after a long, quiet night with nothing but the air conditioner to interrupt the calm.

Like the tap-tap-tapping of an egg in a covered pan as it bubbles away for my breakfast. And the ticking of my Toastmaster, growing ever faster as the toast gets closer to the finish. Happy sounds indeed after a long snack-less night!

I love the sound of hissing steam as my iron heats up on Tuesday nights... It's a promising sound - one that betokens a closet soon replenished with smooth, neatly pressed garments.

On Thursday evenings, it's a "Whap! Whap! Whap!" outdoors on the landing when - after airing my bed covers and pillows for an hour - I give the pillows a good shake and smack them against each other a few times. Just to get the dust out. (Though it's handy, too, in working out any workaday frustrations.)

I'd forgotten what a satisfying task snapping string beans can be. And it makes another fantastic sound!

Mashed Potato Cakes
String Beans
Salad of Cottage Cheese Stuffed Prunes
Apple Brown Betty

It was all about comfort food for my vintage dinner last Sunday. Mashed Potato Cakes are a clever way to serve up leftovers. Add salt, pepper, and egg yolk to a dish of cold mashed potatoes. Form into patties, place a dab of margarine on top of each, and bake in a greased pan. Just long enough to brown the bottoms of the patties. The Cottage Cheese Stuffed Prunes made for a very rich salad - which would have been even richer if I'd laced it with French Dressing (as instructed by the recipe)! I've never eaten Apple Brown Betty before, so thought it might turn out something like an apple crisp. Not quite. Kind of like a soft apple crisp - without the crunch. Ruth Berolzheimer, the author of The American Woman's Cook Book (1945), must've been nuts about bread crumbs. They show up practically every week! I'm beginning to get suspicious now every time I see them. Hmmm... what kind of missing ingredient is she trying to cover up with bread crumbs this time?

Fluff Piece

Dear God in heaven, how could they have done this to food?

Bread Stuffing
Baked Acorn Squash
Salad of Grapefruit Sections and Avocado
Prune Whip

I don't like to just point and laugh (or gag) at vintage recipes, but Prune Whip --- I'm not sure how this qualifies as edible. I have issues with foamy, bubbly food to begin with - so I shouldn't even have gone there - but I wanted to know for myself what all the fuss was about. I'm only halfway thru my cookbook's vintage dinner menus, but some sort of fruit whip has already turned up twice for dessert. Come to think of it, folks seemed to be really into frothy, fluffy desserts in those days: chiffon pie, chiffon cake, fruit whip, meringue, apple snow. I wonder why...

It's not the prunes that were a problem for me, mind you. I've enjoyed those at the breakfast table all these months and I probably wouldn't have minded a dish of stewed prunes for dessert with last Sunday's vintage dinner. The first time I came across Apricot Whip as the suggested dessert, I skipped it entirely as I wasn't interested in eating uncooked egg whites. When I took a closer look at the recipe last weekend, I realized that you could bake the Whip and serve it warm. "Why not?" I thought. I've tried to approach this experiment with a sense of adventure.

Here's the picture: Stewed prunes, mashed into a puree. Egg white beaten until stiff, sugar folded in. Blend and bake. Top with nuts.

That's certainly one kind of motivation for passing on dessert. The small taste I had is still seared into my mind. Fortunately, my dinner last weekend wasn't a complete wash. There are about a dozen recipes for stuffing in The American Woman's Cook Book (1945) --- all but one made with bread crumbs, not the bread cubes we typically use for stuffing today. I tried one of the more basic bread-crumb recipes and used it to stuff the centers of my Baked Acorn Squash. Tasty, but I think I'd rather a heartier stuffing made from whole-grain bread. The salad was a classic '40s combination: grapefruit, avocado, romaine lettuce, and a vinaigrette dressing.

I'm looking ahead now to the menu for tomorrow's vintage dinner and prunes are once again on the menu. This time in the salad. Stay tuned!

Week Thirty-one: The Mission

Fitness
As I continue my transition to using the indoor walking track for my weekday workouts, I'm going to begin adding some muscle toning exercises to my daily routine. In the 1940s, they were called "limbering and stretching exercises" and recommended by beauty experts as an ideal supplement to a brisk daily walk. I've found a ton of these in vintage newspapers and magazines, but here are a few from a 1940 edition of the St. Maurice Valley [Quebec] Chronicle for use before and immediately after getting out of bed in the morning. I'll start with these:

1. Before you get out of bed in the morning, do this routine five times: stretch body out with arms out at sides. Lift both legs simultaneously as high as you can, even, if you can, over your head; then down again, slowly.

2. Here is a good stretching exercise that helps to develop the bust and improves the posture and figure generally: Stand with feet slightly apart, arms down at sides. Stretch arms in front up and over the head slowly as far as you can, without straining, then slowly return to original position. Repeat this several times.

3. To improve hips and waist and improve general line of figure: (A) Stand with feet slightly apart, abdomen in, seat well down, fingers interlaced and raised high over head, arms making a frame for the face. Keep face framed by arms throughout exercise, and body absolutely steady from waist down. (B) Swing forward till body and arms are horizontal. Swing body round to right side and travel upwards till arms are over head once more. (C) Turn to the left and swing the body round and down till body and arms are once again horizontal, as in B.

Reducing
In the spirit of reducing my calorie intake, I'm going to begin limiting the portion size of the prepared, pre-packaged foods I typically eat at dinner and for lunch on the weekends. One of these kinds of foods would usually make up my entire meal. Now, I know perfectly well that I can't go from 0 to 60 overnight, so I'm going to do this in steps. This week, I'll try to cut the portion size by a third --- where I would normally eat three pieces of frozen tomato/pesto/mozzarella pizza, I'm going to eat two. If I would normally have 3/4 of a bag of frozen mushroom fettucine, I'll make it 1/2 a bag. What I'm going to do at the same time - and this is equally important - is to fill up the rest of the plate with veggies. They don't have to be anything fancy or anything that requires much time or energy in the kitchen. Frozen or canned vegetables will do just fine for now. Something to try and trick my body into feeling just as full as it would have with that larger portion of the pre-packaged foods. If I can make a go of this, I'll cut the portion size of the pre-packaged foods by another third next week.

Grooming
My face has been powdered, my lips are painted... it's time to attend to my hair! Here's the next step in the 1946 morning grooming routine for young women:

Brush all the nighttime tangles from hair, and comb carefully into place, pinning securely.

In honor of the occasion, I betook myself to the salon this weekend. A rare event indeed for this reforming frump! I'm launching the mission with a new haircut and some freshly manicured eyebrows.

New Routines

Did you ever notice that as soon as people find out you're regularly walking, they come out of the woodwork to try and make you their walking buddy?

First, a co-worker asks me if she can match me up with a friend of hers who needs a walking buddy. Then another person I know through work tries to get me to commit to a walking relationship. I hope I don't come off as impolite, but I'd really rather walk by myself. Let's face it. Sometimes walking with another person can speed you up --- sometimes it can slow you down. The people I pass when I'm walking are almost always in pairs. And the last thing I want to do is to have to rush to the park to sit around and wait for somebody who might be late showing up - and then might show up toting a kid or two. Complete with strollers. I've got business to take care of!

I gathered up all my courage Monday evening and went into the rec center to purchase a membership and take my first indoor walk on the walking track. The rec center may be located just a few steps away from the park where I've been walking on the weekends --- but it's a whole new world in there! It's louder for starts. The walking track is built around a basketball court with racquetball courts nearby. There's lots of testosterone in the air as most of the people using the basketball court are young men in the 15-25 age range. I've only been there twice, but I'd say there's a more competitive feeling indoors than there is with the folks using the outdoor track. (It's actually the first time I've wanted to check my rear view in the mirror to see whether those new exercise pants are flattering or not!) The track is pretty small, so I can easily do 30 laps in a 60-minute walk. Thank goodness for that iPod. I'd perish without it! I'll still have a chance to walk outdoors one day a week. The rec center is closed on Sundays.

As for snacks, I'm doing remarkably better at the only-fruits-or-vegetables thing than I thought I would. Of course, it helps that nectarines are in season here. I picked up some beautiful, small nectarines last weekend at one of the natural foods stores. They've got a great selection of produce and I was in quest of some parsnips for my vintage dinner - but the nectarines caught my eye. Have you seen how big the fruits are in some of the supermarkets these days? They must be breeding super-sized fruits for super-sized customers. And bigger isn't always better. I'm a nectarine nut, so imagine my excitement when I saw these massive nectarines at the supermarket last summer. Ack! They were mealy and bland and never got to that lovely soft stage where the fruit just melts in your mouth. Anyway, I've been having one nectarine every day at about 3:00 in the afternoon. That's it for snacks. This weekend will probably be more challenging than my weekdays have been, but I'm feeling ready to face the enemy.

Here's the menu for my vintage dinner last Sunday:

Parsley Buttered Potatoes
Pan-fried Parsnips
Molded Salad of Cranberry Sauce (canned), Celery and Apples
Butterscotch Pudding with Nuts

I haven't had Parsnips in years. In fact, I remember being slightly traumatized the last time I ate them. It's been a long time, though, so I figured I ought to give them another shot. They have a spicy, celery-type scent as you're working with them, but once cooked they were pretty bland. Didn't taste like much of anything. What I've heard since then is that Parsnips are tastiest in the fall when they're fresh from the soil. Alas, my first attempt at a non-gelatin Molded Salad was a dismal failure. I tried just heating up a can of the jellied cranberry sauce, adding the celery and apples, and putting the concoction in the fridge to chill - but it never quite set. I'm going to track down some of the agar a couple of my readers mentioned and try that next time.

It's Thursday evening, which means that it's time to clean my bedroom. The first order of business will be the daily chores recommended by America's Housekeeping Book (1945). This will be my new weekly routine for the bedroom:

Open windows top and bottom for free circulation of air.

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.

Bring in cleaning equipment: carpet sweeper or vacuum cleaner (according to need), dust mop, dust cloth, damp cloth. Bring in fresh bed linens.

Turn mattress top to bottom one week, and end to end the next week. Make bed.

Dust high objects if necessary (mantels, high shelves, window frames and sills, tops of bookcases, etc.).

Dust radiators covers if necessary.

Brush upholstery if necessary. Straighten covers. Plump up pillows.

Dust furniture and low objects if necessary.

Dust exposed wood flooring with dust mop if necessary. Use carpet sweeper or vacuum cleaner on rugs or carpets.

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

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.

I'm kicking off my new monthly chores (recommended in 1945 as weekly chores) by making my bedroom the featured room this week. So here are the extra chores I'll also be doing in there tonight. Brushing walls is a whole new thing for me this week. More on that in another post...

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

Brush walls when necessary. Dust high mouldings, door frames, window shades and Venetian blinds when necessary. Brush draperies (or use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner). Dust mirrors, pictures, lighting fixtures, lamps, woodwork; wash any of these articles if necessary.

Dust radiators (covers and coils) or registers; clean thoroughly when necessary. Brush baseboard or use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner. Dust book shelves and books as necessary. Wash windows when necessary.

Remove cushions from upholstered furniture. Use brush attachment of vacuum cleaner on furniture (getting into all crevices) and cushions. Replace cushions.

Rub wood surfaces of furniture to polish; apply wax or polish when necessary. Polish metal hardware if necessary. Wash glass table tops.

Use vacuum cleaner for cleaning of rugs and carpets.

The evening is short and I've got a bed to strip. Time to shed my dress and get to work!

Meal Plan

Raise your hand if you know how easy it is to make homemade Scalloped Potatoes...

Scalloped Potatoes
Buttered Beets
Carrot Strips
Baked Apple Stuffed with Dates

I was completely caught off-guard when I started preparing my vintage dinner last Sunday evening. I thought Scalloped Potatoes would be one of the tougher potato recipes in my cookbook. Wrong! It's one of the few potato dishes that don't involve having to boil or even parboil the potatoes beforehand. It took me maybe 15 minutes from start to finish, then the oven did the rest of the work. My mom's a wonderful cook, but the only Scalloped Potatoes we ever ate were the rubbery kind that came in a box.

And I think I've discovered the trick to Beets. Boil them in as large a pot as you can find in your cupboard. A five- or six-quart Dutch oven should do the job. Make sure you've got a lid for the pot that fits tightly and don't boil them at too high a temperature. If I don't do any one of these things, I'll end up with pink water stains all over my stovetop! The Baked Apple Stuffed with Dates was quite good, too. But what I love most about it was that I was able to make it in a single serving size. No leftover sweets hanging about this week.

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SCALLOPED POTATOES

6 medium-sized potatoes [I cut this recipe in thirds.]
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons butter
Milk

Pare raw potatoes and cut them into thin slices. Place in a baking dish a layer of the potato one inch deep, season with salt and pepper, sprinkle a portion of the flour over each layer, add a part of the butter in bits. Repeat and continue until required amount is used. It is best not to have more than two or three layers because of difficulty in cooking. Add milk until it can be seen between the slices of potato, cover and bake (350-400 degrees F.) until potatoes are tender with a fork (1 - 1 1/2 hours). Remove the cover during the last fifteen minutes to brown the top. Serve from the baking-dish.

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My transition to healthier snacks (fruits or veggies plus protein) is going pretty well. I'm measuring out the proper serving sizes for now, but hoping to be able just to eyeball them soon.

Hummus = 2 tablespoons
Low-fat Organic Cottage Cheese = 1/2 cup
Almonds = 25 nuts (This seems a bit much. I could probably do just fine with half that or less.)

The only thing that really frustrates me is that I keep forgetting to pack a snack so I can get that late afternoon pick-me-up while I'm still at work instead of being ravenous when I get home at 5:30. I've got to try and remember this tomorrow. Pack both lunch and snack. I'd rather eat a snack at 3:30 or so and not be in such a rush to eat something as soon as I get home.

One of the things I'm rapidly discovering about reducing is how important planning can be. A couple weeks ago, a friend asked me to lunch. I accepted - and then remembered my rule of thumb: "No eating anything I haven't purchased at the grocery store." Well, I did promise myself some exceptions for social occasions, but I had to do some planning so I could enjoy the experience without feeling guilty. I added 30 extra minutes to my walk the day before so I wouldn't miss out on my workout. And I also suggested we hit a restaurant where I knew I could get a yummy salad. This Friday, I'm meeting up with a group for drinks after work. I rarely drink sodas, so I think a diet soda would be treat enough for me. I may not be home 'til late, so maybe I'll check the menu ahead of time and find out if there's something resembling healthy which I might be able to consider dinner.

Here's an example of poor planning. I had promised to babysit my nieces one evening after work. It's tough to cook anything there for yourself with a toddler and baby to mind, so - without even thinking - I figured I'd "pick something up" on the way to their house. That afternoon, I suddenly remembered my then-new rule of thumb. Eek! What would I do? Well, I ended up stopping at a sub shop to pick up a veggie sandwich. It could've been worse, but it could've been better. Next time, I'll pack a dinner from home - something I can heat up quickly.

I'll wrap up this post - which somehow became entirely about food! - with a dilemma facing me for this weekend's vintage dinner. The salad course is a Molded Salad of Cranberry Sauce (canned), Chopped Celery and Apples. I never make molded salads as gelatin is an animal by-product, but do any of you know if it would be possible to mold something using the jellied cranberry sauce that's sold in the can? It certainly starts out molded... I was wondering if it'd be possible to fold the celery and apples into the jelly, then form it into some sort of shape. Any advice?

A Little Bit of Everything...

I'm still slogging away at the bathroom. Ran out of Comet partway through the job yesterday and decided to head on out and do my marketing, then finish the bathroom later. Sadly enough, now it's "later." The Comet has been replenished, I've had a good night's rest, my morning walk is finished. I'll patch off some breakfast and then get back to that miserable room.

My mantra while cleaning the bathroom this week: "It will never again be as hard to clean as it is today." "It will never again be as hard to clean as it is today." "It will never again be as hard to clean as it is today." That's true, I know. As grimy as it is right now, if I'm cleaning it every week - it will never again be anywhere near this bad. Each week, I'll get it even a little shinier. I'm holding on to that! More on bathroom cleaning in another post...

Alas, the coleus I adopted for a houseplant a couple months ago did not survive. It did okay as long as I was taking it outdoors to my landing on weekends. But once it started getting really hot, I worried about leaving it in the intense heat and kept it inside. The colors faded, it shed some leaves, and one day just crumpled up and died. *sigh* My grape ivy is doing well, although one side isn't very perky looking. (That's the side that doesn't even get much artificial light in the corner of the kitchen where I've kept it.) So out it goes! Maybe the fresh air and sunshine will do it some good. I don't want to lose the grape ivy, too!

A co-worker offered me some bell pepper plants last week. Determined to press on in my quest for some great plants about the house - inside and out - I brought home a tiny seedling and a more mature plant, both in pots. I think they might do okay on my landing, but I'll need to water them more often than the succulents. I also picked up a small sansevieria- commonly called a bowstring hemp in the 1940s - to fill the spot near my sink where the coleus used to sit.

Here's one of the things I'm really looking forward to after this interminable summer is over --- my parents will be in town for the winter! They've been doing the snowbird thing and spend a few months most winters at one of the resorts on the edge of the city. I can't claim to be the reason they're here - it's all about the grandbabies - but I love having them so close. And I can't wait to share these vintage dinners with them! (My mother, God bless her, oohs and aahs every time I tell her what I'm up to in the kitchen.) This was last weekend's 1945 dinner menu:

Boiled Rice
Buttered Beet Greens
Orange Salad
Cherry Batter Pudding

I think I've finally got this non-instant rice thing down pat --- now if I could just remember not to make so much. 1/2 cup dry rice is just enough for me + one serving of leftovers. I've always loved Beet Greens - fresh from Mom's garden with a splash of vinegar - yum! The instructions in my cookbook call for you to work with young beets and to chop the roots right up with the greens after they've been boiled. Unfortunately, my supermarket only carries a few raggedy ol' bunches of grown-up beets. So I chopped the tops off these beets - along with the greens - and used those in lieu of young beets. What's great is that the next dinner menu in my cookbook calls for beets, so I may be able to use what's left of 'em in my next homecooked meal.

The Orange Salad was very simple. Chopped orange segments on a bed of greens with a drizzle of viniagrette --- "French dressing" in '40s lingo. I made a substitution for the dessert course. The menu included a Bread Pudding made with Honey. After my last disastrous attempt at Bread Pudding, I just couldn't face it again this soon. So I picked out another recipe in the chapter on puddings and tried to find some way to use up the bottled cherries in my fridge. The Cherry Batter Pudding came out wonderfully - a light, fluffy cake over a layer of fruit - but, between the heat and my unexpected success on the scale Tuesday morning, I haven't had any desire to eat the rest! (Plus I read a horrifying bit of trivia in a magazine the other day. Did you know one cupcake can undo 115 minutes of walking?) I'm not thrilled about wasting food, but I think I should take this as a warning. If I'm going to continue making the desserts for my vintage dinners, I've got to cut the recipe down as small as I would the rice. And I need to invest in some containers for the freezer. There are some things you just can't wrap up in aluminum foil! Speaking of cutting recipes, do any of you know how to cut a one-egg recipe in half?

I've been listening to lots of vintage radio this week, including the second season of The Great Gildersleeve. The second season (1942-1943) is when the program really came into its own. Gildy got a job as Summerfield water commissioner. Leila Ransom, a flirtatious Southern widow, moved into the house next door and stole Gildy's heart. They became engaged and planned a wedding in June - just in time for the season finale and a wild turn of events on the wedding day! Richard LeGrand joined the cast during the second season as Mr. Peavey, the local druggist ("Well, now, I wouldn't say that.") and Floyd Munson, the local barber, pops up every time Gildy heads downtown for a shave. Marjorie got a war job over the winter and began dating a coworker, Ben. At season's end, Ben joined the Navy. Will Marge see other young men while Ben's away?

Kraft spent much of the second season promoting Pabst-Ett, a product that sounds a heck of a lot like Velveeta. Ads often combined a spot for the product with a public service announcement promoting things that might make marketing on the home front a little easier: menu planning, shopping early in the week, and shopping early in the day. Are you a menu maker? Do you find that planning your meals, say, a week in advance, makes feeding your family easier on the pocketbook - or easier on your waistline? Or do you prefer to stock up on the things you like and wait until mealtime to see what you're in the mood for eating?

"...one more glass to the good"

You know something I love about the 21st century? We've learned that you don't have to beat your vegetables into submission by boiling them to a pulp and smothering them in white sauce, bread crumbs, and cheese!

Parsley Potatoes
Baked Broccoli
Lettuce and Tomato Salad
Coconut Blanc Mange
Cherry Sauce

I guess the good thing about a dish like Baked Broccoli is that it makes a simpler broccoli recipe look absolutely lovely in comparison. There are so many lighter and more flavorful things you can do with an easygoing veggie like this one. The Parsley Potatoes were tasty as always. The Lettuce and Tomato Salad was a surprise! I had only glanced at the recipe before Sunday and didn't get a full picture of what was in store for me. Very Art Deco... like shiny, little, red domes on the salad plate...

**********

Lettuce and Tomato Salad

3 Tomatoes
Lettuce leaves
6 tablespoons French dressing

Scald the tomatoes, remove the skins and chill the tomatoes. Just before serving time, cut them in halves, crosswise, and place one piece, with the outside upward, on each serving-plate with one or two leaves of white, crisp lettuce underneath. Pour over each portion a tablespoon of French dressing.

**********

The Coconut Blanc Mange was, well, meh. Kind of a soft, bland pudding with the coconut doing must of the job at holding it all together. It might've been a little better if made with whole milk. Or maybe a dash of coconut extract. My Cherry Sauce was a miserable failure. It never really thickened and the ingredients didn't meld. Well, it's probably for the best that I'm not discovering fabulous new desserts these days!

Today marks the second day of my new water regime. I set the goal for this mission at eight 8-ounce glasses per day as that seems to be the gold standard when it comes to H2O. Apparently, that rule of thumb has been around for awhile. Dr. Walter H. Eddy, a professor of physiological chemistry, was interviewed for a newspaper article in July 1940 and advised that adults drink two quarts of water per day to maintain optimum health. What do you know, two quarts = 64 ounces!

After using a measuring cup marked with ounces to determine how much water the various glasses in my cabinet held, I figure I was probably drinking about 40 ounces per day before this mission. I downed 64 ounces yesterday without much difficulty, but I'm not there yet today and the day is short. I think I've just got to remind myself --- when I'm thirsty, reach for water first.

The Evening Independent's Alicia Hart weighed in on this very topic in December 1943:

Few of us ever drink the eight glasses of water a day which are recommended for health and a clear complexion. Maybe it's the idea of eight glasses all together that appalls us. But properly spaced throughout the day, eight glasses are not as many as you imagine.

For instance, petal-skinned film star Gene Tierney, who has just kept a date with the stork but will be back at the studios very shortly, makes a habit of having a tall glass of warm water with a half lemon squeezed in it before breakfast each morning.

If you like, add a teaspoonful of mineral honey - clover or alfalfa - to make it more palatable. It's a marvelous morning pick-up and a boon to clearer, smoother complexions.

And when you feel hungry in the middle of the day, yet you know very well that you ate a substantial enough lunch, drink a tumbler of water. It'll fill the void and you'll be just one more glass to the good.

Also, if you've been trying to lose weight, drink a glass before lunch or dinner and you won't want to eat so much. No, actually, eight glasses a day aren't too hard to take at all.

A Minute on the Lips...

Last night's vintage dinner was a super spicy one - from garlic to cloves, I worked that spice rack like never before! All in all, though, it was very good. I'm actually looking forward to the leftovers. Here's the menu, straight from 1945:

Lima-Bean Casserole

California Beets

Mixed Greens Salad (Iceberg, Romaine)

Honey Rice

The cookbook didn't include a recipe for the very casserole it was pushing in the menu section, but - quite by coincidence - I came across one in an article on reducing in the October 1945 issue of Good Housekeeping. A fortunate turn of events, because the casserole was really yummy. Filling and hearty and fairly easy to make --- though it took some planning.

**********

Lima-Bean Casserole

1 cup dried lima beans

3 1/2 cups cold water

1 cup chopped fresh or canned tomatoes

1/2 cup minced onion

1/2 cup diced celery

2 tablesp. brown sugar

2 1/2 teasp. salt

1/8 teasp. pepper

Pick over, then wash dried beans. Soak overnight in the cold water in a deep kettle. Then simmer in the same water, covered, over low heat, for 30 min.; drain; return 1 cup of this liquid to beans. Add remaining ingredients; pour into a greased 1 1/2-qt. casserole. Cover; then bake in a slow oven of 300 degrees F. for 2 hrs., or until beans are tender, removing the cover during the last 30 min. Serves 4.

**********

I substituted garlic here as I'm not a big onion person, but wanted something with equally big flavor. I put the beans on too high a heat during their initial simmer and wish I'd taken my time on this step and let them build to a simmer on a medium heat. The California Beets were a sort of sweet and spicy "pickled" side dish. Small, whole beets - I used canned beets in a nod to commercially-prepared foods - heated in sauce of margarine, lemon juice, cloves, sugar, and pepper. They actually went very nicely with the basic green salad.

The big surprise in last night's menu was the dessert. I had no idea what to expect as I read through the recipe for Honey Rice. Would it turn out like a rice pudding? Nope, no milk or eggs... You should've seen my face as I prepared this dish. I was absolutely sure by the time it was 2/3 done that I wouldn't be able to eat it! What do you know - it wasn't just edible, it was good. Tasted a little like a macaroon or the inside of some delicious chocolate candy. Both the California Beets and Honey Rice are recipes from the special wartime cookery chapter appended to the back of the cookbook. Note: The Honey Rice was very rich. You'll only need a small serving! I cut this recipe in half.

**********

Honey Rice

1 cup uncooked rice (I used brown basmati rice)

3/4 cup honey

1/2 cup raisins

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup chopped nuts

Cinnamon

Wash rice thoroughly and cook in boiling salted water until tender. Drain. Heat honey in a heavy pan, add rice and raisins and cook about 5 minutes. Pour mixture into a well-buttered shallow baking dish and dot with butter. Bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) until golden brown [mine took about 20 minutes]. Remove from oven and stir in lemon juice and vanilla. Sprinkle with chopped nuts and cinnamon. Serves 8.

**********

All this talk of food reminds me of a question that came to mind as I was powdering my face this morning. When and where was it proper for women in the '40s to touch up their makeup? I know my dusting of face powder doesn't last out the day, and we've all experienced the need to make a visit to the powder room to touch up our lipstick after a meal - or, in my case, Chapstick! I'd better see what Lily Haxworth Wallace has to say...

It seems useless, and I suppose it is, to tell the girls today that they should not make up in public. That is a duty which should be performed in the privacy of their boudoir or in the semi-privacy of dressing rooms. A girl would be outraged if her escort took out his pocket comb and nail file, smoothing his hair and manicuring his nails at table in a restaurant. However, she does much the same when she ostentatiously applies powder, lipstick, and rouge in the same place. However, some of the persons in the most fashionable sets are guilty of this rudeness - a fact which in no way makes it right. (The New American Etiquette, 1941)

Sounds like she's convinced she's fighting a losing battle. (Oh, dear, what would she have thought of today's women?) Mrs. Wallace also reminds the working girl that "make-up of any kind" should NEVER be applied at any time on the job except when she's in the rest room. Armed with the best vintage advice, I think I'll tuck my new face powder in my purse and take it to work during the week for a little mid-day touch-up in the rest room.

Skin Care

Soap and water may have been okay for the teenage crowd, but 1940s beauty experts did have a few tricks up their sleeves for women looking for a little more in cleansing the face.

If you use a granular wash, such as beauty grains, you will find the skin tone clarified, and the texture improved. (The New American Etiquette, 1941)

An effective routine for the care of the war worker’s skin is frequent, thorough cleansing with warm water and a medicated soap. ("No Ration on Soap," St. Petersburg Times, 27 August 1943)

After cold water is used, an astringent should be applied with cotton, allowed to dry on. Cosmetic counters are full of them. ("To Improve Defects in Facial Skin," St. Petersburg Times, 28 February 1941)

I don't know yet if I'll take them up on any of this advice, but it's nice to know there are plenty of vintage options... The soap and water thing is probably not going to work in the long term for me - at least not just soap and water. I love the clean, but it leaves my face feeling a bit stingy even a couple hours later.

Could it be that I'm getting used to cooking dinner from scratch? For the first time since I started making the vintage dinners, I actually sat down at the table last night without feeling completely exhausted. Here's the menu:

Boiled Potatoes
Buttered Carrots
French Fruit Salad
Gingerbread Square

The Boiled Potatoes and Buttered Carrots are pretty self-explanatory. The Gingerbread was a wartime recipe - made without any sugar or eggs. It was easy to make and yummy fresh from the oven. (No nudges necessary to eat those leftovers!) The superstar of this menu was definitely the French Fruit Salad. The original menu calls for a Jellied Fruit Salad made with the leftover orange, pineapple, and banana from the previous menu (see last weekend). I don't eat gelatin as it's an animal by-product, so I paged through the chapter on salads looking for something I could make using the same fruits. Here's the recipe that caught my attention:

*****

FRENCH FRUIT SALAD

1 orange
1 banana
1/2 pound Malaga grapes
1 dozen walnuts
Lettuce
French dressing

Peel the orange and cut the sections from the membrane with a sharp knife or a pair of shears. If the fruit is allowed to stand in cold water after peeling, the bitter white membrance will come off easily.

Peel the banana and cut in quarter-inch slices. Remove the skins and seeds from the grapes. Break walnuts into small pieces, but do not chop. Mix these ingredients thoroughly and place on ice. Serve on lettuce leaves with a French dressing.

*****

The trick is making the French dressing variation that's suggested for fruit salads. No garlic, no pepper, light on the mustard, paprika, and sugar, citrus juice substituted for half the vinegar. The orange, banana, grapes, and walnuts were a lovely combination. Alas, I couldn't find any Malaga grapes at the supermarket. (Malaga grapes are both red and white grapes originally cultivated in a region of southern Spain. By the '40s, they were a profitable California crop.) My grapes were Chilean. And, no, I didn't peel 'em. What's with the '40s phobia about fruit skins? They're peeling their tomatoes, peeling their grapes. It's perfectly good fiber! And I love the snap of a super fresh grape - skin intact.

Cabbage and Chenille

I did some marketing this evening, but before I start planning the next vintage dinner, I wanted to mention a couple more things about the last one. One of the tips I read online after making the Stuffed Cabbage Leaves is that it's easier to peel whole leaves from the head of cabbage if you blanch it first. The blanched leaves are also supposed to be easier to roll up with the stuffing inside. They don't tear like fresh, dry leaves. Now, of course, this tip might have been more helpful if I'd read up on Stuffed Cabbage Leaves before jumping right into the recipe, but maybe it can still help one or two of you in your cabbage endeavors...

Incidentally, this recipe was included in a chapter of the cookbook titled "French Cooking" - along with a whole mish-mash of recipes like Gnocchi and Eggplant Oriental. The author seems to be using the label "French" as a catch-all for anything European - or frankly anything non-American! Which must have been a great recommendation to some of her more adventurous readers. For 1940s Americans, France was still the capital of style and avant-garde sensibility.

When I was washing up some of Sunday's pots and pans, I spilled a ton of water on my countertop and my microwave did not appreciate it. All that water must have shorted something out, because I haven't been able to use it since. I may be able to get it repaired, but I've been toying around with the idea of not replacing the microwave if it can't be repaired cheaply. Do I really need one? The only thing it truly comes in handy for is reheating leftovers. If I'm mindful about any thawing I need to do and don't mind washing a few extra baking dishes, I might be able to make it without one. There's still a microwave a work for my weekday lunches. Hmmm... Getting that counterspace back would be killer. My microwave easily takes up 50% of my kitchen counter footage.

On a much more exciting note, I finally picked out a vintage chenille bedspread to replace the quilt I've had on my bed for ages. I bought it online, so won't get to see it in person for another few days, but this one has such a lovely homey charm to it. It probably dates to the '40s or '50s, but I don't know chenille well enough to date it any better than that. Are there any chenille aficionados out there? Here are some pictures from eBay. Though the background washes out in the picture, it's supposed to be a super pale green, with the darker leaves for contrast:

Couch Carrot

The last few days have been such busy ones and today I'm feeling kinda un-bloggy, but I thought I'd stop in while I wait for my iron to heat up and post an update.

The first week of my first vintage beauty mission ends tomorrow night and it's coming along successfully. I've done four of my five 30-minute walks allotted for the week. On Saturday afternoon, I went to a park about a 10-minute drive from my home to workout. We had some unusual rain that morning and it had ended a short time ago, so the park was dead. Usually there are people all over the track; this time, there were only four or five. It was a little creepy! I was nearing the end of my first lap when I heard some raggedy man's cough about 20 feet behind me. Immediately, my mind jumped to all kinds of terrible thoughts. You know the type: "He must be alone." "He's a murderous thug." "He's about to jump me." "Can I make it to my car on time?" "Oh, there's a car pulling into the lot. Wait! Wait, people!"

Of course, this does get me walking faster - and burning more calories. I made it back to my car, leapt inside, locked the doors... and looked up to see a very undaunting dad-ish fellow with a paunch walking by. All that adrenaline for nothing! So after a few minutes, I got back out and took on a second lap. And then a third. Halfway through the third, it started raining again. No sweat. I've got a hoodie. Three-quarters of the way through, the rain turned to hail. Hail! It was like the heavens opening up and throwing every possible excuse I could use to get out of exercising at me!!!

Excuses aside, I did walk for 37 minutes. Not counting the time I spent cowering in my car.

My vintage dinner menu on Sunday evening was pretty tasty. I wasn't feeling good, though, and didn't enjoy the process or the meal quite as much as usual. Here's the menu, straight from 1945:

Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

Tomato Sauce

Buttered Peas

Carrot Sticks

Baked Caramel Custard

The Cabbage Leaves were stuffed with a mixture of sauteed chopped cabbage, onions, parsley, bread crumbs, and spices (yep, that's all the recipe told me - "spices"!). The cookbook instructed me to garnish them with Tomato Sauce, but I was dying to throw them in the oven just at the end with tomato sauce and parmesan. Those are my modern tastebuds wanting to dress things up in a way that might not have been pleasing to the 1940s palate. These dishes I've been cooking have been fairly - well, I'm not sure how to characterize them. I started to say "bland," but that's not exactly right. The flavors have been very true to life. Not a whole lot of fusion goin' on. Then again, maybe it's just that they're missing all the MSG I'm probably injesting in my modern prepared foods every other night of the week!

It's been ages since I shelled peas, but it came back to me pretty quickly. And, boy, do they taste world's apart from their canned cousins. The Carrot Sticks were a nice break from the weekly salads, and the Baked Caramel Custard was delicious. My big mistake was not in the kitchen. I was feeling so crummy by the time dinner was ready that I curled up in the living room and turned on the TV while I ate. What a change for the worse! I can't remember more than a few bites of what I ate. It's as if television completely short-circuited the connection between my meal and my mind. There wasn't that sense of rest or thankfulness that I'm accustomed to when I've sat down at the kitchen table for one of these vintage dinners. Before I realized it, my plate was empty. And that's with a sour stomach! Strangely enough, my manners changed, too. I caught myself at one point shoveling a piece of Stuffed Cabbage into my mouth with the end of a Carrot Stick - without really tasting either. Gee, I wonder how I gained all this weight?

Potato-rama

Boy, am I tired of potatoes!

Potatoes were clearly a staple in the 1940s diet. Every one of these 1945 dinner menus consists of five courses (besides the meat, which I'm skipping since I'm a vegetarian):

1) Starchy vegetable (potatoes, sometimes rice)

2) Hot vegetable (cabbage, carrots, beets, peas, etc.)

3) Cold vegetable/fruit salad

4) Bread/rolls (which I'm skipping - way too many carbs in one meal!)

5) Dessert

I'm getting tired of the potatoes - and I'm only eating a vintage dinner once a week. Imagine what it would have been like to eat them in one form or another every night! Not only must the taste of them have gotten tiresome, but all the prep. Every night, Mother would find herself scrubbing and peeling potatoes. She'd probably have a pot in which she never cooked anything but potatoes! I guess you'd just have to get very creative with them, which could explain with my cookbook contains more than 30 potato recipes. Tonight's dish was definitely one of the simpler of the bunch:

Mashed Potatoes

Boiled Cabbage

Tomato and Lettuce Salad

Brownie a la Mode

I've never cooked with cabbage on my own before. But it was simple to prep, a quick boil, and blended nicely with the potatoes. One thing I've noticed in the cookbook is that the vegetables are always seasoned by the cook. They're buttered, salted, and peppered before being brought to the table. Did seasonings and condiments even make it to the dinner table in those days, or were they strictly for use in the kitchen?

Here's something funny... The cookbook instructed me to scald the tomatoes in order to remove the skin and chill them until it was time to assemble the salad. How unusual! I know that people canning their own tomato sauce often peel them beforehand, but I'd never imagined it being done for a salad. I guess I always thought the crisp snap of the skin was part of the allure. The recipe for this particular salad called for me to add capers to the French Dressing.

The Brownie recipe made a good ol' fashioned Brownie with a soft, milk chocolate flavor and lots of pecans.

*****

BROWNIES

1/2 cup sifted cake flour

Dash salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons shortening

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons strained honey

2 tablespoons corn sirup

1 egg, beaten

1 ounce (square) chocolate, melted

1 tablespoon hot water

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Cream shortening with sugar until fluffy. Add honey and sirup and continue creaming. Add egg and mix well. Add melted chocolate. Add dry ingredients, hot water and vanilla and blend well. Mix in pecans and spread mixture in 1 (8-inch) pan. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) about 20 minutes. Makes 36.

*****

There's the trick. That serving size is how so many women of the '40s were able to enjoy dessert every night and guard those hourglass figures. I tried dividing my batch of Brownies into 36 pieces and just couldn't do it! Even 16 pieces made very small Brownies. Brownies about the size our modern supermarket labels as bite-size!!! I topped my Brownie off with a small scoop of the banana nut ice cream leftover from last weekend.

Now if I could just master that French Dressing recipe...

Kitchen Chemistry Redux

I'm baking a batch of Yeast Cinnamon Rolls this evening for tomorrow's breakfast and decided to try the "sponge method" instead of the "straight dough method" I tried last time 'round - unsuccessfully. While I wait to see if the sponge is going to take, I've got lots to post about the weekend...

Friday marked the third week in a row that I've given my kitchen a thorough cleaning. It's hard work - takes me about three hours of good, honest elbow grease - but one thing I've noticed is that I'm finding new hiding places for dirt every week. I guess all those little cracks and niches stand out more now with all that cleanliness around 'em! So the kitchen is getting progressively cleaner every time. The manual recommends that housewives clean one cupboard or several drawers each time they clean the kitchen. By the time they've made their way through each of the kitchen cabinets, it's time to start at the first again. In my own home, the contents of my cupboards have kind of evolved hit or miss since the day I moved in here. I didn't really think through where I ought to store this or that when I started unpacking my belongings and brought home that first bag of groceries. Since I've begun scrubbing out my cupboards, I've collected all my baking ingredients in one place, all my cereals in one place, all my canned vegetables in one place, all my less-used dishes in one place. Things are slowly becoming more efficiently organized.

The thing about the kitchen cleaning that's still a nagging issue for me is that I can't seem to get it all done in one sitting. I can do about 2/3 of it and then I'm just exhausted --- so the rest gets done on Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon. I keep thinking that as I get better at this it'll take less and less time and soon I'll be able to do the whole thing at once, but maybe this is as fast as it's going to get. At any rate, I think I may have to make some adjustments to my routine if the kitchen thing can't be done completely on a weekday evening.

Drat - just checked the sponge. It's not taking. The dough should be all light and bubbly. Okay, I'm going to try that dough saver I used last time. Here's a link to the dough saver recipe:

http://destination1940.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-simple-luxury-it-is-to-make-bed.html

Something else that's vexing me is how much I hate messing up my sparkly clean kitchen by cooking in it afterwards! Just when I've finished cleaning it on Saturdays, I turn around and create a great mess of dishes on Sunday evenings. My countertops are messy, my stovetop spattered, and the sink is full of pots and pans. It doesn't take me all that long to clean it up, but it's never quite as clean as it was 24 hours ago. *sigh* I suppose that's a pain felt by every homemaker since time immemorial. A wonderfully clean kitchen is great to look at, but lasts about as long as the morning dew on a summer's day. A kitchen is one of those spaces, I guess, that just needs to be worked at continually to keep it clean.

Now my dough is finally rising. Thank goodness! I've tried to scrub away all traces of that first batch by running a load of dishes and cleaning the kitchen counters, but my table is still all floury. Can't clean that up yet - I've got more kneading to do.

I was reading an issue of Family Circle during my lunch hour today and found myself snorting out loud at some of their decorating suggestions. I guess they were trying to give some recession-friendly suggestions for perking up the look of your home, but they were the kind of things that make it blatantly clear that modern women's magazines don't have any real interest in improving the efficiency of your home. They don't even recognize that the kitchen is a working environment. To them, the kitchen has become a pretty little backdrop in which you can pour a glass of juice, but had better not even attempt to do any cooking. Oh, maybe you could open one of those tubes of refrigerated cookie dough and slice them neatly out onto a cookie sheet. Heck, you could probably even open up your takeout and divvy it up onto plates. But the kitchens in these magazines are not designed for a woman (or man) preparing three meals a day for a family. Never mind baking a big, messy batch of Cinnamon Rolls!

Tip That Annoys Me #1
"Choose a pretty table lamp for the kitchen counter. It's much more flattering than overhead lighting, and it makes the room more like a living space."

Excuse me - since when was a kitchen supposed to be a living space? It's probably the most intensely busy room in a household where people are actually eating meals they've cooked themselves and dining as a family. There's a photo next to this tip of a tall, stylish table lamp with a tall shade. I'm not sure how on earth you're supposed to get any work done in a room with mood lighting!

Tip That Annoys Me #2 --- here's a non-kitchen tip
"Remove all the pictures hanging above your mantel and lean them against the wall for a more contemporary look. Add a framed sketch or photo to the mix."

Yes, and that is going to make cleaning that room sooooooo much easier. Can you imagine the dust bunnies that'll cling to the bottoms of each of these pictures? And you couldn't possibly have any children or pets in a home like this. How is a person supposed to clean the floors? Artistic? Sure. Functional? Not a smidge. I think these magazines have forgotten that we still have to live in our homes. These tips are for people whose homes are sterile places. I would never had noticed this a few months ago, though.

Update on the Cinnamon Roll Dough: The second rising is done. I'm just waiting for my dishwasher to finish the drying step so I can open it up and get my rolling pin back!

My 1945 dinner menu was surprisingly good last night. Here's the menu:

French Fried Potatoes
Beets
Tossed Greens with Tomato
Chili Dressing
Banana Nut Ice Cream
Soft Molasses Cookies

The French Fried Potatoes came out remarkably good. I couldn't believe it myself! They were cut to the size of what we'd call steak fries today. Parboiled, then fried on the stovetop in a fair bit of canola oil. I was terrified of the hot oil --- especially after my disastrous attempt to fry Corn-meal Mush in January! But I dried out the potatoes as much as possible, held my breath, kept the lid on the pan, and let the oil do its thing. Didn't try to get in there and move the potatoes around with a spatula or anything. And it worked! They were hot and crispy and all soft and potatoe-y on the inside. I'm ridiculously proud of 'em. Canned Beets were much easier to work with than the whole beets, but not nearly as tasty. For the Chili Dressing, I ended up adding a tablespoon of bottled chili sauce to the French Dressing recipe. The balsamic vinegar pretty much neutralized the chili sauce, but there was a bit of a zing there.

My first two sheets of Cinnamon Rolls are now in the oven. It's up to my Kenmore to do the work now.

I didn't think I'd have any luck finding Banana Ice Cream, but there are several varieties for sale - Chunky Monkey, Banana Split Ice Cream, Banana Pudding Ice Cream --- I ended up going with Banana Nut as it seemed more basic than the others. The Soft Molasses Cookies were okay fresh out of the oven, but they're dreadful today. I didn't read all the tips on working with rolled cookie dough until it was too late. Apparently, it's easier to work with dough like that if it's been chilled for 10 minutes or so. Better luck next time!

I'll let you know tomorrow how the Cinnamon Rolls turned out...

Love Story

Remember how I said after making my first 1945 dinner menu how much better the food I prepared for myself tasted? Well, I think I'm gonna have to take that back. Two dinners later, I'm finding myself so tired from the workout in the kitchen that I can hardly taste my meal.

And it is such a workout. Balancing a great pot of potatoes as you carry them over to drain in the sink. Twisting about between the pots on your stovetop so you can lift the lid on one without injuring yourself with steam from another. Just working in all that heat is a challenge. I turned my air conditioning up and pulled my hair back simply to try and feel a little more cool. By the time I sat down to dinner, I was wiped - and almost not even hungry enough to enjoy the meal.

Whipped Potatoes

Buttered Beets

Tossed Greens Salad

Chiffonade Dressing

Chocolate Pudding

I suppose this is the same kind of curve anybody goes through as they're getting in shape. Toning the muscles, learning the moves... I have to remind myself that the most I've done in "making dinner" for years has been: Open box. Heat in oven. This is a whole new world for me, and it's going to take some time. I hope! It really makes me wonder what dinner was like for Mother back in the '40s. Could she really enjoy a meal as much as might her husband and children when she had worked sooooooooo hard to plan it, shop it, and prepare it?

The 1940s seem to have been an era when home-cooked and commercially prepared foods both found a home at the dinner table. I'm trying to keep that tradition myself, including at least one item that's somewhat ready-to-eat. Last week: Canned Green Beans. This week: boxed Chocolate Pudding mix. These items were both readily available to most American households and - for a "bachelor girl" like myself - would have been particularly important. What a blessing they must have seemed to a busy '40s housewife! Even one course - made one or two steps easier --- what a gift. We see prepared foods today with such an overlay of their nutritional dangers. The MSG, the sodium, the preservatives and additives, the trans-saturated fats. It's hard to remember how wonderful they must once have seemed. And in their infancy, prepared foods weren't quite as chock full of the not-so-good stuff as they are today. They were still relatively basic, but what a help to knock even a quarter-hour off the time it took to prepare dinner...

Another miracle - the dishwasher. This was an appliance available only in the '40s to those with some serious cash. As hard as you work towards preparing a meal - and as nice as it would be to relax at the table and enjoy your meal - the dirty pots and pans and cooking utensils can absolutely haunt you! In my case, it was the red water from my pot of beets that had splattered all over my nice, clean stovetop. All I could think about was how nice it had been to see my reflection in my stovetop the day before. Would the beet juice stain? What about the cutting board? Would it be forever pink? There was still some milk left in a saucepan since I'd overestimated how much I needed for the Whipped Potatoes. Would it stick terribly to the pan?

Having worked so hard over this meal, it was great to scrape and rinse and whisk those dishes out of sight. I used to think of my dishwasher as my archnemesis. It didn't seem to clean the dishes very thoroughly. There was always that nasty crumb tray to clean out. And I never understood the whole rinse/don't rinse debate. "Of course you don't rinse," I thought. "What good does it do to have a dishwasher if it's not going to do the job for you?" Well, I'm here to tell you... it's all about the rinse. Since I started rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher (per the manual), I've found that only an occasional dish or utensil has a bit of residue and needs to be soaked and re-washed. The crumb tray? I haven't had to clean it in weeks. 1940s housewives who were lucky enough to own a dishwasher must have cleaned 'em 'til they shone and kissed 'em when no one was looking!

Potatoes, Parsley, and Pears

What a night!

Potatoes Persillade (started out as Parsley Buttered Potatoes)

Canned Green Beans

Pear and Grape Salad

Corn-meal Muffins

Dinner made it to the table only about five minutes late this evening, but only because I realized after the last time that I grossly underestimate the time it takes to prep and cook things. I tried to wash things up as I went along - which works out great until the last ten minutes or so - and even had a chance to set the table this time. When I sat down earlier this afternoon to plan my preparations, I felt a bit like a military tactician plotting out the action minute-by-minute.

D-60: Wash and peel potatoes.

D-50: Start heating pot of potatoes in cold water.

D-25: Prepare corn-meal muffin batter.

D-20: Muffins in oven.

D-15: Begin preparing salad.

D-10: Start heating green beans.

D-5: Add potatoes to saucepan with melted margarine. Roll to coat with lemon juice and parsley.

Surprisingly enough, I pulled it off, and it all came together at just about the right time. Things still get pretty hairy right there at the end, though. I guess someday I'll be a wise, old housewife and a home-cooked dinner will be a piece of cake!

The Parsley Buttered Potatoes should be made with smallish potatoes. Well, small enough potatoes so that you can boil them in 40 minutes without having to cut them in pieces. The whole potatoes are easier to roll about in a saucepan to coat with garnishes. There was actually a non-budget conscious version of this recipe inside my cookbook called Potatoes Persillade. The only difference: fresh lemon juice. I happened to have a lemon in the house, so added a twist or two.

How can you go wrong with Canned Green Beans? I don't have a Corn Sticks pan, so I decided to make half a batch of Corn-meal Muffins instead. I tried to avert Next Day "Too Dry to Eat" Syndrome by freezing the leftovers right away, but check out these tips I found in a November 1945 issue of Better Homes and Gardens for just that problem. (I guess it's always been an issue for housewives!)

Second-Day Treats

Corn bread leftovers make elegant stuffing seasoned with celery and onion... Or take your choice of sage or thyme.

To serve leftover corn sticks, slice sticks in half, toast under the broiler.

Split corn bread squares, cut diagonally to make triangles, toast, and use under creamed foods.

I've saved the best for last: Pear and Grape Salad. My mouth dropped when I read the recipe for this dish the other night and I've been trying to imagine how I'd pull it off ever since:

*****

PEAR-GRAPE SALAD

Frost the curved surface of one-half pear with cream cheese, stud with one-half grapes and garnish with chicory and watercress, or other attractive greens.

*****

"How on earth would cream cheese stick to a pear?" I wondered. Well, it stuck. And the pear didn't have to be frosted all that prettily as the grape halves cover the surface anyway. I chose red seedless grapes and an Anjou pear. Couldn't find any chicory or watercress at the supermarket, so opted for a spring mix of baby greens and herbs instead. This made an absolutely darling salad! It looked like a giant raspberry resting on a bed of greens. And it was very easy to make - especially once I figured out that my melon baller came in handy for cleaning the core out of the pear. If I were to make this again, I'd definitely choose an overripe pear, so it's easy to cut through when you're trying to eat it, and 1/4 of a pear is actually enough for each person. If you were serving this to a family, you could lay the pear halves on a plate at the center of the table, then cut each one in half again before serving it to each person.

The taste was interesting. Sweet, creamy, and bitter --- but it dressed up the table so nicely. So decorative for a weekday family dinner! It made me think how the daily dinner truly was the '40s housewife's final "presentation" for the day. Her husband and children were gathered around the table for the first time since breakfast. This was her chance to show the family all the good she'd been able to do that day. An opportunity to show off her freshly laundered and ironed linens, her sparkling dishes, and food prepared even when the pantry contents were slim and she'd met shortages at the grocery. To share pickles, preserves, and canned goods prepared last summer.

"Of cabbages--and kings--"

The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--

Of cabbages--and kings--"

Lewis Carroll, 1872

The Saturday before last, I made the first of my 1945 dinner menus. The ordeal took me two hours of what felt like non-stop work, but I'm sure it'll take a little less time and energy both as I get more comfortable in the kitchen. The only thing I'm really disappointed about is that I completely lost my appetite the next day because I was sick and the leftovers went uneaten:

Steamed Rice
Buttered Carrots
Celery Cabbage Salad
Steamed Molasses Pudding

Mistake No. 1: My cookbook didn't have a recipe for Celery Cabbage Salad, so - envisioning a blend of chopped celery and cabbage with some sort of dressing - I picked up a bag of celery hearts and a bag of pre-shredded cabbage (they didn't have any head cabbage at the store I was shopping at that evening). As the big day drew near, I decided to try looking about online for a recipe for Celery Cabbage Salad and (wouldn't you know it!) I found a page right away on a website called Retro Food:

http://retro-food.com/2007/03/16/celery-cabbage-salad/

The hostess over at Retro Food imagined the same dish I did when she came across references to Celery Cabbage Salad. What we both didn't know was that there's actually a type of cabbage called celery cabbage, also called Napa cabbage or Chinese cabbage. She was able to find a recipe for a salad using this type of cabbage in Meta Given's Modern Family Cook Book, first published in 1942. It turns out to be just a dish of "wheel-like slices" of the cabbage drizzled with French Dressing (like our modern day Italian dressing) or Thousand Island Dressing.

Well, I was able to use the celery up in other ways, but still had a bag of cabbage to contend with. I decided to compromise by serving up a dish of shredded cabbage with a homemade French Dressing on top. It was good. Zesty! I've never made dressing from scratch before. Happily, this is something you can make a few hours in advance then refrigerate and shake up just before serving. Here's the recipe. Be careful: it makes lots of dressing. I cut this one in eighths.

*****

FRENCH DRESSING

1 clove garlic (optional)

1 cup vinegar

2 teaspoons dry mustard

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 cups salad oil

If using garlic, soak it in vinegar 1/2 hour before making the dressing. Mix dry ingredients together and place in a covered jar or bottle. Remove garlic from vinegar and add vinegar to dry ingredients. Pour on the oil slowly. Place in refrigerator until ready for use. Just before serving, shake vigorously for 2 minutes. Makes 3 cups dressing.

*****

The Buttered Carrots and Steamed Rice turned out really nicely. I tried to give this meal a little punch of health by making it brown basmati rice instead of white. Still, it was the first time I've ever made any rice that wasn't instant. The real thing takes a long time to be ready for the table! I've heard people rave about basmati rice and it's well deserved. It smells like buttered popcorn while you're cooking it - and tasted all buttery, too.

Mistake No. 2: I used way too big a mold for the Steamed Molasses Pudding. This was another instance where the cookbook which includes this dish on the menu doesn't actually have a recipe for it inside! (I can't figure that out.) I found lots of recipes online and chose one which was a favorite of somebody's granddad. The Pudding was good, but definitely not sweet. I bet this one was a wartime recipe. It called for a dark molasses and very little sugar. I think I'll try it next time with lighter molasses and additional sugar - oh, yes, and a smaller mold, too!

http://www.familycookbookproject.com/view_recipesite.asp?rid=557542&uid=6300&sid=14446

Whew! What a meal... I'm super glad that I was only cooking for an audience of one this time 'round. Especially when it wasn't ready for 30 minutes after the time I'd been planning it for. I tried to clean things up as I went along so that the kitchen wouldn't be a complete disaster by the time I served dinner. That's one of the downsides of not having a dining room. You can't leave the mess behind while you enjoy dinner in a calm, clean space.

Something I truly didn't expect was that I actually wanted to say grace. There was something unquanitifiably different about eating food that I'd worked so hard to buy and to prepare. I really wanted to take a minute and thank God for this meal. I usually feel like that if I'm eating with family, if it's the holidays - but on a regular, everyday, run-of-the-mill Saturday? Somethin' new. It was like I had a different relationship with this meal. It was harder fought, harder earned than something I'd taken out of plastic wrap and heated in the oven. All that said, though, I do recall waking up the next morning and groaning at the thought of having to cook breakfast. It's hard for me to imagine making homecooked meals for a family three times a day, seven days a week...