An Age-old Debate

One cosmetic issue just as hotly debated during the 1940s as it is today: whether or not to be gentle to your face when washing it. I find myself now - at 35 - being much more gentle with my face than I was in my early 20s. When all the world was my oyster and my skin would be beautiful forever... On the other hand, you do see all those infomercials with gorgeous women in towel turbans praising appliances meant to massage and stimulate your facial muscles. That's supposed to be the key to keeping a youthful skintone, so they say.

I'm not sure what to think, but it is a comfort knowing that my '40s counterpart probably would have been just as confused. Helen Follett, touched on the debate on the women's page of the St. Petersburg [Florida] Times during the early 1940s.

Never Be Afraid of Your Face

November 9, 1940

Don’t be afraid to give your complexion a thorough friction with soap and water. Some women clean their faces with little dabs as if the skin were something sacred, should be treated with the utmost gentleness. Friction tones the tissues, stimulates glandular activity and rouses up the blood streams which give good coloring to the flesh. Muscles and tiny fibers are exercised.

To Improve Defects in Facial Skin

February 28, 1941

Mirrors magnify complexion defects; let that be a consolation to the girl whose complexion is of coarse texture, pores large and falling into little dents. She longs for a fine-grained facial coat, and if she will be persistent she can improve the one that is so disappointing to her. She must avoid the use of hot water when washing her face, have the water just warm enough to form a suds. Friction is a help in skin toning and refining, so when rinsing away the suds she should use the palms of her hands, dashing the cold water first on her chin, working up over her forehead. A first-class face washing can be a pretty fair facial treatment. When drying the face, wrap the towel around the hands and do that same upward slapping.

Catchup

I can't believe it's been three days since my latest vintage dinner and I haven't posted the results! Yesterday was kind of a tough day. I was running late in the morning and ended up having to dish my oatmeal and pineapple into a mug and eat it when I got to work. (Not the most relaxing breakfast I've ever had!) I'd forgotten about some lunch plans and needed to get my five walks for the week in - so I went to the park after work. Which made me late getting home and feeling very unmotivated to do anything else. Yep, the routine took a hit yesterday, but I was back in the game when my alarm clock went off this morning. With a new resolution: No internet allowed in the a.m. on a weekday. I love getting online to find out what's going on in the world, but it's definitely a liability when it comes to time.

Here's the 1945 dinner menu I whipped up last Sunday evening:

Browned Potatoes

Asparagus Salad

Enriched Bread

Fresh Fruit Cup, Three

The Browned Potatoes are also called American Fried Potatoes in the cookbook. Potatoes parboiled, then cut in slices and fried on the stovetop in a "very little fat." I boiled mine for too long to start, so they were a little softer than I'd have liked - but still good. The Asparagus for the Salad was boiled, then chilled 'til cold. (Canned asparagus was suggested as an alternative.) The recipe instructed me to cut rings from a green pepper, place four stalks of asparagus through each ring, and serve on a bed of lettuce. The basic French Dressing recipe was dressed up this week with a squirt of Catchup, but it didn't make much of a difference in the taste. You know, I think if there's one thing I step away from when it comes to these menus, it'll be the dressing. I cut the recipe in eighths and still end up having to throw much of it away. I may go ahead and buy a bottled viniagrette that I can get some real use from.

Fresh Fruit Cup, Three was a real puzzle... I finally realized that the cookbook contains three recipes for Fresh Fruit Cup. The author must have been calling for the third version this evening. It was a tropical fruit salad - diced orange, diced pineapple, and sliced banana served in layers in a tall glass with coconut. The one step I'd do without next time? Pouring fruit juice over the whole affair before serving. I used orange juice thinking it'd go nicely with the fruit, but it just made the whole thing soggy.

My vintage dinners on Sunday evening have become a lovely kind of ritual. I still make lots of mistakes, but I guess that's the only way you can learn how to cook. The one thing I'm really proud of is that I've been making myself eat at least one serving of leftovers. (Those of you who have been following along know that I have some issues with leftovers!) I've found that if I nudge myself hard - and eat 'em before they're three days old - I can shelve those phobias about food spoilage.

Unlike my housework last night, my vintage beauty missions were not sacrificed to my mood. And the walks might be paying off. I could be imagining things, but I think I actually felt a little spring in my step today. Fancy that! It's as if my muscles are slowly waking up - fiber by fiber - and remembering what they're there for. I had this strange sensation just in walking around the office at work today. This feeling that I could go a little faster and a little farther. It's been just two weeks since I started exercising. That's only ten walks. If it feels like this at two weeks, can you imagine what it'll feel like at four weeks - and eight weeks?

"You're a Hard Man, McGee!"

Ahhh, Monday nights. One of the more relaxing evenings of my week. The only special task for me on Monday evenings is putting all my clean laundry away and prepping the clothes and linens that need ironing on Tuesday night. The living room gets a tidy up, anything soaking in the kitchen sink gets washed, and it's off to bed for a very good night's sleep.

I groaned when my alarm clock went off this morning, but - as I was toting all that dirty laundry downstairs to the laundry room - I found myself thinking of my great-grandmothers... Alice, widowed with seven children during the Depression and doing laundry with only a woodstove to heat her water. Margaret, the daughter of Irish immigrants, who proudly wears such a sparkling white apron in the only picture I've seen of her. How hard she must have worked to keep that apron so white! Agnes, a Canadian immigrant who roomed in a boarding house near the lumber camp where her husband was working. Did she have to do her wash in her landlady's kitchen? Addie, who did her washing for herself while "baching it" on a homestead claim on the plains of South Dakota. She must have scrubbed her clothes clean with water from a well.

All these women must have faced Monday mornings with trepidation. Wouldn't they would have been astounded to know how easy their great-granddaughter has it! All I have to do is tote the laundry basket up and down stairs, move two loads from washer to drier, and clean a lint trap or two. My great-grandmothers would probably have grown faint at the thought of the luxury Wash Day has become by 2009. It makes me feel very lucky. The only real sacrifice I have to make is waking up a little earlier than normal.

I treated myself this evening to one of my favorite vintage radio programs, The Great Gildersleeve. Have you ever heard this program? It's a wonderfully sweet comedy which made its premiere on NBC in August 1941. A spin-off of one of radio's best-rated programs, Fibber McGee and Molly. Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (played by the amazing Harold Peary) was a neighbor of the McGees and proprietor of Gildersleeve Girdle Works. In 1941, he moved from Wistful Vista to the city of Summerfield, where he became guardian to his niece and nephew, Marjorie and Leroy Forrester.

Gildy finds work as the Summerfield water commissioner and dates up every attractive lady in town. Though little Leroy never ages, we see Marjorie grow up, marry, and eventually become a mother before the series ended in the mid-1950s. (Marjorie was first played by one of radio's hardest working women, Lurene Tuttle.) Gildy continually butts heads with the local judge, though deep down they are fast friends. And the local pharmacist, Mr. Peavy, always steals the scene - and a roar from the audience. It's such a thrill to hear these programs delivered before a live audience! Kraft was the longest-running sponsor for the program and ran a number of popular promotions during the late '40s and early '50s.

http://www.otrcat.com/great-gildersleeve-p-1337.html

If you've never listened to any OTR, this is a wonderful place to start!

Beauty and the Bath

Have you ever noticed that food becomes much more interesting the minute you've barred yourself from snacking?

From the minute the clock struck 8:00 last night, I could think of nothing but the snacks I'd like to be eating. (Even though there are probably many nights when I'm not snacking at that hour!) And with a kitchen full of new groceries, there was plenty to tempt the palate. I ended up turning in early just to banish those awful cravings. Well, wouldn't you know, I managed to survive the night. For years, I've indulged every whim when it comes to eating, so to put even the slightest of boundaries on food feels harsh and twisting --- but I'm sure that feeling won't last forever.

I survived my walks as well. 35 minutes - that's three laps 'round the track at the park - on both Saturday and Sunday. I'm glad I broke out the baseball cap, because it was already a sunny 89 degrees by the time I got to the park this morning. I may give some thought to walking on the weekend before I eat my breakfast and do my morning chores. Maybe even before I shower for the day...

This evening's 1945 dinner menu:

Browned Potatoes
Asparagus Salad
Enriched Bread
Fresh Fruit Cup, Three

My first decision as I prepared to begin washing my face in the mornings? Whether to do it in the shower or in the sink. This would have been a moot point for most women in the 1940s as showers were just beginning to gain in popularity. The grooming routine does recommend that the face be washed in the evening after taking a bath. With that in mind - and in order to give my face the attention it deserves - I decided to wash my face in the sink after my morning shower. Besides, the skin's already been steamed. The pores are open. It should be an ideal time for cleansing. Next, I had to decide on a soap. I've been using a bar of Ivory soap scented with lavender in the shower. But my face has always been sensitive to fragranced things, so it was off to the drugstore to hunt up something mild and fragrance free. What a disappointment not to see almost any of the brands I'd been admiring in vintage magazines! No Lux, no Woodbury's, no Palmolive (at least not in the face soap aisle!) --- I ended up taking home some unscented Ivory.

The soap and water does make my face feel clean, but it also feels a little taut. I can't tell yet whether that's the soap itself or the toning effect of the cold water splashed on at the end. Judging from the articles in magazines and newspapers of the period, women in the '40s were also concerned then about the drying effect of soap. Beauty experts seem to have universally advised the daily use of cold cream to re-moisten the skin, but soap was still deemed the best cleanser available: "Nothing can cleanse the skin so satisfactorily as soap and water, leaving the face fresh and glowing." A warm water rinse was essential, though, as cold water wasn't thought to thoroughly remove soap residue. Check out this darling article I found in the women's column of the April 18, 1943 edition of the St. Petersburg Times:

Beauty and the Bath
by Betty Clarke

Dear Housewives:

There's no excuse girls for looking fagged out and weary when papa comes home from work! It's just as much your duty to give his eyes something to feast on as it is to have his dinner on the table.

Even though time seems to be on your rationed list now that you're cook, cleaning woman, laundress, and gardener yourself, you still must sandwich in a few minutes for nothing but beauty...

[The author goes on to extol all the merits of a late afternoon bath.]

While you're running the tub, you can do so much. First be sure to tuck your curls high on your head or they will get wet and stringy. Then take care of your complexion by lathering your face with a deep pore-cleansing soap delicately scented with lavender. The next step is skin lubrication - smooth on a night cream generously and let it soak in as you soak in the tub...

And now back to your face. Remove every speck of cream that hasn't been absorbed and dash on a refreshing skin lotion. Then, your make-up.

Do you remember last winter when I realized that I really ought to start wearing a bathrobe and slippers around my apartment in the morning? That streaking about in my nightclothes probably wasn't very vintage-minded? That's been a hard habit to break. Until yesterday. As I stepped out of the shower, dried myself off, ran a brush through my hair --- I found myself reaching for a bathrobe. I didn't want to stand there over the sink washing my hair and trying to keep a towel wrapped around me at the same time. I guess when you spend even a few extra minutes tending to yourself in the morning, that robe or housecoat really comes in handy.

Week Twenty-two: The Mission

There are few irreparably homely people and all of us owe a duty to ourselves and to everyone who sees us to be just as handsome as possible.

Lily Haxworth Wallace, The New American Etiquette (1941)

I still have some fiddling to do with my kitchen routine. I've been working at it for several weeks now, but it's become apparent that it's just too lengthy a job for a weekday evening after a long day at work - and there are chores still to be added! For whatever reason, the daily and weekly routines laid out in the manual don't attend to kitchen floors, small appliances, or the dining area --- so it's quite plain that my kitchen routine is only going to get longer.

With that in mind, I've been trying to come up with some solutions. There are several things I could try, and what I like to try first is just to move the weekly cleaning of the kitchen from Friday evenings to Saturday afternoons, when I'm fresher and have a little more energy than I do after a long day at the office. Pushing the kitchen routine forward also means I'm pushing the marketing forward from Saturday afternoons to Saturday evenings. Reason being that the manual recommends the refrigerator be thoroughly cleaned just before the housewife does the bulk of her weekly marketing. I was originally planning to give my bathroom its weekly cleaning on Saturday evenings, but I'm eventually going to shift this job to Friday evenings instead.

While I'm thrashing out some of these changes to the work I'm already doing, I'm going to launch another vintage beauty mission. Did I mention I lost 1 pound? Whoo-hoo!!! I weighed in this morning and was very happy to see the scale at 193. So I'm going to step my game up a notch. Here's the new mission for the week ahead:

Fitness
Walk 30 minutes a day, three times during the week.
Walk 35 minutes a day, both days during the weekend.

Diet
No snacking after 8:00 p.m.

Grooming
Here's the next step in the 1946 grooming routine. First thing in the morning - as soon as you get out of bed, go into the bathroom, and drink one big glass of water - you're to "carefully brush your teeth." Well, shoot! I already do that. Though I do wait 'til after breakfast. (Isn't it healthier to brush your teeth after a meal?) I guess I'll just jump forward to #3:

Wash face gently but thoroughly with a clean washcloth, a good mild soap, and plenty of warm water. Splash on cold to tone your skin - and open your eyes!

The exercise was most intimidating last week. This week, it's all about the diet. I was going to make this 7:00 p.m., but I don't want to be so draconian I set myself up for failure. So it's 8:00. For now...

One Foot in Front of the Other

I've always wished I could snap my fingers, find myself with the figure I'd like to have, and get on with life. There are more important things to think about, you know? That's impossible, of course, but that's never stopped me from wishing I could make it so... As I was walking today - had to get those 30 minutes in - it occurred to me that as nice as that kind of magic would be, it wouldn't equip me in any way to maintain the weight loss. I'd snap back to where I am now in no time. Just like with the housework. Even if I could magically have a spotless house overnight, I wouldn't be able to keep it clean if I hadn't learned how to keep house. There's no way around the learning process.

That's the thought that kept me putting one foot in front of the other today. My walks may be the long way 'round to a great figure, but for now 5 walks per week x 30 minutes = 150 minutes = the minimum weekly aerobic exercise recommended for a healthy adult (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans).

Once upon a time, walking was more a matter of daily function than it was a special kind of workout women needed to fit into their lives. I always think of the 1940s as an era when long rambles through the countryside or the park were popular weekend entertainment. Of course, walking was part of the workaday routine for just about everybody. Whenever possible, women walked to do their marketing, to pay a call on the next farm down the road, to make one appointment or another. If the distance was too far for city dwellers or suburbanites, they'd walk to a point where they could pick up a bus or streetcar. Cars were around, but they were used much more sparingly as the war continued. Many ended up on blocks when the last set of tires gave out and - for those with cars still in working order - gas rationing and the ban on pleasure driving must have made any kind of unnecessary automobile travel seem unpatriotic. Walking most places was a way of life, so a regular low-impact aerobic workout came along quite naturally with getting from point A to point B.

Living in a city with public transportation, there are certainly some very environmentally friendly ways that I could make less use of my car. My workplace is just a walk, bus ride, and walk away from home. The grocery store where I do my shopping on Wednesday evenings is just a short walk from where I live. My eye doctor and dentist, even my bank, are quite close to home as well. If I was ready to make some radical changes in that direction, walking could definitely serve a somewhat more functional role in my daily routine.

In practically every other place where I've lived as an adult, though, this wouldn't have been at all possible. This urban sprawl we've visited upon our landscape has left us so far from every place else we need to be that walking isn't even an option. Instead we commute. We drive great distances to work and to play, to shop and to worship --- even to get to a gym, a track, or a yoga studio where we can get the exercise that used to be a more functional part of our everyday lives. Full circle in a distorted kind of way.

So this is how I find myself here, in 2009, stretching to find ways to fit a walk into my life. Trying to find the thirty minutes needed to schedule a walk and planning a drive to the park in order to get some exercise on the weekends. I will do what has to be done in order to lose this weight, but it's appropriate, I think, to stop and reflect on how we've changed. (Maybe even to lay out some plans for the future.) How backwards this way of life would have seemed to my '40s counterpart! Going to such lengths just to walk.

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?

Look What I Found!

One of my tasks when cleaning the kitchen each week is to "clean out and wash 1 cupboard or several drawers in rotation weekly." So I set to work yesterday morning cleaning out the drawer beneath my silverware drawer. This is my catch-all drawer for small kitchen tools. I'm pulling all the tools out and laying them on the kitchen table so that I could get in there with a soapy sponge and clean the insides of the drawer. This isn't that big a drawer - or that deep - and it's not as if I own a ton of kitchen tools. In fact, there's a lot I've been making do without. What should I discover, but that I've owned several items all this time that I'd forgotten about:

1) Cheese slicer
2) Teaspoon
3) Coffee scoop

Here's the kicker --- last week's "discovery" was even stranger.

Somewhere during the last two years that I've been living in this apartment, I'd completely forgotten that I have a fourth kitchen drawer. Yep, that's right. I've been using drawers one, two, and three, but haven't even opened drawer four since moving in. I know I've been in there at least once, because there were a few restaurant ads inside that date to December 2006. Along with two Brita water filters. (I can't even remembering owning a Brita while I lived here!) How a gal could have become so dis-acquainted with her own kitchen, I'm sure I don't know...