Week Fifty-Nine: The Mission

Who keeps the budget? Some authorities say the man of the house should accept this responsibility. Other believe that the homemaker, who spends 85 cents out of every dollar, is the logical person to record expenditures. We believe that the choice should be made by the family, and that the one who takes most naturally to figures and records should keep the budget.

America's Housekeeping Book (1945)

I slept restlessly last night and woke early this morning wondering why my New Year was off to such a restless start. I've spent the last week recovering from a bad cold and - still feeling weak as a kitten - gave up my plans for a New Year's Eve out on the town with friends to spend the evening at home with a cup of herbal tea. I had a hard time falling asleep, though, and got up early this morning after tossing and turning all night long.

At first, I wondered if this was an ill omen for the year ahead, but now I think it's just a sign of a woman itching to get started. That's why I'm restless. It's been kind of a crummy autumn. Between changes at work, the lump in my breast, and my grandmother's death, it's been hard to get any real traction for awhile now. But they say bad things come in threes, right? Something about this new page on the calendar makes me feel like I've got a chance to gain some real momentum again in transforming my life.

After all, this is the first New Year in as long as I can remember that my resolutions do not involve radical new hoped-for changes in my lifestyle. This year, in 2010, my resolutions are continuations of progress I've already made in the last year: 1) I resolve to lose 26 more pounds - and continue making my body more strong and flexible. 2) I resolve to pay off my car, finish paying off the last of my credit cards - and continue paying down my student loans and building my savings. 3) I resolve to take better care of my skin, my hair, my nails, and my teeth - and continue taking better care of my insides, including regular self-breast exams! 4) I resolve to re-furnish and redecorate my apartment - and continue learning how to become a better housekeeper so that I can take care of my new things. 5) I resolve to date - and continue putting myself out there to make new friends and feel more settled here in this new city which has become my home.

Nope, nothing radically new this time 'round. I think it's a good sign that my New Year's resolutions for 2010 are all works in progress. And there's no time like this morning to get started. First order of business is a weigh-in. I've put off doing so for the last few days because my cold made me feel like I was retaining water, but that feeling has started to pass. My net damage for the holidays = 1 lb. I weighed in at 143 this morning. Well, I guess that's not too bad in the grand scheme of things --- but the season for indulging is over, so that's as far as I'm going to allow that damage to go. It's time to move that scale in the right direction again. And I know exactly what I need to do - and need not to do - in order to make that happen!

For centuries, a New Year's tradition for heads of families was to get the year off to a fresh start by settling accounts. Paying debts, entering new contracts with employees, and taking a hard look at the household's assets and liabilities. How better for me to begin my year than to do the same for my own small household... The authors of The Manual dedicated one of their earliest chapters to "Money Management." Before they even get started on housekeeping methods, laundering, or home decoration, they focus on one of the most important issues facing the 1940s housewife: how to make ends meet. That's no easy task during the Great Recession, but aren't we incredibly lucky we don't have rations, shortages, and skyrocketing postwar inflation to deal with? So many of our own financial troubles today are entirely under our own control - in our spending habits, our savings plans, and our lifestyles. Here's a rough "pattern" The Manual's authors set forth for the healthy household budget:

Rent (if heat is included) - *25 per cent of income

Rent (if heat must be supplied) - *20 per cent of income

(If you are buying your home, or already own it, the "rent" is the total of interest on mortgage, taxes, interest, upkeep and repairs which should not ordinarily exceed 1/8 to 1/10 of income. If payments on principal are included it may reach 1/4 to 1/5 of income.)

Clothes - 15 per cent of income

Operating expenses - 10-15 per cent of income

Food - 20-35 per cent of income (the smaller the income, the larger the percentage that must be spent for food)

Advancement - 15-20 per cent of income.

Savings (other than life insurance) - 10 per cent of income

Life insurance - the face of your policies should amount to 2 or more years' income

*Provided that in your community it is possible to provide safe shelter for your family for this amount.

If you're scratching your head about the category titled "Advancement," you're not alone! The Manual goes into further detail about each of these budget categories, and my mission for the week ahead is to share these details with you as I examine my own household budget. How does it compare to the pattern? How 'bout yours? Where can I make changes in my own spending habits to help speed my way toward the second of my New Year's resolutions?

A Happy New Year to you all! Wishing you each the greatest success with your own resolutions for 2010.

Dorothy Dix Says...

In a column which dates to January 31, 1940, a young wife and mother writes about the tug she feels between her duty to her husband and her duty to her child. Which duty wins out with Dorothy Dix?

Dear Dorothy Dix - I have been married eleven years and have one daughter. My husband makes a small salary and in order to help meet expenses I, too, work. After being away from my little girl all day I feel my place is at home with her at night. My husband, however, has friends who have poker games at their homes several times a week. These include drinking and much familiarity between the men and women, and my husband comes home from them between 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning drunk. These people insist that I, too, should play poker with them, visit beer joints and gambling houses, but I refuse to do so, not only on my own account, but because of the influence it would have on my little girl. Am I right in devoting myself to her and maintaining my own self-respect? Should I go with my husband or simply let him go his way and stick to mine?

W. B. C.

Answer - Stick to your own way. Your first duty to your child. You can do nothing to stop your husband. If he likes drinking and carousing and loose company your paling up with him would only encourage him in his evil ways. But you can do everything for your little girl by your example and teaching. You could not expect her to grow up into being a decent woman if she had both a father and mother who rolled home drunk from poker parties.

"How to Decorate Your Small Bath"

One of the lovely gifts that Santa left here when he called on his way back to the North Pole the other night is a set of bath linens for two in a shade that could probably best be described as a deep robin's egg blue. Happily, it matches the blue in my shower curtain to a tee. (Good job, Santa!) This is the first time in the three years that I've lived in this apartment that my bathroom has actually sported some hand towels. Let's hear it for meeting the very bottom-most standards of etiquette - no more asking my guests to dry their hands on a bath towel or wash cloth! So it's a start. And since I've been trapped at home nursing this cold for the last couple days I've had lots of time to look 'round and take stock of my bathroom decor. I clearly need some additional bath linens, but what more can I do to improve the look of my bathroom...

Where better to find some inspiration than the past? Here's an article called "How to Decorate Your Small Bath" which appeared in Wilmington, Delaware's Sunday Morning Star on September 5, 1948:

Small spaces require more care in their planning and decoration than large, and the bathroom is no exception to that rule.

Plenty of color may be fine in the rest of the home, but the bath should be kept simple and done in one or two carefully selected shades, says a Tile Council report.

Best idea, it suggests, is to plan the bathroom walls and floor as a background rather than as the dominant room element. Major color interest can come from towels, shower curtain and bath mat. A change of shade in these will give the effect of a redecorating job.

Gray-blues and blue-greens add to the apparent size of a room and are therefore particularly suited to the small bath. Red, red-orange and yellow-green are too intense and seem to hem in the room. Bathroom design can be kept simple by finishing the ceramic tile wainscot with a cap of the same color rather than black or a contrasting shade. This plan helps make the room appear larger and more restful, says the report.

Woodwork in the small bath should be painted the same color as the walls. If there is a window over the tub, its sill can be finished in the same color tile as the wainscot, thus fitting it into the color scheme and waterproofing it at the same time.

When two colors are used in the bath, the lighter should be for the walls and the darker for the floor. A dark floor seems more restful underfoot.

My bathroom at present is finished in three shades of what I like to call Apartment Beige. The paint on the walls and the tub/shower surround are finished in Apartment Beige No. 1 - a creamy, off-white color. The mottled beige vinyl flooring is accompanied by a vinyl toe kick in Apartment Beige No. 2 - a tan. The bathroom sink is laid in a countertop in Apartment Beige No. 3 - a grainy tan with a yellow undertone. (Those of you who have lived in rentals can probably relate to the feeling of being surrounded by beige!) There's not a whole lot I can do to remedy the beige situation, but it certainly works with the article's recommendation that I treat the bathroom walls and floor as a "background" rather than as a "dominant element." What woodwork there is in the bathroom is indeed painted the same beige as the walls, and the flooring is ever so slightly darker in color than the walls.



So I guess I'll need to rely on bath towels, shower curtain, and bath mat to supply my small bathroom with any "color interest." Popular towel colors during the 1940s were dusty rose, seafoam green, maize, wedgwood blue, coral, navy, white, yellow, peach, and jade green. Patterned towels were hot, as were striped towels, plaid towels, gingham towels, and towels finished with a different color hem. The towels Santa gave me are in just the kind of shade that is supposed to "add to the apparent size of a room" according to this article. My shower curtain is in good shape. It's an opaque white curtain covered with rows and rows of tiny ovals in robin's egg blue and pistachio green. (I have a small plastic wastebasket in that shade of green on the floor beside the sink.) If I could find more of these bath linens in the green shade or even in another contrasting color - maybe a raspberry or a rosy peach? --- all that's left would be a bathmat. I've avoided bathmats for years because they always seem to pick up every piece of hair or lint in the house, but it is awfully nice when I'm visiting someone else's house to step out of the shower onto a warm bathmat. Have any of you had luck with a particular type of bathmat that easy to keep vacuumed and hair-free?

I've also noticed that there are houseplants in most of the bathrooms featured in vintage ads. This may be just a whim of the part of the illustrator, but plants would probably give a bit of life to a bathroom without any windows. I'll have to find a variety that does well with humid air and no natural light. Any ideas?

Slow Boat to China

Keeping this blog makes it possible for me to go back and figure out that it's been ten months since I was last under the weather. So I guess I'm overdue. I woke up the day after Christmas with a sore-ish throat and things have gone downhill ever since.

Well, I'm glad at least that the germs held off until after the holiday. I needed every last minute this year. One of these years - when my home and life are more fully organized - that organization and structure is going to be reflected in my holiday preparations. I am determined that at some point in my life I will know what it feels like not to be a harried, last-minute Betty during the days before Christmas! I dream of being the kind of person who takes steps throughout the year to prepare for Christmas so she has the time during the holidays to really pause and enjoy the fun stuff. The little things that can't be done in advance... Maybe the work I do on myself in 2010 will bring me another long step closer to being that kind of person.



Our book club will be meeting just one week from tomorrow, so I'm going to use this downtime to get some reading done! When I'm reading something set in a place I've never visited before, I like to do a little digging to get a better idea of the setting for the story. At some point, your imagination has to take over --- but I've always liked getting my bearings. Have any of you ever visited this part of China?

Mother kept a boardinghouse in the least fashionable and, therefore, the cheapest corner of the British Concession, which is situated along the Hei-ho River. In appearance the concession is quite European, and the white people immediately feel at home in its broad, well-paved, tree-bordered streets, among buildings of modern architecture. Yet, at intervals, one comes to high gray walls intersecting the row of buildings - a Chinese abode, belonging to some rich citizen, which towers like a fortress over the rest of the street... The farther one gets from the center of the concession the less English it seems; for the people of other nations are massed on its borders under the protection of the mighty British Empire. Often these folk cannot afford separate houses, and are obliged to live crowded in boardinghouses. The Family kept one such establishment on Long Street, Number 11, which scarcely paid, so each one of the Family tried to contribute his mite to the expenses.

Nina Fedorova's The Family (1940) is set in Tientsin, China when the scene opens in May 1937. Tientsin - today known as Tianjin - is a walled port city on the Peiho and Haihe rivers. Located at the head of navigation on these rivers, Tientsin was also the hub of several rail lines and a major canal. It was one of five Chinese cities declared an "open trading port" during the mid-19th century. Several powerful nations leased districts in Tientsin that were populated by merchants, bankers, diplomatic officials, and missionaries: Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia. The presence of these "concessions" lent an exotic architectural flavor to the city. Somebody touring the city might come away with a feeling they had just visited a world's fair! The 992-acre British Concession - located about two miles from old Tientsin - included Victoria Park, the Astor House Hotel, Gordon Hall (the seat of the British consul), and all of Tientsin's major banks. By 1928, some 2,045 "foreigners" and more than 33,000 Chinese called the British Concession home.

How the Housewife Stole Christmas

My inner vintage housewife went toe to toe with my former self two days ago in the kitchen.

You see, my ol' reliable holiday gift for coworkers has always been quick breads. Wrapped with the most festive of trimmings, but always baked from a mix. I guess I just never trusted myself to bake anything better! Last year, I found a gingerbread mix that I really liked the looks of and it seemed to get good reviews from the folks I gave it to --- so as the holidays rolled 'round again this year, I thought I was all set. I stocked up on several boxes of the same mix along with the right size tins and an extra box of eggs. Even found a mix for spiced apple bread made by the same manufacturer, so picked up a couple boxes of that as well.

My first batch of breads on Sunday evening came out looking - and smelling - just as good as they usually do. I wrapped 'em up and handed 'em out. Not feeling a lick of guilt that they weren't homemade. I'd never have confessed the truth to the people I gave them to, but then again they never asked.

Monday evening, I went back to work on a second batch of breads. This time, I was curious. The gingerbread was yummy. The spiced apple bread --- well, it was okay, but nothing to write home about. Kind of dry, actually. And there was no mistaking from the texture that this was not homemade. I couldn't give any more of these spiced apple breads away! And just then - standing in the middle of my kitchen with all the remnants of "baking" surrounding me - my inner vintage housewife took over. Do you know the scene in How the Grinch Stole Christmas where the Grinch's heart grows three sizes at once? That was my inner vintage housewife three nights ago, coaching me through this domestic crisis.

"You can do better than this," she told me. "Come on. Think back. You've baked some great things over the past year. The Dried Apricot Cake, the Blueberry Pudding. You know how to do this." I leafed through my vintage cookbooks, looking for just the right recipe. The breads needed to be ready on Tuesday, so I was restricted to just the ingredients I had in the house. This in and of itself would have meant disaster one year ago when I didn't have anything in the house! This year, my pantry was stocked with all the baking essentials and my fridge was full of fruit. I finally settled on the Blueberry Pudding recipe from The American Woman's Cook Book (1941). It's a Cottage Pudding - cake, really - with fresh blueberries in the batter. (I added a streusel topping.) I washed up the dishes I'd need to bake with in the morning and went to bed.

Early Tuesday morning, the battle began. Adrenaline was coursing through my body as I sifted the dry ingredients, creamed the shortening and sugar, measured out the vanilla, and washed the berries. Was I actually going to give people something I'd baked from scratch? Better make enough to sample it before I gave any of it away. I petitioned the Range Gods for mercy: "Oven, don't fail me now." Much to my surprise - but probably not to my inner vintage housewife's --- the Blueberry Puddings were ready in plenty of time. And tasted very good if I do say so myself! I felt an unusual sense of pride as I gave this batch of goodies away. Even tried to homemade up the gingerbreads by adding some cinnamon icing I whipped together while the Puddings were in the oven.

If y'all could sit down and visit with me this afternoon, I'd cut you a slice. Merry Christmas, dear readers! Best wishes to you all for a wondrous, joyful holiday.

And the Grinch, with his Grinch feet ice cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling:
"How could it be so?
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
He puzzled and puzzed, till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before:
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store--
Maybe Christmas--perhaps--means a little bit more."

And what happened then--well, in Whoville they say
That the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day.
And then the true meaning of Christmas came through,
And the Grinch found the strength of ten Grinches--plus two.

And now that his heart didn't feel quite so tight,
He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light.
With a smile in his soul, he descended Mount Crumpet,
Cheerily blowing Who! Who! on his trumpet.

Dorothy Dix Says...

Gosh, this one sounds like it could've been written last week --- just change the names in Ms. Dix's response from "Johnny and Sally" to "Aiden and Madison." As a childless woman, I can certainly relate to the writer. This column was first printed on January 2, 1940.

DEAR DOROTHY DIX - About six months ago, a young woman with two small children moved into our neighborhood. She is very charming and my husband I have seen a great deal of her, but now trouble has come between us on account of her children. I have beautiful furniture and try to keep it as nice as possible, but when these youngsters come over they simply wreck everything in the house. I have asked their mother to restrain them, but she thinks I am a crank about such matters because I have no children of my own. When I told her that I didn't want her to bring the children over any more she quit speaking to us. This hurts me terribly and it must have hurt her, too, as she has no other friends. Other people have dropped her for the same reason I have.

HEART-SICK.

Answer - Many of us have had to choose between a cherished friend and her hoodlum children and our household goods. And it is no reflection on our taste and judgment that most of us choose our furniture and let the friend go. Because any woman who in a civilized country brings up her children to be savages without any regard for the rights and property of others, is lacking in all sense of justice, in all consideration for the feelings or comfort of others, of every quality that goes to the making of a lasting friendship.

No matter how delightful and charming a woman may be individually, if she lets her children play circus with the chairs whose needlepoint covers you spent years in making; if she lets them smash your china and glass and draw pictures with a pin on your mahogany tables, you naturally are not willing for her to bring her brigands into your house. You can't afford it.

Yet mothers seem to think that you won't mind having your place wrecked if their little Johnny and Sally did it. It is nothing but laziness that makes mothers let their children grow up without being trained to respect furniture and to handle delicate objects with care. And, little as mothers suspect it, they are judged by their children's manners - which is something for mothers to bear in mind.

51 + 1 = 52

There's another week - and another hard-earned pound - under my belt. (I should probably say out from under my belt!) I weighed in at 142 this morning, making a total weight loss of 52 lbs. since beginning my vintage fitness and reducing plan eight months ago.

A co-worker and I were looking at some pictures from old holiday parties the other day and I gasped aloud when I saw a picture of myself from the 2007 party. I was at my heaviest then (208 lbs.) and looked just as miserable as I remember feeling. My face in particular --- the skin looked as if it had stretched as far as it possibly could to contain all that flesh I'd packed under it. I'm paying today for all that trauma I put my skin through when I gained weight. There are stretch marks on my arms, my breasts, my legs, my belly. I wish I could exercise these away, but I'm afraid they're going to be permanent reminders of a very sad period in my life. A friend has suggested I try applying apricot kernel oil. That it won't make the stretch marks disappear entirely, but it may fade them a bit. I'll let you know how it works.

I've been reflecting a lot these days on my weight loss during the past year and wishing I had something profound to say about it. Something that would magically sum up all that I've learned. I'm not sure how profound any of this might be, but I'd like to try and put down some of the things I've been thinking about. If any bit of it sparks an idea or reflection that helps somebody reading this, it will have been worth every keystroke...

One of the things that has surprised me most about weight loss is how much of it is mental. True, there's plenty about this process that's physical. I'm reminded of that every time I drag myself to the park for a walk when I'd much rather be doing something else. Or when I'm dead tired and would like nothing better than to go to bed, but there are evening exercises that must be finished. Nevertheless, I'd say I've waged the better part of this battle with my brain. Reducing has been in many ways a mental exercise. I've devoted lots of space on my blog to writing about the physical exercises I do, so here - for a change - is what you might call my mental exercise routine.

1. The people working out nearby are not your enemy.
(1 rep per day for the first month)
The single most important thing that kept me from walking at the park before beginning this plan was my belief that the other people walking there would be thinking critical things about my weight, my appearance, or my pace. It blows my mind that I once let something so incredibly wrong - a figment of my imagination, really - keep me from improving my health and my life. There may be mean-spirited people wherever you go who think critical things of everyone around them, but they certainly aren't restricted to the park or gym where you work out. I very quickly came away from those early walks with a feeling of support instead. I met encouraging smiles from the people I walked by on the track --- and always felt such a spirit of camaraderie. We're all there for the same reason. We're all doing daily battle with the desire to sleep in or to lie on the sofa and watch a good movie instead of getting bundled up and going out in the cold to burn some calories. This is one mental exercise I no longer have to practice. Once I realized how wrong I'd been, I never looked back.

2. Invest in your health. (2 reps per week)
You could apply this exercise to the price of a gym membership if that's the best way for you to get a regular workout, but what I'm referring to here is the investment I make twice a week in fresh produce. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, I pack myself off to the grocery store to re-stock my kitchen shelves with every variety of fruit or vegetable that strikes my fancy. I used to feel guilty indulging in produce like this. It seems so much more expensive than some of the "diet food" or 100-calorie snacks you might pick up on aisles toward the center of the supermarket. But when you factor in what that produce does for your body in addition to being low in calories... No longer! I'm worth every penny. Fruit in particular is my constant indulgence. I allow myself to snack on fruit any time I like, so it's critical that there's always lots of variety at home. This rule of thumb applies to every kind of grocery I purchase. Whole grains may generally cost more than refined grains, for instance, but they're far more effective in providing the fiber your body is screaming out for --- and you just can't beat a great piece of toast made from a whole grain bread. (I can't imagine going back to white bread!) I indulge when it comes to the flours and cereals I keep about the house as well. As we speak, my pantry is stocked not only with white flour, but with buckwheat flour, wheat bran, graham flour, rolled oats, cornmeal, oat bran, and farina. With a good variety on hand, I'm much more likely to prepare the whole grain cereals and baked goods that get my day off to a good start and usually keep me from feeling hungry 'til lunchtime.

3. Tomorrow is not Day One. (repeat as necessary)
This is a biggie. It has been since the day I started and probably always will be. My diets used to look a lot like this: a) off to a great start, b) cheat, c) beat myself up about it, d) vow to start fresh tomorrow, and e) binge for the rest of the day since I'd screwed this day up anyway. Sound familiar? I still can't explain exactly what it was that allowed me to short this mental circuit, but I consciously took a different tack when I started this diet in April. Tomorrow can no longer be Day One. There is no starting over when it comes to life - and there's no starting over when it comes to my lifestyle. This lifestyle is going to be mine from here on out. If I cheat or if I indulge on a special occasion, the trick is in not calling the rest of the day "a wash." I can pick myself up at any moment and say: "Well, I wish I hadn't eaten that, but I can't go back and undo it. I can try and learn why I cheated in that particular way - and maybe avoid this mistake the next time 'round --- but I still have the power to save this day by using all the techniques I know until bedtime." I can't tell you how many of these conversations I've had with myself! I'll probably be doing this mental exercise for a long time, but it's made a huge difference.

4. Information is power. (1 rep per day)
It took me a few months to figure this one out, but a daily weigh-in has been such a help to me. Going seven days without knowing - really knowing - where I'm headed now seems like driving in the dark without any headlights. You have to get used to the rollercoaster that things like water retention might do to your results, but by and large the scale reliably reflects my behavior the day before. I might be able to relax in this area when I've lost all the weight I need to and I've shifted into maintenance mode, but while I'm actively trying to reduce this kind of daily feedback is critical. You'd be amazed how often thoughts of cheating can be put aside in the late evenings when I know I have to get on that scale in the morning!

5. You can live comfortably with the feeling of hunger. (repeat as necessary)
I'm still limbering up when it comes to this mental exercise... It used to be that the slightest sensation of hunger - or any kind of discomfort, mental or physical - would find me running to the kitchen to find something to stave off the pain. But there's a major difference between the sensation of hunger and actual hunger pains. One of the things I'm learning is that you have to learn how to live comfortably with the sensation of hunger in order to reduce your calories enough to lose weight. It feels good to me now to wake in the morning with actual hunger pains. I don't think I've allowed myself to feel what an empty stomach feels like in years. And it's okay. Sitting down to a meal with genuine hunger makes it possible to savor the taste and texture of genuine food. Empty stomachs should be satisfied, but it's those early sensations of hunger that need to be worked around. You don't need to start pitching food down the gullet the minute your stomach has a little bit of space inside and calls out for more.

Dorothy Dix Says...

Here's a timely question - considering some of the choices our own generation is having to make during the recession. This column dates to January 17, 1949. How does Dorothy Dix do this time 'round?

Dear Dorothy Dix: I am the wife of a traveling man and I am sick of this half-time wife business. When my husband travels I stay at home with my people. When he is off the road we stay with his. I want him to give up the road. I feel very sure that he could go into some other business that would not require that he be away from home.

He doesn’t like my home town and my friends and I don’t like his home town and his friends. We love each other, but it seems as though we are on the road to the divorce court the way things are. What shall we do?

AN UNHAPPY WIFE.

Answer - If your husband has a job, he had better stick to it. You have got to eat, you know, and this is no time to part one’s self from a pay roll.

But when you come to settle where to live, the man has the say-so. The law lets him determine the place of domicile and in most of the states he is entitled to a divorce if the wife refuses to go with him.

You must be a good sport about this. If your husband has a better chance of getting along among the people he knows and where he has friends and a family connection, it is your duty to go there cheerfully and make his friends your friends and his people your people.

Pears: The Other Winter Fruit

Pears, apples, oranges and grapefruit are about the only fresh fruits available to most of us at this time of the year. Oranges and grapefruit are used so much for breakfast that our thoughts need to be directed towards uses of the other two. We know a great deal about using apples in cooking, yet most folks serve pears raw. Pears are milder than apples, but there is no reason why they cannot fill the place of apples anywhere.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette goes on in this February 19, 1945 article to share a recipe for Pear Coffee Cake. I've never given much thought to winter fruits, but those ever-resourceful 1940s housewives would have been keen to find new ways to spice up the breakfast table on frigid winter mornings. There certainly are plenty of fantastic looking pears in the produce section these days, but I'm just as guilty as "most folks" who only "serve pears raw." And yet - Pear Coffee Cake is a little too rich for my blood. Not when I've still got plenty of reducing to do. So I've been rummaging through my vintage cookbooks looking for pear recipes suitable for the reducer's breakfast table. Hmmm... Pear and Cherry Salad, Pear Conde, Pear-grape Salad, Candied Pears, Pickled Pears, Baked Stuffed Pears. The only thing that sounds simple enough for breakfast is a recipe for Stewed Pears. It's a quick recipe, too!

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STEWED PEARS

Peel pears. Cut in half, quarter or slice. Remove core. Add 1 tablespoon granulated sugar for each pear and water to depth of 1/4 inch. Add 2 or 3 cloves, 2 slices lemon. Cover. Bring to boiling. Simmer 10 minutes or until tender. Chill. Serve for breakfast or dessert.

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A November 1949 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also points out that pears can add some variety to winter breakfast menus, but their serving suggestions aren't very imaginative: "Ripe sliced pears are good served with cream... Serve them, too, on prepared cereal." The author does describe some of the varieties of pears that can be found at the market during the winter:

• "The BOSC, the fall russet pear, is distinguished by its symmetrical base and long tapering neck. When ripe, it is a rich, russet color. It is best between September and January."

• "The COMICE is a special favorite during the Christmas holiday season for a gift fruit. It is a de luxe pear, large in size which takes on a creamy yellow color when ripe. It often has a bright red hue. The flesh is fine-grained, sweet and juicy. Best between October and February."

• "The ANJOU is a stubbier, semi-heart shaped pear. It is bordering between a green and creamy yellow when ripe. It has a rich flavor, fine texture and is full of juice, making it a favorite for eating fresh. They are on the market from October until April."

• "The NELIS is a small, russet pear. It has a sweet tender meat. It appears on the market in January and is available until June."

Which variety is your favorite? Do you have any pear recipes that'd be perfect for getting these chilly winter mornings off to a good start? Or an apple breakfast recipe that might be nicely adapted for pears?