Monday, November 3, 2014

Etiquette for The Parent Trap

And now, time for...

"Everyday Etiquette"

This week's etiquette lesson comes to us from the chapter entitled:


Let's join our lesson, already in progress...

Monday, October 20, 2014

Three Magic Words

Hi everyone! Today is my birthday and what better way to celebrate than pork! Hmmm...I should probably explain that...

One of my favorite vintage things are menus. Home entertaining dinner menus to be exact. Drinks, two or three appetizers, main course, salads, breads, desserts, it's all there and in high numbers. For whatever reason, I just find it fascinating. Maybe because I make a meat, a vegetable and one other thing, bada bing bada boom and I'm out of the kitchen. lol Or could just be because it all looks so fancy.

At any rate, I was watching a collection of Christmas shorts by the guys at RiffTrax and one of the shorts was "Three Magic Words" from 1939, created to promote pork. In it, "Mrs. Newlywed" has to make a dinner for her husband and guests and for some reason has no clue what animal pork comes from. (?!) But get past her crazy high pitched wailing and you've got a cutesy short with a ridiculously long menu for a woman who thinks pork comes from sheep. I immediately grabbed a screen print of it:


Now is that a menu or is that a MENU??? I just love it although I admit I had no clue what the heck half of it was. I figured out that the "paprika lettuce" was just lettuce with the ends dipped in paprika. But celery stuffed with Braunschweiger and Cervelat Cornucopias filled with cream cheese mixed with butter? I had no clue. I couldn't find the specific recipes for these but I did find out that Braunschweiger is liverwurst and Cervelat is sausage and my chest immediately started to hurt. Although, I might have to try that sausage stuffed with cream cheese and butter. Sure, I'll probably die but I bet it tastes good. :P

If you're interested, I found the entire short, unriffed, on You Tube, enjoy...and eat more pork! ;)

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Crochet of Life

As an avid crocheter, I ALWAYS let out a yarn obsessed fan girl scream whenever I see crochet anything in movies and TV. ESPECIALLY when it involves old movies and TV shows because...well...old movies are awesome. :D

So imagine my squeal when I spied some hooking up (yarn wise) in 1959's "Imitation of Life":


That's the amazing Juanita Moore as Annie and always super cute Sandra Dee as Susie. The movie all around was great but the Crocheting is Awesome scene (as I like to call it) was my favorite. :D



Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Vintage Touches for a Brighter Day

Hi everyone!

I was thinking this week: While I would love to be living in a mid-century house decorated with mid-century furniture and gee-gaws, wearing authentic vintage clothing while planning vacations in my Shasta trailer, that's just not in the cards for me. And you know what? That's okay!

And it could be that some day I'll wake up with the resources and amazing good luck to find all of these gorgeous things, but right now I'm celebrating a "vintage" life in my own small way. Sometimes just having little "touches" of something with a history is enough to brighten your day and make you feel like washing the dishes isn't so bad after all. ;)

So the other day, I made banana bread in a Pyrex dish, hung up my sweet rose apron, put up my feet and listened to some Ruth Etting (on my modern day Kindle of course, HA!) while drinking a mid-morning cup of coffee from my pink Stetson melmac cup.



I love mixing up my decades and just having fun with my vintage treasures.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Slug Bug

Hi everyone!

Lots of radio silence around here, eh? This year has not been especially kind to me as I lost my brother on April 7th, 2012. Doesn't that sound weird? I mean I didn't "lose" him, he died so yeah....

Anyhoo, my vintage shopping and stalking has been greatly reduced but I'm hoping to hop back on board the vintage train soon. In fact, here's a cup I found on one of my last trips to the thrift store. I love the graphics on it!


Because that's what you want to ponder when having your morning coffee...bug problems.


This mug is personalized, on the back it says, "Baby". Cause you know, nobody put Baby in a corner...with bugs.



Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Girl in the Flowered Hat

Hi everyone! Wow, it's taking me so long to update this blog that it really is vintage. LOL I'm going to get better at posting, I promise! I've actually got a few thrifty things to show off, once I stop being lazy and start taking pictures (sounds like some sort of lazy blogging Real World, lol). Anyhoo, found this sweet girl at a thrift store and just had to bring her home:
How cute is she??? I'm thinking 1960s-1970s? She's hanging in my craft room now and I do believe this picture inspired my new look over at Just Add Glitter and Stir. :D So how are y'all doing? Any cool vintage finds lately?

Monday, December 12, 2011

The Pink Azalea

Hi everyone! Wow, no vintage goodness from me since July??? Yikes! Well, I've got something now! lol Back in 2009, my good blogging buddy, Julie from Life With The Tucker and Wolek Clan surprised me with a 1950s Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book. My mom's birthday is tomorrow and I really wanted to give a vintage cake recipe a whirl so I got out the fab book Julie sent me and got to perusing the Cakes section.

I decided on the lovely Pink Azalea cake: 

The Pink Azalea
Cakes "from scratch" aren't terribly different in today's kitchens, except maybe the use of shortening (then) as opposed to butter (now). This cake was pretty easy to do although I got a little fancy with it and used almond extract over the vanilla called for in the recipe. The frosting was another story.

I've made quite a few scratch frostings and icings before but this one called for just sugar, a little cream of tartar and a little water, boiled and poured over stiff egg whites. Which normally wouldn't be a problem except that when I went to remove the candy thermometer, it was hot (duh), I dropped it back in the syrup where it promptly broke adding the extra ingredient of glass. So out that first batch went and we started to boil again without the benefit of knowing what temp the syrup was before adding to the whites. Oh well. It's still pretty.

I colored one cake layer pink (added too much and it came out bright pink when the book called for "delicate". Oops!) and added strawberries to part of the frosting for the middle of the layers. The outside got doused in pink frosting and it is delicious!

My first foray into the world of vintage baking was successful (busted thermometer aside) and I can't wait to try another recipe from this book!
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