Saturday, November 22, 2003
New fairy tales
Fairy tales
How neat! Text and pictures illustrating children's stories and fairy tales from out-of-copyright books: Ongoing Tales - Fairy Tales
How neat! Text and pictures illustrating children's stories and fairy tales from out-of-copyright books: Ongoing Tales - Fairy Tales
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Saturday, November 15, 2003
Cooking with Cold Cuts
Oh, my. I found this article in the September, 1942 issue of Woman's Day (which cost 2 cents, BTW). If only the pictures were in color, these things would be perfect candidates for the Gallery of Regrettable Food. Along with some hideous recipes for things like Thuringer and Potatoes en Brochette (translation: Blood Sausage Kabobs), there was this:
FRIED LIVER SAUSAGE WITH CREOLE SAUCE
Costs 41 cents (August 1942)
Serves 4
Woman's Day Kitchen
3/4 pound smoked liver sausage, in one piece
1/2 cup undiluted evaporated milk
2/3 cup corn meal
Bacon fat for frying
Cut liver sausage in 8 slices 1/4 inch thick. Cut each in half and dip first in milk then in corn meal. Fry quickly until delicately browned in hot fat 1/4 inch deep. Drain on heavy paper. Serve with Creole Sauce:
1 tablespoon margarine
1 large onion, sliced
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
4 ripe tomatoes, chopped
Melt margarine, add onion and cook 2 minutes over low heat. Add remaining ingredients; simmer 20 minutes.
Here's a helpful menu suggestion:
Fried Liver Sausage with Creole Sauce
Buttered Big Hominy
Shredded Raw Spinach and Cucumber Salad
Whole Wheat Bread
Butter
Honey Stewed Plums
"Silent Generation" indeed; more like the Silent Killer Generation, considering the effect on your blood pressure that a diet this high in saturated fat would have. At least the menu plan includes lots of vegetables.
One thing all of the recipes have in common is a reliance on onions. Lots and lots of onions. Onions were cheap and they filled out a recipe, and they added a lot of flavor. Onion-fried burgers are my favorite example of the "onions as filler" school of cooking.
Oh well. If you're really interested in wartime cooking, be sure to read M.F.K. Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf. It's been reprinted many times, anthologized in The Art of Eating, excerpted, quoted, and just about everything else you can do to a book. Here's a sample, along with the recipe for War Cake.
Oh, my. I found this article in the September, 1942 issue of Woman's Day (which cost 2 cents, BTW). If only the pictures were in color, these things would be perfect candidates for the Gallery of Regrettable Food. Along with some hideous recipes for things like Thuringer and Potatoes en Brochette (translation: Blood Sausage Kabobs), there was this:
FRIED LIVER SAUSAGE WITH CREOLE SAUCE
Costs 41 cents (August 1942)
Serves 4
Woman's Day Kitchen
3/4 pound smoked liver sausage, in one piece
1/2 cup undiluted evaporated milk
2/3 cup corn meal
Bacon fat for frying
Cut liver sausage in 8 slices 1/4 inch thick. Cut each in half and dip first in milk then in corn meal. Fry quickly until delicately browned in hot fat 1/4 inch deep. Drain on heavy paper. Serve with Creole Sauce:
1 tablespoon margarine
1 large onion, sliced
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
4 ripe tomatoes, chopped
Melt margarine, add onion and cook 2 minutes over low heat. Add remaining ingredients; simmer 20 minutes.
Here's a helpful menu suggestion:
Fried Liver Sausage with Creole Sauce
Buttered Big Hominy
Shredded Raw Spinach and Cucumber Salad
Whole Wheat Bread
Butter
Honey Stewed Plums
"Silent Generation" indeed; more like the Silent Killer Generation, considering the effect on your blood pressure that a diet this high in saturated fat would have. At least the menu plan includes lots of vegetables.
One thing all of the recipes have in common is a reliance on onions. Lots and lots of onions. Onions were cheap and they filled out a recipe, and they added a lot of flavor. Onion-fried burgers are my favorite example of the "onions as filler" school of cooking.
Oh well. If you're really interested in wartime cooking, be sure to read M.F.K. Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf. It's been reprinted many times, anthologized in The Art of Eating, excerpted, quoted, and just about everything else you can do to a book. Here's a sample, along with the recipe for War Cake.
Monday, November 10, 2003
Now that's what I call literary criticism
Slacktivist is still hilariously reviewing Left Behind. Nobody reads as well as Slacktivist. Nobody.
I am not worthy.
Slacktivist is still hilariously reviewing Left Behind. Nobody reads as well as Slacktivist. Nobody.
I am not worthy.
Before there was Harry Potter...
The religious wackos used to pick on The Wizard of Oz.
Here's my favorite paragraph, because it does such a whiz-bang job of tying what the author of this... er... article... believes to be the book's "message" ("harmony of heart and mind") in with today's media:
Wow. MacGyver had occult leanings. Who knew? But then, his power to escape from seemingly impossible predicaments with little more than a wad of chewing gum and a plastic drinking straw was fairly uncanny.
And here all this time I was thinking that The Wizard of Oz was an allegorical argument about U.S. economics and the gold standard. [BTW, I find the poem about "When McKinley gets the chair" rather chilling, considering the McKinley - electric chair connection (apparently the video isn't real, so don't worry; you're not seeing what you think you are).]
The religious wackos used to pick on The Wizard of Oz.
Here's my favorite paragraph, because it does such a whiz-bang job of tying what the author of this... er... article... believes to be the book's "message" ("harmony of heart and mind") in with today's media:
A similar message ("The Power Is Yours") is delivered today by Ted Turner's (1990 Humanist of the Year) "Captain Planet" cartoon program on television, where Gaia (the spirit of "Mother Earth") gives five "planeteers," separately the powers of fire, wind, earth, water, and heart (communicated telepathically). Captain Planet himself is actually a crystal in human form, and the five planeteers use the power of their occult magic rings, (with crystals) working together (in harmony) to save "Mother Earth." An episode of ABC television's MacGyver"...had a similar segment where the four elements were used together to find "the eye of Osiris." Another two-part episode of "MacGyver" involved using the Mummer's rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie" in a search for the Holy Grail.
Wow. MacGyver had occult leanings. Who knew? But then, his power to escape from seemingly impossible predicaments with little more than a wad of chewing gum and a plastic drinking straw was fairly uncanny.
And here all this time I was thinking that The Wizard of Oz was an allegorical argument about U.S. economics and the gold standard. [BTW, I find the poem about "When McKinley gets the chair" rather chilling, considering the McKinley - electric chair connection (apparently the video isn't real, so don't worry; you're not seeing what you think you are).]
Saturday, November 01, 2003
A wishful kind of day
Some days are like that. Usually Saturdays.
Some days are like that. Usually Saturdays.
Where I wish I were going today
The Tulsa Flea Market, where people get things like this (scroll down to the desk). Seriously, it doesn't sound like much, but it's amazing. Something like 300 dealers now, and very little in the junk or craft categories. It's most Saturdays, and I understand they're charging $1.00 admission now; it was free when I started going, circa 1981. Of course, at that time it was probably more like 100 dealers, and you could get some real bargains: records for a dollar; old movie posters from the 50s for five (the ones from the 40s were higher because Tulsa was having a noir revival at the time, with 40s film festivals at the Brook and that sort of thing). I bought a metal clarinet for about $15, a metal pin shaped like a llama for 75 cents, a guitar for $20, and a ton of vintage Frankoma pottery (and if any family members are reading this, hint hint, the 70th anniversary pacing leopard sculpture would make a gratifying birthday/Christmas gift).
Anyway, prices are a little higher now, thanks to online auctions (and to be fair, the general better availability of information about collectibles, which has resulted in fewer incidences of the kind of seller ignorance that used to work to the buyers' advantage). But I would still love to spend the better part of a morning going from table to table, looking at old linens, weird dishes, records I had forgotten, perfectly preserved kitchen appliances someone got for a wedding present in 1951 and stored for 50 years, World's Fair memorabilia, pink flamingo collections, junk jewelry, Dawn dolls, sugared pecans in cellophane cones, celluloid dresser sets, and rustic cast-iron pots and pans, all in a huge noisy room saturated with the smell of fresh popcorn.
And then I'd go to Weber's for a hamburger and a root beer.
I've never found anything like the Tulsa Flea Market in my travels, although I understand there's one in Wichita that's maybe even better. The mind boggles at the thought.
But Wichita is about as far as Tulsa is from where I am now, and if I were to go to the airport right now and catch a flight that leaves in half an hour I still wouldn't get there before the flea market closes.
The Tulsa Flea Market, where people get things like this (scroll down to the desk). Seriously, it doesn't sound like much, but it's amazing. Something like 300 dealers now, and very little in the junk or craft categories. It's most Saturdays, and I understand they're charging $1.00 admission now; it was free when I started going, circa 1981. Of course, at that time it was probably more like 100 dealers, and you could get some real bargains: records for a dollar; old movie posters from the 50s for five (the ones from the 40s were higher because Tulsa was having a noir revival at the time, with 40s film festivals at the Brook and that sort of thing). I bought a metal clarinet for about $15, a metal pin shaped like a llama for 75 cents, a guitar for $20, and a ton of vintage Frankoma pottery (and if any family members are reading this, hint hint, the 70th anniversary pacing leopard sculpture would make a gratifying birthday/Christmas gift).
Anyway, prices are a little higher now, thanks to online auctions (and to be fair, the general better availability of information about collectibles, which has resulted in fewer incidences of the kind of seller ignorance that used to work to the buyers' advantage). But I would still love to spend the better part of a morning going from table to table, looking at old linens, weird dishes, records I had forgotten, perfectly preserved kitchen appliances someone got for a wedding present in 1951 and stored for 50 years, World's Fair memorabilia, pink flamingo collections, junk jewelry, Dawn dolls, sugared pecans in cellophane cones, celluloid dresser sets, and rustic cast-iron pots and pans, all in a huge noisy room saturated with the smell of fresh popcorn.
And then I'd go to Weber's for a hamburger and a root beer.
I've never found anything like the Tulsa Flea Market in my travels, although I understand there's one in Wichita that's maybe even better. The mind boggles at the thought.
But Wichita is about as far as Tulsa is from where I am now, and if I were to go to the airport right now and catch a flight that leaves in half an hour I still wouldn't get there before the flea market closes.
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