I think the joke was on the children as well!
To read more about Romney Gay see
http://hihohome.blogspot.com/2008/08/vintage-toys-and-books.html
Thursday, November 6, 2014
A Joke on Cinder by Romney Gay
I found a charming 1944 children's book at the church book sale. A Joke on Cinder by Romney Gay, published by Grosset & Dunlop, Inc. was "designed and produced by Artists and Writers Guild, Inc."
The book had belonged to Suellen O'Dell And William. O'Dell was my mother-in-law's maiden name, an interesting coincidence.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Barbecue Like it Was 1956
I found this Big Boy Barbecue 1956 cook book at the church book sale. Too cute and at 10 cents a steal.
What a photo! Dad with his special hat and protective gloves has rolled up his sleeves. This is real work for real men. Notice the bright red knee socks on the gal sitting in the old aluminum folding chair. And the demure little gal in her full skirted dress sitting and watching her idolized dad handle those hunks of beef.
On the back cover the family waits at the picnic table. The gals are in sun dresses. The man is in a plaid shirt and red socks. A huge salad bowl and mounding plates of fruit sit on the red and white picnic table cloth.
Wait! Do you see the pumpkins, the fall mums, and the lack of leaves on the trees? This is one strange imagined reality.
The book is the original "BBQ for Dummies", full of detailed illustrations on how to cook everything grillable: liver and bacon, rabbit, beef roasts, fish, leg of lamb, and even bananas.
You may think of charcoal grilling this way:
Or this way:
How wimpy.The Big Boy company showed you how to use a spit for rib roasts, port loin, and even a whole ham.
Was there ever a time when people did NOT barbecue at home? The Big Boy company made sure you understood how great it was.
Besides it hearkens back to our roots.
Sauces, Glazes, and Marinades are included.
Pineapple Glaze
1 8 ounce can of crushed pineapple
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
11 tsp dry mustard
juice of 1 lemon
dash of salt
Drain syrup from pineapple and reserve. Combine pineapple and remaining ingredients and stir to mix well. Add as much of the syrup as necessary to have the mixture of good spreading consistency. Brush over meat.
Side dish recipes were offered, like Banana Walnut Chiffon Cake.
Here are some recipes from the book.
Barbecued Spiced Bananas
Peel bananas. Place each on a double thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil. Brush with lemon juice. Sprinkle generously with brown sugar. Dust with cinnamon or nutmeg. Dot with butter or margarine. Wrap the foil securely around the bananas, twisting ends. Barbecue on the grill for 7 to 9 minutes or on briquets for 4 to 5 minutes.
Honey Grilled Pineapple
Cut a medium sized fresh pineapple into 8 lengthwise wedges. Place each wedge on a double thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil. Pour 2 tablespoon honey over each. Allow to stand for 1/2 hour. Wrap securely in the foil. Barbecue on grill for 18 to 22 minutes or on briquets 14 to 16 minutes.
Barbecued Corn
Select tender sweet corn in the husks.Strip husks down to the end of cob, but do not tear off. Remove silk. If desired let stand in salted ice water for 20 minutes to an hour. Drain well. Brush corn with salted butter and sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Brings husks back up around corn.
Method 1: secure husks with florist's wire. Lay corn on briques and cook 12 to 12 minutes, turning a quarter turn four times. Remove wire and husks to serve.
Method 1: Wrap each ear in a double thickness heavy duty aluminum foil, twisting ends well. Knock gray ash off the briquets. Lay corn on briquets. Barbecue about 10 minutes, turning once.
Method 3: Slip spit rot through spit basket. Arrange corn in basket. Put basket cover in place. Knock gray ash off briquets. Attach the spit and start the motor. Barbecue about 20 minutes.
Barbecued Pineapple Glazed Ham
Have ham cut in half, diagonally, for better balancing on the spit. Remove any rind from the ham. Score the fat in a diamond patter. Put ham on the spit, insert spit forks at both ends. Test for balance. Center the eat and tighten the screws with pliers. Insert Big Boy Thermometer in the center of the thickets section of one half. be sure it does not touch the spit or bone or rest in fat.Arrange briquets at rear and knock off the gray ash. Attach the spit and start the motor. Place drip pan under ham. Allow 10 minutes per pound for a read-to-eat ham or 25 minutes per pound for an uncooked ham. Baste with Pineapple Glaze (see above) during last 15 minutes of cooking. When done, meat pulls away from bone, thermometer should register 140 degrees for ready-t-eat ham and 170 for uncooked ham.
Wait! Do you see the pumpkins, the fall mums, and the lack of leaves on the trees? This is one strange imagined reality.
The book is the original "BBQ for Dummies", full of detailed illustrations on how to cook everything grillable: liver and bacon, rabbit, beef roasts, fish, leg of lamb, and even bananas.
You may think of charcoal grilling this way:
Was there ever a time when people did NOT barbecue at home? The Big Boy company made sure you understood how great it was.
- Everyone pitches in and enjoys the "get-ready" as well as the eatings.
- Husband become experts and do the barbecuing.
- You can play host in your own backyard, in the comfort of home, while recollecting the joys of picnicking.
- Outdoor cooking means you can entertain 15 or 20 people, while dining rooms hold six or so.
- You pay about $1.25 a person while you'd pay $5.00 in a restaurant.
- You can become the Barbecue Leader of the neighborhood, called on to teach your great tricks to your friends.
Besides it hearkens back to our roots.
1 8 ounce can of crushed pineapple
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
11 tsp dry mustard
juice of 1 lemon
dash of salt
Drain syrup from pineapple and reserve. Combine pineapple and remaining ingredients and stir to mix well. Add as much of the syrup as necessary to have the mixture of good spreading consistency. Brush over meat.
Side dish recipes were offered, like Banana Walnut Chiffon Cake.
Here are some recipes from the book.
Barbecued Spiced Bananas
Peel bananas. Place each on a double thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil. Brush with lemon juice. Sprinkle generously with brown sugar. Dust with cinnamon or nutmeg. Dot with butter or margarine. Wrap the foil securely around the bananas, twisting ends. Barbecue on the grill for 7 to 9 minutes or on briquets for 4 to 5 minutes.
Honey Grilled Pineapple
Cut a medium sized fresh pineapple into 8 lengthwise wedges. Place each wedge on a double thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil. Pour 2 tablespoon honey over each. Allow to stand for 1/2 hour. Wrap securely in the foil. Barbecue on grill for 18 to 22 minutes or on briquets 14 to 16 minutes.
Barbecued Corn
Select tender sweet corn in the husks.Strip husks down to the end of cob, but do not tear off. Remove silk. If desired let stand in salted ice water for 20 minutes to an hour. Drain well. Brush corn with salted butter and sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Brings husks back up around corn.
Method 1: secure husks with florist's wire. Lay corn on briques and cook 12 to 12 minutes, turning a quarter turn four times. Remove wire and husks to serve.
Method 1: Wrap each ear in a double thickness heavy duty aluminum foil, twisting ends well. Knock gray ash off the briquets. Lay corn on briquets. Barbecue about 10 minutes, turning once.
Method 3: Slip spit rot through spit basket. Arrange corn in basket. Put basket cover in place. Knock gray ash off briquets. Attach the spit and start the motor. Barbecue about 20 minutes.
Barbecued Pineapple Glazed Ham
Have ham cut in half, diagonally, for better balancing on the spit. Remove any rind from the ham. Score the fat in a diamond patter. Put ham on the spit, insert spit forks at both ends. Test for balance. Center the eat and tighten the screws with pliers. Insert Big Boy Thermometer in the center of the thickets section of one half. be sure it does not touch the spit or bone or rest in fat.Arrange briquets at rear and knock off the gray ash. Attach the spit and start the motor. Place drip pan under ham. Allow 10 minutes per pound for a read-to-eat ham or 25 minutes per pound for an uncooked ham. Baste with Pineapple Glaze (see above) during last 15 minutes of cooking. When done, meat pulls away from bone, thermometer should register 140 degrees for ready-t-eat ham and 170 for uncooked ham.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Cute Doggy Vintage Greeting Cards
Here are some cute greeting cards featuring dogs from my collection.
This card pulls open, stretching the doggie.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Still Catching Up on the Austen Family Album Block of the Week...
Going away on several trips meant I got behind again on Brackman's weekly Austen Family blocks. I did three these past few days.
Friendship block for Anne Brydges LeFroy, Jane's friend and mentor
Wheel of Change for Capt. Jean-Francoise Capot de Feullide, husband of Eliza Hancock
Old Maid's Puzzle for Tom LeFroy, Jane's "heart throb" at age 20
Friendship block for Anne Brydges LeFroy, Jane's friend and mentor
Before Friday we had a few lovely days. There are still some leaves on the trees.
I added some little pumpkins to the donkey cart made by my dad which is filled with Zinnia's still in bloom.
But yesterday it rained and the cold driving wind and rain kept the little kids from trick or treating. Groups of middle school boys were out in droves. One told me it was "worth" going out in the rain for the candy!
Oh for the stamina of youth again!
Vintage Greeting Cards
I have a collection of vintage greeting cards, some dating to the 1930s. Here are some vintage greeting cards featuring lovely ladies.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Healing Quiltmaking and Jim Crow Segretation: "The Colored Car" by Jean Alicia Elster
Last weekend we visited Leon & Lulu's wonderful home decor store for their annual Books & Author's fair. We visited with 18 Metro Detroit writers of all ages and genres. 10% of the proceeds from book sales went to the Oakland County Literacy Council so of course we had to buy some books.
One of the books I found was Jean Alicia Elster's "The Colored Car" based on her own grandmother's experiences growing up in Detroit and traveling from Detroit to Tennessee in 1922. Ms Elster garnered stories and recipes from her grandmother.
The Ford family lives in Detroit where Douglas runs a saw mill and his wife May uses her home economics education to put up food, sew clothes, and run the household. Several family recipes are included in the text. They live in a working class neighborhood of immigrants. May grew up in Tennessee and has not been back in nine years. There had been a terrible flood in her hometown and May decides it is time to go home and see her family again. She decides to bring her young daughters along.
Her eldest daughter Patsy is 12 years old, just taking over her brother's family chores now he is helping in his dad's business. The train trip seems a big adventure. Her mother has sewn new clothes for the girls, and they wear white gloves for traveling. They sit in upholstered seats and are served delicate sandwiches. But in Cincinnati they must change trains to ride in the "colored car". It has no cushioned seats and a stove spews out smoke. Patsy resists getting on. She had never encountered the Jim Crow laws of the south before.
How Patsy deals with her collision with a new reality is the focus of the second half of the book. Her grandmother gives her fabric to start her first quilt, a Fence Rail quilt. She tells her granddaughter that she is to put all her pain into the quilt. When the quilt is completed she will be free of the bad memories.
Patsy has been profoundly disturbed by her experience. The family faces another crisis but things turns out okay. There is drama in the book, but nothing to give a child nightmares. Ms Elster explores serious issues in context of a charming family's life.
As I was talking to the author I learned that quiltmaking played a role in the book. How cool was that? She was not a quiltmaker herself, but her family had many.
To make the Fence Rail quilt Patsy's grandmother gave her fabric to cut into 1 1/2" x 6 1/2" pieces. Patsy was given a brass thimble and shown how to use a running stitch to sew the quilt. Once the blocks were made she set them together and quilted the with a running stitch. What happens to the quilt? Read the book and find out!
For an interview with the author visit SORMAG"S Blog.
As Ms Elster notes in the forward to her book, the history of civil rights can be traced through lawsuits against the railroads. One early crusader was the formidable journalist and activist Ida B. Wells who appears on my quilt I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet. Like Patsy, Ida resisted being sent to "the colored car" and started a campaign. Read more about her here:
http://www.biography.com/people/ida-b-wells-9527635#later-career
http://people.duke.edu/~ldbaker/classes/AAIH/caaih/ibwells/ibwbkgrd.html
On a personal note, my mother told me of her first train ride from Kane, PA to Albany, NY to see her grandparents. Mom was only five and had never seen a person of color before and the porters were African American. She asked my grandmother, "Why is that man brown?" My grandmother wanted to end the discussion and told her "Because he is made of chocolate." Well, my mom went up and bit the man on the hand! It was quite a shock to all involved.
Perhaps biting that poor porter taught Mom that we all have the same color blood; we all feel the same pain.
Americans carry a heavy legacy.
The Colored Car
Jean Alicia Elster
Wayne State University Press
ISBN-13:978081336069
$14.95
One of the books I found was Jean Alicia Elster's "The Colored Car" based on her own grandmother's experiences growing up in Detroit and traveling from Detroit to Tennessee in 1922. Ms Elster garnered stories and recipes from her grandmother.
The Ford family lives in Detroit where Douglas runs a saw mill and his wife May uses her home economics education to put up food, sew clothes, and run the household. Several family recipes are included in the text. They live in a working class neighborhood of immigrants. May grew up in Tennessee and has not been back in nine years. There had been a terrible flood in her hometown and May decides it is time to go home and see her family again. She decides to bring her young daughters along.
Her eldest daughter Patsy is 12 years old, just taking over her brother's family chores now he is helping in his dad's business. The train trip seems a big adventure. Her mother has sewn new clothes for the girls, and they wear white gloves for traveling. They sit in upholstered seats and are served delicate sandwiches. But in Cincinnati they must change trains to ride in the "colored car". It has no cushioned seats and a stove spews out smoke. Patsy resists getting on. She had never encountered the Jim Crow laws of the south before.
How Patsy deals with her collision with a new reality is the focus of the second half of the book. Her grandmother gives her fabric to start her first quilt, a Fence Rail quilt. She tells her granddaughter that she is to put all her pain into the quilt. When the quilt is completed she will be free of the bad memories.
Patsy has been profoundly disturbed by her experience. The family faces another crisis but things turns out okay. There is drama in the book, but nothing to give a child nightmares. Ms Elster explores serious issues in context of a charming family's life.
As I was talking to the author I learned that quiltmaking played a role in the book. How cool was that? She was not a quiltmaker herself, but her family had many.
To make the Fence Rail quilt Patsy's grandmother gave her fabric to cut into 1 1/2" x 6 1/2" pieces. Patsy was given a brass thimble and shown how to use a running stitch to sew the quilt. Once the blocks were made she set them together and quilted the with a running stitch. What happens to the quilt? Read the book and find out!
For an interview with the author visit SORMAG"S Blog.
As Ms Elster notes in the forward to her book, the history of civil rights can be traced through lawsuits against the railroads. One early crusader was the formidable journalist and activist Ida B. Wells who appears on my quilt I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet. Like Patsy, Ida resisted being sent to "the colored car" and started a campaign. Read more about her here:
http://www.biography.com/people/ida-b-wells-9527635#later-career
http://people.duke.edu/~ldbaker/classes/AAIH/caaih/ibwells/ibwbkgrd.html
On a personal note, my mother told me of her first train ride from Kane, PA to Albany, NY to see her grandparents. Mom was only five and had never seen a person of color before and the porters were African American. She asked my grandmother, "Why is that man brown?" My grandmother wanted to end the discussion and told her "Because he is made of chocolate." Well, my mom went up and bit the man on the hand! It was quite a shock to all involved.
Perhaps biting that poor porter taught Mom that we all have the same color blood; we all feel the same pain.
Americans carry a heavy legacy.
The Colored Car
Jean Alicia Elster
Wayne State University Press
ISBN-13:978081336069
$14.95
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