Aunt Nan's Chocolate Cake

especially for Angela!

p.s. I was going to sell this cookbook on Etsy, but if you're interested send me an e-mail at luluk_670 at yahoo.com :)

Start your holiday shopping now!

My husband has an Etsy store! It's filled with adorably retro prints and original art! You'll love it, I promise :)

Country Cupboard Part Deux

Welcome back everybody - I made dinner for ya!

"the savory, tongue-tempting zest"

See, this isn't so bad. We've got sweet mix, overly-deviled deviled eggs, and a whole tray of cookies! Dig in!

Junior here is eating Corned Beef Hashstacks, "a particular delight of youngsters!" (This book uses almost as many exclamation points as I do!) Ya just open the can and push out the corned beef hash as a log, slice it into 1-inch thick rounds, put processed cheese on (they specify "processed") and bake. I don't know about that "delight" part.

After all that meat, let's have a Summer Garden Salad. Cucumber, green onion and radish mixed with Cheese Dressing, served on a tomato. Wow, don't go wild with the veggies now!

He's like a tiny Gorton's fisherman! Gloucester sauce: Tang Dressing, Horseradish Dip and Worcestershire sauce. Serve as a sauce for cold meats such as tongue. :P

It's a salad parade, coming out of the cookbook!

International flavour time!
This illustration is for "Spaghetti Meatcake." Uh, what?

"Make 2 pounds of ground beef into meat loaf. Divide and bake in two rounded 8 or 9-inch layer cake pans. Heat 1 can Nalley's Spaghetti with Meat in Sauce. When meat loaf is done, turn one layer onto a large platter; top with half the spaghetti. Arrange other layer of meat loaf on top. Spoon remaining spaghetti on top. Cut into wedges to serve."

Wow. wow. My friend Julie made a meatcake once; the inside was the same as this, but she frosted it with mashed potatoes. She then made a sheet cake that looked like a t-bone. Food was never dull at Julie's.

Noodles and Beef Romanoff and Strogonoff. Open a can of Egg Noodles and Beef, add some dip/dressing/mushrooms, and voila!

awww! For dining while camping.

Sticky buns!

Okay, those aren't deviled eggs in the beginning photo; they are Stuffed Eggs. Mix yolks with barbecue sauce? Oh no, honey, don't do that for me.

Spuds Glamorized! Just put french onion dip or bleu cheese dip on a baked potato.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I work all day ...

and on that note, sayonara!

p.s. we decorated for Halloween today, photos coming up!

don't make juice with this Tang

I'm not feeling very Halloween this year. But here's a cookbook with lots o' devils!

Copyright 1962 by Nalley's, Inc.

According to their website, Nalley's has been around since 1918 and is based in the Northwest. I'd never heard of them, but it appears they are still going strong.
They have recipes on their site, but a quick perusal shows me none of them are from this cookbook. Their product line sure has shrunk.

Devil #1 illustrates Hot Seafood Salad Diablo. Aand we are introduced to Nalley's Tang Salad Dressing, which, according to the photo on the cover, seems to be like Miracle Whip. I didn't scan in the recipes, because they are rather boring; it's the illustrations that spice this cookbook up!

Here's Devil #2, showing off his Oysters Diablo. Combine raw oysters with cans of Spaghetti and Meat, mustard and horseradish, top with Parmesean, and stick in the oven. Personally, ewwww.

Devil #3 is ready to chow on some Tang Devils Food Cake. That's right, chocolate cake with the previously mentioned Tang Salad Dressing (a whole cup!).

Hmm, seems there weren't as many devils as I thought. Oh well, onto non-devils!

With an assist from Nalley's, eggs star at any meal!

Alrighty, the top right? Not so bad. Eggs Benedict underneath on the right, sure.* But that abomination on the left just looks ... gross. That stuff around the edge? Nalley's Krun-Cheez. :shudder: The eggs on the bottom are nestled in cups made from barbecue potato chips. Damn, dude, that's just wrong.

Let's get back to the tasty illustrations, shall we?

Give a new day a bright new beginning with a breakfast that's different as well as delicious!

I don't usually associate smiling with alarm clocks.

Happy breakfasting at your house and easy breakfast making!

Anime Eyes woman is making omlettes!

We're makin' biscuits!
All these illustrations make me want to make up my own set of recipe cards. Too cute!

Oven Fried Fish. Coated in potato chips (again with the potato chips!). The hula skirt is optional.

Sweet and Sour Bologna, tee hee. This is in the outdoor recipe section, so you put a 1 1/2-lb piece of bologna on the barbecue spit and baste it with a homemade sweet and sour sauce, then slice up and serve on buns with relish. As a person who has eaten fried Spam many times, this doesn't bother me at all ;)

Seems like there's too many illustrations for just one post, so I'll make this Part One of two. See ya then!

* Eggs Benedict are amazingly popular here. I rarely saw it on the menu back in Florida, but here it's on every menu, in many different combinations. John's Place makes a killer eggs benny with chorizo :)

Rearranging furniture

* All weekend we have been serenaded by Rifflandia. And by serenaded I mean we can hear it clear as a bell even though we are blocks away. Who needs tickets? It's stormy out there (rain and gusts) and they are still going strong. Better than hearing the chickens ;)

* I don't usually do '70s, but last year I picked up a furniture catalog at a yard sale and I must share.

According to their web page (and Google translate), Europa Möbel is a purchasing and marketing association with distributors in 11 countries.

I prefer to think that "mobel" means "wall of cupboards" because there are lots and lots of rooms that look like this. This reminds me of my aunt & uncle's house in England. But where are the windows?

This, on the other hand, I would have in my house. Well, the shelves and that crazy lamp at least. The upholstered furniture? no. The flokati rug? absolutely no. We grew up with a rug like that; it required taking outside and hanging on the line to clean it. Don't even think about vacuuming it.

The furniture I don't like at all - can you imagine the marks it leaves on the back of bare legs? And the carpet, once again no. But that television in the corner, and the lamps hanging above it? Grooovy!

Hey, it's the same furniture as in the room of mod shelves!

That couch on the right - goes across the back of the room, gets fatter in the corner, comes towards the camera, turns to the right and continues off-camera ... how far does it go? Down the hall, through the dining room, around the bedroom? That would be fun, continuous couch. Google translate says this room is "designed for spacious living." Indeed.

Let's move on to Schlafzimmer!

"Everything fits together in the popular Blumchen-Look room." Everything? Even the naked butt poster on the back wall?

My mom used to crochet afghans like that.

Again, furniture stars in one corner and goes and goes. A wall-to-wall flokati? Hope they don't have pets with fur.

Jugendzimmer:

Behold the amazing floating bed!
I kinda like this one, except the colours. And the afghan. And the creepy girl poster in the alcove. And the mug of spaghetti.
Wait, if this is a "youth room," why is there a carafe of what looks to be liquor on the top right shelf?

Those wacky Europeans! In fact, most of the rooms shown in this catalogue have bottles and/or glasses of alcohol somewhere in the photo.

Let's wrap it up.

I'll take that lamp from the left office, and the lamp, desk, cupboards and tv from the office on the right. They can keep the chairs.

Thank you one and all for touring Europa Möbel 1976 with me!
(Zombie Leah - I looked, but there was no macrame in the catalogue ;)

p.s. The storm has stopped, the sky is blue and the music continues from the park!

Graciously styled with a bonus of youthful and becoming details

* So here's how I came up with today's blog post - get comfortable!

Our friend Mark recently lent us some great DVDs, including some compilations of vintage commercials, educational films and propaganda. How To Be A Housewife has a looong infomercial for Ironrite, this crazy self-standing ironing machine. It makes ironing so much easier and quicker! They even send a representative from the company to your home to show you how to use it! And we thought, yeah sure, but how much would something like that cost?

Voila! Glen has a collection of vintage catalogs. According to the Fall and Winter 1955 issue of the Simpson Sears catalog, a Kenmore roll-away ironer (which looks to be the same thing as an Ironrite) cost $87.95 cash. To compare, a least expensive Kenmore regular iron is $4.65. So yeaaah, I don't think too many housewives had an Ironrite.
But! Since we had the catalog out, I looked through it. Wowee is it chock full of goodness! There are 6 pages of sewing notions, wool, etc. but only 3 packets of hot iron transfers. You could also buy embroidery thread, and pre-printed pillowcases and nursery sets to embroider yourself.

The clothes! Oh, the dresses and coats and pages upon pages of girdles. And I started thinking, what size would I need? And lo, a blog post was born!

* Now then, my figure type, according to these descriptions, would either be Average Women's or Women's Half Sizes - I have a "mature, well-developed figure" and I'm 5' 4" so I'm right on the edge of those categories.

My measurements are 45 - 40 1/2 - 47 (yeah, yeah, stereotypical American). According to the Average Woman's chart, I wear between a 42 and a 44. According to the Women's Half Size chart, I wear a 24 1/2.

Most of the clothes (including the coats) in the catalog are for Misses - there are only 4 1/2 pages with Women's clothes. On the pages with Women's and Half Sizes' clothes are taglines such as "... give a youthful and slenderizing effect" and "slenderizing lines that do flattering things to a woman's figure."

Conclusion? It would have been just as hard, if not harder, for me to find clothes in 1955.

But wait, there's more! Glen also has a 1983 Sears Christmas Wish Book. Oh.my.god I can't believe I wore some of these clothes. (to be fair, some of the sweaters aren't so bad). 

There are size charts for Juniors and Misses', and under "Hard-to-find Sizes" we also have Women's, Half Sizes, Petite and Tall (who only get loungewear and robes). Once again I can be either Woman (hear me roar) or Half Size. Surprise - my size is still 42 in Women's! I honestly expected it to be different, since I've always heard that size numbers have changed drastically since the '50s. In Half Size I'm a 22 1/2, so just one size down from 1955.

Let's look at Sears today. Whoa, they still have catalogs! Including the Wish Book! How retro of them. The size charts are Petite, Regular, Tall, Image and Image Petite. Image?!?!? For Pete's sake. ANYway, I am now a size 18W in "Image." So sometime between '83 and today they did away with Women's and Half Size. Also, the charts have specific measurements rather than ranges.

Meanwhile, Target sizes its women's clothes with its own numbering system: 1, 2, 3, etc. However, there are no size charts on its website, so good luck! Torrid uses 2 systems: they have 1, 2, 3 and they also use the usual numbers - I'm a 2, equivalent to 18/20. Pennington's uses usual numbers, so I'm an 18. At the Gap I'm between 20 and 22. At Land's End I'm either a Misses' 20 or a Women's 1X / 18W.

So, if I'm pretty much an 18 according to all those charts, why are all my pants and skirts size 16? I have NO IDEA.

Until next time, remember, always try it on before you buy!

what lurks in the wool aisle

* Greetings, it is I, here once again to share my thrift store and swap meet treasures!

In honor of upcoming Halloween (what, it's never too soon to start counting down!), may I present Junior Casuals from Mary Maxim, date unknown.

Clowns. Scary, rubber-nosed, kneeling clowns with a suspicious look in their eye. The little girl seems happy enough, like she's about to curtsey. But we'll never see her again ... in this booklet at least.

.

How can they be smiling and not notice the scarecrow coming to life mere feet from where they stand?!?

They've brought along carrots to appease the appetite of the White Rabbit. Perhaps they will live after all.

I think the little girl is beginning to lose her mind. The pinata speaks to her, commands her to do his bidding.

This fellow isn't too bad, but he's about to win some kind of staring contest.

That has got to be one of the worst cat costumes I've ever seen. The eyes are so blank and soulless ...

We reach the end. The little girl has seen too much today. "Come and play with us, Danny. Forever... and ever... and ever"