Coming in August: "1925 House"

Our 1925 duplex

No, not another of those PBS "reality" shows. It's just that I've decided to put my cookbooks from the twenties and thirties to good use. Primarily, I'll be cooking from The Boston Cooking School Cookbook and A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband with Bettina's Best Recipes: The Romance of Cookery and Housekeeping, which is a very useful (if rather ridiculous) cookbook that gives several dinner menus for each month of the year and has a little story to go along with each about the first year of Bob and Bettina's marriage.

Here's a sneak peak at the meals I'll be preparing. This is "A Quick Breakfast" from The Boston Cooking School Cookbook:

Mackay's Dundee Orange Marmalade; Ruby Red Grapefruit Sections; World Market Breakfast Blend Coffee; English White Bread (from the bread machine), toasted, with organic butter; two organic, free-range eggs, poached

It only took 20 minutes to prepare, so I guess that is pretty quick. It was tasty, too! Plus (the best part), it's already after 12 and I'm just now getting hungry.

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A bit about life in the '20s:

• According to my Condé Nast housekeeping guide (1928), a family of four should spend no more than $75 per month on food--that's $930.73 in 2009 dollars.
• For our household income (in 1925 money), we could afford to spend $2472.02 on a car. In 1925, a Hudson Super Eight cost $1250 (Al Capone had a 1928 model), a Packard Touring Sedan cost $2585, and a Rolls Royce Phantom cost $13,450.
• Wichita had a trolley line until 1934
• Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra recorded "The Charleston" in May of 1925: