Breakfast and a Movie: Flying Down to Rio

A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband, Chapter 120: "Bob Makes Pop-overs"

from Google Books

Paul and I also had company for this breakfast. Our friends David and Kelly came over to eat with us before we all drove to Hutchinson to visit the Kansas Underground Salt Museum. It's 650 feet below ground and the walls are solid salt. It's a remnant from the enormous ocean that covered this part of the country in pre-history. Evidently the ocean was as salty as the Dead Sea, so only microorganisms could survive in it. According to the tour guide, there's enough salt in this particular vein to keep mining at current levels for the next 2,000 years. It was definitely worth the trip and I'm glad Kelly suggested it!

Pop-overs 

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1 egg

Generously grease eight wells of a standard muffin tin with butter and place in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. You want the pan and the butter in it to get nice and hot.

Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl, make a well and add the milk slowly, stirring, until mixture forms a smooth paste. Beat in the egg and then beat vigorously for three minutes. Set aside until oven comes up to temperature.

Take the hot muffin tin out of the oven (use an oven mitt!) and fill the eight greased wells 2/3 full with pop-over batter. Return to oven and bake for about 30 minutes, or until browned and "popped over." Serve at once.

Makes 8 pop-overs

Adapted from "Pop-Overs" in Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron, A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband (New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1932), 381.

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Oatmeal

1 cup steel-cut oats

1/4 cup walnuts

2 tablespoons yogurt (or whey*)

pinch of salt

2 cups milk

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

Demerara or muscovado sugar

The night before, combine the oats, walnuts and yogurt and salt in a large bowl. Cover by about an inch with warm water and place a kitchen towel over the top of the bowl. Leave on the counter overnight.

The next morning, drain and rinse the oats and walnuts. Place them in a heavy-bottomed saucepan with the milk, raisins and mixed spice. Heat on medium, stirring, until oatmeal is thickened to your liking. Sweeten with sugar, if desired.

Serves 4

Adapted from "Soaked Oatmeal" at Nourished Kitchen.

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Doctor Macro

How about a pre-code 30s movie to go with a 1930s breakfast? Flying Down to Rio will be on TCM this Tuesday at 8:45 p.m. (Central time). If you're a fan of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, be sure to check it out; it's their first movie together. The main plot of Flying Down to Rio is kind of lame, but it's worth the watch for the scenes with Fred and Ginger, especially "The Carioca."

Astaire and Rogers dance "The Caricoa"; still from TCM

*If you make yogurt cheese, the whey is the liquid that drains out. Save it for soaking oats!