Friday, February 12, 2016

Living the Vintage Life: Week 1

I've been wanting to share a bit of my normal (ha!), day-to-day life with you. Here you'll find what I've been cooking, watching, and reading this week.

VINTAGE COOKING AND BAKING


First off, here's a little series on Pecan Pie Squares. The recipe came from the February 1938 issue of Good Housekeeping and boy, were they delicious.


On Tuesday, I did some menu planning for the week. Check out my 1920s pamphlets! Aren't the illustrations swell?


Wednesday's dinner was an old favorite: veal chops with browned potatoes, stewed tomatoes, and the best creamed cabbage ever. Click here for the recipes.


Thursday afternoon's project was a recipe from a 1931 pamphlet I picked up last month: Coconut Dishes That Everybody Loves. This chocolate cake has coconut baked in it!

VINTAGE FILMS


Isn't Kay Francis the best? I watched Dr. Monica (starring Francis and Warren William) and loved how all the women in the film have careers. Kay Francis is an obstetrician, her best friend is an architect, and "the other woman" is an aviatrix. There's no hand-wringing or choosing between family and career. That's one of the reasons why I love pre-code films.


I also noticed while watching Dr. Monica that the music sounded familiar. That's because it was "When Tomorrow Comes," which Kay Francis sang in Mandalay (another pre-code I love). I got on ebay and found the sheet music!



Continuing with another pre-code...I watched It Happened One Night for probably the billionth time. There's so much to love about this movie. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are fantastic and the supporting cast (Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Alan Hale) is wonderful, too.


Here's one from our February 1938 Films collection: Wells Fargo, starring Joel McCrea and Frances Dee. I don't think it's the best movie ever (but it is an effective vehicle for promoting Wells Fargo), but there's Joel McCrea and that kind of makes up for it.

VINTAGE NOVELS


I usually have several books going at once. Here's a trio of 1937 detective novels: Agatha Christie's Dumb Witness, Ellery Queen's The Door Between, and Margery Allingham's Dancers in Mourning. I've already finished the Christie and the Allingham and enjoyed them both. One of the main characters in Dancers is so obviously based on Fred Astaire. Can you imagine Astaire as a potential killer? Allingham will have you believing it!

VINTAGE BEAUTY


Thanks to the magic of interlibrary loan, I got my hands on a copy of 1940s Hairstyles. I haven't tried any new styles yet, but there was an ad for my favorite side combs, Grip-Tuth. I won't use anything else, because with the other brands, the comb starts working its way out ten minutes after it's put in. Grip-Tuth lasts all day. Really.

4 comments:

  1. I had never heard of the film Mandalay! Is it set in the city of Mandalay? I went there a couple of years back.

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    1. Mandalay is actually set in Rangoon and then on a riverboat on its way to Mandalay, so we never get a look. Although I'm sure it's all California, anyway!

      What a fantastic trip to get to go to Mandalay.

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    2. I was visiting my granddad's hometown. We did take the riverboat between Mandalay and Bagan - a sad lack of Hollywood glamour aboard, though, as we took the regular ferry rather than the plush teak riverboats used by tour groups. (Rangoon/Yangon is fab!)

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  2. You know I love pecan pie, so I'm sure the pecan squares are right up my alley! But, now what about that coconut in the chocolate cake? I might give it a try... I haven't read Dancers in Morning - that sounds like fun. Wells Fargo was on the other day and I watched part of it. Love your pamphlets - such fabulous illustrations. Love you, too!

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