Living the Vintage Life: Week 2

Here's a peek into my day-to-day life. 

Click through for more information on the photographs and gifs.

VINTAGE COOKING AND BAKING

Here's my finished French Chocolate Cake from Coconut Dishes That Everybody Loves (1931). It was divine. Of course I love coconut. And chocolate cake. And buttercream frosting. The hardest part was keeping Percy away from it!

I made Pimiento Sandwiches for Valentine's Day at the behest of one of my 1920s books, A Calendar of Sandwiches. The spread is just 8 ounces of soft cream cheese mixed with 3 ounces chopped pimientos (drained), salt to taste, and enough cream to make it easy to spread.

I also made Corn Muffins and Date-Nut Loaf. I served the corn muffins with Down East Fish Chowder and I'm making cream-cheese sandwiches with the Date-Nut Loaf, the perfect accompaniment for Vegetable Chowder! (Can you tell I love chowder?)

VINTAGE FASHION

This illustration is from the February 1938 issue of Woman's Home Companion. Spring is on its way!

VINTAGE FILMS

 

 

First off, we have Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio. I have watched this movie all the way through before (and there's a menu to go with it!) but now I just fast forward to the bits with Astaire and Rogers, usually just "The Carioca" and "Music Makes Me" (both pictured above). I do like the gleeful way Flying Down to Rio takes advantage of the lack of production code at the time. Check out Ginger's see-though dress! And those pelvis-to-pelvis dance moves!

Our Dancing Daughters is such a fun silent film. Such daring behavior for young ladies! Joan Crawford dances on tables and falls for Johnny Mack Brown. The costumes are great and Anita Page is ridiculous and bitchy in the best way possible. Definitely worth the watch.

VINTAGE READING

On the far left is my 1933 copy of Pillsbury's Balanced Recipes. It's aluminum. It's so 1933 I want to scream. I've also started Vicki Baum's Love and Death in Bali, which was first published in 1937. I don't really know if I'm going to enjoy it...

That's all, folks! Have a great weekend and I'll see you back here in two weeks.