Knowing my love for all things vintage & gelatin, my friend Karen snagged this book from her grandmother’s collection (don’t worry–we gave it back!) It is the Knox On-Camera Recipes Gel-Cookery Guide. Printed in 1960, the guide is a print-version of TV demonstrations and (according to the introduction) “gives you a new look at the many rewarding uses of Unflavored Gelatin(e).”
Basically, the recipe book takes delicious dishes–like gazpacho, spinach salad, Waldorf salad, deviled eggs…and gelatin-izes them…which creates beautiful and yes, slightly weird, molded presentations (as seen below).
While I am super-interested in trying to make a savory gelatin dish just for the nostalgia of it all, the thought of molded avocado and tuna kind of makes my stomach turn. Part of me thinks that there’s a reason Jello survived in its sweet form…and maybe we should just leave savory gelatin in the past.
How about you? Have you ever had a savory gelatin dish? Would you ever try one?
This past weekend, I met up with my parents for some garden shopping. We met in our usual spot, Peru, Illinois, which is kind of a halfway point for us. (It’s a bit of a longer drive for me, but it’s worth it because that area has great thrift stores!) We usually go to the same ol’ places but since I was on the hunt for tomato and pepper plants for my garden, they took me to Rural King–“America’s Farm & Home Store”. I did get some plants and some seeds here (more on that later) but I fell in love with the store for other reasons.
Reason #1: the free popcorn and coffee. When you walk in the Rural King door, you are welcomed by the scent of freshly popped popcorn and a pot of coffee. Isn’t that so sweet and old-fashioned? My mom and I helped ourselves to some popcorn while we poked around the candy aisles.
Reason #2: the vintage candy selection! Where else can you get seeds for your garden, parts for your tractor, food for your chickens AND old-timey gum and sweets?! I could have bought one of everything, but I decided to narrow it down to a few things (mainly because I didn’t want my candy bill to out-do my garden bill…so embarrassing…)
Here’s a rundown of my choices:
Chuckles, a sugar coated jelly candy introduced in 1921. (There is an interesting review of the Chuckles flavors here.) I am familiar with Chuckles, but I can’t remember ever tasting them, so I’m looking forward to breaking the package open this week.
Teaberry gum, my faaaavorite gum of all time. It was introduced in 1900 was popular in the 60s. (Has it been on Mad Men?) If you’ve never tried it, I think you should–it’s sweet and has a slight wintergreen flavor…it’s hard to pinpoint…it’s not super minty, it’s just wonderful. And I love the packaging and all of its vintage pink goodness. I found the commercial below and I may have spent a good amount of time this morning perfecting my Teaberry shuffle…
Clove gum is another old gum…there’s not much to say about it except that it’s reeeally clove-y. It’s not bad, but I think one pack would have been enough to walk down memory lane.
Beemans gum is from the 19th century. I’d forgotten what it tasted like. For some reason, I was thinking honey (BEEman…turns out he’s the inventor of the gum and not a bee) but it’s a nice light mint flavor…different than Teaberry, but almost as good!
And finally, Sky Bar. I’d never seen this one before and I am most excited to try it. It’s made up of four sections with four different fillings: caramel, vanilla, peanut and fudge. According to the Necco website, the Sky Bar is still the only candy bar to offer four different flavors. I had a very healthy lunch today (involving roasted cauliflower) so I doubt this candy bar makes it through the afternoon.
I think my favorite part of the old-timey candies is that their packaging is usually the original design…no one felt the need to update it to keep up with the “cool kids”. It’s charming and tasty and while I’m eating it, I just can’t help but think (in an old granny voice): They don’t make things like they used to.
I’m in the middle of tidying up the kitchen drawers and the pantry. I’m in the middle of trying to convince Naoto that we need to get rid of our steamer. We’ve only used our steamer once AND we have a steamer function on our rice cooker AND we have a huge pot with a steamer tray…why keep it? (I’m losing this fight. Does anyone need a steamer?) I’m in the middle of replacing our three incomplete sets of measuring spoons with the one complete set from my parents. I’m in the middle of sorting through our pantry and thinking that we buy too much food that we don’t finish. We need to make better choices at the grocery store.
This morning I was sorting through the drawer that has the “infrequently used” things…things like summery serving trays (a gift) and tiny vases (and pretty bottles that I use as vases) and fondue forks. These fondue forks were a re-gift from our coffee-shop friend Madonna. We used to drink coffee with Madonna when our friends owned the bakery near our old apartment. When Madonna learned we had hosted a little fondue party, she brought us these fondue forks. They had been a gift to her in the 70s.
In case the picture is unclear, it says:
Dear Madonna,
Sorry we were late that night. We were looking for a place to buy a liqueur to “warm” your house. As it turns out, maybe you’ll get more and longer enjoyment from these.
Love,
Jessica & Terry
I love the wooden handles and the gold Roman numerals on each fork. I think the handles could use a bit of oil, but it is really such a lovely set. I love that Madonna thought to give them to us–it’s nice to have a little but of her history in our home since she was a big part of our life when we lived in Oak Park.
I think a little fondue party might be in the making!
I love Valentine’s Day…not in the Naoto-buy-me-flowers-and-jewelry sort of way (Oh how I dread the flower and jewelry commercials that will be playing over the next week around here!) No, I like it because it’s a tiny celebration in the middle of the gloomiest days of winter. I like it because it gives me another excuse to mail out some pink and red cheer to friends and family. I like it because all of the good Valentines have a pun. I like it because Dove dark chocolates taste a little bit better in heart shapes.
This year I bought some sweet Valentines, and a couple of supplies to make my own. I wanted to buy a box of classroom Valentines at the drugstore to tuck in with my letters this month, but I couldn’t find anything that didn’t have a licensed character on it. I wish they still made Valentines with generic cute people and quirky animals and silly puns (oh, the PUNS!), like my vintage selection above.
Other than cards and some lighthearted decorating (pun intended), we really don’t celebrate Valentines Day around here. The first year I knew Naoto, he tucked a tiny box of chocolates in my apartment screen door. I ended up tripping on it and smashing it a bit, but it is still one of my favorite Valentine gestures. We were just friends back then, so it was an unexpected treat.
Are you making or sending Valentines this year? Or do you consider Valentine’s Day to be a “Hallmark holiday” and completely ignore it? What’s the best Valentine pun you’ve seen?
On Thanksgiving, my parents came bearing thrifted gifts. I’m a bit behind on blogging about them. My dad gave me this 1950s ice bucket/bun warmer. Yes, you read that correctly…it keeps your ice cold and your bread hot (though, not at the same time). My picture is terrible, but there are penguins walking around the bowl part and it has shiny bakelite handles. It was made by West Bend in Wisconsin back in the 1950s and this one is still in shiny, almost-new condition! While I’m intrigued by its bun warming capabilities (my grandma used it this way and my mom said it works), its primary job in our house will be in the ice department. I’ve been searching for an ice bucket for a long time now, and I’m glad I held out for this little round guy!
Now, to plan a little cocktail party and put it to good use!
When I was little, I wore these knitted red and green bells on my coat every December. They were a gift from my great-grandmother and they were out of rotation for many years. In junior high, it’s not exactly “cool” to wear knitted Christmas pins! Once I moved out on my own, I decided they would make a good ornament for the tree. This year I might borrow them for a day to use them in my childhood Christmas pin rotation.
The green angel ornament is a gift from my grandmother. The angel is one of those painted wood ornaments that were everywhere in the 80s. I have a box of tiny ones that I pilfered from my mom’s collection. My grandmother and I picked it out together. Her wings are dated 12-21-1982, and though that was long ago, I remember this rare shopping day and how excited I was to have my own ornament to put on the tree.
Today, I am finishing my Christmas cards. Hopefully I can get them all in the mail tomorrow and my international friends get theirs in time (crossing fingers!) I still need to finish some last bits of shopping and all of the wrapping, and I need to poke through the closet to make sure I don’t forget anything I had tucked away during the year…so much to do before Christmas and so much to enjoy before Christmas.
Last week we finally bought our first grown-up TV. Actually this is the first television purchase for either one of us–both Naoto & I have lived on TV hand-me-downs (and my gifted college TV from this post) our whole lives. When I met Naoto, his TV was so old, it didn’t even have a remote control and mine was my parent’s old set that worked perfectly, except it occasionally made this sizzling noise. It was slightly alarming, but harmless, until one day, it sizzled out in the middle of a thrilling Law & Order episode. Sad. (Confession: We hopped in my car and sped over to Naoto’s apartment to finish the episode.)
We finally got everything set up with HD and all that fancy stuff (clearly, I have no idea what I’m talking about here) and here it is! And we are so excited that it fit on our vintage hardware cabinet from Yearbook. Even the HD cable box tucks nicely to the side! (Sidenote: Do you remember this Friends episode where Rachel randomly wears her old cheerleader uniform to woo Joshua?)
I love our little hardware drawers. Most of them are still labeled with the contents of each drawer. I have a vintage Dymo label maker, so I might break it out for the drawers that have lost their identification. But I’m keeping the original old labels on the others.
I still need to vacuum out the drawers and decide what we are putting in them (any suggestions?), but for now, we are really happy with our impulse furniture purchase.
P.S. I tried to wipe off the stuff on the bottom drawers, but it seems to be more permanent than dirt…just so you don’t think I didn’t try.
P.S. (Part 2) Thanks for all of the hair love last week! Every comment made me smile!
My parents are the best thrifters. They find the best stuff for a fraction of the cost it would be online or here in my thrift stores. And they know me so well. Yesterday was my mom’s birthday, but I felt like it was MY Christmas because they had a bag of thrifted treats for me. It’s hard to play favorites, but this giant price stamp takes the cake! It’s about nine inches long and stamps numbers that are about one inch high.
Here it is next to my “normal-sized” date stamp. How fun would it be to stamp a zip code on a letter with this guy?
I’m in love. It still works, but even if it didn’t, I would still be in love.
While I am super-interested in trying to make a savory gelatin dish just for the nostalgia of it all, the thought of molded avocado and tuna kind of makes my stomach turn. Part of me thinks that there’s a reason Jello survived in its sweet form…and maybe we should just leave savory gelatin in the past.
kimberly ah 