Little Grey Bungalow

Life Imitates Art

2013-06-17T20:20:00.001-07:00

I am leaving at 0600 tomorrow for a public health emergency preparedness conference which -- coincidentally, I'm sure -- is being held in a town currently experiencing an e coli outbreak.

See you all on Friday. Perhaps.

There Will Always Be An England

2013-06-17T17:54:00.003-07:00

Vintage Magazines -- Wild West, 1936

2013-06-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

They don't make pulp magazines they way they used to. By the way, this one is available online and can be read for free at the Unz site. Which is a pretty marvelous place to waste time if you're fascinated by early 20th century pop culture.

Hiatus

2013-06-15T10:39:00.001-07:00

For no reason other than I'm tired and the rocker on the front porch is calling me, I'm declaring an Internet-free weekend. See you Monday.

Notes On An IED Workshop

2013-06-12T20:23:00.002-07:00

(I really love my job).

FBI Agent/Instructor: Home-made explosives tend to be a self-resolving issue.

*******

FBI Agent/Instructor: Al Qaeda produces an excellent magazine called Inspire. In terms of layout, artwork and all that, it's very professionally done.

Local Cop: Is there a swimsuit issue?

FBI Agent/Instructor: Yes. The eyes show.

*******

DEA Agent/Instructor: Of course if you make a mistake with these ingredients, you're going to experience a negative outcome.

*******

Me: What are you grinning for?

Smitty: Because I'm a guy and we're blowing shit up!

Knitting - A Jacket from 1935

2013-06-11T20:22:00.004-07:00

Sorry for not posting yesterday, I've been having some trouble with my eyes and I just didn't get around to it.

A knitted jacket in "the New Boilfast Cottons," from Fashions Today, put out by the J.P. Coats company in 1935. Instructions are on my Flickr account.

Party Games

2013-06-09T15:34:00.001-07:00

ALL ABOUT KATE

This game will furnish amusement at an evening entertainment, but may also be played after a ladies' luncheon. The questions, on sheets of paper with spaces allowed for the answers, are distributed, and fifteen minutes given for answering them. Each answer is composed of one word ending with the letters c-a-t-e; for instance: Kate is a good pleader (advo-cate). When fifteen minutes have elapsed each player signs her name and passes her paper to the person on her right. The answers are then read, and the player having the most correct answers wins a prize.

Questions—

Kate is a good pleader. (advocate)
Kate judges judicially. (adjudicate)
Kate is apt to use other people's money wrongfully. (defalcate)
Kate is very frail. (delicate)
Kate sometimes gets out of joint. (dislocate)
Kate makes everything double. (duplicate)
Kate loves to teach. (educate)
Kate takes out ink spots. (eradicate)
Kate helps people out of difficulties. (extricate)
Kate is good at constructing. (fabricate)
Kate gives a pledge of security. (hypothecate)
Kate sometimes invokes evil. (imprecate)
Kate is perplexing; hard to understand. (intricate)
Kate often prays earnestly. (supplicate)
Kate makes wheels run easily. (lubricate)
Kate uses her teeth. (masticate)
Kate is not always truthful. (prevaricate)
Kate can foretell events. (prognosticate)
Kate makes an affirmative. (predicate)
Kate gets smothered. (suffocate)
Kate points out clearly. (indicate)
Kate makes business combinations. (syndicate)
Kate goes into the country. (rusticate)
Kate will now move out. (vacate)

From Bright Ideas for Entertaining, 1905, available as a free download from Project Gutenberg.

I Want These

2013-06-09T13:55:00.005-07:00

Light-saber knitting needles.

Caturday!

2013-06-08T09:36:00.001-07:00

Quote of the Day

2013-06-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

It is as well that war is so terrible, otherwise we would grow too fond of it. ~ Robert E. Lee

Grrrsday

2013-06-06T17:27:00.003-07:00

Knitting - A Dress from 1935

2013-06-04T19:56:00.003-07:00

From a 1935 Columbia Minerva book, "Deldoon," a one-piece dress knitted in a drop-stitch pattern. Pretty dress but where did they come up with that name? Instructions on my Flickr account.

Vintage Advertising - Dickies Work Clothes

2013-06-03T18:54:00.001-07:00

I was contacted by Stephan, who works for Dickies, with a link to their blog and a dropbox full of vintage Dickies' advertising. I was familiar with the Dickies brand, as anyone who lives in a rural/agricultural area has to be, but I had no idea they were a popular brand in the UK.

(Selling "ready to dye" clothes; would this concept fly today?)

Lots of fun images, although if you are of a certain age, the photos from the 1970's will make you wince in recognition. Check them out.

"On The Subject Of Entertaining" - Part III, Menus and Recipes for Special Occasions

2013-06-02T15:49:00.004-07:00

BRIDGE LUNCHEONS

Sometimes the hostess who is entertaining at bridge decides on a luncheon rather than serving refreshments afterward. this is delightful to the guests, and sometimes easier for the hostess, especially if she serves at the card tables.

Cover each table with a luncheon cloth, place the napkins and arrange the necessary silver, glassware, etc, dispensing with both bread-and-butter plates and floral centerpieces. Plan your menu so that you can arrange the entire main course on the individual plates before bringing them to the table. If hot bread is served, butter it before placing it on the plates. Then after luncheon is over you need only remove the used dishes in a tray or tea wagon, fold up the luncheon cloths, and quickly arrange the necessary "tools" for playing bridge.

But what will you give them to eat?

Hera are a few menus that may help, together with recipes.

Bridge Menus

Tomato Juice Cocktail

Sweetbread and Almond Salad

Cheese Biscuits

Celery, Radishes

Orange Layer Cake

Iced Tea

Jellied Shrimp Salad

Cheese Biscuits

Pickled Peaches Crisp Celery

Honey Ice Cream Cake

Coffee

Chicken Timbales

Asparagus Tips with Hollandaise Sauce

Nut Graham Muffins Currant Jelly

Chocolate Refrigerator Cake

Iced Coffee

Jellied Chicken Soup

Molded Tuna Salad with Cucumber Dressing

New Peas

Brown Bread Fingers

Sponge Cake Peaches with Sunshine Sauce

Iced Tea

Sweetbread and Almond Salad. 1 pair sweetbreads, 1 cup blanched almonds, mayonnaise, radishes. Soak sweetbreads in cold water for one hour, changing the water two or three times. Then drain and plunge into boiling water to which one teaspoon vinegar has been added and cook for fifteen minutes. Next drain and place immediately into ice cold water to blanch. Let stand ten minutes. Wipe dry and chill. Dice sweetbreads and mix with almonds, and add just enough mayonnaise to bind. Garnish with radish roses. Serves six.

Honey Ice Cream Cake. Cut slices of Sponge or Angel Food Cake three inches square and one-half inch thick, and arrange on individual dessert plates. Top each piece of cake with a square of chocolate or vanilla ice cream, and then garnish each with two tablespoons strained honey and one tablespoon salted pecans.

Chicken Timbales. Melt three tablespoons of butter; add one-half cup soft bread crumbs and one cup of milk; cook for fie minutes, stirring constantly. Add one-half teasopon of salt, a little pepper and paprika, one tablespoon chopped parsley, one and one half cups cooked chicken cut into dice, and three eggs slightly beaten. Mix well and turn into individual buttered timbale molds, filling them two-thirds full. Set molds in pan of hot water, cover with greased paper, and bake at 325° F. for thirty minutes. Serves six.

Molded Tuna Salad. To one can of flaked tuna, add one cup stiff mayonnaise, one chopped, hard-cooked egg, one-fourth cup chopped olives, one tablespoon capers and one teaspoon chopped chives. Soften one-half tablespoon gelatin in one-fourth cup cold wter, place over hot water until dissolved, then add to the fish mixture and stir lightly with a fork, being careful not to break the fish. Put in cold wet mods and chill. Six individual molds.

Cucumber Dressing. To one-half cup thick cream, add one-fourth teaspoon salt, a speck of pepper and two tablespoons vinegar. Beat until stiff. Just before serving add one cucumber which has been pared, chopped very fine and drained.

Sunshine Sauce. Boil one cup sugar with one-third cup water to 238° F. or the soft-ball stage. Pour this sirup over the stiffly-beaten yolks of two eggs. Continue beating until creamy. Add two tablespoons vanilla. Just before serving, fold in one cup stiffly-beaten cream.

The Detroit Times Cook Book, 1936.

Caturday!

2013-06-01T10:09:00.001-07:00

Quote of the Day

2013-05-31T19:40:00.004-07:00

All men whilst they are awake are in one common world; but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own. ~ Plutarch

Grrrsday

2013-05-30T16:07:00.002-07:00

Crochet - a Collar and Cuff Set from 1950

2013-05-28T21:04:00.002-07:00

From The Australian Home Journal, January 1950. Left-click to enlarge.

Vintage Advertising - Cigarettes and the Great War

2013-05-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

From Every Week magazine, June 1918, at a time when sending packages that included cartons of cigarettes to servicemen was a patriotic duty. Ironically, smoking was prohibited on the front lines; that little glowing cigarette end made a dandy target for snipers.

Happy Birthday

2013-05-26T14:43:00.001-07:00

To me. Which is my explanation for why I am not posting my usual Sunday vintage recipes.

(Thanks to Stacey for the card. Which she says she got from the NYPL online, so: "Courtesy of the New York Public Library, www.nypl.org.")

Cat Bundling

2013-05-25T08:39:00.001-07:00

Why Isn't There A "Take Your German Shepherd To Work" Day?

2013-05-24T19:23:00.000-07:00

There's a Jehovah's Witness convention in town and one of them got into our building today.

Quote of the Day

2013-05-24T18:04:00.001-07:00

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. ~ George S. Patton

Caption Contest

2013-05-23T16:05:00.001-07:00

"You're sure this is how you do the Harlem Shake?"

(from the lovely Gail G in Michigan. Any and all comments welcome; no prizes, just glory).

No, Jim! It is crouch and walk at the SAME time. I don't care if you did it differently in high school. We do it this way in the real world. Crouch and walk at the SAME time.

(from Unknown).

Knitting and Fatigue

2013-05-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

For reasons that would probably be obvious if I were a medical professional, I went to bed at 5pm yesterday and slept for 11 hours straight.

So, in place of my usual Tuesday needlework post here's a Wednesday needlework post. Another download from Purple Kitty, with the patterns available here.

As always, these are free if you want to download them one at a time, and $1.49 if you have more money than patience.