A perfect day for...

SOUP!

Have you had much rain in February? We may very well reach last February's record breaking rains here in Nashville.

And a cold rainy day is perfect for soup. Did you notice that the 1938 ad for Campbell's Vegetable Soup above says "a steaming plate"? I've noticed in many of my vintage magazines that a soup bowl is called a plate. 

I make a big pot of vegetable soup regularly, every time I want to use up everything in the produce drawer of the fridge before a trip to the grocery store.

We have to have a pot of chili once...

and chicken chili...

But vegetable soup appears at least once a week around here and is my personal favorite. We also have some type of legume soup every week, and chicken one night, and fish several nights a week.

But there comes a day when RH asks "Where's the beef?"

That's when only the old beer-braised roast beef from an old Bon Appétit recipe will do and I cook a bottom round roast.


After searing the roast I take it out of the pot and sauté a chopped onion and shallot in the drippings. Then I add a large can of fire-roasted diced or crushed tomatoes and cook 5 minutes. 

Then add one bottle of Guiness Stout, oregano, bay leaf and 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and freshly ground black pepper. Put the roast back in the pot and stir in beef stock to cover.

Bring just to a boil, cover, and reduce to simmer for about two hours. Add one cup chopped parsley and cook 30 minutes more, or until fork tender.
 

I made this last week and the first meal of it was delicious, as were the sandwiches I made of it for three people for lunch, but the best meal of all was the vegetable-beef soup I made from the sauce the roast was cooked in. I make two other recipes for roast beef but the soup made from the leftovers of this recipe is the best. RH even eats it leftover for breakfast.

A favorite easy bread we like to go with both the first meal and then oven-toasted for the soup are rolls made from frozen Bridgeford rolls. Have you ever tried them? I think they're the best frozen rolls you can buy. They need to rise at least 5 hours so I put them in a pan early in the day.

Last week I tried a trick I read in the February 1944 Woman's Home Companion. After putting the rolls in the pan to rise and brushing them with melted butter, I sprinkled celery seed and celery salt on them. They were delicious and reminded me so much of the salty yeast rolls I ate at Wednesday night supper at church when I was growing up, a little different from my mother's good homemade rolls recipe. 

I like to use Mikassa's Black Forest plates in winter after I put Christmas china away. I only have three plates of it, all from Goodwill, but it seems perfect for January and early February with my old USA soup bowls.

It's fun to use these old Arby's glasses with them too, with their Currier & Ives prints.

And I just have to show you my new green Staub Dutch oven with a pine tree etched in the lid. Isn't it cute? And it's just right for a small pot of soup or a small pot roast without having to get out my huge fennel green Le Cruset.

Has soup been on your table lately during a cold rainy or snowy winter day?

What is your most special soup? Will you tell us about it?

 Thank you!

 

Knock, Knock!

Me: Knock, knock!

You: Who's there?

Me: Orange.

You: Orange who?

Me: Orange you glad to see me? 😁

I guess I'm pretty lazy to leave a Veteran's Day post up for three weeks, but it turned out to be a blessing for me because I got to read more of your own stories in the comments than if I'd jumped to the next thing and I loved each one of them. 

Even now when everyone is all over the subject of Christmas and the holidays ahead, here I am lagging behind with what should have been posted in October.

Because I'm talking orange today, orange and UK Christmas magazine issues, specifically my dreamboat of a magazine, Period Living.

(I don't know about you but I am head over heels in love with this tangerine and white kitchen with touches of hot pink.)

Years ago when all the fancy-smancy US shelter magazines started ignoring Christmas in their December issues--yes, I'm talking about you, House Beautiful American version--I gave up on them and started buying the British magazines' December issues. 

I won't link to it here because there were only a few comments and one of them was from my son, but I even wrote about it at my other blog back in 2012 in my first month of blogging.

(I adore artist Vanessa Arbutnott's kitchen in her 1890 house in Gloucestershire, England.)

I've saved many of the British December issues over the years, those that are timeless, and many of them are.

But the one I search high and low for each December is Period Living, the one I discovered just a few years ago. I don't even pack them away with the other December magazines as they inspire me all year round.

The Period Living shown in the first three pictures above are from this year's October issue. RH brought it home to me as a surprise when I was so sick that month and I loved the touches of orange featured in the issue. 

I don't really have much orange here in my rooms but at Valley View I indulged my love of it, as you can see from this picture of our family room. (Look at the partial wall behind the two hanging light fixtures.)

Our last Christmas there in 2015, I even incorporated orange into my Christmas decor, not ready to toss October's pumpkins. The purples and pinks of our Christmas tree took on a new zing with the orange.

Now, on with more orange!

Years ago I saw this ad in one of my vintage magazines.

I was going to make this dessert of Caramel Bavarian Mold and post it back in 2014, even bought two copper melon molds.

It never happened, but this year I bought two bags of the Kraft Caramels and in early November I finally made it!

I worried about those 3 raw egg whites, would I give us all salmonella by folding them in raw? I couldn't risk it and folded them into the hot custard gradually which meant my mixture was not as glossy as the picture. Still I stuck the two molds into a glass casserole to hold them upright and put them in the fridge and poured a small bowl of the leftover custard to chill too, sampling it later that night. Delicious!

Supper plans with some family members got cancelled and there the Caramel Bavarian molds sat in the fridge, uneaten for a week. RH couldn't eat the dairy in it and I wondered if I really wanted to eat all of that high fructose corn syrup that was in the Kraft caramels.

Seven days after making it I unmolded them and posed them on a silver tray and took pictures.

And then I slid the blasted things into the trash can.

If I ever make this recipe again I will buy my caramels from the Duck Fat people here...https://www.oliveandsinclair.com/shop/duckfatcaramel

Of course the caramels then would cost me $40--what!! 

That's my serving of orange for you, dear friends.

I'll pack away this old woven spread that we found years ago for $24 and move on to catch up with the rest of you knee-deep in Christmas colors.

But how can I resist first doing a little name dropping and saying that a year after buying the spread I saw it in a full-page color Ralph Lauren room, draped over a hassock! And then the next year I found another one in an antique shop in Mount Dora, Florida for over $300. What!!

I take good care of this woven spread of orange, red, and green and hope one of my children will some day--don't you dare donate it to GW, kids, or I'll haunt you every October. I'll leave my melon molds to you too. Ha, those will get tossed, or maybe not as I have one daughter-in-law who has a wall of them. 

I wonder who will claim my Spode collection, like my stack of 11 old plates that I've never been able to identify the pattern name. Anyone out there know it?

Orange you glad this is the end of my post?

The Shorter the Sleeves, the Longer the Gloves

[Ladies Home Journal 1951 ad for Van Raalte Gloves]

The Van Raalte glove ads always reminded women of the main glove rule, "The shorter the sleeves, the longer the gloves."

Did any of you wear above-the-elbow gloves with a strapless dress to the prom? 

I did but I never realized that wearing gloves as a "career woman" was as important as wearing my panty girdle back in the early 1960s when I was hired as a receptionist at a large religious publishing company in Nashville. 

Soon after beginning work one of the young editorial assistants firmly suggested she go with me to Cain-Sloan department store on our lunch break to help me choose a pair. 

They were soft black leather wrist-length gloves and I wish I still had them. I was wearing them here -- on my honeymoon -- with the tailored red wool suit my mother made me.

And I was wearing my mother's mink stole. You can bet I felt sophisticated, even in my white harlequin glasses. [I wrote about it here, at my old blog Across the Way.]

I didn't know any women then who thought wearing fur was wrong. All of my girlfriends wished we could afford furs.

I have to admit that if someone had given me this gorgeous chinchilla coat that was in the Ladies Home Journal of 1951, I would have worn it proudly then.

I know--bad, bad, bad. But we didn't know any better, and honestly, speaking from first hand experience of our son's utterly mean tempered pet chinchilla, I might not turn down the coat now. 

After a few months of him always biting the hand that tried to feed him -- me -- I ignored my son's tears and begged the pet shop to take him back.

And believe me, I knew it was a him. The chinchilla knew he was a him too and was very proud of it. [Don't ask.]

So while today if I could squeeze into this to-die-for red wool suit, I would not buy the Persian-lamb collar, or the fur of any other animal.

But it's best not to tempt me with an offer of a chinchilla coat. 

And I still miss the ratty old mink jacket that I left in Nashville when we moved to Florida. I bought it for $40 at a yard sale back in the 1970s, and nothing was warmer on a cold windy winter day when I took Tex and Penelope, and later Otis and Milo for walks through the valley. 

I may have to haunt the estate sales when we move back to Tennessee. Is wearing old fur coats PC now? If I don't wear them out in public and risk getting paint thrown on me? If I only wear a ratty old yard sale one in the privacy of my own back yard? Isn't that just a thrifty form of recycling?

What do you think?

Ads That Sold -- Thermador

1960

I never thought I would be cooking with gas,

and I never thought I would be using

Thermador appliances.

But I am, if only temporarily.

Refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave

and convection oven are all Thermador.

But it is the 6-burner gas range that has been my...

my nemesis.

I have burned 80% of all I've cooked

on these burners.

After all, below is the stove I've been used to...

Cozy, friendly, known.

But I am learning to tame this monster.

How?

Unless I'm boiling water,

this is the only setting I use...

And even then I don't dare turn my back on it.

My green Le Cruset sits on top of it all the time,

it's too heavy to try to store.

I use it for pot roasts and Bolognese sauce,

but mostly I use it for soups.

Leftover chicken and broths turn into one of

many favorite chicken soup recipes,

enriched with a box of my favorite broth.

This time it was a Congee, 

an Asian porridge that is pure comfort food.

Recipes abound online but be sure to

allow plenty of time for the rice to cook

almost to a gruel.

Soups are my favorite meals and I love soup pots.

I use this smaller All-Clad soup pot too.

This large pot doesn't get as much use

now that we've moved, no son living right next door to share pots of soup with.

But its pasta inserts came in handy for many

pasta-based meals in past years.

Good tools last forever and this Thermador

range will last long after we've moved

to the small house we're looking for.

As long as I keep it on simmer.

Next to tackle the oven.

I've only used it three times.

Those whoosh noises emitting from its depths

make me jump every time.

I'll get used to this Thermador range--

I even smiled when I spotted

the Thermador ad in this fabulous1960

House & Garden the other day.

It's kind of nice getting to use these

Thermador appliances.

But about the time I catch on,

we'll be moving to a small house,

small kitchen.

I'm already studying ideas for small kitchens.

But where will I store all these big soup pots?

He'd never messed with gas stoves. While chefs were commonly known to prefer cooking with gas, he'd always feared it might blow his head off. Dangerous stuff, gas, he could smell it in here more strongly than in the rest of the house. If he lit a match they could be spending their honeymoon in Quebec.

Father Tim in Jan Karon's
A Common Life 

Ads That Sold - Daniel Green Slippers

[Ladies' Home Journal April 1951]

Daniel Green has been making slippers for 130 years!

I used to give ones like the Fifi style above at lingerie showers
for my girlfriends when I was a young married woman. 

They were always a big hit.

But I still wear Daniel Green Slippers today.

I don't think they make honeymoon slippers anymore.

But if you want a comfy slipper, Daniel Green Slippers make me happy--

and Otis likes them too.

 

For the Price of a Bowl of Soup

"For the price of a bowl of soup I bought today at an old bookshop

a volume to me infinitely valuable--

a boon, a prize, a priceless possession.

All the way home on the train I read it:

I was enlarged, I acquired merit, I added to my life."

 David Grayson in The Countryman's Year
 

Have you ever felt that way about a book?

This old 1943 book, Richardson Wright's The Bed-Book of Eating and Drinking, found "for the price of a bowl of soup," has been a real treasure to me. In it he does for the table what he did for the garden in his classic The Gardener's Bed-Book.

This old first edition, while missing its dustjacket, is full of helpful tidbits from the longtime Editor in chief of House and Garden. And all from a man's viewpoint, or at least from the viewpoint of a man of his time. I honestly can't see R.H. caring whether his soup is served from a soup tureen or not, but Mr. Wright surely cared.

 

"Now the purpose of using a tureen at table,

apart from displaying a charming vessel, is to keep the soup hot...

Further, I believe that the soup should be a surprise,

the kind to come shouldn't be announced beforehand."

Richardson Wright

Do any of you have a soup tureen? Do you use it? I would love to have one like the Spode's Pink Tower above, or in any of the Spode patterns that I collect but wonder if I would actually use it.

 I like what Mr. Wright says about keeping the soup a surprise. Sometimes we give away all the fun of a meal by telling what's for supper, when it would be more dramatic to bring a soup tureen to the table and lift the lid. 

I'm not sure I would even have room for a soup tureen so I'll continue to use my favorite Le Cruset soup pot to serve from. 

We all have favorite chicken soup recipes so I won't put mine here but I do have a new favorite ingredient. Five minutes before serving the soup I stir in chopped baby bok choy. It is so much better than the large bok choy in soup.

I served mine with finely cut basil in two Mikasa "Chelsea Vine" bowls found at Goodwill. The placemats and napkins are from there too. 

This soup started off the night before as Roast Chicken, Pat Conroy's recipe--found HERE 
at my old blog--except that this time I included Richardson Wright's suggestion:

"Before you tuck away a chicken to roast,

rub it with this mixture:

1/2 powdered ginger and 1/4 mustard and 1/4 salt.

Things happen to that chicken's flavor."

I assumed he meant teaspoons here and dry mustard and it very definitely added to the flavor and color of the chicken.

I always save the leftover skin and bones and scraps to make broth the next morning, which is the basis of several different kinds of chicken soup the next day with the leftover chicken added. 

Maybe someday I'll find a soup tureen at Goodwill with my name on it. Meanwhile I always find other hidden treasures in the book aisle. Choose the sticker of the day color and their books are half price. 

"For the price of a bowl of soup" you might find a book to read or to read to someone else that is priceless.

Even magical?