Brock Davis Plays with His Food

My favorite part of catering was creating beautiful tablescapes with flowers, and drapery and artistic whimsey. And I loved making the food look beautiful on the plate. That work has given me an appreciation of Food Art wherever I find it, on the canvas or on the plate.

You want to go to Brock Davis website, if only to see the Banana Peel Trucker Hat.  

I Love the Library of Congress WPA Posters

I cannot stop looking through them.

Support artists in the community. They make our lives better in uncountable ways. And if we support them in their work, artists may find ways of transforming our culture and person not yet clear to those of us engaged in more mundane and lucrative occupations. Van Gogh never sold a single painting and even so he transformed our way of seeing forever.

If you click on each poster, you will see who created the poster and other interesting details. You can purchase prints of these posters or download them. Many of them have no restrictions on duplication.

"On March 6 in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA was just one of many Great Depression relief programs created under the auspices of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, which Roosevelt had signed the month before. The WPA, the Public Works Administration (PWA) and other federal assistance programs put unemployed Americans to work in return for temporary financial assistance. Out of the 10 million jobless men in the United States in 1935, 3 million were helped by WPA jobs alone.
While FDR believed in the elementary principles of justice and fairness, he also expressed disdain for doling out welfare to otherwise able workers. So, in return for monetary aid, WPA workers built highways, schools, hospitals, airports and playgrounds. They restored theaters--such as the Dock Street Theater in Charleston, S.C.--and built the ski lodge at Oregon's Mt. Hood. The WPA also put actors, writers and other creative arts professionals back to work by sponsoring federally funded plays, art projects, such as murals on public buildings, and literary publications. FDR safeguarded private enterprise from competition with WPA projects by including a provision in the act that placed wage and price controls on federally funded products or services."

365 Days a Year - Course Dinner in 15 Minutes by Mabel Claire

I sing the praises again of my library book sale. I found a copy of Mabel Claire's The Busy Woman's Cookbook - Course Dinners in 15 Minutes published in 1925. Consider that all the machines and products that are sold today as labor and time saving did not exist in the 20s and 30s. This book can still be found at $20.00. I spent $0.50.

Vintage cookbooks are an educational peek at American culture of the period. I give you one of Ms. Claire's "15 minute course dinners" verbatim. This menu is delicious and quick. Just what a busy person needs when they have to cook dinner 365 days a year.

MENU - Serves 2

Ham and Eggs
Tomatoes, Peppers and Onions
Bread and Butter
Baked Bananas with Cream
Coffee

SHOPPING LIST

Slice of Ham
Four Eggs
Two Tomatoes
Three Green Peppers
Half Pint Cream
Four Small Bananas
Loaf Bread
1/4 Pound Butter

HAVE READY

3 Frying Pans
Fork
Tablespoon
Knife
Sugar
Butter
Cinnamon
Salt

Light the gas oven. Light two gas burners. On one put frying pan with a tablespoon of butter. On the second burner heat the frying pan for the ham.

When the butter in the frying pan is hot, peel and slice into it the onions, next the peppers cut small with seeds removed, last the tomatoes, cut in dice. When these are not, cover closely and cook over moderate flame until wanted.

When the frying pan is hot for the ham, brown the slice on both sides. Cook 8 minutes. Dish on to a platter and put into the oven.

Break four eggs into the pan the ham has cooked in and cook until done to taste, about 5 minutes.

Heat the third frying pan and melt in  it a tablespoon of butter. Peel and halve lengthwise the four bananas. Saute on both sides. Sprinkle over these a large tablespoon of sugar and a dusting of cinnamon and let this melt into them. Cooking time about 3 minutes. Remove the bananas to the oven to keep hot until wanted for dessert.

Turn off the oven. Prepare the coffee. Set the table, five minutes. Ms. Claire points out that doubling this recipe for a larger family does  not increase the cooking time.

Ms. Mary Giblin's Old Fashioned Sweet Chili Sauce

Bill Giblin, Mary Giblin's son, did the technical drawings in 1938 for my Father's model airplane The Trenton Terror. People are still building the model all these years later.

Bill also played a Munchkin Soldier in the film The Wizard of Oz. He once showed me an autographed studio photograph of Margaret Hamilton he kept as a souvenir.

I used to go with my Dad to visit the Giblin's. They would make us Creamed Chicken and Waffles. Mrs. Giblin would send some Chili Sauce home with us. It is delicious with Cheese. It is savory but not hot.

Mary Giblin's Chili Sauce

6 Onions
3 green Peppers
18 medium ripe Tomatoes
1 cup Brown Sugar
2 1/2 cups strong Vinegar
2 level teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon each Cinnamon, Allspice, Nutmeg, and Mace (if you can find it)

1/2 teaspoon Cloves

Chop or grind the Onions and Peppers finely. Cut up the Tomatoes into small pieces. Cook all together slowly for 2 1/2 hours. Watch closely and stir often. Sugar makes things burn easily. Makes about 5 pints.