No Pattern Required

By RetroRuth

Hello All! Welcome to this week’s Mid-Century Menu!  This week, we have a fun recipe that was sent by Andrea for our recent Worst Mid-Century Recipe Contest.  Even those this recipe was beaten by some disgusting baddies, it STILL is quite the sight to behold.  And I mean, this thing is a sight!

Andrea writes:

I present the Better Homes and Gardens Barbecue Cookbook, copyright 1965.

Surprisingly, the majority of this cookbook is not that bad. Although there is an odd theme throughout of “hobo” and “powwow” recipes. Hobo seems to = plain, and I am not sure what they were getting at with powwow, LOL.

 Anyway, there were two recipes that definitely leaped out as being a wee bit scary.

I present the Cheese Frankfurter loaf, complete with picture. I am not sure what is going on with the ingredient combo in the sauce. However, I do like how they specified that things should be at a jaunty angle!

*Ruth’s note – I LOVE those onion and relish jars!

I tried to find a lovely dessert for you and Tom to sample from the same book, however barbecuing doesn’t lead to a lot of dessert choices, it seems. However, I did find this lovely beverage for you to have with your meal …

Pineapple Mallowade has left me both curious and repulsed at the same time … I fail to see how this is going to have a drinkable texture, acckkk!!

 Anyway, here’s my *delicious* (snicker) entry … it is a good thing that Tom’s iron stomach has been proven in the past!

 -Andrea

PS – My tiki fabric finally came in, and is up on my store website. Go check it out!

Ha ha, Andrea! This is great. I have to say, those hot dogs look pretty jaunty.  Tom and I couldn’t wait to try this crazy set of recipes out. Wow.

Wow. Lots of ingredients for this one!

Melting marshmallows for the “Mallowade”.  I love it when they make words up.

I had a mix of mini and jumbo toasting marshmallows lying around, and this was a good way to use them all up!

Welllllllllllll…maybe not a good way, but it was a way to use them up.

Mmmmm…melted.

Mixed melted marshmallows,  (check THAT out!) pineapple juice and lemon juice.  It was a little thick, but not too bad.  I was interested to see what it would congeal to in the fridge.

The hot dog sauce. Yum!

After it had simmered.  At this point, it wasn’t looking too bad.  But it smelled pretty strange.

Loaf cut and starting to get crammed with cheese.  And yes, I DID measure between cuts, thank you very much!

Cheese!

Gooping sauce in between slices.  This is where I got a little scared.  I HATE bread that is all soggy with sauce, and I started to get a little nervous about the ability of this bread to take the sauce and not turn into a mess.

Those are some freaking jaunty hot dogs, let me tell you.  Look at them, jaunting about at certain angles!

Improving the jaunt to hot dog ratio.

Covered with more cheese, for extra goodness.

Mmmm, mmm!  A tall, frosty glass of cool, refreshing Pineapple Mallowade!

I forced Tom to drink it first.

It was good!  And yes, he is on the phone while I am trying to take his picture!

Actually, the Mallowade was liquid and not a congealed mess, but it was incredibly sweet, even with the addition of ginger ale.  I added more ginger ale than the recipe called for to temper the sweetness of my drink.  Tom added rum to his and loved it. He then proceeded to drink the ENTRIE pitcher, with extra rum, of course.

It is hard to explain what Mallowade tasted like.  Marshmallow, pineapple and…something. My mom used to make a dessert made of instant pistachio pudding, canned pineapple, marshmallows and Cool Whip.  We called this mess “Bunny Salad” because it was usually made at Easter, when marshmallows were sold in little bunny shapes.  This drink tasted like Bunny Salad.  It was sweet, slightly thick, sweet, pineapple-y and sweet.  Did I mention it was sweet?

The hot dogs, super hot and steamy and straight off the grill.  If you are ever crazy enough to make this, make sure to watch them closely.  We let them get a little too hot and bubbly, and blackened one side.  I made Tom eat that side.

Crunchy!

“What do you think?  Is it hot-dog tastic?”

“What is in this sauce?  It is disgusting.”

I took a bite.  It wasn’t too bad.  Surprisingly, the cut-loaf method actually WORKED, and each section made it’s own little bun. So you could pulled pre-bunned hot dogs straight from the loaf.  It was pretty cool.  The hot dogs and the cheese were good, but the sauce could have been left off. It tasted like sloppy joe sauce, and not really something that I would pair with hot dogs. I didn’t think it was a gross as Tom did, but it still wasn’t quite right.

The Verdict:  Good.  The sliced loaf idea actually worked pretty well, and it was something I would be willing to try at a real party.  However, I am going to sub the “sauce” with chili, and make a chili-cheese dog loaf. That would be yummy. The Pineapple Mallowade was very sweet, but not bad.  Tom loved it with rum.

Thanks for the hilarious recipes, Andrea!  We give you a jaunty wave, a jaunty salute, and a jaunty hot dog.

By RetroRuth

Finally!!  I know I have been promising to post pictures of the new basement floor for a while, and I have finally had time to sit down, edit photos and pick out some good ones. 

Everyone will be happy to know that ALL of the nasty, gross carpeting is GONE from the basement. Huzzah! And it has been replaced with Armstrong VCT tile in red and black.

Let’s take a look, shall we???

Down the stairs aaaaaaaand….

Ta-Da!!!  What do you think? Too crazy?  We messed around with a lot of patterns and color combinations before coming up with this.  First, we decided on the pattern, which was inspired by Tom’s grandparent’s basement.

Here is Tom’s little sister playing shuffleboard in his grandparent’s house. 

I know, I know, we really should have gotten the shuffleboard. 

We then threw color ideas around, wanting to go with something that wouldn’t impact resale too much, and at the same time be the retro basement we longed for.

In the end, we just decided to bite the bullet, forget about resale and go with the red and black we really wanted.  And I think it ended up looking pretty good!  Next up, paint on the walls, and new Formica for the countertops.

The carpet was also pulled out of my sewing room, thank goodness!  I went with a nice neutral gray in this room.  It looks like of institutional now, but my accent color is going to be turquoise, and the walls will all be painted gray in the near future.  More pictures of this coming soon!

And here is Midnight enjoying the new floor!!! At first, the cats didn’t care for the new floor, one of them even refused to walk on the red squares and hopped from black to black across the floor.  But they have all settled in now, and love the coolness of the floor compared to the hot, sticky summer upstairs.

Did anyone else just finish a big summer project??? Let us know!

By RetroRuth

*Note – Our recent contest for the Worst Mid-Century Recipe forced my brain to reluctantly recall the many horrible things we have made on this blog. Eggs Oriental was prominent in those memories. This post was originally published in April 2009, and looking at pictures of it still make me gag!

You know, I don’t consider myself to be the most orderly person. Or the most driven person. I have great ideas, but, like most people, a good majority of them never really pan out.  But here it is, only three weeks into my Mid-Century Menu project, and I have already met my goal of finding a ridiculous recipe that really shouldn’t be made. Mission accomplished.

Huzzah.

This week’s recipe is from the slightly (slightly?!?) disturbing cookbook put out by Heinz Ketchup.

This recipe is bad. Really, really bad. I wonder if I should even finish this post?  It is so horrible that it might disgust all you nice, innocent readers, who only came  out of curiosity to see what I made. It might cause you to never return again.  And then it might cause you to spread the news all over Twitter and Digg, and might cause everyone to recoil in horror if they even read the name of my blog, let alone go and visit it.

The recipe is that bad. Really.

Don’t believe me?  Well, here. Look for yourself.

Eggs Oriental, huh?  You coulda fooled me.  It looks like Eggs in Cream of Mushroom Soup. With ketchup. They could have at least added some soy sauce!

But as always, Hubs was game, so off we went.

Not so bad, right?  Nothing wrong with some prepped ingredients.  Except fooooooooor……

this bowl. Which is all the “seasoning” for this dish. Yum.

The mushrooms and green peppers, happily cooking in a quarter cup (!) of butter. This is a lot of butter. Half that would have sufficed for the small amount of veggies that needed to be cooked.

Far too much butter, browning in the pan.

All the “seasonings” added to the pan. At this point, the mixture started to give off the most noxious smell. If anyone has ever smelled cream of mushroom soup with ketchup in it, it is not a good mix. Not at all.

After adding the egg slices, I turned to Hubs and said, “The eggs better make this magically taste better. Otherwise this is going to be bad.”

Hubs was unusually silent during the cooking, except for an occasional burst of incredulous laughter.

Finished up and plated. All one can really say is….Eww.  I decided to serve it over noodles because…well, it seemed like a sin to serve it over rice. I was already wasting enough ingredients, I wasn’t about to waste some of our good brown rice.

Being perversely enjoyed by Hubs. He couldn’t stop laughing throughout the whole meal. It was truly horrible. The smell was amazingly bad, and every time I took a bite I was shocked by the combination of ketchup and cream soup.  The eggs surprisingly did help, making it edible. But it was far from delicious.

The Verdict: Horrible

As I was sitting there, staring at and smelling this plate of food, I realized that serving bad food is a pretty new thing for me.  I was unhappy, even uncomfortable, with the idea that this was our dinner. That I had made….this thing that tasted horrible. It was a pretty new experience for me.   As an adventurous cook, I have made things in the past that hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but nothing had ever, EVER been this bad.  It was a strange feeling.  I was definitely out of my comfort zone.

I made it through the serving on my plate, but it was a close one.  Hubs ate more, mostly because he had just gone for a long run and was really hungry.  But even he was eventually forced to stop by the smell. The rest hit the trash.

*From the Mid-Century Menu Archive!

By RetroRuth

Okay, so Tom and I have a deal when it comes to movie rentals.  We see something he likes, and then we see something I like.  It works out pretty well this way, both for seeing good movies and for the good of our marriage.  We both tend to pick out a couple stinkers, and once in a while get a really good one we both like.

The Right Stuff met all of our criteria. A good story, science-y, a good cast, good dialogue and AND it had 1950′s and 1960′s sets and clothing. Sc-ore.

(Okay, I am going to show you some awesome scenes now, which belong to the movie The Right Stuff and not to me or this website. DO NOT reproduce these, but feel free to link back.)

Pretty sweet, huh?  It was a good movie, too.  It is based on a book of the same name by Tom Wolfe, which follows the 7 original astronauts in the United States. A good pick if you like history, science, space and, most importantly, mid-century clothing and furniture. Fun times!

Part of the Cocoa Beach scenes.

A little men’s fashion.

The scenes inside of the wives’ homes were especially fun.  And the dresses!

Apron alert!

Love this shot.

Inside NASA, with all the required science-y stuff; big buttons, levers and TV screens in the console.

Kitchen and vintage mixmaster!

An emotional scene.  A cool shelf.

I adore this lavender dress!

So, I hope these shots have peaked your interest in the movie. If you have seen the movie before, let us know what you thought of it. If you haven’t, add it to your Netflix right now!

JELLIED TONGUES!!

Congrats on great win, Kelly!  It was a tough road picking the winner.  Even tougher than the slices of jellied tongue.

Uhhh…that picture still makes me a little queasy.

Now, once again for your viewing pleasure, here is Tom tasting the winning dish!

Contemplating.

Bravely trying.

Chewing.

Approving? Crazy!

You know, it’s kind of strange that the dish Tom actually gave a thumbs-up to turned out to be the most visually unappetizing.  But I couldn’t choke it down, so there you go.

Oh, if you are curious, the Worst Recipe in Tom’s opinion was the Creamed Eggs in a Corned Beef Crust from Sharon. 

For me it was the Tongue.  All the way.

In case you didn’t see it, the Jellied Tongues was mentioned in the Phoenix NewTimes Eater’s Digest Blog.  It was apparently the most digusting recipe they have seen in a while. Score.

Congrats again, Kelly, and thanks to everyone who entered our fun contest!  Over the next few weeks we will be featuring other contest entries that were hilariously weird but weren’t in the Top 4.  So Andrea, Gabrielle, Cassie and Melanie, you had better stay tuned!

By RetroRuth

Happy Monday!  I thought I would cheer everyone up on this most-dreaded day with a cheerful picture of a fun door escutcheon that I lust after to an insane degree.

Tom and I saw this home the other weekend while we were trying to find a garage sale.  From the street, it just looks like a regular, awesome mid-century house with a peachy-pink door.  But upon closer inspection…

Oh yes.  A starburst escutcheon.  I started pointed and squealing when I saw it.  This picture was taken after Tom had me bundled back into the car so no one who he works with could see us.  This neighborhood also had another great house with a boomarang escutcheon which I tried to take pictures of.  For some reason, Tom was driving really fast and they didn’t turn out. Dang!  Oh well, you guys will see it when I sneak into that neighborhood tomorrow night and steal it for our house.

Kidding, kidding!  I would never steal. Stealing is bad. Remember that, Kids At Home, stealing=bad.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need dig my black shirt and vintage black headscarf out of the closet.

By RetroRuth

I was completely charmed by this cute pattern for knitted bed slippers from an vintage Workbasket that I picked up the other day at the Salvation Army. 

I think it was the blissfully sleeping woman.  And maybe that sweet chair as well.

Cute!!

By RetroRuth

This is it!!!  And so begins the voting for the Worst Mid-Century Recipe Contest. To bring everyone up to speed, these are the recipes that were submitted by YOU, the readers, for the dubious honor of being crowned the Worst Mid-Century Recipe, and this stunning vintage prize pack:

*Note: Fabulous Conant-Ball Table not included!

There was a flood of responses.  Tom and I sat down with our laptop and a barf bag, and pared the entries down to a lean, disgusting four.

Finalist #1 – Summer Salad Pie From Kathrin (aka Miss Marwood)

Ummm…does this one even need an intro??

A cheese crust, tomato/lemon gelatin filling (of pure evil!), all topped off with tuna salad. Ack. 

This is what Miss Marwood had to say for herself:

*Gak* Thankfully, the little disgusting bits around the side were NOT included in the recipe.  Much to Adriane’s disappointment and my joy.

I hope you find it as disgusting as I do!

Cheers to a fun blog contest!

Best,

Adriane

www.atomiclilly.blogspot.com

Here is a photo of the finished “tower”:

And Tom’s reaction:

I think this was a disappointing one for everyone!

The Verdict: Surprisingly tasteless.  For all the scary trappings of this thing, it wasn’t bad at all.  I mean, it wasn’t great, but we have totally eaten worse. Disaster averted!

To see the whole, gut-churning post, click HERE.

Finalist #3 – Creamed Eggs In Corned Beef Crust from Sharon (aka Charm and Poise)

This one is exciting because it is the only non-gelatin-based dish chosen as a finalist.  And it beat out other gelatin dishes, so you know it has to be gag-tacular.

Here is what Sharon had to say for herself:

I’ve gone a bit out of the box on this one.  It has no aspic in it nor is it made in a mold — two of the best features of a mid-century recipe!  However, this recipe benefits mostly from the photo which is such a clear example of someone being asleep at the cookbook recipe photo wheel that it seems impossible it actually was published.  This sad state of affairs additionally benefits from the fact that it came from Happy Living!  A Guidebook For Brides (1965, 1966, 1970) signaling the fact that some harried, newly married woman might’ve thought it a good idea to serve this to her husband.  And finally, it is a nonsensical recipe that calls for relatively normal ingredients to be combined in an abnormal way to make up a dish that is — from the photo at least — impossible to serve in a nice, neat way. 

 

For your pleasure, then, is Creamed Eggs in a Corned Beef Crust.

 

Cheers!

Sharon (Charm and Poise from Flickr)

 

Here is a picture of the finished “pie”:

And Tom’s reaction:

The Verdict:  Not bad.  Tom ate it.  If you don’t like cream of mushroom soup, don’t try this.  The eggs were totally stupid, but not gag-inducing.  I feel sorry for the poor bride who tried to serve this to company. Yeck.

To see the whole, ridiculous post, click HERE.

Finalist #4 – Jellied Tongues from Kelly (aka EarthaKitsch)

So, this is the entry that has caused the most controversy, from hard-core readers, casual readers, and even my friends and family. It turns out some of you REEEEEEALY like tongue.

But I have to tell all of you, a boiled tongue, before it has been skinned, looks disgusting. 

Here is the finished dish:

Mmmm…meaty. 

Here is Tom’s reaction:

The Verdict:  Tom claimed it was good.  That the tongue just tasted like beef and it was fine with him.  I just couldn’t get it down enough to even taste it, really.  It was chewy.  And that is all I am going to say.

To read the whole, controversial post, click HERE.

So, those are your finalists!!!!  Please vote for the recipe that you think is the WORST Mid-Century Recipe! Voting will close on August 24th at midnight, and the winner will be announced in the August 25th Mid-Century Menu post. Good luck to all of our finalists!

By RetroRuth

Well, hello there readers!  Not expecting me today, were you??  Well, I BEGGED Sablemable to give me a shot at this week’s WYBMN because I stumbled on a honey of a gem of a fun find. 

A Lustron home for sale in in Hays, Kansas! This gorgeous pre-fab home is ultra-mid-century modern, if that is even a term, which I am pretty sure it is now.

This cute baby is for sale by Steve.  It has two bedrooms, one bathroom and he is asking $85,000.  The fun site he created for the home is here, and you should check it out.  Not only does he have more pics of the house, but information on the Lustron line and some sweet vintage pictures. And I couldn’t resist posting a few of the more adorable bits here on this site.

A little bit of background on this one.  The Lustron homes were created by Carl Strandlund, a Swedish-born designer living in the US.  His vision was to create a mass-produced house made entirely of steel.  The Lustron homes were produced in Ohio from 1948-1951, when the company went bankrupt.  Only 2,500 homes were produced by the company, which makes this fun home even more unique. 

The house was described in a 2008 exhibit of the history of pre-fabricated homes in the US  in MOMA:

[The home] consisted of a concrete foundation and steel skeleton frame topped by trusses. All internal divisions are pre-fabricated modular units that double as shelving, cabinetry, closets, dressers and vanities, and the exterior is clad in porcelain-enameled steel panels.  The entire house was designed to pack flat for arrival on a Lustron truck. Assembly took approximately eight days with half-dozen workers.

So, after that fun intro, here is Steve’s house.  And his ultra-awesome collection of mid-century furniture and accents. Great job, Steve!

Close-up of the exterior.

The living room.  Notice the metal walls!

The dining room.  That view kills me, and I adore the light.

You know I love a cute kitchen!

Master bedroom.

A vanity to die for.

Guest room.

Another view of the guest room, so we can appreciate the coolness of the linens and the hotness of that Thermos collection. Love it.

So, anyone decided to move to Hays yet??? Be sure to check out Steve’s site for more pictures and a ton more information on Lustron.  Thanks, Steve!!

By RetroRuth

Well, this is the end of the line. Absolutely, totally rock bottom.  I asked for the Worst Mid-Century Recipes you guys could throw at me, and I got what I wanted.  Four hilarious and horrible offerings from the world of Mid-Century Cooking. And I think it is pretty fitting that we end this contest with the creepiest recipe of the bunch.

Jellied Tongues.  That’s right.  You read that correctly.  Jellied. Tongues.

Thanks to Kelly, aka EarthaKitsch, for submitting this odd and horrifiying recipe.  And by the way, I hate you now, Kelly. Seriously.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. No, seriously.

I must admit that I was trying to find any way, any small reason at all why I couldn’t make this thing.  I put off calling around to look for tongue until the last possible minute. I got Kelly’s recipe submission on June 30th. I didn’t call the butcher shop until this Monday. 

“Hello, this is the meat counter.”

“Yeah, umm…hi.”

“Hi. Can I help you?”

“Yeah….I’m…ahhhh…looking for tongue.”

“Tongue?”

“Yeah, beef tongue.  Crazy, huh? Well, I am sure you don’t have any, sothanksandI’mjustgonnahangup..”

“Beef tongue?  Oh, yeah. We’ve got it in the freezer. How much to you need?”

“Son of a…”

“What was that?”

“I said, beef. Beef tongue. A whole one. I will pick it up this afternoon.”

So, thanks butchers of Midland for having freaking beef tongue on hand. Thanks a lot.  No weaseling out that way.  And thanks for giving me the unique experience of seeing a beef tongue in a plastic bag, laying on the floor of my car.

When I brought the horrible thing home, I refused to touch it.  So, Tom had to step up and do the prep for the tongue.  Here is the awfulness in photos.  Those of you who are pregnant (I am looking at you, Andrea) might want to avert your eyes now.  I mean it.

Yep, there it is.  One cow tongue.  And brave Tom holding it.

Cramming it in a pot.

God!!!

Okay, everyone take a deep breath because the next one is a screamer.  Ready…inhale…

Yeeeeaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!  Ahhhh! Ahhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Ahhhhh….God. Look at it, just look. I hope you are happy, Kelly.

Damnit, it’s a tongue!!!!

Then Tom peeled it.  Yes, peeled it.  I didn’t take pictures of that part, because I got so nauseated I had to leave the room.  And don’t mock me for having a weak stomach.  I never claimed I was Farmgirl!

Luckily, after Tom peeled it (gag) and sliced it, it looked more like meat.

And there you have it.  Slices of beef tongue.  With only small amounts of screaming on the side. 

So, after a pep-talk phone call from my mom (“It’s just beef. I ate it as a kid. You eat hot dogs, don’t you?  Just don’t think about it and eat it.”) I was ready to actually touch it. Oh, and make the recipe.  That, too.

Oh, and a side note, Kelly.  This recipe didn’t call for olives at all!!! What the heck are they doing in the photo??  Weirdness.

Well, at least this part is fine.  Especially cause there are no hooves in this gelatin.

Beef stock, onions, vinegar, salt and pepper.  I wasn’t supposed to add the salt and pepper till later, but looking at the tongue slices was still kind of freaking me out and I forgot what I was doing for a second.

Oh, another disturbing photo.  This is the “tongue stock”, better known as “the water we boiled the tongue in”. And THAT my friends, went into the gelatin.

This is all getting a little too “Little House on the Prairie” for me.

Eggs in the pan.  Because what would a MCMenu be without hard-boiled eggs, I ask you?

Soooooo, I touched it.  I had to eventually.  I mean, I can’t be a namby-pamby forever.  And you guys were counting on me to get my butt in gear and get that stupid gelatin made. I can’t disappoint you!

More tongue and eggs, and then the gelatin.

By the way, my whole kitchen smelled like cooking tongue.  It was almost enough to bring the gags back.

Whew.  Done. 

Sweet Jesus.

“Are you ready, Babe?”

“Yeah,” he stretched his neck and shook out his shoulders, like he was getting ready to lift something. “I can do this.”

“Well??!!?”

“It’s fine.  Tastes like beef.  But the combination of meat and gelatin still just isn’t right.”

I still balked. “I don’t want to do this.  Don’t make me.”

“Come on, you have to.”

“No!! No, I don’t want to!”

“Just a little bite.  Here, just this little one.”

I took it gingerly from the fork.  Chewed, and ran for the sink.

Tom was laughing. “What do you think?”

*Gak*

It took a whole glass of milk to get the taste out of my mouth.  And yes, I realize the irony of washing down cow tongue with cow’s milk.   But at that point I didn’t care, I just wanted it down.  It was just so…chewy.  I couldn’t do it, especially with the picture of the cooked tongue in my mind.

The Verdict:  Tom claimed it was good.  That the tongue just tasted like beef and it was fine with him.  I just couldn’t get it down enough to even taste it, really.  It was chewy.  And that is all I am going to say.

He ate two whole servings. Two!!!!  I am agog.

So, that is the last finalist for the Mid-Century Menu!!! Whew!!!! Thank god that is over.  Come back next week to see some of the runners-up, and to start the voting on which recipe was the Worst. 

I think I am going to go lie down for awhile.