Breakfast for One

Visions of being the Beaver's mom rise up to make me feel guilty once again.....a perfectly set breakfast table,
                                                     for two.

Scrumptious weekend breakfasts I usually manage,
sometimes a blogworthy breakfast table......though usually
something like our vitamins and daily pills lurk,
                                                    unnoticed.

Weekday breakfasts? A pretty table for two? 
                                                   Get real.

Both of us sitting down together at the same time? 
                                                    Not likely.

Both of us eating the same menu? 
                                                  
His quick cooked oatmeal or fried baloney sandwich?
               Gag to the second and where oatmeal is concerned,
I am most particular...steel cut oats sautéd in butter and at last boiling water stirred in, cooked at least 20 minutes,
cinnamon, chopped dried apricots and walnuts added...
                                                     That's oatmeal.

For breakfasts I last longer when an egg is on my plate,
the egg sandwich Mama used to make me at the very least.

But my weekday breakfast indulgence happens when RH leaves me a sausage patty from his early breakfast...
                             from locally made Jake's country sausage.

A toasted sourdough English muffin from the Publix deli,
          the sausage on top,
                      a scrambled egg next,
                              a smear of mashed avocado
                                  topped with chopped jalapeno.

A side of fresh pineapple, please.

Breakfast for one, on the sofa, dogs sitting by me...
                                                   hoping a crumb will drop.

TV remote in my hand, no cable news, no news at all,
              no talk shows.

HGTV on, something I can walk away from shortly and
                        not become mesmerized, hypnotized,
                               energy zapped...
                                         temper rising.

That's a perfect weekday breakfast for me.

What about you?

Join me in your jammies and tell me

what your perfect breakfast for one is.

Please. Pretty please with sugar on it?

"My wife and I tried two or three times in the last

forty years to have breakfast together,

but it was so disagreeable we had to stop."

Winston Churchill

            

"Time Enough for Dreaming"

There are certain times in the year when dreams seem possible,

even seem destined to come true.

June is one of them,

maybe because of the leftover emotions

from childhood--

School is out! Summer is here!

June seems like a new beginning.

Is that why so many weddings are in June?

Our dear Gladys Taber wrote:

"...in June one feels the security

that summer has just begun,

there is time enough for dreaming."

I do a lot of dreaming when I look through my vintage magazine collection

and the June issues are my second favorite.

Christmas issues claim first place with me.

I'm still a sucker for Bride covers and the above one from The Ladies' Home Journal

issue of June 1951 was my happy place this morning as I wait for the heavy rains and predicted strong weather to arrive.

We got up at 5:30 a.m. to get some things done before we lost the sunshine.

It's been a beautiful June morning and RH got a few plants in the ground before breakfast. 

I clipped some long legged herbs before the rains could beat them down.

Flowers on the tarragon were already weighing it down and they make a pretty bouquet 

in my kitchen window.

Did you know the flowers are edible too?

I can snip them for my salad dressings this week and maybe some for the pork chops RH plans on cooking for us because the sage needs to grow some more before harvesting.

I hope the model above,

bride Francine de Fere in her 

Christian Dior gown,

had her wedding dreams come true.

I didn't have a Christian Dior wedding gown but I did have a smaller version of her bridal bouquet.

Stephanotis was standard bridal bouquet flowers back then, and a decade later mine had it with gardenias--divine scent!

Looking out the window now, I see the rains have arrived. I hope people in the way of these storms are safe.

Tropical Storm Cindy has already claimed the life of a 10-year old boy, his and his parents' dreams ended.

Cherish your beautiful dreams.

I'm going to dream this summer

and I hope you do too.

Summer has just begun!

1961--It Was Such A Lovely Year

Ah! November of 1961! As a bride of only a few weeks, November of 1961 is a very good month for me. It is autumn, with the holidays ahead to celebrate for the first time as a young married woman.

We have small paychecks coming in from jobs we enjoy. Except for our rent, utilities, food, gas and incidentals, R.H. and I have only one payment a month in these pre-credit card days--$5.25 for a 17-inch black and white television from Western Auto.

On Thanksgiving Day I will wear the going-away outfit my mother recently made me. I had asked for something like this…

Mine is a tailored red wool suit. The jacket is short, to the hipbone, which I can easily find, and Mama covered the buttons with the same red wool and made bound buttonholes. The sleeves are not fur-trimmed but for our honeymoon to the mountains of Gatlinburg, Tennessee she lends me her silver mink stole.

R.H. does not tell me that the white harlequin glasses spoil the sophisticated effect of the suit and mink stole. Love is blind.

When Thanksgiving Day comes, we begin the tradition that is to last for years. We have an early Thanksgiving dinner at my mother-in-law's house and then leave to have another later in the day at my own parents' house. Neither of us wants to give up Thanksgiving dinner the way our own mother prepares it.

And neither of our mothers expects me, the new bride, to cook anything to contribute to the meal. I have just barely learned how to operate my new can opener. I am beginning to cook from my new red and white plaid Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, mostly on weekends.

It all seems like play. Everything does, marriage, jobs, making a home in an attic apartment that I want to look like this…

Earlier in the year, before graduation, I sat in study hall and on television watched Alan Shepard splash down in the Atlantic Ocean after his short sub-orbital flight in space, but I am not worried about troubles building with Cuba, or nuclear testing, or about the United States aiding South Vietnam in their fight against the Vietcong. And sad to say, I am little concerned with news about the "freedom riders" coming to the South, wrapped as I am in a cocoon of suburban white wool.

It is my first Thanksgiving Day as a Mrs., and I imagine we will live the life of Father Knows Best, just as my parents have.

1961 was a lovely year.


[All pictures other than personal photographs appeared in the November 1961 McCall's magazine.]

Not at Thanksgiving

November 1931 cover of Woman's Home Companion 
Artist: Marion Powers (1880-1963)

Just in case my quote is not readable on the beautiful magazine cover above, it reads:

"Regret should never be brought as a covered dish to the Thanksgiving Day table."

Life can be filled with regrets, can't it? I don't remember who the author was who wrote about her tendency to try to "houseclean the past," but it is something I battle too. Instead, I'm now trying to keep in mind a wise quote from Katherine Mansfield who wrote: "Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in."

I had promised my readers a one sentence post today after the long previous one but felt that it needed a little explanation. Maybe you'll join me in not wallowing on Thanksgiving Day?

Saluting Our Veterans

As a daughter of a World War II Veteran, I salute all our Veterans, but this year I would especially like to  thank our women Veterans. As you can tell from my old Town and Country magazine cover illustration above from February 1943, women in the Armed Services were once more of a rarity than today. Even so, over 500 American women during the Second World War lost their lives in service to their country.

Today, according to my online search, there are more than 200,000 women on active duty. Sixty-nine of them are generals and admirals! Many of you reading this probably know a woman in our Armed Services. May I tell you about one I met briefly who left a lasting impression on me?

This summer I was standing in line at a department store when I noticed that the beautiful petite woman ahead of me, wearing a tailored suit, was holding a fabulous white ruffled blouse. I, the shyest of women, spontaneously said, "Oh, what a beautiful blouse!" She smiled and said something about knowing she would enjoy wearing it as she wore suits to work.

The sales clerk who was ringing up another woman's stack of purchases said, "Don't you get tired of having to wear suits to work." My fellow shopper said, "Well, since I wore camouflage and combat boots to work for thirty-five years, I don't mind."

Immediately I thanked her for her service to our country and asked her where she had served. She named several places and then modestly mentioned Afghanistan. In fact, every sentence this woman spoke was said in a soft-spoken modest manner. She talked about her work in Afghanistan,  and I responded emotionally, "Oh, I hope they can all come home soon." Probably babbling, I talked about all the news stories of men and women whose lives are forever changed due to injuries, those "Wounded Warriors."

She smiled sweetly, pointed to her chest and said something like,  "That's one of my main jobs, to try to help them. I'm head of Veterans Affairs in Tennessee."

We continued talking until it was her time to pay for her ultra-feminine blouse, and I was conscious of having been so blessed by this conversation struck up with a total stranger that was so unusual for me. I would not have missed it for anything.

Of course when I got home I went to the website for the Tennessee Veterans Affairs, and there she was, my girly shopping companion. Col. Many-Bears Grinder, Commissioner of Tennessee Department of Veterans Affairs! Oh, my goodness, I had been talking to a Colonel. What an honor and one I would have most likely missed if I'd known she was a Colonel because I would have been too shy to speak to her.

Here is a link that tells you more about this amazing woman, the first woman in Tennessee ever appointed to that post. Commissioner Grinder is an Operation Enduring Freedom combat veteran.

But she is a woman as well as a soldier and likes ruffly white blouses with her suits!

Don't forget to thank a Veteran soon and remember those who are no longer with us.


[Pictures are from TN Department of Veterans Affairs.]

Sailing or Reading?

Has July found you sailing under blue skies?

This magazine cover from the July 1932 Woman's Home Companion is by

Maginel Wright Barney.

If you are a fan of Maginel Wright Barney's illustrations you might want to add this cover to your Pinterest board of her work. As far as I can tell it has not yet been included in her works there and it is one I love. It does typify July for me even though I've never been fortunate enough to sail. Maginel was Frank Lloyd Wright's sister. It is easy to spot her illustrations in old magazines before even seeing her signature as she had a style all her own, one I dearly admire.

No, I've not been sailing this July, nor have I been sunbathing like these beauties from the same time period as the picture above. 

These swimsuit models were in Vogue, January 1933.

My leisure time this July has not been spent sailing or sunbathing but in tamely reading. I read this one--I am a fervent Elizabeth Goudge fan and had never read it:

And I read these:

I won't try to review them for you but I enjoyed each one. Extra special was Michael Sim's book about E.B. White, showing clearly how White's whole life laid the groundwork for his writing of Charlotte's Web. He was truly destined to write the story of Charlotte and Wilbur.

And the three books about Alec Guinness, memoirs by the fascinating man himself, were my favorites. Reading about his acting career was absorbing but I most enjoyed reading of his love of home:

"Tomorrow home: beloved wife, dear dogs, intelligent cat,

outrageous rabbits, Himalayan molehills and 

the tumult of country noises."

Both White and Guinness are now in my Pinterest board named "In My Life I Loved Them All" because I do, I really do. 

That's my July leisure loves, friends. Have you taken time for leisure? Have you gone sailing? Sunbathed at the beach? Read something interesting? I have an enquiring mind and I really want to know.

There Was A Time

Did you know that there was a time when whole communities dressed in their best clothes, however threadbare, and turned out at their local school or church to watch the children of the neighborhood present The Christmas Program? Whether you had children in the school or not? Whether you stepped foot in the church any other time of the year or not? If you were a part of the community you and your whole family showed up to support the children. (And, I suspect, for some of the best entertainment of the year.)

You listened to them sing the familiar carols and you watched the old story of the birth of the Babe born in a manger. Somehow it was always new again and even the hardest of hearts did not fail to thaw a little when a young Mary cradled her doll brought from home or sometimes her baby brother.

And there was always a gift for each child in the community. You just did not miss The Christmas Program. It was an important part of community life.

"Dad and the boys got the chores over early that Friday before Christmas. 

And Mother had supper on the table as they came up on the porch,

stomping the snow off their overshoes.

For once, Dad said, this family was on time. If the Model-T would start,

and if we didn't get stuck in a snowdrift, we'd arrive at the schoolhouse well ahead of the program.

We had to be early, because we children all had important parts."

By Vera Foss Bradshaw from "Sleeves for the Angel" 

in The Farmer's Wife December 1951

I remember many of these nights as a child when our whole family dressed up and went to school or church for the Christmas Program. I usually had on the choir robe that each mother was expected to make for their child as I was shy and never had a speaking part. In the choir I was down near the end as the notes that I heard in my head never came out right when they left my lips. But I felt so angelic in my robe. My little sisters were dressed cute, my mother had on her best Sunday dress, and my father of course kept on the suit and tie he had worn to work that day. If you'll look closely at the picture below you'll see that all of the men wore suits and ties. And I vividly remember the racks in the entryway where each man trustingly left his own dress hat.  There is an arrow drawn to my head, showing the vanity of a much younger age. I did not want anyone to miss finding me in that vast crowd of children who had gathered at the largest elementary school in our town that had the biggest stage. I still remember most of the words to one song we sang, "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella."

It is not easy to leave the comfort of your home in December and go to your child's school or church programs, especially if they are only in the wings of the choir. If you do though, they may always remember it.

The cover above from the December 1951 issue of Farm Journal, called "Christmas Eve at the Country Church" is by artist William Kirtman.

Stir Up Sunday

I remember reading about Stir Up Sunday years ago in a magazine, accompanied by a photograph of a lovely historic New England church of white clapboard, snow all around but the sun shining brightly. The women of the congregation gathered after morning service on the last Sunday before Advent to "stir up" a batter of fruitcake in a large black iron pot, each woman taking her turn stirring it, always clockwise, and each contributing ingredients. A prayer went heavenward with each stir, and then each woman took a portion home to bake in her own oven. (In England it is Christmas pudding that is made on Stir Up Sunday.)

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

From The Book of Common Prayer

Fruitcake is a beloved tradition I learned from my mother, although I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't taste her dark fruitcake until I was an adult, and then only because I learned first to love light fruitcake. Now I adore good fruitcake and shake my head in confusion when I hear comedians crack the same tired old jokes about poor old fruitcake each Christmas season. They must be very hard up for material.

My favorite mystery author, Charlotte MacLeod, included a story called "Fruitcake, Mercy, and Black-eyed Peas" written by Margaret Maron, another favorite mystery author, in MacLeod's collection of Christmas mystery stories, Christmas Stalkings.

For some reason, people like to poke fun at Christmas fruitcake and joke about how there's really probably only a hundred or so in the whole United States and they get passed around from one year to the next. Those people never tasted Aunt Zell's.

And they never tasted my Golden Fruitcake either. When I hear the lower form of humor that is fruitcake jokes, I just think, "What's wrong with you poor people?" If they tried a thin slice of mine, surely they would change their minds. I'd be proud to serve mine to any Iron Chef. Of course, there is no candied citron in mine, therefore no bitter taste. I'd never put green cherries in mine either. There are candied red cherries and pineapple and golden raisins, and most important of all, there are dried apricots.

The scent of Christmas enters our house when I begin to mix my fruitcake, actually even the night before when I macerate the bowl of fruits in Calvados. When it's still warm from the oven I drizzle precious drops of Calvados over each cake. It has to be genuine Calvados from Normandy in France. As I take the Calvados from its hiding place, I think of my favorite Frances Parkinson Keyes' novel, Came a Cavalier, where the young American woman in the Red Cross at the end of World War I in France is taken by her handsome French suitor to his family chateau in Normandy.

Constance is a very proper New England girl and this is not a racy book but the scene where she sips her first Calvados is one sexy piece of writing..in a proper way, of course. The faithful bonne Blondine has served them a luncheon of "an omelet, finely flavored with young green chives and mixed with croutons fried in fat," followed by Poulet de la Vallee d' Auge, artichokes, salad, Liverot (a cheese from Normandy) and strawberries with cream. She departs and...

He rose and went to a tall, narrow armoire in the corner, and, unlocking it,

took from it two tiny glasses of etched crystal 

and the most extraordinary bottle Connie had ever seen.

It was deeply encrusted with earth, and the neck, all of a yard long,

curved slightly at the end to meet a cork capped with a miniature silver pitcher.

As Tristan tilted the bottle, the lid of this tiny pitcher opened,

and a dark, rich liquid came gurgling out it into the etched glasses.

Tristan says to the woman he has so far courted in vain:

"I shall drink to you!--Madame la Baronne de Freemond, Chatelaine of Malou, 

and my own liege lady!"

He raised his glass still higher and began to drink, slowly and sparingly,

savoring each drop. Then he sat his glass down and looked at her.

And that, my friends, was the last time Tristan proposed to her because this time Constance accepted.

Golden Fruitcake

I made two loaf pans here but most of the time I use all the batter in one large angel food pan with a hole in the center. 

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups brown sugar

5 large eggs, whites separated from yolks

3 scant cups flour (do not sift)

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 lb. candied red cherries, halved

1  lb. candied pineapple, cut up

2 cups dried apricots, cut in half

1 package golden raisins

2 cups pecan halves

1/2 cup Calvados for macerating fruit plus extra for drizzling every week

Macerate fruits in 1/2 cup Calvados overnight at room temperature, stirring occasionally.

Cream butter and sugar, stir in eggs. Add dry ingredients and milk, alternating (begin and end with dry ingredients). 
Stir in flavorings.
Beat egg whites until stiff and fold gently into batter.
Mix in fruits and nuts.

Turn into two greased (with solid Crisco) and floured loaf pans. Bake at 250 degrees F. for 2-3 hours. (My oven takes 2 1/2 hours.) Or turn into large Angel Food pan with hole in center and bake for 3 to 3 1/2 hours, testing with long tined fork to see if done.

 Let pans cool on rack 10 minutes and turn out on plate or parchment paper. Drizzle little drops of Calvados over while warm. Cool completely. Wrap in foil, plastic bags and refrigerate. Every week drizzle a little more Calvados over. Keeps a long time and freezes well.

Staying Home?

My sisters and I were so blessed to have parents who gave us pleasant memories of Thanksgiving Day, gentle days of childhood caught in golden amber.

Unlike Christmas Day when we left home after opening presents to travel to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee to visit my father's parents, onThanksgiving Day we stayed home. We watched Macy's Christmas Parade on television. Mama cooked. Daddy helped her, sometimes after returning home from cooking at the men's country ham breakfast at church.

I set the table and arranged a centerpiece.

After dinner I dried the dishes that my sister Deb washed, but I didn't help with the cooking. Ever. I began married life knowing how to make cream puffs and egg sandwiches. I am embarrassed to remember some of the meals I served my young husband, but then some I serve him today do not thrill us either.The only difference is that we used to argue about it.

"You mean all you fixed for supper is beans? Just pork 'n beans?"

Even now some of my meals are great, most are good, and a few turn out to be real stinkers. We don't argue over something so trivial now. We know it all balances out.

When the holidays begin to approach, out come my Thanksgiving and Christmas recipe files and I always--always--plan a marathon of cooking. When I was younger most of what I planned to cook and bake actually got done as I happily cocooned in my kitchen.

In 2000, when our youngest son Defee left for college, R.H. and I couldn't wait for him to come home for Thanksgiving, especially since we were empty nesters for the first time, Zack having moved out of dorm life and into his own apartment that summer. We wanted Thanksgiving Day to be perfect for our two returning sons. For the first time ever in the same year, our older children, Gurn and Christy, would each be spending Thanksgiving Day with the in-laws. 

As Dee Hardie says in Views from Thornhill, "Once your children marry, you become an Alternating Holiday."

I planned a relaxed casual Thanksgiving Day for the four of us. It was casual enough. Zack and Defee didn't want to turn off the television for dinner.

"We don't have company, Mom."

Was I going to spoil the day for my two adult prodigal sons? Not on your life, so it was our first Thanksgiving dinner ever eaten staring at the television screen. There was no dinner conversation, just laughs directed at the Seinfield episode. Not that it mattered much by that time as I was too tired to take part in profound conversation anyway. I had just cooked a full homemade Thanksgiving dinner all by myself, hours of work that was eaten in twenty minutes flat without the benefit of memorable Thanksgiving dinner conversation.

Only the T.V. remote close to Zack's hand.

That night after R.H. helped me clean up the kitchen, I wearily collapsed in my chair and hassock in the bedroom. Then came a watershed experience. My first thought was this--"Never again." Then came--"I'm too old for this." My earthshaking subsequent thought was--"Next year we're going to the mountains or somewhere. We're eating out. We're not staying home."

Times change. Families change. We get older, in body if not in spirit.

I did not want Thanksgiving Day to change, just the way I celebrated it. I wanted to sleep in on Thanksgiving Day and not set my alarm for 5 a.m.

Watch the parades.

Putter. Step outside and walk through our valley.

I wanted to dress up and put on my makeup, maybe even get around to wearing jewelry.

I wanted to go out to eat. Sit down to a meal totally cooked, served, and cleaned up after by staff who get paid to do it.

[Publick House, Better Homes & Gardens, November 1958]

I began to waver. But it's Thanksgiving. It's a tradition. My mother did it more years than I have. She too was exhausted afterwards, but she did it. Guilt convicted me. The Ghosts of Mrs. Cleavers Past sentenced me to a lifetime of hard labor at Thanksgiving. The bars slammed shut. Neither would Mrs. Cleaver, nor my mother, nor even my grandmothers in their heavenly home pardon me or let me out on parole.

[Farmer's Wife, November 1933. Cover by Revere F. Wistehuff]

Only way down inside a still small voice begged to be heard. It said with insistence. "Dewena, the key is in your own hand." And so bravely, I determined to unlock the door and walk through, deciding that my thanksgivings were growing shorter. Whether I had many more or few, I had to find a way to spend them thankfully.

Did we stay home? The heartbreaking events of September 11, 2011 made us doubt we could give up Thanksgiving at home. Give up such bedrock traditions as homemade dressing, place cards made by Zack when he was ten, sitting around the table after dinner telling what we were most thankful for, leftovers to consume for days? The three day cooking marathon required to pull it all off? I had looked forward to one leisurely Thanksgiving Day, only perhaps 2001 wasn't the best year to make such a harsh break with the past?

As I stewed on this throughout October and early November living under the same emotion laden cloud as all Americans did that autumn of 2001, I drew comfort from many things--my faith, family, home, and my dear pets.

And to be honest, haven't women always headed for the kitchen when their hearts are troubled, when they want to comfort themselves and their loved ones with meals that nourish the spirit as well as the body? There would be other years to modify this traditional family holiday.

[Ladies Home Journal November 1973]

But still, times change, families change. Perhaps your family has changed too.

Perhaps we'll eat out this year and then return home for desserts.

Pies. I like to make pies. This might be the year we don't use the Spode china that has no name. I call it my Italian Villa Spode. God willing and the creek don't rise there will be other Thanksgiving Days to use this Spode.

"So little to do and so much time to do it."

Willy Wonka