Vintage Mum, the good and the bad....

So my efforts for living a tad more vintage like is going fairly well, yes I have been meal planning, shopping frequently and sticking to my budget, I am pleased to report that I came in right on budget last week too, so this week I was able to buy a couple of items I wanted...very happy.

So, this morning,like any vintage mum about town, I texted a friend to meet for coffee (good), I was thinking Star*ucks (bad, N, very, very bad) she called back (very good) and suggested I go to her place instead (very, very good).
I brought cake (very good) alas it was shop brought (very, very bad).
In my defence I had already left the flat to do my chores when she called me and it was a totally spontaneous thing.

After I left there I went to a supermarket to buy for the weekend, I was happy to see an increase in loose vegetables, often it is usually just onions and potatoes loose but they have now added mushrooms and tomatoes to the loose list.  Lucky me because I only wanted two toms and a half a pound (being vintagely Imperial today) of mushrooms.  This meant that I spent less and  there will be less food waste.

So come on ladies....shop like our grannies did!!!

Happy New Year 1940!!!!

Welcome to my first (and possible only, who knows?) week of eating within British WW2 ration limitations, using recipes based mostly on 'We'll eat again"

My first job today was to weigh myself. The argument being, that you will actually be healthier by consuming proper food even if you use full fat than all the highly processed foods we normally eat today, including low fat, low calorie etc.

As usual I missed breakfast and aimed to have lunch ready around 1pm.

For the purposes of frugality to keep in the spirit, my savoury cooking fat will be  the left over oil in a jar of artichokes.. How is that for making do??

Normally I would aim for a soup and bread combo for lunch, but seeing as I haven't made any bread I had to sacrifice my one solitary egg to make some batter...yes, my first dish today was pancakes of all things...

Lunch

All purpose batter recipe

4oz plain flour
pinch of salt
1/2 pint of water and milk mixed
1 dried egg powder (I used 1 fresh egg)

Plain pancakes, can be served sweet also

Mix dry ingredients and then whisk in some of the milk, add egg (if using fresh) than add some more of the liquid until you have a smooth consistency, fry until golden.  Makes about four smaller sized pancakes.

To serve savoury pancakes serve with fried onions, cheese or fried vegetables.

Finished product

I used a small bit of my cheese ration, grating it between pancakes and then topped with two very small onions slices and fried in the same frying pan as there was plenty of fat left in it.


The pancakes are crepes really as plain flour is used, not self raising, but they had a nice taste, but I can't help but feel that it might be because I used a fresh egg instead of dried, if I recall correctly, dried egg leaves quite a bitter aftertaste, at least it used to.

Obviously having to ration my cheese I used a great deal less cheese than I normally would in a dish, however I found that I still liked it and could taste the cheese find (it does help that I buy mature or extra mature cheddar only).  The fried onions were delicious.

 By the way, anyone who is curious to see what one weeks worth of cheese ration looks like this is it

Dinner

Roasted butternut squash (italics means plain veg on side and not not  in book)
Potato salad
1 1/2 potatoes, chopped in smaller pieces and boiled in salted boiling water
1/2 pint milk (or milk and water)
1.5 oz flour
1 tbs vinegar
1tbs chopped parsley (I had none so I omitted it)
1tbs chopped mint
4oz dried cheese (omitted)
 salt and pepper

Mix small portion of milk with flour until it is the consistency of cream, set the rest of milk to boil, when it starts to boil add flour/milk mix.  Reduce heat and keep stirring until sauce thickens, add vinegar, herbs and salt and pepper, add boiled potatoes and then stir to coat them fully in sauce..

Recipe says to leave to get cold, I ate them hot however.

Taste

To be honest I found it a bit plain, you can't get over the fact that it is really a white sauce and not mayonnaise. The recipe does say you can add some mustard powder if available but of course, I do not have any available though I think it would have improved the dish considerably.
I was hesitant to  use any more of my precious cheese ration, I livened mine up by adding raw garlic and red onion but I know that is not to everyone;s taste.

No picture I am afraid, the only vinegar I have is balsamic so it looked like brown sludge  (yes, yes I know all the middle class problems jokes).

Gearing up ...for my New Years Challenge

Gearing up for the recipe challenge, which will start on New Years Day....I have changed the date several times, mostly for practical reasons like getting rid of more modern foods and like today, babysitting and having to make a Dhal (I don't think Pataks Curry paste was available in 1940!).

In common with rationing.

1) Bread was not rationed so I will likewise eat bread.
2) Dairy and proteins were, so I will stick to the allowed amounts of oil, butter, milk, cheese and eggs. Meat was also rationed but as a vegetarian, who cares?

These were:

Butter 50g
Cheese 50g (sometimes rising to more 100g or even 225g) for the purpose of this week I will stick to the norm.
Margarine 100g
Cooking fat 100g ( I will replace with oil for obvious reasons)
Eggs 1 shell egg (or one packet of dried egg a month
Milk 3 pints per week or one packet of 'Household' i.e. dried milk a month
Sugar 225g
Tea 50g (I will buy green, but otherwise will stick to allocated amount)
Preserves (aka Jam) 450g every 2 months
Sweets  350g every month

Surprisingly, I have just read that nursing mothers got concentrated orange juice....I wasn't expecting that, but it is an added bonus (just in case you were wondering, the baby will eat her normal food unless I make something suitable for her her).
Not in common with rationing

3) My vegetables will come courtesy of the Organic Delivery Company.

My delivery comes on Tuesday which is why I need to start after that particular day.  You never know exactly what you will get so I can't really write up all my recipes beforehand.

4) I will add a couple of tinned fruit to my weekly shop as that is more in keeping with what was available.

5) Most breakfasts will be porridge or bread/toast, it is obvious true but there wasn't much else back then.

6) One can eat out, I may do that if I get desperate or if I am asked. ;)

Vintage Maternity

How does one continue to look stylishly vintage with an expanding waistline? Google doesn't tend to help I am afraid, there are just many blogs about how fab Betty Draper looked when she was expecting Eugene....alas, the sad fact is, when actress January Jones was actually pregnant they just dressed her in voluminous dressing gowns and called her fat!

I love that second blog post though, especially the picture of Jackie Kennedy smokin a fag and quite obviously pregnant....can you imagine any prospective (or actual) First Lady being pictured thus?  OMG she would be eviscerated by the media, it just illustrates how very much times have changed.  Course, we should never forget that she was killed by cancer so...well smoking sucks but back then, everyone was doing it, I like how in Mad Men the person who doesn't smoke (Pete Campbell) seems quite odd for it.

It seems like it is smock style all the way

Another elephant in the room*

Dietrich - the sexiest genderqueer ever!

Patsy Kelly - very out

In this post you will find pictures of beautiful talented women from the Golden Age of Hollywood, women at their peak in the 30's, 40's,50's, an era that we laud in the Vintage scene.

Garbo

These women are the ones known to be women who love(d) women, there are many more, some like Agnes Morehead never really admitted it or some, like Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck or even Hattie McDaniel  were only rumoured, we will never know, they are long dead. Louise Brooks openly admitted sleeping with many women, but she claimed  curiosity, and did not believe she was bisexual.

Brooks - enjoyed women but only in bed

 But they were like I am a woman who loves women, I identify as bisexual because I love men too.  As a person who has spent so much time in the LGBT accepting Poly/Geek/Kink communities, I think I have forgotten what it is like to seem exotic and weird in other scenes, especially one I closely identify with as a part of my nature, never in my life have I ever felt attached to the era I live in, my imaginary life has been filtered through an historical aesthetic, forever!!

Bankhead - fabulously wild....

DaCosta

However I have been made aware that the vintage scene may not be entirely comfortable with my sexuality and that worries me, not only for my need to be completely open in this scene, but also just because it almost invalidates the lives and experiences these amazing women had

All B's- Baker, Black, bisexual, burlesque and beautiful....

Eva Le Gallienne

. It makes them invisible again, by pretending that the past was entirely heterosexual (and white, middle class and Christians) 

Lilyan Tashman - Jewish and Gay

I never really expected to be some sort of sexuality trailblazer in any scene, it was a pain enough to feel like some sort of token ethnic in reenactment, I don't want to be a token, I just want to be me, in the same way that people who have majority privilege get to be themselves without having to worry that people will turn their nose up at them or not befriend them.

Bessie Smith

Since the past equally belongs to us, well so does the Vintage communities that celebrate it.





*I wrote another Elephant in the room post in a Poly blog

Vintage Life

The only birthday present I chose directly (as opposed to being either a surprise or wish list item) was a subscription to Vintage Life, a magazine for the retrosexually inclined...my first subscription edition arrived this week and I have been loving it!  Take a look, it is great fun.

Anyway  with my life  stabilising  a lot more now, I have experienced a resurgence of my vintage loving self and have had great fun browsing vintage stalls or online shops for inspiration (can't afford anything, I really have to get to sewing again...), looking up events to attend and watching media about retro lifestyles and was reminded...rather sadly, that the uber - norms are just as disparaging over people who want to live a traditional life as those of us living in other thoroughly modern alternative ways....

For example,some comments regarding   Neo-traditional types in the 2009 Channel 4 feature, Time Warp Wives:

 I've seen it too I think, they even have 1950s houses - all kitted out. it was quite weird but worth a watch, if not to confirm you are sane, and these people clearly are not

 Insane?  Really?

I felt there were other issues going on to be honest

Yep, it can't be that they just simply do not want to live like everyone else.

That all three have found partners as committed to denial as they are is, we suppose, nice for them. But there is something deeply sad about adults who need this level of fantasy

It seems I can't win approval by those types whichever way I bend, which since society sees me as terribly bent anyway I suppose I am lucky that I do not crave its approval.

I am really confused and, I must admit, a little irked, that people react with such abhorrence and  disrespect to people who just like to dress in an old fashioned way and who don't think it necessary to have an Iphone, is modern society so very insecure that it just cannot cope with anyone stepping out of line by being different?

Peer Pressure to indulge in superficiality is nothing new, but I hate to see it so far from the school yard.