Installing seats

Well, I had a fun weekend.

First: Ray and I helped install seatbacks at the 7th Street. We took some wrenches and screwdrivers and, as a team, attacked the six bolts per seat for about five rows' worth. I shimmied the bolts in the holes to connect the seatbacks with the infrastructure or whatever, and Ray slipped the nuts on then held the wrench while I tightened the bolts. My hand was swollen and achy from turning the screwdriver so we switched jobs and I tried to put the nuts over the bolts, but it was so incredibly annoying and tough with the seats not always exactly aligning and the screws only sticking a little bit out that after two seats I decompensated. Ray took me to the Sweet Shoppe for Chinese Chicken Salad, which calmed me down immensely.

Second: I did something else that leads me to nearly decompensate: I go shopping. I go to Ross Dress For Less, the discount place for namebrand clothes, so I can pick up some new ... oh, I had to get some sports bras. My old ones were starting to go and that does not make for comfortable exercise. I have had the old ones for years, for the most part, and wear them all the time so it was not unexpected that the Lycra was dying. But going to Ross was a nightmare. It was packed, and there were both activewear and clearance racks to look through. So when I'm ready to check out I see the lines are superlong, so I try to distract myself. I only see like five people I know, while holding a stack of workout underthings. Grrrrrreat. Love this small town living.

Third: I try to come back from the edge. Ray and I put a bunch of my books in his bookcases, which we have moved down from his room. With our books in them, no one can look at us askew as uneducated or bad readers. I still have books to go and bookcases to move in. Ray also goes through the books for some he may want to give away, one of which is the absolutely priceless Searchlight Recipe Book, compiled by Ida Migliaro, B.S. Home Ec, Zorada Z. Titus, B.S., M.S. Home Ec (take that Ida!), Harriet W. Allard, B.S. Home Ec and Irene Nunemaker, A.B. Journalism (putting it to the only use she could in 1955). (Ray assures me that at Harvard, they have Ars Bacheloris (or something) degrees, so she may not be with a 2-year degree, which only makes this sadder. She went to effing HARVARD (well, not necessarily, could have been Yale) and this is what she's doing and if you are thinking, this isn't so bad, you haven't heard the recipes yet!) In 1955. Most of the recipes come from "The Household Searchlight," whatever that is (apparently there was a Household magazine?). But I don't know why that institution would want to take credit nor why the homemakers whose recipes were nasty and/or treacly enough to get in would want their name there. No matter.

The frontspiece gives you an indication just how things are going to be inside. Why, is that a huge HAM with red-dyed baked apples? Is that a single head of cauliflower, totally unbroken up, perched on a plate surrounded by ... watercress and yellow snow peas? Yes, although I can't vouch for the snow peas. Is that a tomato on iceberg lettuce with bits of random meats and crackers in an apparent salad with an orange carved into a basket shape with pimentos on it? Yes, indeed!

And is that a ring of clear jello with sliced olives, pimentos, maybe some peppers, cabbage and ... I dunno, cat food, in it? With radish-flower and french fry bowtie garnish? Why, disgustingly, yes.

But what you want are the goods: "Callie, how nasty ARE the recipes?" Well, since you asked:

Carbonated Beverage Jelly: 3/4 cup Carbonated beverage
3/4 cup water
3 cups sugar (!!!)
1/2 bottle fruit pectin

Combine sugar, beverage and water. Mix. Heat rapidly to boiling. Add fruit pectin at once. Stir constantly before and while boiling. Heat to a full rolling boil. Boil hard 1/2 minute. Remove from fire. Skim. — The Household Searchlight.

Now, granted, that's not nasty, it's just weird. The sour milk cottage cheese, which calls for 2 quarts sour milk and an unspecified amount of cream, sounds nasty. Oh, yeah, the searchlight isn't exactly really good with amounts or directions all the time. Or howabout a Grapenut omelet, from the files of Rosalee Hollis of Hardin, Ill. (not married, because the married ladies all go by "Mrs." in the HS).

How about some creamed cucumbers? Pare 4 medium cukes, boil til tender, drain and coat with 2 cups medium white sauce. (The HS has three or four white sauces, only different in firmness.)

No? Why not fry them? Just pare and slice an unknown quantity of cukes in thin slices, soak in slightly salted water for 1 hour, drain and dry on a towel, roll in bread crumbs, dip in seasoned slightly beaten egg and fry until browned.

Maybe a squirrel stew? Rabbit pie? (only rabbits and biscuit dough, when it comes down to it) No? Would you like a glass of warm Beef Juice? A kidney bean hamburger? Or "city chickens"? (Two pounds pork, two of veal) Casserole of tongue? Liver Fricassee? Creamed dried beef? Pigs' feet? Maybe some sour cream prune pie for dessert? Or straight prune pie? Grape juice custard?

Where the searchlight's 50s sensibility really shines is the salads section. Boy do they like their mayonnaise dressing! On all manner of fruit salads, even! Lima Bean Salad, however, gets "boiled salad dressing." It also has a cup of shredded fish in it. Cabbage Pineapple Salad has those two ingredients PLUS marshmallows and mayo dressing! Consomme salad uses broth and water for the gelatin, then adds cabbage, pimiento, pickles and mayonnaise dressing to the mix, surely an abuse of every single ingredient in it. Lamb, string beans, grapefruit, pineapple and peppers (together) all get the floating in jello treatment. The prize-winning Cardinal Salad, with lemon jello, beet juice, vinegar, horseradish, celery beets and "onion juice," calls for mayo dressing. Thanks, Mrs. Ruth Shore, for concocting that culinary nightmare. Or howabout spinach in jello with hard boiled eggs? Wait — make that LEMON jello it's in. Whoa. Did the nuclear tests affect people's tastebuds for a couple decades or what? Or was it the Depression, and now that people had ingredients, they thought whatever crap they threw together was AWESOME.

The sandwiches. Oh man, here is a brief tour of the foulest things ever spread on bread (that is inevitably called for to be spread with mayo or buter): Baked beans mashed with pickles; ground peanuts and diced carrots held together with salad dressing (courtesy Eulalie Weber, Marysville, Kansas); prunes mixed with peanut butter and either lemon, honey or mayo; deviled peanuts (add in equal amount to deviled ham and some mayo); Beef, peanuts and raisins mixed together with mayo; Grapenuts (their spelling, and what IS it with the HS and Grape-nuts?) mixed with ketchup, dry mustard, cheese and tobasco; candied fruit, maraschino cherries and roquefort; cottage cheese and peanuts; raisins, coconut, shredded carrots, green pepper and mayo; cream cheese thinned with catsup; raisins, carrots, cottage cheese and mayo dressing with hot sauce. And for the finale, a truly horrific-sounding "Dutch Lunch," which must reference not only the famed cheapness, but also the incredibly bad breath of the Dutch. It consists of thinly sliced onion soaked in cold water for an hour, dried then soaked in French dressing then placed on buttered rye bread with sauerkraut. Just, whoa man. That isn't right.

No WONDER people were so much thinner then. Their food was appalling. I bet if you went on a diet of Dutch Lunches and creamed cukes you'd lose a lot of weight, especially if you're drinking beef juice with meals.