The Ideal Modern Kitchen [1945]

While now it may look like the backup kitchen at a big city church built in the 1930s, this Ideal Modern Kitchen from The Lily Wallace New American Cook Book would have been the bee’s knees in its day.  Check out the mural; do you have a mural along the ceiling in your kitchen? How about the big hanging lights which are designed to take 200-watt bulbs that sweat blistering heat from 10 feet up? Rounded corners on the cabinets? I want those now. 

Truthfully I’d cook here; a perfect upgrade – aside from the electrical system – would be stainless steel appliances.  And I’d keep the mural 🙂

Tans Like The Sun! [1957]

This 1957 ad just goes to show that tanning beds aren’t a new phenomenon.

Somewhere in my laundry room, we have the tanning light – which uses a bulb like this one – stashed in a cupboard. They are really really hot, like buffet roast beef table hot. Just the thing to give you that added color!

Vintage Shakin’

These beauties are straight out of the 1960s or 70s, and came from Africa.  They are ringed with porcupine quills.  My parents worked in the Missions field when I was little, and had many colleagues who were stationed in Africa.  These came back as a gift, and were actively used at our dinner table the entire time I lived at home.

How did I end up with them?

As my folks have gotten older, they are more than willing to let some things go from the past.  One sister and I are fairly sentimental about the past, while the other sister is not quite as much.  Each of us has a certain household item that we hold near and dear, as a reference point in growing up.

And for me, it’s this shaker and toothpick set that I love looking at…while my wife just sort of scratches her head.

I’ve got them at work now 🙂

Perk-A-Tor the Giant Percolator

In my search for a percolator to have at my work cubicle, I came across this Cory Jubilee Automatic Percolator at Value Village.  It’s huge; at 18-cup capacity it’s twice the size of my beloved Perky!

While the coffee strength dial is stuck just above “Medium,” the $5.00 purchase was a mere pittance compared to the $30.00 to $60.00 I’ve seen these Corys offered at on the Inter-Tubes.  Maybe I can fix it if I can take it apart, but I want to enjoy it for a while before doing that.

Listening to it brew is an adventure.

It rumbles to life as the water starts to heat.  As it pushes the water up the tube into the coffee chamber, the pressure pushes the lid up – making it crash back down. Several minutes later, as it finishes up, the boiling and perking gets to a near violent burst of liquid energy – only to slow to a stop before the strength dial starts to glow as an indicator that the work is done.

Clearly, it deserves the name “Perk-A-Tor!”

Another endearing feature is the gold textured metal ring around the top of the unit, a sign that Cory designed it to make a lot of coffee in style.  This percolator will make a fine addition to my cubicle at work, where the coffee needs to taste much better!

Future Sugar Fiend

One of each please 🙂

It starts off innocently with an Easy Bake oven.

You learn how to cook with a lightbulb, only to realize that the portions just aren’t big enough.  Soon, you move to cooking snacks with Mom on the big stove.  Next you start looking at the mixes and sneaking in a baking session or two as a latch-key kid before Mom and Dad get home.

You buy your first cake mix at 13.

Eventually you discover that you know more about cooking than the Home-Ec teacher, and are now able to whip out perfect cakes, pies, cookies and such with ease.  You’re up until all hours of the night, perfecting the mixes with your own ingredients.  The angel food cakes need more bounce, and the muffins simply don’t have that certain secret nuance.

You spend your Fridays at restaurants, taking pictures of dessert.  Your Saturdays are devoted to recreating them in your special way.

Face it: You probably started like Little Shelly Sugar in this ad, with a love for sweets and kitchen fortified by your Mom’s hard-core appliances.  Chances are you have a few of them still, gracefully draped in brown or avocado green.  Your friends may chuckle at the colors, until they taste your desserts.

It’s okay, because we need you to make our lives sweeter 🙂

Bon Appetit Magazine - January 1978