RetroLife

Pineapple Duchess - 1954

From "250 Luscious Refrigerator Desserts" -- 1954

One of the factors that helps me decide which retro recipes to try is if I see a picture and say "what on earth is that?" Of course, this happens quite frequently with vintage cookbooks because there's something about that 1950's cookbook photography that manages to make everything look strange and unappetizing. Something as simple as ice cream on fruit pie will look like lard chunks on top of entrails. And so this very strange looking beast is nothing more than elaborately prepared gelatine, fruit and whipped cream. See full recipe.

Let me first just say: This is one of the most difficult recipes I've done insofar as there are so many opportunities to completely screw it up. Step one is to arrange all of your pineapples and cherries in a bowl, which you will use to mold this desserts' jell-o exoskeleton by placing a second, smaller bowl inside it. Your first peril is to pour your liquid Jell-o between the bowls without disrupting your careful arrangement of cherries and pineapple. After chilling, your second peril is to remove the small bowl without damaging the jello it's resting in. After putting in your creamy fruit filling, chill again and then face peril number three: turn it upside down on a plate and unmold it without damaging any of your jell-o/fruit shell! While I didn't ruin my pineapple duchess, I'll admit I disrupted a few cherries and broke the jello in a couple of places and had to just try to hide it. All the while I was reminded of the movie "The Hours" where Julianne Moore is icing her lopsided cake, cripped with depression over her failure as a housewife...this recipe would have pushed her over the edge.

In the taste department, it was all fine and good. It's jell-o, fruit and whipped cream...I think we all know by now what that tastes like. A few other people tried it and seemed to like it. Texture-wise, it definitely wasn't as rigid as it looked in the picture and spread out a little when I unmolded it, looking like a festive jellyfish. Once we cut into it to eat it, it quickly became a messy pile of the aforementione jell-o, fruit and whipped cream, leaving me thinking: "all that work...FOR NOTHING!" I mean, I understand that presentation is important, but come on.

Retro Barbie Magnetic Paper Dolls

As part of the retro Barbie collection, this set of paper dolls freatures 50's illustrated Barbie and her kid sister, Skipper with an array of outfits. Available for $12.99 from Angelicdreamz.com. A fun gift idea for retro fashion or Barbie enthusiasts. Click the link to check out more retro Barbie items!

Retro textiles from ContemporaryCloth.com

Looking to make curtains? Reupholster some furniture? Make clothes? Have clothes made for you? If you're looking for retro fabrics, the selection at ContemporaryCloth.com is great! Regular and upholstery fabrics sold for prices ranging from around $12.00 to around $40.00 per yard. Plenty of barkcloths and boomerang patterns as well as mod prints.

Approach all parties with the expectation of enjoying yourself

From the Homemaker's Encyclopedia -- 1952

Fontdiner.com

For anyone interested in retro typefaces, the place to go is fontdiner.com. Their font packages are available for the accessable price of $28 per set of 10, but if you don't want to commit to buying fonts, they have a menu of free font downloads as well.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

When it comes to 50's recipes, I tend to gravitate toward the strange and forgotten, but here's one I picked up a few years ago that's not weird, totally delicious, and I make all the time (you can double the recipe if you're feeding a lot of people):

Baked Macaroni and cheese

2 c dry macaroni (I like to use rotini pasta instead)
2 Tbsp. margerine
2 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. white pepper
2 C milk
1/2 lb. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 Tbsp. dry minced onion

crumb topping:
1 1/2 Tbsp. margerine
1/2 C bread crumbs
1/4 tsp. paprika

Boil macaroni in salted water until just tender, drain & set aside. In medium saucepan melt margerine over low heat, stir in flour & cook for one minute. slowly wisk in milk, cook & stir over medium heat until thickened [actually, I can never get it to thicken, so don't don't feel bad if you can't either...it'll still be good]. Stir in salt, pepper, onion, & cheese, cook until cheese is melted, do not boil. Mix cheese sauce into cooked macaroni & pour into a 9"x9" square baking dish. Melt margerine, stir in bread crumbs & paprika. Top macaroni & cheese with crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, until casserole is bubbly. If you wish, you can but it under the broiler for a few seconds to brown the crumbs.

Eames Journal and Stamp Set

Charles and Ray Eames are the superstars of mid-century modern furniture design and now you can get a hardbacked journal featuring some of their classic pieces. You can buy it from Amazon.com for $9.99, or, if you're looking for something more fun, there's an Eames Stamp Kit with 21 rubber stamps of Eames designs.

Jennifer Greenburg -- Photographing the Retro Life

I met Jennifer Greenburg several months ago through a mutual friend and later she photographed me in my kitchen with her big film camera (the kind with the hood, so you half expect her to be holding her hand out saying "watch the birdie!). Her work is fascinating to me for obvious reasons. Her main subject, for her series The Rockabillies, is people who recreate -- often quite meticulously -- mid-century environments in their homes and lives.

A segment about her on the Museum of Contemporary Photography website states: "Her large-scale color photographs show not only the 1950s clothing and décor favored in rockabilly culture, but also the activities and values her subjects have adopted in accordance with that era. While their revival of a mid-20 th century middle-class lifestyle is meticulous, it is equally selective, borrowing from a particular vision of American life rather than seeking to recreate its realities. A subtly selective focus in these pictures draws attention to particular details in each scene, a cue that the photographer is interpreting and not just recording the places and poses before her."

I, for one, can't wait for a book of her collected works. You can see more of her work here and there are a few of her prints for sale at DVA gallery.

It's fun to work with others!

From the Homemaker's Encyclopedia -- 1952

"Say Betty, I'll bet our cornucopia will look extra swell with this human skull I found!"

"Judy, you fink! That's my first husband! I told you to keep your dog out of my flower garden!"

Sputnik Chandelier

Add one of these to my wish list! A two-foot wide space-age chandelier in gleaming chrome. You can get it from inmod.com for $329.99, which may seem like a lot, but is a pittance compared to the $775 for this more atomic version from evo furniture: