Shoes & Pie: The Blog

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Before there was Martha…

In going through a “cook book” dating to the late 1800s, I found a small snippet from an Illinois newspaper containing the following:

TEA TABLE CHOCOLATE.—That is what I call a delicious little beverage we all enjoy. A cut glass covered jar on my tea table is filled with instantaneous chocolate, which comes put up in tin cans for just this purpose. Next to it stands a hand painted jar holding condensed milk. While my teakettle is boiling over the little alcohol lamp, I mix in each chocolate cup of medium size two heaping teaspoonfuls of the chocolate and two of the condensed milk, beating them until they foam. Over this I pour the boiling water and stir thoroughly. In this way my table is always ready for service, there is no accumulation of dishes, no waste, the chocolate is always steaming hot, and is declared to be better than the best.

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Clearance sale! Get yer vintage pretties here!

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Clear it out, clear it aaaall out.

2016 marks my 10th “Etsyversary,” and as many of you may have noticed, the Etsy shop update activity has been more sloth-like than that of a gazelle. It’s not that I don’t have a lot (a lot) of inventory, but with my move back into the daily-grind workforce, I simply don’t have the time to attend to it.

But there is that inventory. Enter: Wink Warehouse. A clearance outlet for all things Tiddleywink Vintage. No models, no DSLR, no studio, no retouching, no steaming, no mending, no frills. My goal here is threefold: rediscover the far side of my storage space, make back my investment, and get these beauties out into the world where they belong. And all in the most efficient way possible. (Yes, you must have an Instagram account in order to participate. Now all of you Facebook people know how it feels.)

I’ll post as frequently as I can but there’s no set schedule. I’m hoping to add new items every week. And as always, let me know if there’s anything specific you’re searching for. I just may have it!

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ISO: Metropolitan Cook Book Raisin Rice Pudding and Custard Bread Pudding

Today, I’m calling on you, my dear readers (of which I have about two these days, but I still get an unusual number of hits from certain posts that are popular on Pinterest), to help a gal out. And that gal is not me.

A reader recently posted a comment to a post in which I mention one of my editions of the Metropolitan Cook Book. She’s looking for a pair of recipes that she remembers her mother making, and now her own granddaughters are asking for the recipes, and might I or someone else reading the blog know how she can get them?

Yes, indeed I do have those, Betty. Unfortunately, the email address associated with your comment doesn’t work, and the actual comment was lost (along with years’ of various post photos, oh dear) during a site migration I was in the middle of when your comment came in.

I’m posting a quick snapshot of those recipes here, in the hopes that one of you may by chance know the Betty who seeks them, or barring that, Google picks it up and helps her out the next time she looks.

Metropolitan Cook Book, 1957 edition
Click for larger view

And boy-o, this rice pudding recipe looks like a divine way to use my Pyrex 6283 “Rangetop Ware” double boiler!

1970 Pyrex catalog page via CorelleCorner.com

How about any of you? Any vintage recipe in particular that you’re trying to hunt down? Maybe I can help!