Author Archives for Shawna

Warm Up with a Good Book

Perhaps you are the type of home front housewife who would rather stay in on a cold winter evening and curl up in front of the fireplace with a good book. I’m here to help. Here are five suggestions based on a January 1945 Woman’s Day book roundup.

A note on finding these books: I’ll let you know at least one place you can find these books if I can. Worldcat.org is a great resource, too. Just type your zipcode and the title in and they’ll provide you with a list of libraries near you that have the book on their shelves.

Just in case you want to follow up your reading with a movie night out, here’s a link to some movie suggestions.

America Unlimited

by Eric Johnston

Eric Johnston was the president of the United States Chamber of Commerce. This book records his thoughts, hopes, aspirations, and beliefs about issues of the early 1940s. Johnston claimed that most Americans shared his views. This would be an interesting look at a political opinion from the war years.

We Live in Alaska

by Constance Helmericks

This book is available used on on Amazon. The author and her husband moved to Alaska in 1941 and explored the Yukon in a homemade canoe. There are a few sequels to their adventure if you find this first one enjoyable.

Watching the World

by Raymond Clapper

Raymond Clapper was a journalist and a radio news analyst and commentator. While covering the war in 1944, an airplane he was riding in collided with another plane during the invasion of the Marshall Islands. After his death, his wife put together some of his best material and told the story of his life in this book.

Cluny Brown

by Margery Sharp

This humerous coming of age story follows a young English woman in 1938 on her adventures after she is sent into service in the countryside. It was made into a movie in 1946. This book is easy to find. It’s even available as an audio book.

Enjoy Your House Plants

by Dorothy Jenkins and Helen Van Pelt Wilson

This book has chapters on everything from ferns to succulents to orchids. There’s advice on caring for numerous types of indoor plants. I love my house plants, so I’m excited to try to find a copy of this one. I’d like to compare their advice with what is suggested care today.

While you are reading, you might like to munch on some cookies or a slice of coffee spice cake. Stay warm and enjoy your weekend!

Movies for a Rainy Day

Part of living on our ranch is that when it rains, the dirt roads heading into town turn into a dangerous, muddy obstacle course. Sometimes we get stranded at home. Since I haven’t been able to go buy groceries to cook some tasty 1940s recipes, I decided to give you a list of movies the home from housewife might have gone to see on a rainy day. All of these are available to rent or buy, so you can watch them on a rainy day of your own.

I don’t want to abandon our January magazines, so I’m using a list of top movies from late 1944 that was in the January 1945 issue of Woman’s Day. The author, Raymond Knight, was particularly taken with a brand new actress “with the unusual appellation” of Lauren Bacall.

My Pal, Wolf

This movie starred Sharyn Moffett as a young girl who finds a dog that has escaped from its army training camp. The girl’s nanny calls the army to retrieve the dog, but it escapes gain. The little girl goes to Washington D.C. to see if she can have the dog live with her permanently. It was director Alfred L. Werker’s production debut. This movie is available to buy on Amazon. It’s the only movie on this list that I could not find available to rent.

Mrs. Parkington

Mrs. Parkington began as a serial in Cosmopolitan magazine and was later published as a novel by Louis Bromfield. It was also made into a radio program in 1946. Greer Garson starred as a woman who looks back over her life through flashbacks while dealing with family drama in the present. Greer Garson and Agnes Moorehead won awards for their performances. It also starred William Pidgeon, Gladys Cooper, Edward Arnold, and others. This movie is available to rent on multiple platforms.

To Have and Have Not

Based loosely on Ernest Hemingway’s 1937 novel, To Have and Have Not starred Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael, and a brand new actress named Lauren Bacall. It’s a romance between a fisherman and an American in Martinique with a bit of French resistance activity thrown in. Both Hemingway and William Faulkner worked on the screenplay. Most people liked the movie, but critics claimed it was just a remake of Casablanca. Raymond Knight, the author of the Woman’s Day article, also mentioned similarities between the two movies. The film was released in October 1944, and Bogart and Bacall married in 1945. This is also available to rent on many platforms.

The Princess and the Pirate

Based on a story by Sy Bartlett, directed by David Butler, and starring Bob Hope and Virginia Mayo, The Princess and the Pirate is a comedy about a princess traveling in disguise to elope with the man she loves instead of the one she’s supposed to marry. Her ship is attacked by pirates, she is kidnapped, and adventures ensue. Bing Crosby makes an appearance. This was Bob Hope’s last movie with producer Samuel Goldwyn. You can rent The Princess and the Pirate, as well.

Laura

The American Film Institute named this movie as one of the 10 best mystery films of all time. Starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andres, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, and Judith Anderson, Laura was based on the 1943 novel of the same name by Vera Caspary. The film is about a detective trying to solve a woman’s murder. This one is available for rent, too.

I’m going to watch some of these this weekend while I wait for the sun to dry up the roads. I’ll let you know how they are. In the meantime, if it’s cold where you are, you might enjoy some breakfast cocoa or a hot apple toddy.

What are your favorite early 1940s movies?

Raisin Clusters

Let’s continue our peek into January magazines. How do chocolate raisin clusters sound to you?

In the Woman’s Home Companion January 1941 issue, the magazine’s home service center’s Dorothy Kirk talks about how to include seedless raisins in your cooking. Kirk mentions that raisins are great for making almost any dish look festive. She suggests adding them to cereal, plum pudding, Banbury tarts, or warmed-over gravy. I’ve never added raisins to gravy, so I’m definitely making a note to try that in the future.

Raisin Clusters

  • 1 c semisweet chocolate broken into small pieces
  • 1 c raisins
  • 1/2 c sliced Brazil nuts

Put the semisweet chocolate pieces in the top of a double broiler. Place over hot (not boiling) water to melt the chocolate. Remove it from the hot water and put it over cold water. Stir until the chocolate starts to thicken. Add the raisins and the nuts and mix well. Drop the chocolate mixture in small mounds onto a tray or shallow pan lined with wax paper. Put the clusters in the refrigerator or other cool, dry place to allow them to dry. Makes 2 dozen clusters.

Results

My testers and I had mixed feelings about these raisin clusters. If you like dark chocolate, you’ll probably enjoy these candies. Those of us who are not as fond of dark chocolate would have liked them better with milk chocolate. We thought the semisweet chocolate was too bitter. I also think that a few more nuts would help add more interesting texture and flavor. The candy needed something crunchier to break up the softness of the raisins and the chocolate.

These raisin clusters were easy and quick to make. They’d make a nice addition to a holiday dessert plate and would be easy to pack in a pretty box for Valentine’s Day. This recipe is also flexible. You can experiment with other ingredients that you might have on hand in your pantry.

Let me know if you try these and if you change the recipe any. I’d love to see what you come up with.

Update: Soft Ginger-Date Jumbles–One Week Later

As promised, we tried the Ginger-Date Jumbles after being sealed in an airtight container for a week. We also sealed them according to the article with wax paper and tape. We kept some out of the containers to eat over the first few days.

The article suggested planning for double the usual shipping time, so we thought a week would be a good average time from the day the cookies were made to the day the soldier received their package. Remember–the cookies were only being sent to stateside soldiers and these cookie recipes were specifically created for lasting until the box got to its destination.

I would have been disappointed to get these cookies in a Christmas box. The first two days the cookies were moist and flavorful (and then they were gone!). After a week, we ate the ones that had been packaged. They were incredibly dry and tasteless. I couldn’t eat a whole one. I’m not sure how the Good Housekeeping recipe creators tested these cookies, but this recipe did not keep well.

I did like the cookies fresh, though. You can see the original blog post here.

Just Peachy: Fast, Simple 1941 Dessert

The January 1941 Woman’s Home Companion includes a “January Food Calendar” with food preparation ideas for almost every day of the month. The ideas range from entire meals to desserts to snacks. It’s written like a story, following the fictional Taylor family’s day to day living.

I know this recipe is from before the United States entered the war, but I like to look at how food choices and cooking methods changed from 1940 to 1945. Plus, in 1941 Americans were following what was going on overseas, so this war was definitely not foreign to them.

Today’s recipe is from the January 10th spot. It’s something different. I hope you enjoy it.

Peach Cake and Ice Cream Dessert

  • sponge cake rounds
  • ice cream (We used vanilla.)
  • canned halved peaches
  • favorite jam or preserves (We used blackberry preserves.)

Spread ice cream over the top of the sponge cake rounds. Then take a halved peach and place it on top of the ice cream. Fill the cavity where the peach pit was with jam or preserves. We tried both softening the ice cream before spreading it and using spoonfuls straight from the carton. Both worked well. We drained the peach halves before using them, but you could drizzle the peach juice over the top as a finishing touch if you’d like.

I served these in 1956 pink Fire-King Swirl bowls from my collection.

Results

I was pleasantly surprised at how all the flavors combined to make a really interesting dessert. The soft cake, the cold ice cream, and the sweet fruit were perfect together, each one adding its unique taste and texture. Everyone in my family loved it, even the picky eaters. It was also fast and simple to make, with no cooking time needed. Many home front housewives would have had the canned peaches and jam on hand from canning in the war years, so this would be a good recipe to use after rationing and shortages made cooking more difficult.

I recommend this one. Let me know if you try it. Later this month we’ll revisit the January food calendar for another dessert.

First Monday Menu: A Helping of Hamburger

In January 1945, ground beef wasn’t being rationed. Using ready-ground hamburger as a staple in meals was a great way to include meat without resorting to the less appealing but more plentiful organ meats like liver and heart. Ground hamburger was also cheaper than other meats, so it helped keep food costs down. This month’s menu includes a hamburger recipe from the January 1945 issue of Woman’s Day.

Menu

  • Party Hamburgers
  • Mashed Potatoes
  • Green Beans
  • Bread Roll
  • Apple pie

Party Hamburgers

  • 1 lb hamburger
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • Dash pepper
  • 1/3 c milk
  • 1 tbsp fat
  • Party Sauce

Mix hamburger, salt, pepper, and milk. Form into cakes and brown in fat. Remove cakes to a platter and keep hot.

Party Sauce

  • 1 tbsp fat
  • 1/4 c chopped mushrooms
  • 1 1/2 tbsp flour
  • 1 c water
  • 1/2 c cooking sherry
  • 1/2 c ripe olives, chopped and pitted (we used black)
  • salt and pepper

Cook the mushrooms in the fat for 2 or 3 minutes. Add the flour and brown lightly. Add the water gradually, stirring constantly. Cook until mixture is thickened. Add sherry and chopped pitted olives. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Heat and pour over the hamburger cakes.

Results

It’s funny how sometimes something as simple as a meal made with ground beef can spark a conversation that lasts until dessert is over. We had a lot of thoughts about this menu. While it wasn’t our favorite, it was a hearty, filling meal. The hamburger cakes tasted exactly how you would imagine a hamburger cake to taste. We discussed adding finely chopped onion or garlic next time to add a bit of flavor. The sauce was thick and chunky and tasted great with both the hamburger and the mashed potatoes. I liked the combination of mushrooms and olives and the gravy-like consistency. I could taste the cooking sherry a bit more than I would have liked, but maybe cooking a while longer would fix that. Overall, everyone liked the meal. Enough to have it again? I’m not sure. I’m definitely glad we tried it, though, and I enjoyed the great conversation about 1940s life we had while eating it.

One of the things I liked about this particular menu, was that it was a solid choice for a home front housewife. The green beans and the potatoes were grown in Victory Gardens, and the housewife could easily substitute cooked carrots, squash, or even corn from their garden. The ground beef didn’t use any points, which was helpful. Points could be used for favorite cuts of meat on other nights of the week.

Eating organ meats was encouraged by the government. Large amounts of meat were being shipped to the soldiers overseas. Organ meats, however, were still plentiful in the United States. Magazines of the time period are full of tips and tricks for disguising liver or heart to look and possibly taste more appealing. Using ground beef was much simpler and straightforward–its taste and texture didn’t need masking.

Let me know if you try this menu. The party sauce is versatile. I think it would complement many kinds of meat and would add a nice flavor to vegetable dishes.

Later this week we’ll try out a recipe or two from the January food calendar found in the 1941 issue of Woman’s Home Companion. It’s before the start of the war for the American home front housewife, so we’ll see how folks ate just before food shortages became more widespread and rationing went into effect.

Peter Pan Peanut Butter Frosting

This month, I’m going to be testing recipes in January magazine issues from 1940-1945. I’ve scoured ads and articles to find recipes you can use in your meal planning today, ranging from full menus to yummy desserts.

I’m beginning the month with a Peter Pan Peanut Butter frosting recipe from an advertisement in the January 1945 issue of Woman’s Day. It was a full-page, full-color ad inside the back cover of the magazine.

Peanut butter was originally sold in tin cans with a variety of reclosable lids. Metal shortages due to the war led peanut butter manufacturers to switch to glass jars. In 1988 Peter Pan peanut butter was the first to come in a plastic jar. This ad shows the new glass jars that were being used during the war, and still has the woman portraying Peter Pan in the imagery. Much later the company used Disney’s version of Peter Pan instead.

This frosting recipe is one of two listed in the lower-right corner. The company, like so many others at the time, offered a recipe booklet by mail. I managed to find a copy of this booklet and it should arrive next week. I can’t wait to share it with you when it gets here!

Until then, here’s a recipe to use with that jar of peanut butter you have in your pantry.

Peter Pan Frosting

  • 1/2 c Peter Pan Peanut Butter
  • 1/2 c butter or margarine
  • 1 c confectioner’s sugar

Cream the peanut butter and butter together. Slowly add the confectioner’s sugar. Cream until light and fluffy. Use on white, spice, or chocolate cake. Makes enough for 24 cupcakes.

Results

The frosting is really soft and smooth. I found that putting it in the refrigerator for a while helped keep it from becoming too soft to use. It does taste like a sweeter version of peanut butter, so peanut butter fans with a sweet tooth will definitely ask for seconds. We used white cake cupcakes, but I think this frosting would be amazing on chocolate cake.

What is your favorite way to use peanut butter?

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