18 December 1956 “A Cocktail Party in Photographs”

As we are all, so have I been rather busy this Christmas season. I threw a cocktail party this past Wednesday and did manage to get some photos. I always have good intentions of getting many, but once you get enjoying the night, you forget. I didn’t get all the ladies dresses, bad me. All the cocktails looked so lovely, especially the champagne cocktails fizzing away in my silver rimmed cocktail glasses with cherries in, but no pictures.
This first shot I made black and white. Doesn’t it look like an old photo?
 But, it isn’t, but one of my lovely guests donning her wonderful vintage cocktail coat. Here we see some mingling going on. My friend joked she was a ‘two-fisted’ drinker in this shot, as she was finishing a Manhattan when I handed her a grasshopper.
Another lovely shot of guest and grasshopper, they were a popular drink. And no wonder, they are SO yummy. My friend by the nibbles. I placed them on the piano, so that our table was free for cards and visiting. Here hubby relaxes with the dogs, he had his jacket off at this point. The dogs enjoyed themselves, as they love begging and therefore receiving food from all.I made a new dress, of course, and though I had intended to use a silk, this satin worked better for me. The silk was not in the right color. I think the over skirt turned out rather well and can be worn either opened in the back or the front. I wore it tied in the back, apron style for the night.   Here I am with my friend who had the most wonderful hat, very Mag Wildwood from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
My other friend also had a dress with a sheer apron style, though she wore hers open in the front. In the picture of people mingling you can see the pleated back of the this sheer skirt I believe.   As I said, I had most of the food on the piano. We had so many lovely things. This baked brie with home-made Apple pie jam baked in was lovely. These little darlings were easy and quite good. Just chive cream cheese on cocktail bread with smoked salmon and fresh dill. I can’t forget the deviled eggs, now can I? And it always gives me the excuse to use my egg plate that is part of my Temporama vintage dishes. Little egg, chive, and mushroom quiche. Here are assorted cheeses, labeled and so good. I just thought one of my egg cups filled with colored toothpicks seemed so 1950’s.Here are the popular Grasshoppers. To add red to them for the holiday I ground up candy canes in my coffee grinder and sprinkled on top.
I had 40s and 50s music playing all night and we played cards and laughed and really enjoyed ourselves. We had such a lovely time and there were so many more wonderful photos I could have got, but as I said, I was too into my party. As this second year ends and I have been diligently documenting my project, I find myself having to more and more remind myself to keep documenting it. My life has become so normally 1950’s that I forget all the little moments that might be enjoyed by you, but are so normal to me I have begun to take them for granted.
I also beg pardon for my rather shoddy posts this month. As I said, the second year of the 1950’s is ending for me and I am really thinking and planning and trying to digest the past two years to best find the way to go forward starting January first. We shall see what we shall see.
I hope all are enjoying these days leading up to Christmas and having fun with friends and family. Happy Homemaking!

10 December 1956 “Cocktail Party”

This is the card I designed, laid out and printed for our upcoming Christmas cocktail party. I played around with a few ideas. I was going to have the rooster on the rim of a martini glass with a woman in a 1950’s cocktail dress as the olive in the martini, but it became too fussy. Obviously, the tongue-in-cheek of it is that the rooster, also known as a cock, his ‘cock-tail’ forms the “C”.
There are many stories as the derivation of the word ‘cocktail’, most of which were probably told after having a few, thus their truth is only as good as the amount imbibed. This is my favorite version:

In 1779, after her husband was killed in the American War of Independence, innkeeper Betsy Flanagan opened an inn near Yorktown that was frequented by American and French soldiers. An English chicken farmer lived nearby. Due to the political climate at the time, Betsy was probably not too fond of her neighbor, prompting her to promise her American and French customers that she would serve them a meal of roast chicken one day. Her guests occasionally mocked her boasts saying she would never go through with it. One evening, an unusual number of officers gathered at her inn, so Betsy served a lavish meal of chicken, stolen from her English neighbor. When the meal was over, Betsy moved her guests to the bar, where she served up drinks decorated with a tail-feather from the chickens. The officers drank until morning, periodically making rowdy calls for more "cock tails."

The old use ingredient for cocktails use to require: stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters. When a cocktail no longer  required this recipe with bitters, that cocktail that did have all these ingredients became known as ‘The Old Fashioned’.  Thus, an Old Fashioned contains this old recipe for what was once considered a cocktail
Old Fashioned
2 oz. bourbon or rye whiskey
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1/4 oz. 2:1 rich simple syrup (or one sugar cube if preferred)
orange peel
Ice cubes
Tools: muddler, barspoon
Glass: old fashioned
Muddle syrup and orange peel in glass. Add bitters and whiskey and stir. Add ice cubes and stir again. (I like mine with a maraschino cherry for taste-though I never eat them)This is a muddler barspoon combo. A muddle is used like a pestle to mash the fruit etc in the bottom of a glass to release the flavor for when the liquor is added.
We will be serving various vintage cocktails, such as
Cranberry Champagne Cocktail
¼ oz Grand Marnier®
1 oz cranberry juice
5-6 oz Champagne
Pour Grand Marnier into a champagne flute. Add chilled cranberry juice. Fill flute with ice cold Champagne. Garnish with a long, curly sliver of orange peel.
Manhattan
2 oz Rye or Bourbon whiskey
½ oz sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura® bitters
Add the ingredients to a mixing glass half full of ice cubes and stir. Rub the cut edge of an orange peel around the lip of the chilled cocktail glass. Strain the drink into the glass and garnish with a maraschino cherry.
This next drink is fun and surprisingly delicious. Do you like thin mint girl scout cookies? Then you must try this cocktail. Even though my recipe is from my 1956 May Gourmet magazine, I am making it for our Christmas party, as it is Green! I might serve it with red-sugared rim glasses, how fun and festive!
Grasshopper recipe
3/4 oz green creme de menthe
3/4 oz white creme de cacao
3/4 oz light cream
Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and serve.

What are some of your favorite cocktail recipes?

7 December 1956 “Cocktail Dresses”

Next week I am hosting a cocktail party here at my home. I am only just now preparing to make my dress. Here is a Dior Cocktail dress from this year 1956. As you can see, skirts are still very full, in fact getting fuller, but hemlines are moving up a bit. I really like the hem to hit just below the knee when it is full. This dress is strapless.
Here is Betty Furness (famous tv commercial spokeswoman for westinghouse) in 1956 in a floral cocktail dress.
What I have been considering is a sheath dress of dove grey dupioni silk with a sheer full overskirt, such as these. You can see that the pencil skirt part of the dress is just hinted at through the sheer guaze of the overskirt.
Now, I also have this vintage dress pattern which is meant to be a cocktail dress. I have made it in cotton as a day dress and it was quite comfortable. I have, therefore, thought of making this dress in the dove grey dupioni silk and simply have the entire dress covered in the sheer grey.
I like both a full and a pencil skirt. A fuller skirt is more fun to move in, obviously, but I think both look nice. My fuller figure is often shown off better in a sheath as it grabs in the right places to actuate a gal’s assets.
This is the grey sheer fabric I have for the dress. It is hard to photograph, as it is so sheer. It is covered in little grey/silver satin bows. Here you can see it over a very 50’s grayish pink lining. I have also considered making the sheath dress out of a pink silk, similar to this in shade, with the grey floating over that. I really love grey and pink together and it is a very 50’s palette. Only, I might like the subtlety of the grey silk with grey organza over it. What is your opinion readers?
How many of you are throwing or going to Holiday parties that allow you to dress up? If you aren’t why not throw one? It doesn’t matter if your in the middle of the corn belt or in NYC, a gal loves to dress up. You might find many of your friends would love the chance to be ‘fancy ladies’ for an evening.