15 September 1956 “Some Scandal Rags, Long Tall Sally, Peanut Butter Cookies, and My Middle Class Slip is Showing”

Here is a Movie Play cover from this month, 1956. I do wonder how Liz Taylor Flirts with trouble. The scandal rags are beginning to get up some steam already.
Here we see promise of ‘Secret Photos’ of Grace Kelly and her new Prince. Though the tabloids do not exist in any way as they do in 2010, we can see the little glimmer of it beginning. As we, as a nation, become more enamored of stars and as visual entertainment becomes more a part of our day, the importance of their private lives increases.

Many know Elvis, but not as many Pat Boone. He is often used today as an almost derogatory description of music of things, which is too bad. Here he is singing Love Letters.

I think the problem that may have arisen with Pat Boone was, as the Tv parade from this month is doing which is comparing Elvis and Pat Boone. This is an unfair comparison. For example, from this year here is Pat Boone singing “Long Tall Sally”

Personally, I think this song does a disservice to his voice and particular crooning styles. And then when you compare this renditon to Little Richard’s

You can see how the youth might prefer the higher kicking style of Richard over Boone. And of course Presley’s version also has so much more electricity and jive.

And, of course, in a decade or so this song, sung by the new group the Beatles, will obviously follow the more rhthmic blue patterns of Richard and Presley and Boone will seem eons away.

Pat Boone was much better suited to crooning, which he did so well.

Now onto the kitchen. I tried this peanut butter cookie recipe that worked quite well. Many Peanut Butter cookies require a few hours in the fridge, but I found these drop cookies to be easy and to taste just as good as an ice box version.
50’s Gal’s PEANUT BUTTER DROP COOKIES
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. white sugar
1/2 c. butter
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
cream the butter and sugars for 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and eggs while still mixing. Simply add the flour (with soda and salt mixed in) after that and then the peanut butter. And that is it.
Now simply drop teaspoon full dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet and make the traditional Criss-Cross pattern with a floured knife.
Bake for 10 minutes at 350 F. I always watch my cookies and when they still look a little raw in the center but their edges are just browning, take them out. Food continues to cook when it is removed from the oven. This is how you stop from having dried out cookies.
My hubby told me he used to hate peanut butter cookies until he had mine. Why, I asked, because they were always too dry, he said. We homemakers do like compliments. And we should strive for moist cookies and cakes, don’t you think?
Yesterday, I felt my middle class homemaker status definitely trumped any 1940’s homesteader in me. I know we recently had a discussion about the comparison and when and if the 40’s homesteading disappeared in the 1950’s. As many of you know, I have hatched and am raising my own chickens. We had five roosters, which we do not need. One, Roostie ( A fine proud fellow who watches his ladies with strength of purpose) is destined to go with two hens to my MIL’s for her to keep. One is for us and the other three were meant for the roasting pan.
Hubby and I talked about it quite a bit and planned on his killing the birds, which I do think he could have eventually done, and my cleaning them. When it came right down to it, with all that I have to do, I decided instead to give them to a local Farm. They have Jamaicans that work there and they were so excited to have fresh young chickens that were free ranged to kill and eat. I knew they would get a just end and be made into lovely food by them ( I am even promised some chicken foot stew, as they use all the bird).
What a hypocrite I am. I have the opportunity to have and raise fresh meat that I know is well treated and well fed and I opt out for the ease of the grocery store. I did feel, at that moment, as if I was feeling what many at that time must have felt: the ease to just let go and leave the ‘farm and the war’ behind and enjoy the convenience of the local super market.
I think all things do just need a good balance. I do make my own in other areas and I do still have my veg garden. And, perhaps in the future, hubby and I will be ready to go down that road, even just for the war time experience of it. But, for now, I have left it to the ‘working class’ and happily popped the pre cut sliced chicken into my cart. The ease of the middle class, cleaned prepared food with no discernable similarity to it’s source.  I can happily flour and fry up chicken for dinner and feed my hens outside the kitchen door and pretend, on the surface at least, as if the two haven’t anything to do with one another.
Yet, I know in the future that might change and that is okay with me. I know, as is true for any of we Vintage loving ladies, we must take steps that are comfortable for us. To some I might seem an extremist in my vintage clothing, using old appliances and reading outdated magazines, yet I know I could still do more. And any of you, who want a vintage life, don’t feel bad if you merely start out with one dress. Or perhaps you secretly wear a garter and hose under your modern dress, just to put your toe into the water. We have to go at our own pace and by taking it one step at a time, it becomes easier; more normal.
So the lesson from this: I always have further to go, another place to push myself or to work toward. Yet, to also look back and be proud of what I have already accomplished and now take in stride as a matter of course for my day. That lets me know and realize, too, that all of us CAN make a better future with our eyes to the past. Simple things at first, but always with the hope and goal for the next thing. And before you know it we may find ourselves in a vintage community of well dressed, well behaved people how are proud to do for themselves and to let others in their community do for them. We can’t do it all ourselves, now can we.
Until tomorrow, Happy Homemaking.