In need of regretable 1950s recipes

Our "Cold War Culture" history class meets for the last time on Monday. My main concern related to this should be fleshing out my final paper so that I can present a coherent outline of it in class. (I'm buried in sources I've been collecting all semester, but haven't written a word. Luckily the actual paper isn't due for another two weeks.)

It has also been proposed that we all bring in 1950s-themed dishes to eat while we're listening to people explain their topics. Someone has already spoken for Mamie Eisenhower's Million Dollar Fudge, so I'm trying to come up with some other uniquely cold-war-era recipe that I can make. Any ideas?

UPDATE: For some reason, Blogger apparently ate this post and it never made it online. So I'll just give you the post-action report. After a not-massively-helpful discussion with my cold-war-era parents, the only really good idea was Tomato Aspic.

I was looking for something with a little more pizazz and a little easier to transport, so on Sunday I stopped by the library at Simmons. Unfortunately, the library is in the middle of a massive, multiyear renovation project, and something like 2/3 of the collection is now stored off site and takes a day or two to retrieve. It seems that the 1950s cookbooks didn't make the cut for staying on campus. So after browsing every cookbook that was left, I headed back to my office to ponder my options.

But then, while aimlessly wandering the web, I found this reprint of Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook from 1950, and it has the "search inside the book" option! So I searched for "appetizers." Booya! Pages of classic 1950 party food.

I desperately wanted to make the "flaming cabbage." But alas, it seems that Sterno is harder to come by than it was in 1950. (I tried the drug store and grocery store at Porter Square before giving up.) So I went to plan B, which was essentially a layer cake made of out bologna and mustard/chive flavored cream cheese, and garnished with sliced olives. The cookbook calls this cholesterol and nitrite laden delicacy "wedgies." Yum.

When I got to class, this was definitely the most, umm, unique food there! A few brave souls actually tried it. No deaths have been reported.

Oh, and the part where I talked about what I wrote in the paper that I hadn't written went pretty well too. (Apparently all my research this semester has paid off -- let's hope I'm as loquacious when I actually sit down to whip out 20 pages this weekend.)

After Monday I should have a lot more time -- no classes for a month! So perhaps blogging will become a bit more consistent.

On second thought...

Spent several hours in consultation with catalogging study group. Now pretty sure that the Dewey for the home weaving thing is actually 659.1974614 -- with the difference being whether you consider weaving to be an art or a trade. Let me tell you, it was an exciting evening!

Trot, trot, to Boston

Trot, trot, to Boston;
Trot, trot, to Lynn;
Trot, trot, to Salem;
Home, home again.

Well, I wasn't precisely trotting, and I certainly didn't make it as far as Lynn or Salem. But I did make it to Boston proper on my bike today. (Charlestown, where I went on Friday, is technically part of Boston, but it doesn't really count since it's on this side of the Charles River.)

Today was going to be another study day. I had toyed with the idea of having some folks over for dinner, but the timing didn't work out. By 4:00 PM the sun was peeking out and I was sick of the inside of my apartment. So I lugged my bike down the stairwell and set out. My original plan was just to head in the direction of Harvard Square, since I figured that if I could get the hang of riding there I could take the subway from there to work. (Thereby getting a workout and a shorter subway ride.)

I made it to Harvard and sat on one of the quad-like areas for a bit. I was still feeling pretty chipper, so I decided to push onward. After getting lost in the windy little European-style streets between the university and the river, I finally found the Charles. Since the river has relatively flat bike paths on either side, I kept going.

Next thing I knew I was on Commonwealth Ave. near BU. From there it was only a short ride to Kenmore Square, where, to my surprise, there were still marathoners jogging the mile 25 marker! People were cheering like crazy, and the beer was clearly flowing. I pushed through the marathon crowds for a bit with the idea of possibly seeing either the finish line or a red-line T-stop where I could hop a subway home. When I got to Copley Square, the whole square was barricaded for finish-line VIPs, so I didn't actually see the marathon at that point. (Did see lots of exhausted runners heading away from it, though.)

At this point I found out (through a call to a friend) that a group of friends who had gotten up early to watch the marathon were still wandering the streets of Boston. We agreed to meet up at India Quality in Kenmore Square. So I headed back in the other direction. I was thrown off by the marathon barricades and ended up going past Northeastern, the MFA, and then up the Fenway and around Fenway Park. (This is actually about 3 blocks from Simmons, which proves that I could realistically bike there!)

Dinner was very good -- I had lamb kabob type thing. My lawyer friend explained to us that if we could build a hut and live on someone else's land for 20 years without anyone evicting us, we would own the land thanks to the doctrine of adverse posession. (Note to self: if housing prices keep going up, seriously consider this!)

After dinner, it was starting to drizzle, so my first thought was to find the nearest bike-friendly subway stop and head home that way. But I ended up missing Kendall, and was still going strong when I hit Central Square. Made it to Harvard, and from there it's not too far to Porter. Next thing I knew I had ridden all the way home! In the dark, in traffic, no less! (This is something that would have terrified me a few weeks ago.)

Hard to say for sure, but my guess is I rode at least 14-15 miles -- and I have the butt-bruises to prove it! (I think I may need to look at alternate saddles at some point.)

I'm really getting down with the whole bicycle transportation thing. Remains to be seen if I can keep it up when the weather gets hot, but for now it's definitely a good way to get around and get some serious exercise at the same time. (I've lost something like 5 pounds in the last week since I started riding regularly -- not surprising when, according to the computer, riding at 10-12 MPH with "light effort" burns something like 1,000 calories/hour!)

Now that I'm home, I've seriously got to work on the archives management paper I've been avoiding. Ugh.

659.19677028242

That's the Dewey Decimal number for a book about advertising your home weaving projects. At least I'm reasonably sure it is. (It doesn't really matter in real life because no library would be crazy enough to have a 14+ digit call number!)

This, my friends, is how I've spent a major chunk of my holiday weekend Saturday. It could be worse -- LC classification makes Dewey look like a walk in the park! Luckily I've gotten most of the LC stuff done with my study group.

I also took the bike out again and rode up to Spy Pond where I watched the geese and read a chapter from"The Invisible Man" for my history class. From there, on to Arlington Center where I ate an orange croissant and did some more reading. After that I followed the path a while longer to roughly the border of Lexington. I felt like I was losing steam, so I turned around. At that point I realized that I'd been pedaling up a shallow grade -- which is probably why I was feeling sluggish. The return trip went a lot quicker. At Arlington Center I got off the bike path and rode back along Broadway, which was also a pretty easy ride despite the traffic. I don't know how far I actually went -- I've got to get a cycling computer for the bike so that I can keep track of these things. (The real question is am I brave enough to attempt the 6-mile ride into Boston to get to school.)

When I got back, I vegged on the deck for a with Ralph Ellison and a beer, then headed back to Dewey Land.

Tomorrow's Easter, but I don't really have any plans. I was originally considering going home, but I had too much schoolwork stacked up to give up the travel time. So it's probably going to pretty much be just another day, other than the fact that I may actually go to church for once.

Boston by bike

Last Friday I purchased a bike, my first since sometime in high school. Tuesday morning I ignored the homework I should have been tackling and instead took it for a spin. I started out heading toward "downtown," but soon reveresed course and headed out through Davis square and onto the Minuteman bike path toward Arlington. The weather was beautiful, and eventually I made my way to Spy Pond. I sat on a bench watching ripples course through the reflections of budding trees and a white church steeple. Two geese paddled placidly around the pond, keeping a wary eye on a woman who was swimming in their general direction. An extended family was gathered at the water's edge -- two young kids were busily occupied chucking handfulls of pebbles into the pond while their elders conversed in rapid-fire Korean. I soon had to turn around and head back for work. But the sunny morning at the pond set the tone for the rest of my day.

Today I got up a bit early and biked to my internship in Charlestown. I think this was a longer trip than the Tuesday ride, and also involved far more hills and intense traffic. I made it on time, and made it back without major injury. Go me!

For my last 9 months or so in Nashville I'd gotten in the habit of going to the gym 3-4 times per week. Since it was at work I could get in at any hour, so it wasn't a problem to stop in even if I was heading home at midnight. And it was working -- I've shed close to 100 pounds in the last year.

Now I'm relying on the gym at school, which keeps "normal" hours. I'm often in work, classes, or study groups until late evening, so it's sometimes hard to make it to the gym. I've probably been averaging once a week since I started going again a month or two ago.

The fact that I'm walking a lot more than I used to certainly helps. On most days I walk about 30-40 minutes as part of my daily commute. But I'm hoping the bike will give me another way to keep up the routine.

A few winter snapshots:

Hoisting furniture over up to my balcony on an unseasonably warm day, January 2006.

Another move in photo. Note that I'm now showing my Tennessee pride. I bought the sweatshirt in Nashville years ago, but never wore it there for fear of being mistaken for a Vols fan! Honestly, officer, I have no idea where that sign came from!

Making good use of gravity to get the moving blankets back to the truck.

That's just how important I am up here. I even have my own port-a-john!

Hiking on the freezing cold beach, March 2006.

Later in the hike we discovered the mansion of some filthy rich turn-of-the-century industrialist.

On the chairlift at Jay Peak, March 2006.

My friend Marty doing his level best to burn down his newly-remodeled kitchen, April, 2006.

The commute

Walking to the T. Early afternoon sun shines obliquely through the trees lining College Ave. Warm breeze -- feels like spring. On the platform at Davis, an old man picks bluegrass banjo next to his lazy-looking black dog. Two quarters from my disorganized backpack plunk into the banjo case as the train glides into the station. Porter. Harvard. Central. Kendall. We glide smoothly up and over the Charles, Boston bound. Twin obelisks of the Bunker Hill Monument and the graceful Zakim bridge crest the distant horizon to the sound of Glenn Miller's Tuxedo Junction. Off the train at Park Street -- bustle of feet rushing up the stairs to the green line platform. The D-line train comes before my usual E. I hop on -- the longer walk on the other end means more time to enjoy the weather. Off at Fenway, rushing toward work. Sidewalk Sam is chalking a Matisse on the pavement while the geese graze on the Fenway. Almost there. I arrive at my desk 10 minutes late, but it's worth it.

(actually written a week or two ago, but I forgot to post it!)

It's not that I don't want to post...

But I've been unbelievably busy. Between 30 hours of work, 9 hours in class, 6 hours at an internship, 11 hours commuting, and who knows how many more hours spent on homework, study groups, etc. there just isn't that much time left over. I've also been trying to actually maintain some semblance of a social life, which requires even more time. (My blog reading has gone down even more precipitously than my blog writing!) I'm hoping to gradually get back in the rhythm of blogging... Stay tuned!

Poetics of commuting

To get to work/school, I now walk about 15 minutes from my house to the Davis Square T stop, where I hop a red line train into the city, followed by a green line train back out to MFA. I then walk about 5 minutes on the other end out along the Fenway to Simmons. The commute unfortunately takes about an hour each way, which is not ideal. But it also adds up to about 40 minutes of walking per day, which hopefully somewhat makes up for the fact that I have yet to make it to the gym in Boston. (There is theoretically a fitness center at school, but it's somewhat inconvenient if you don't live on campus.)

In any case, the commute is interesting because there are a thousand new things to notice every day. Sometimes they're really obvious -- like the day I was bringing my mom back from the airport on the T and a couple was having a knock-down, drag-out, yelling and screaming argument at the other end of the nearly-empty subway car. Other times you catch more subtle things. Like the house on College Ave. where someone has laid out giant poetry words on the ground like refrigerator magnets.

Here's another one: The subway platform at Davis is made up of dingy red bricks. Etched into them is a faint message -- easy to miss if you're not looking for it:

At 7am watching the cars on the bridge

Everybody's going to work. Well.

Not me. I'm not

Going to work

-James Moore

When I stand amid the swarm of people milling around the platform and see this, it makes me smile.

Snow. Lots of it.

The good news is that I had the foresight to go out and buy a snow shovel a few weeks ago. (I had gotten rid of my old one from Syracuse years ago because Nashville never had enough snow to bother.)

The bad news is that I put it in the back of my pickup so that I'd have it handy when I needed to dig the truck out. Now the back of the truck is frozen shut and buried behind a 5-foot high snowpile.

If I had the shovel I could dig it out, but...

Got a day off from work on Sunday, which is a mixed blessing. The extra holiday was nice, but when I don't work I don't get paid! The workload and crazy schedule have been killing me, but we've reworked some of my hours and I think that will help. I'm hoping to do some catch up posting on this blog sometime soon, including photos of the move in and more details about what I've been up to since I arrived.

Words to live by

A close friend and her family recently became involved in a tragedy on a scale that most of us thankfully never have to deal with. We've all been very concerned, but they seem to be holding up remarkably well considering. She recently wrote an e-mail that included the following, which I plan to post on my refrigerator as soon as I figure out where the box with the magnets went:

this is also a reminder to me that life needs to be lived to the fullest. that each day is a gift - not to be taken for granted. and i am trying to remind myself that. never hang up mad. never leave without a hug. those are my cardinal rules. never regret. everything is an experience to be learned from - and this is what i'm taking....

man. i almost went up to a total stranger on the train the other day and told him he was cute.

almost.

My thoughts are with her, her family, and the others who have suddenly been asked to deal with the unthinkable.

Sorry

Sorry for being so scarce. My life has changed radically almost overnight, and I'd like nothing better than to chronicle it all here. But I'm still waiting on Comcast for my Internet hookup. My main net access at home is coming through my cell phone, which isn't conducive to writing your life story.

I do now have an actual desk, phone, computer, etc. at my new job. But I haven't had much time to blog there.

So, anyway, there is much to say, and I'll try to catch you up once my apartment gets plugged back into the matrix.

I will say one thing now: I've seen more snow in the last week than I'd seen in years in Nashville.

First day

Classes don't start until next week, but today was my first day at the assistantship job. It started at 8AM, which is early (at least in my world). The commute took an hour (about 20 minutes of walking through a snow storm and the rest on two subway lines.) That's about right for where I live, but is clearly going to take a bite out of my time. I'm going to have to learn to be productive on the subway. There is very little parking on campus, and will be virtually none when they tear out the main parking lot to start building a parking garage in May.

I spent most of the day at work being shown around and filling out paperwork. Still don't know precisely what I will have to do in the job -- we're supposedly going to go over some of that tomorrow. I'm essentially an assistant to the acting IT director for the Library School. The actual job is probably whatever she needs done. It's a small office, but seems to be staffed with nice folks.

I also spent the day making phone calls trying to shut down Nashville utilities, start up Mass. utilities, etc. I've been parking illegally on the street for the lastt few days, and I was hoping to get a resident permit today. I called about this, and was told I would need a Mass. auto registration and driver's license to get the permit. So I called the DMV, and was told that I would need proof of Mass. insurance to get the registration. So I called the insurance company, and they said I would need a Mass. driver's license to get insurance. Urgh! (Actually, turns out I can call back with the license info later, so this isn't a total catch-22. But when it all shakes out, I'm probably going to have to risk parking tickets for another week while I wait on all the paperwork.)

Despite the fact that I have a longstanding beef with Comcast (about running my own server at home), I signed up for their Internet service after Verizon told me they were overloaded with DSL subscribers in my area and couldn't currently take anymore. I guess I could have looked into other options, but I was too lazy. Also signed up for cable television. That may be a luxury on my student income. But the Internet costs a lot more without it. I even added the basic digital package for $5.95/month because this means they'll waive the installation fee. I can then cancel it in a month or two if if turns out to be pointless. I'm not thrilled about sending close to $100/month to Comcast, but I'll survive.

Only problem is, it will be almost two weeks before they can install it. So I'm stuck without reliable Internet at home. (Occasionally I can pick up someone else's WiFi router at night, but it's spotty.) Currently camped out in the lounge at school, and I can also go to the coffee shop around the corner. But still not as good as having it at home.

The apartment is still a mess, but I'm slowly getting it more organized. My office is more or less put together (although the computer doesn't really work due to the lack of Internet), and the living room is getting there. The kitchen still looks like a bomb went off -- need to tackle that this week.

Exhaustion

In new apartment with all my stuff, thanks to an intrepid crew of 6 volunteers. Things are in disarray and there's a lot of work left to do. But I'm too tired to think about it.

Gotta get Internet going -- typing on a cell phone is getting old.

Even closer

Almost there

Cat in a traffic jam DC

Lunch in Woodstock

Drivin' my big ol' truck

Loading Day (first of several, actually)

Before.

The crew. Most of it anyway. The two brothers are off somewhere doing something.

Ahh, perhaps eating lunch. Homemade ham and bean soup (made last weekend -- I'm not that crazy.)

A chair before stretch wrapping.

A chair after stretch wrapping. Stretch wrap is my new favorite packing material.

Raking leaves (for some reason!) and jumping in them. You can't stop these volunteers!

Moving the dresser.

wrapping the dresser.

The truck. It's big. really big. I was waffling between a 16' and a 22' truck. Because I'm a great person, the Penske guy decided to give me a free upgrade to a 26' truck. When I tried to get something smaller, he admitted that they only had the 26'. Going to be interesting piloting that sucker down a snow-covered streets in Boston!

Disassembling the bed. Wildlife sightings included dust bunnies the size of small dogs.

After.