Tag: kitchen

Chef Hector Boiardi & The Old Chef Boyardee Plant

Scans from a vintage Chef Boyardee cook booklet titled Famous Italian Dishes, by Chef Hector Boiardi (Through Courtesy of Stop & Shop) with Recipes tested and approved by The Chef Boy-ar-dee Housewife, Lois Nichols.

Along with recipes & biographical info on Boiardi himself, there are illustrations for products which have perished, long ago… Even if you do still find items with this packaging in grandma’s pantry, they’ve perished. Do. Not. Eat.

Also in the booklet, photos of the manufacturing operations at the “modern plant” in Milton, PA.

No date; I believe it’s from the 30s. The whole book is printed in a sepia-toned brown on off-white paper, not black on white.

Cucumber Spread, She Said

A grandma was recently forced to clean out her pantry, and this is some of what lay within… Via Kottke.

Kitsch-Back: What is Kitsch to You?

If you look at your dictionary or Wikipedia, you may find kitsch defined as ‘gaudy, cheap, and tacky.’ This description does not to justice to the international phenomenon we fondly know as kitsch. A word borrowed from the German language, its orginal meaning has it associated with tackiness and trashiness. Yet it is also fresh, funky and fabulous. You can find it all over the world, emboying different media and styles. There is a quirky kind of magic to it, an irrestible charm if you get to know it. What does it mean to you?

Some admirers go for Mexican kitsch. The candy-filled pinatas, the Day of the Dead festivities, the overblown religion paraphernalia and the melodramatic telenovella starlets all scream kitsch, in technicolor! The Japanese are also big supporters of kitsch, with kawaii (cute) youth culture a real movement embodying everything from Hello Kitty to Tamagotchi, Pokemon to karaoke. In some circles kitsch is scorned for being tasteless and cheap, but for those in the know it is as popular as FoxyBingo and Angry Birds. Is there even such a thing as ‘too kitsch’ or ‘too much kitsch’? No! Of course not.

Standard Kitchen Counter Tops In The Late 1960s

Or at least how Standard Brands wanted your counters to look. A photo of all the Standard Brands, Inc. brands, circa 1968, which included Royal “Shake-A Pudd’n (as well as other puddings, baking powder, & cheesecakes) Planter’s peanuts (including Mr. Peanut peanut butter), Fleischmann’s yeast and margarine, Blue Bonnet margarine, Siesta coffee — the oxymoron beverage of choice, Chase & Sanborn coffee, Tender Leaf teas, Hunt Club Burger Bits dog food…

Photo inside Fleischmann’s New Treasury of Yeast Baking: Introducing Rapidmix, The No-Dissolve Method.

GE Kitchens Are Next To Godliness

The cover of God In My Kitchen: Fifty-Two Thoughts For Homemakers, by Dorothy C. Haskin. (I’m giving one away in this contest! Or you can find it on Amazon.)

In the acknowledgements:

The kitchen shown on the cover was designed by Home Guide Inc., using General Electric appliances. We are indebted to these organizations for the picture.

Personally, I never got over that documentary we were shown in collage. Ever since then, whenever someone says “GE” or “General Electric,” I scream, “Babies born without skulls!” …I guess that’s one type of atomic kitchen.

Home Is Where The Heart Rendering Is

A vintage home canning and label book from Worthington Rendering CO, Worthington, Minnesota, “Our gift to you in appreciation of your calls.”

What calls, you ask?

Calls to report or turn in what Worthington wants to render:

Wanted All Dead & Disabled Animals

Courteous Drivers

Large or Small — We Make the Call

Hey, they had clean and sanitary disinfected trucks. So don’t worry about it; go can some fruit. Just don’t tell Timmy & Betsy what really happened to Old Shep and that lame kitten… Just tell the kids the pets went to go live on a farm. Or another farm.

As Seen On Haunted Collector?

The only thing scarier than a clown is SyFy’s Haunted Collector — and Haunted Collector is stupider. If you watched the first episode, you saw this cookie jar — Boo!

(Sorry, my vintage pottery McCoy clown cookie jar has been sold.)

Mom Said Not To Play With Your Food

But she didn’t say anything about your beverages, did she?

Forget about blowing bubbles in your chocolate milk — now you can play Space Invaders in your (already bubbled) soda pop! Make ice cube invaders with Fred and Friends Ice Invaders.

If you’re dehydrated, we highly recommend playing Tetris in your beverage — you know you’ll be playing for hours, so you won’t dehydrate. Make puzzle-shaped ice with this Iceblox Ice Cube Puzzle Tray.

Or follow the directions to make your own block silicone ice cube tray.

Related: How to make Video Game Ice Casts.

I Was So Hoping Her First Name Would Be Ethel

When I read the caption for this photo in A Review of the Educational Motion Picture “The Way To A Man’s Heart”, my first thought was, “Oh, please, let her first name be Ethel!” because I completely fell in love with that name in On Golden Pond. (The fabulous Katharine Hepburn played the fabulously named Ethel Thayer.) But no. Sadly, Miss Thayer’s first name wasn’t Ethel; it was Phoebe.