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Katrina

Lost and Found – Part 4

My precious little pile of antique postcards was missing for several years. I had looked in every conceivable place (I thought), and finally decided they must have been inside some book or box I’d given away. It was very sad.

So I was overjoyed to discover them in an unlabeled envelope that was in a plastic photo organizer that was in a box of collage materials that was in a drawer.

 

[be sure to click on images to see these beauties in more detail!]

There are Christmas cards:

 

So much detail for such tiny pieces of paper:

 

And more Christmas cards:

 

Birds were a popular subject for all occasions, as were pansies, lovely ladies, and playful animals.

 

Musical instruments made an occasional appearance as well.

 

Many postcards had a tiny landscape included among the other images.

 

 

Most of these were actually mailed, and have illegible postmarks on their one-cent stamps. The messages are necessarily brief, and always make me wonder about the things that were left unwritten.

On a greeting sent to Miss Amy Beaumont in Portal, North Dakota, Nov. 1910:

·        Hello There – I am healing good. It is cold enough. Jo Sherman home. I have not been up that way all summer. I suppose everything is at the same. From a Friend, Albert Petersen

On a Christmas card to Miss Mabel Buchholtz in Bloomington, Illinois, Dec 21, 1921:

·        Merry Xmas and Happy New Year, From Miss Eva Tansley, Melvin Ill. (Write Soon!)

 

On a greeting sent to Miss Clara Vaughn of Helena, Montana, Jul 14, 1911:

·        Dear Clara, We rec’d a “Star” containing your speech and gave you credit for sending it. We are proud of your success. The babies are having measles, Miriam just over it and Oakley D just taking it. Where will you teach this fall? – Edith Lutes

 

Other cards must have been simply handed to the recipient, because there is no address or stamp. Simple messages are written in pencil:

·        From Grandma Robbing to Esther – Jan 1, 1912

 ·        To Carl from Mayme on his 26^th birthday 1914. Wish you a Happy Birthday.

 

I just have two of these beautifully colored French postcards.

 

Finally, the star of the collection – a nine-page foldout souvenir postcard set from Cuba.

The front (above) and back (below) covers of the postcard booklet. The postage stamp was removed at some point – no doubt extremely collectible in itself.

The sender dated her luncheon at the Country Club of Havana to Jan. 31, 1926, so I can date the postcards to the 1920s or earlier.

 

There are actually 18 images, since each card has pictures on both sides.

I treasure this view into the old Cuba that was “The Summerland of the World” according to the little blurb in the booklet; and where “gem-like Havana” could be reached via “a delightful sea-voyage of 5 ½ hours from Key West.”

 

So here I have provided actual, tangible proof that there is some benefit to cleaning your room once in a while. You might find something that you thought was lost forever.

 

Katrina

 

P.s. The postcards are now in a labeled box on a shelf. I’m not putting myself through that again.

Lost and Found – Part 3

Today’s treasure is a simple thing – a cookbook.

Published in 1956, it is Chinese Cooking for American Kitchens, by Calvin Lee. Young Mr. Lee took on the task of converting the recipes from his family’s restaurant to a practical cookbook for Americans. Not only that, the book contains a short history of the early introduction of Chinese food and the beginning of America’s acceptance of authentic Chinese dishes instead of bland glop like chop suey. There is even a description and definition of the Chinese name of each utensil and cooking method.

The recipes look quite good, but I probably won’t try any of them. When we cook "Chinese" food at home we usually just toss vegetables and spices in hot oil – no recipe required. But more importantly, every recipe in this book contains monosodium glutamate. If you were around in the 50s and 60s, you will recall that this was something you could buy in the grocery store under various brand names (ours was "Accent"), and it was simply a flavor enhancer. MSG was in every can of soup, every box of rice mix, every bottle of sauce. No one thought much about it when this book was written.

But back to the book – the main reason I bought it was for the pictures. Some tiny, some taking up the entire page, they are by Mabel Wong Lilienstein and they are beautiful. Each chapter has a descriptive sketch at the beginning, and then there are tiny pictures dotted throughout.

I think these little scenes are lovely, and they transform a nice cookbook into a real gem.

Katrina

Peaches!

It’s time for peaches here in Arizona. There are events at the local peach farms, mountains of peaches at the farmers markets, and low prices for ripe peaches at the regular grocery stores. I don’t have any peach trees here at home, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to eat them when the season rolls around.

Instead of peach pie, we’ve had two peach-filled cakes recently. The first was a very traditional Peach Upside-down Cake. These always seem risky - almost as unlikely as a soufflé to come out right.

But this one turned out of its pan perfectly, due no doubt to the Piemaker's superpowers!

 

The second was Blackberry-Peach Cobbler Bars. They seemed more like cake than cobbler, but they were delicious. I used almonds instead of pecans for the crunchy topping, and I think you could switch out different fruits with equally good results.

These were white peaches, that’s why they are almost invisible in the cake.

What seasonal produce are you enjoying now?

Katrina