Vintage Living Today For A Future Tomorrow

Some tips on baking from Successful Baking For Flavor & Texture by Martha Lee Anderson, copyright 1937, Church & Dwight Company.

While baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) is an excellent and safe household cleaner, there are some things you should know about it -- and other household cleaners.

Tips from Godey’s Lady’s Book, January 1855 -- and info on soaps in the 1880s.

The title -- and cover image -- gave me this impression: This book is going to be about women taking back the kitchen and crafts (and all the things once called "women's work") and are refusing to be told that they are anti-feminist or backward-thinking for doing so. They are reclaiming the word "domestic" from its status as a slur.

Yes . . . but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Matchar explains that that is what we think we're doing (there's the motive) but what we're really accomplishing, if we truly believe ourselves to be feminists, might be shooting ourselves in the feet (there's those repercussions).

...Some women who are quitting their jobs to bake bread and grow veggies and homeschool their kids are saying, as I did, when I dropped out of the workforce, "Work sucks and it ain't getting any better. Screw the middleman. I'm my boss now and my job is to feed my family." As noble as this seems (and, yeah, I was getting a bit of a head), Matchar thinks that we have jumped off a ship that isn't sinking, as we thought, but is, in fact, still struggling to get out of the harbor. Feminism hasn't failed -- it just isn't done yet. Just as we don't have total racial equality even though we have laudable civil rights laws, we don't have equality between the sexes, either -- not in employment or anywhere else. To use another metaphor, our mothers didn't fail to win, they just started the fight. They tagged us in and we've walked away.

Newly-discovered food recipes from a 12th century Durham Priory manuscript have been found to pre-date the earliest known ones by 150 years. The recipes are to be recreated at a Durham University event later in the month.

The Latin manuscript mainly consists of recipes for medical ointments and cures and was compiled and written at Durham Cathedral’s priory around 1140. The work was recently been re-examined and found to contain the food recipes, which experts believe are amongst the oldest in the western medieval culinary tradition, preceding the previously known examples from circa 1290. The manuscript is now held at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University.

In Successful Baking For Flavor & Texture by Martha Lee Anderson (copyright 1937, Church & Dwight Company), there are many tips for using baking soda for household cleaning. Polishing, cleaning, and sweetening (odor removal), are among the uses.

These photos were found in an article entitled Sit Down to Handmade Table Settings inside the October 1980 issue of Decorating & Craft Ideas magazine. Since the holidays are nearly upon us, and entertaining is ever-certain at holiday times, I thought these were pretty nifty.

A lot of seven (7) vintage textiles, mostly tablecloths. They all have issues, from stains and spots to holes, making them suitable for crafting, quilting, etc. Most all have hand needlework, such as appliques, embroidery, etc.