It's that time again. Time for me to break out the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook series I purchased recently at the totally fun Room Service Vintage and scan the images of what people called food back in 1964. Oh sure, most of it doesn't look like food. But tastes change over time. And if you've recently picked up a Beef Monster Taco at your local Jack in the Box then you know that doesn't look like food either. Yet, people put it in their mouths and swallow it anyway. [insert joke about inserting things in mouths and swallowing here]

What's that you say? You didn't see the first post? Oh my golly. Well, you really don't need a pretext for this, besides I don't really go into WHY I'm doing this. I don't know why. I am simply compelled.

Oh, and the added bonus: This cookbook comes with some subtle mid-60's racism thrown in at no extra cost! Because it's Meals... with a FOREIGN FLAIR!



I'm pretty sure that fu dog on the cover is actually squealing in horror at the mystery meat stir fry served in that ancient Chinese box. Making that meat... you guessed it... an ancient Chinese secret.

The book is divided up by country, starting off with your "Passport to Explosive Diarrhea" er, um... Scandinavia!



Being an "ugly American," I actually had to look up some facts on Scandinavia. First of all, it's not a country unto itself. It's actually a whole bunch of countries, at least one of which is the worlds largest exporter of goofily-named flatpack home furnishings. I kid, I kid.

I'll be the first one to get behind some IKEA meatballs. They're damned tasty. And most of this Smørgåsbøard looks reasonably tasty. Save for that.. what is it? Viking Ship rendered in meat in the middle of the table? And can anyone serve Fish Delights with pride? I doubt it. Fish Delights sounds like a lesbian-themed curio shop where one could pick up the latest edition of Sark's Succulent Wild Woman.

Let's continue this journey of flavor.

No sumptuous smørgasåbsürd would be complete without the appetizer table, replete with egg-and-olive penguins guarding the anchovy-stuffed eggs. Ask yourself, does the "anchovy-stuffed anything" NEED to be guarded? Really?!? (maybe from the cat, otherwise, no.)



I mean they're cute. But, gahhhh. fish smell + egg smell = hobo feet smell.

Remember that ham viking ship?



C'mon kids! Gather 'round! We're gonna decorate the ham. What a festive holiday tradition that is. (Not kosher, obvs.)

If you can read the italic under the "Decorated Chilled Ham" heading it says "Glamour for a few pennies!"
Glamour? This is the same erroneous idea that "Trash to Treasure," the final segment on the Joan Steffend-hosted Decorating Cents, labors under. "If I nail garbage to other garbage, then I can decorate with it!"
No. no. no. No you can't. If I poop here and you poop over there, and I mix our poop together I have not made anything but a bigger pile of poop!

However, if I were to film it - and we were in Germany - I technically would've made a porno. (I kid scat porn.) Neither here nor there.

Ham and Glamour haven't gone together since the heyday of Miss Piggy. And even then...

Uh oh. Ground control to Major Brands, we have a problem:



My best guess is that this Sputnik rendered in produce is actually a head of lettuce with strawberries on skewers sticking out. It is either A) levitating, or B) supported by a cinnamon stick submerged in a spinach artichoke dip that has the consistency of quickrete. Either way, it boggles the mind. If Charles and Ray Eames were mildly retarded food fetishists, this might be what their designs would look like.

I need to note that the cookbook has no mention of this item or its presentation. It is listed as French cuisine. Which, judging by some Citroën designs of the 60's and 70's, I do believe.

Assuming any of my reader(s) are French, could you confirm or deny that this is a common presentation for fruit?

As for how they do it "In the Italian Manner" well...



The chicken already suffered the indignities of becoming this dish, did you have to rub it in by making a voodoo doll of it?

I can only imagine, based on the recipe that this platter of "Chicken Cacciatora and Buttered Noodles with Parmesan" would ring in at about 6,500 calories per serving. Maybe people stayed slender because this presentation looks like the aftermath of a car accident with garnish.

Off to Switzerland:

I actually know someone from Switzerland, and he does not, to my knowledge, wear a long "Richie Cunningham" sweater.

For what can we thank the Swiss? How about fondue! Yes, the practice of heating something marginally liquid-ey and not technically "good" for you (i.e. chocolate, cheese, Crisco) and dipping forkfuls of other things into it is apparently a Swiss tradition(?) I assumed that fondue pots were an American invention that surfaced in the early-mid 1970's as a new unwanted wedding gift for couples who needed things considerably more practical than a fondue pot. My bad.


"Stout" German fare? But he's half-Italian... ha ha ha! Hilarious in-joke!

Time to rock out with an aire of "Gemütlichkeit," which I can only assume is Farvergnügen for food.

Wonder what a Hausplatte with some Pig's Knuckles looks like?

Paging Dr. Freud:

No comment.

Seriously, none. Except to say that it's rare I find something so simultaneously phallic and gross.

And now on to that racism I mentioned earlier:
It's the, no shit, "Honorable Chinese Dinner"



Oh fuck. An abacus?!? Seriously?!?

But wait, Atmosphere is half the fun! (Maybe more than half)



Tease your fat American guests by giving them pointy sticks to eat with before relenting and letting them have forks so they can commence to shoveling in that chop suey you whipped up.

Amazingly, Better Homes avoided including a grotesque caricature of a coolie with buck teeth and slits for eyes. Since I know for a fact that one of my reader(s) is of Chinese descent, allow me to apologize now. Some people reminisce for the "good old days" in America. I must admit, I pine for the fashion and the furniture, but not the crappy attitudes. That's something they don't show much on Mad Men.

Let's close out with some pizzaz!



Okay... this actually looks pretty good to me. It looks like the imaginary food on the table in Neverland from the Robin Williams/Dustin Hoffman flick Hook. I want to say it was "bangarang!" and the Urban Dictionary can back me up on it.

You could cover many foods with pink tinted whipped cream and I'd probably be down for it. Anything that looks like it was thrown up by Hello Kitty is probably at least worth a taste, no?

Here's how to make this "cross-section of the Earth" Spumone:



"Rum flavoring for taste"?!? Fuck that. You know what takes a decent dessert into the territory of greatness? If it's also boozy-licious. So grab some gusto, buddy.



And so ends our trip around the world. 18 countries - considerably fewer represented here - and over 100 recipes to make you never want to travel to those countries. (Although that German Cherry Torte in the middle of the back cover looks pretty freaking tasty).

That's all for now. In upcoming installments prepare yourself for snacks, BBQ and brunches. And more pointlessly snarky comments from a guy who should be doing something more productive.

Enjoy, kiddies.

Huzzah

Tags: Why do you scan this shit?, High Contrast, Rachel Ray, Stereotypes

Picture it. The year is 1976.

The heady peak of the "malaise era" in America. The beginnings of the Carter administration, the first commercial flight of the Concorde (not to be confused with the Flight of the Conchords), and gas crisis just around the bend.

Oh sure, it wasn't all bad. Apple Computer was formed that year by a couple of post-hippies/pre-slackers who are now brazillionaires. And Patty Hearst was convicted of that bank robbery she committed when she was kidnapped/brainwashed by the SLA. So that was pretty cool. But for the most part, America was fashionably, artistically and comedically bereft.

Case in point: The Paul Lynde Halloween Special

It's not hard to imagine this turd darkening TV sets when a mere month earlier Don Knotts and Loretta Swit joined the Captain and Tennille for their televised special/series which was nominated for a Primetime Emmy, to give you an idea how low the bar was for entertainment back then.

This show has been an underground sensation and a much-traded low-quality videotape for years thanks to two important factors. Primarily being that it was the network television debut of KISS, and secondarily that KISS fans will inexplicably devour any and all things even remotely KISS related with a ravenous passion that defies all logic.

Not wanting to be outdone by the high-wattage star power that Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille could offer, Paul Lynde not only rocked out with KISS, but he enlisted the talents of Margaret Hamilton (as in THE Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz), Billie Hayes (Witchiepoo from H.R. Puffenstuf), Tim Conway, Pinkie Tuscadero, Florence Henderson, the Osmonds and Betty Effing White. With that 1.21 jiggawatts of fame electricity why did this show suck so royally? Was it because the comedy vignettes were loosely tied together with a paper-thin narrative about how Paul is a man about town who helps some mismatched witches improve their public image in exchange for three wishes with the same goal of him winning the heart of Happy Days' Pinkie Tuscadero? Personally I think it's because the script was obviously written by someone who was either minimally functional retarded or hates comedy so much they wanted to hurt it with a TV script.

Packed front to back with stilted musical numbers, flat gags and lame jokes delivered with a relentlessly mugging Lynde who was outside his element and seemed visually pained by the material.
Take a look at some samples of the musical pain:

Disco Lady


Kids:


As you can see, this was poop. Halloween is a holiday woefully short on family hour specials (Beyond the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown special does one even leap to mind?). This is another TV time-waster that would've been lost to history were it not for KISS and the rights being shockingly easy to obtain what with it sucking so much.

It's rare that a hastily prepared television special achieves a level of excellence. This doesn't even approach the level of watchable.

If anyone is interested in coming over this Halloween weekend and getting wicked drunk, munching on fun-size Snickers and popping in this DVD just say the word in Comments. It'll be an instant party.

Huzzah.

Tags: Gentlemen of Leisure, Faggotry, Paul Lynde, Holidays

Ahoy, Kiddies,

As promised, I've scanned the best bits of the first of five Better Homes and Gardens Cookbooks that I procured from Room Service Vintage.

Some things to keep in mind:
• This was the LEAST visually offensive of the five. I thought I'd start light and work my way up to the edible atrocities. Therefore, this has the fewest scans. The food photography and dishes are gross as hell, but there just aren't that many. This series will get better (worse?) as we progress.
• I've done no retouch. You will have a very hard time believing this, but I didn't jack up the contrast or tweak the colors or curves at all. Everything you see is as real and gross as it appears on screen. Only in real life it's bigger, more tangible, and scarier.
• Some of this looks like the food photography of the mid 1950's, which wouldn't be so upsetting if these weren't from 1964.
• These cookbooks were unused. The spines cracked like I was the first person to open them. When you see the dishes, you will know why.

Let's get cookin'.



Pretty benign from the front, right? Presaging the Rachel Ray trend of offering sit-down dinners in short order, this book promises that full, beautifully-plated meals can be put together in "under 45 minutes"! To think, with the advent of EVOO, Trash Bowls, hideously orange-handled utensils and toxic levels of perkiness, Rachel has gotten that number down to 30. Take that, Better Homes.

Mealtime, on time, will be NO problem. Because, if your man comes home from a long day of bringing home the bacon and there is no dinner on that table. Well, you may just have another one of your "accidents" where you "fell down the stairs." Dig? Ah... but I kid spousal abuse stereotypes of the early-mid 60's.

Aside from the main dish, which looks like broasted tomatoes and sliced bull penis cross sections, the rest looks surprisingly edible. (Unless you're some freak who doesn't like raw tomatoes. But I digress.)

Crack it open and the fun really begins.



"Hey! You got your meatloaf in my chili!"

"You got your chili in my meatloaf!"

"We both have heart disease even though we're only in our 20's!"

Yes, it's two great tastes that taste... um,... together.

I feel so bad for those two sad mushrooms just floating around in there. I hope they meet up. (I have a rich inner life.)



Mmmmm. Pink Parfait Pie. Would you like some coffee with your Teletubby Menstruation dessert? Ha! That's a trick, none of the teletubbies are pink.
And that's probably not even what menses looks like. I just thank god that I'm lucky enough not to know.

Your blender makes it fast. Your lack of taste buds makes it edible.

And I'm all for buying store brands or generics, but it can be taken too far. If you happen upon a can with no other markings than "Frozen Shrimp Soup" Do NOT open it. It is most likely not, I repeat NOT, food.
Again, I am curious how people weren't constantly hocking up phlegm-wads back then. Everything is so cream-based.



Baby Orange Babas.

In fairness, this might actually TASTE good. Oranges and yellow cake. I could see where this may not taste assy . The look, however, is another story. I've been trying to think of a good analogy for what it looks like and the best I can come up with is if David Cronenberg designed a modern wall clock and laid it on its back. It's a reach, but I dunno. I welcome your suggestions in the comments.



I am not a culinary expert. I have not studied at Le Cordon Bleu and profess to know no more of gastronomy than your standard neophyte hobbyist cook. Oh sure, I'll whip up a reasonable Chicken Piccata and churn out some middling-quality cookies. And lord knows I Tivo my fair share of Food Network shows, but I'm far from expert in the art of cooking. I do know this, however: Whipped Cream/pudding concoction, or whatever that is on those strawberry/peach shortcakes, should never - under any circumstances - be beige with a pistachio-green tint. NEVER. That dessert went to the twilight zone, never to return.

Meanwhile, a broiler pan of artery-cloggage awaits.

"Hey Honey, what's for dinner?"
"Oh... the usual: Steaks, ribs, au gratin cheddar-onion stuffed tomatoes, skewered cheese globs (?), hot dogs and bacon, all broiled for our convenience."
"I see, so it's just the two of us for dinner, then?"

This is a good menu for a CPR class outing.



I swear to you, I thought it said "Beasts from the Broiler" which is a good idea for a SciFi Original Movie starring Emerill.

Was the colloquialism "a jillion" in common use in 1964?!? Really? That's kind of amazing. I can't really picture my grandfather saying "Ginormous" but who knows? Anything is possible.

And Later, you can even broil dessert! I mean, why the fuck not?!? Broil it all. Broil the shit out of it. Leave that broiler on 24/7. This is America, goddammit! And here we broil out meats, veggies and even desserts. Those salads are just for decoration, you commie pinko pussy! Latch onto some broiled meat!

(yike.)

Oh, and to gay-it-up for just a second: That header font is BEAUTIFUL, isn't it? "Bests from the Broiler" dances gaily on the page in it's reserved-yet-bouncy Mary Blair universe of whimsy. It's basically too perfect, and because of that makes me love and hate it in equally passionate doses.



And alas, the back cover. (I told you this wasn't a long one).

On the top you get a hint of the "Tic Tac Toe" burger, which has a perfect "#" of yellow American cheese slices on it. Along with a grilled cheese sandwich with a whole serrano pepper on top, which is pretty damned hardcore when you think about it. Which hopefully, you won't.

Okay. This one was lightweight, I'll be the first to admit it. But stop complaining, it's free. And there's 4 more books in the series that get increasingly more insulting and hideously photographed as we go along. So you have something to look forward to as we approach the Halloween holidays.

If you'd like any of the recipes from this book... then you need to reassess where you're at in your life. But I'd be happy to look them up for you, because I'm so starved for the acceptance of strangers on the internet. It's sadly true. Were it not for my four friends who begrudgingly read my sloppily-fashioned and lazily-written (and overly-hyphen-friendly) posts, then I'd have no use for the internet at all. (So long as porn is still available in other formats. It is, isn't it?!?)

That's all for today. But in the near future you can look forward to a real treat I picked up in the discount DVD section at Fry's. It's a campy delight and will be a real Halloween treat. (Feel free to guess. You will be wrong.)

Until next time, my dark minions, Huzzah.

Tags: Gross, High Contrast, Rachel Ray, Why do you scan this shit?

If you're like me, you've had your fill of the debates/politics/life in general.
I've actually played it pretty close to the vest because I don't see the value in adding to the noise floor of people whooping and a-hollering* about the election. Age! Lack of Experience! Small town values! Blah blah blah. It's really no different than screaming "I am an asshole and you all must be made aware!" That said, I'm all for free speech. I'm getting off topic.

Anyway, one word keeps jumping out from the McCain/Palin-verse, and that word is "Maverick." Now I don't know about you, but this word has never had a great connotation for me. To me, maverick means either a showboating douchebag who ignores rules (even the important good ones), a shitty mid-70's early malaise-era Ford, or a shitty Jim Garner TV show made into a slightly less shitty Mel Gibson (pre "sugar tits" era) movie.

And last night that word was bandied about like the word "terrorism" gets thrown around at every Bush press conference where they want to remove another civil liberty. So in a fit of infantile aggression (do I have any other moods?) I slapped this lazy lol together:



It sucks, but feel free to pass it along. Although I ask that you use the photobucket link (copy and paste below) because on the odd chance someone with a blog someone reads hotlinks it, I'll be shut down by GoDaddy in mere seconds. That's what you get for discount hosting.

Copy this link, thank you very much:

<a href="http://s248.photobucket.com/albums/gg192/docmarvy/?action=view&current=maverick.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg192/docmarvy/maverick.jpg" border="0" alt="lolmccain"></a>

In case you think the above is being vague, which it probably is - I'm undercaffinated at the moment - what I'm trying to say is: I would rather vote for James Garner or a '72 Ford than an hot-tempered coot and his mean-cheerleader sidekick. You can find out more about why at this link.

*this is a reference to the following scene, which Chris says he is reminded of when Sarah P. starts talking about said Maverick taking shots "from the left and the right - a-whoopin' and a hollerin'" Frankly, I don't think it's nice to make fun of a person's speech impediment. But whatevs.



Okay, enough goofing off. Back to work for me. Huzzah.

Tags: lol

I'm not exactly batting a thousand here, am I?

I bought a stack of hilariously photographed Better Homes & Gardens Cookbooks at Room Service Vintage and have every intention of scanning and putting up here for all to enjoy. But let's see, I posted 5 times in July. Not even once in August, once in September and now it's October already. Month of Ashley's Wedding (see links to the left), my mom's birthday, and another Halloween where I'm afraid my grandiose scheme of dressing as a hot cop are quickly diminishing. At this rate I may have time to rustle up a "hot UPS guy" but it's not the same.

I have so many things to write about, too: There's this guy at the gym who wears half shirts and another who wears these hilarious headbands; the cookbooks (natch); the cat eating my iPhone headphones ($110 worth so far); and various and sundry random notes from our first Autumn in Austin. But alas, no time. I've been cranking on projects for work since I got back from SoCal and frankly, at the end of a long day of staring at my laptop, blogging isn't at the top of my agenda. I hear the weather is getting nice outside, but who can remember?

In fact, as I write this, my work inbox is filling up. Feh.

So until I can get to blogging in earnest again (not to mention the guest blog piece I want to write on the leather fetish shops of Los Angeles for the Cuddling on the Wild Side blog), you'll have to suffice with some videos. The new Ben Folds single was directed by Tim and Eric, who are geniuses. After that, as promised, it's video of me from February 2007 on stage so you can see how horribly fat I was. (Oh, and I made a new header for the site, but I don't know how it's going to look. Let's see.)



Here comes the chunk:


Oh, and here's a graphic I mashed up. If you're familiar with Spagett! then you get it. Although most likely you do not.

Okay, that's it. Back to work.

Until next time, Huzzah.

Tags: Ben Folds, Bad Design