Star Struck

Recently spent a few days in Lamar, Colorado.  It’s a small town in southeast Colorado, near the Kansas border. Their main street seems to have reached a new gift shoppe heavy equilibrium, like a lot of old downtowns.  I did find a used book store, crammed with paperbacks and a few local history gems and a several shelves of vintage hardcovers.  I spent a sawbuck on approximately eight pounds worth of books and booklets, one of which was "How to Take a Trick a Day with Bisquick."  (Although the title seems to be setting us up for some sort of bridge themed narrative, I couldn't detect one.)

The picture of Clark Gable looked familiar to me, which meant either that I already owned this, or it had been featured by James Lileks.  At $5.00 it was twenty times more expensive than similar offerings from the Egg Board or Metropolitan Insurance.  Should I take the chance of buying a double? I got my answer when I opened it up to this:

Sigh. I’m such a Dick Powell Fan, that I wouldn't mind having two of these. Isn’t he positively dreamy?  I’d let him wade into my kitchen any day. Seriously, how many men do you know that could pull off that apron over double breasted suit?

One of the odd things about this cook booklet is the way it mixes stars of the silver screen with stars of Home Economics. Here's Mildred Maddocks Bentley. I own one the Delineator Institute’s Cookbooks.  It has excellent diagrams for carving meat.

And although Dorothy Marsh apparently had a face for radio, I couldn’t help but notice she offered a menu “for the business woman who entertains.” Somehow the 1935 way of describing a working woman trying to get food on the table sounds more glamorous. But she's still just serving tuna casserole.