Cabbage Christmas Tree

Are you the sort of person who makes their own laundry detergent?

Do you wash and re-use Ziplock bags?

Are you a secret foil hoarder?

Do you wait for illnesses to “run their course” rather than succumb to “conventional” medicines?

Do you recoil at the thought of fake Christmas trees, yet find yourself in an ethical dilemma when thinking about the tremendous waste involved in buying a “fresh” one each year, only for it to end up in a landfill?

Then you will LOVE this handy alternative!

A cabbage Christmas Tree has all the wonder of the real thing (including artful decorations) without the fuss of pine needles, the annoyance of sticky resin, the danger of flammability, and the emotional scarring that comes with following the herd and handing over real money to a seasonally-employed fellow hawking farm-grown trees out of a parking lot.

Who needs the smell of pine when you can enjoy the smell of raw cabbage! And just think of the savings you will encounter by being able to eat the entire thing afterwards (decorations and all!)

And who has the space for a tree? They only force you to rearrange your furniture and can usually be seen form the street, inviting hooligans and miscreants to rob you blind. This all-natural tree can be placed on your table and does not need watering. All you need to do to keep it fresh is remove the shriveled decorations every now and then, shave the tree, and replace with new decorations.

If you’re worried that there won’t be room for presents under your cabbage Christmas Tree, never fear: Christmas isn’t about the wanton consumerist greed and commercial religiosity that has plagued the holiday in recent years. This tree delivers the REAL message of Christmas: no gifts necessary.

You wouldn’t want your children to grow up with Santa Claus as a role model, would you? He’s clearly overweight and relies upon the slave labor of elves and reindeer to do his work. This way, you can dispense with all of that nonsense and give your children the gift of disillusionment instead — it’ll serve them far better in the long run.

Finally, if you’re unsure about desecrating a religious celebration by bucking the system, reassure yourself that the baby Jesus would encourage you to keep humble and use vegetables to represent his nativity; after all, that’s probably what the Holy Family would have found in their stable — none of this chocolate and fruitcake business.

Go ahead and make yours today.

Garnishing: A Feast For Your Eyes, HP Books, 1987

Also from this book: Carrot Fishing Net, Randolph The Red-Nosed Rainmoose

New Cabbage Slaw

Derek opened his eyes and let them rest in the dark of his cupped hands for a few moments after finishing the prayer. He usually prayed before dinner in the manner of his parents, resting his head in his hands, elbows on the table. He knew other families who offered a prayer before dinner by simply holding their palms together in front of themselves, or by holding hands in a circle, but they all closed their eyes. You had to close your eyes. If you didn’t, Derek knew, the prayer didn’t count. It was a sacred minute where he felt it was possible for God to enter the room and change things without you looking. Every day, before partaking of the evening meal, he thus played a game of hide-and-seek, and every time, like a child, he wanted to prolong the possibility that a miracle had in fact occurred, no matter how small. Lately it seemed that he kept his eyes closed longer and longer, as if giving the Almighty extra time to fix things — things, Derek knew, he would never be able to see.

It was a thought he pondered while driving to work, sitting on the freeway. It was, he figured, the essence of faith. His limitations as a mortal man would prevent him from ever knowing for sure if God had been at work in his life (or his dining room), or not. If the traffic was particularly bad, this line of reasoning led him invariably to the uncomfortable thought that he was trying, in his closed-eyed silence, to out-maneuver God, to catch Him in the act, and thus validate his beliefs. That made him feel like a cheat. By the time he reached the office, he couldn’t wait to get to work to take his mind off it.

The first thing Derek did once he sat at his desk was to place, very carefully, so as to make no noise, his bagged lunch in the garbage bin. He never looked inside the brown paper bag; he didn’t need to. He’d prefer not to know. After he did this, he uttered a quick prayer for forgiveness, and fired up his computer.

Derek had met his wife at church; they had been set up on a blind date by mutual friends — a married couple who not long after Derek and his wife married, fell apart spectacularly — in ways Derek often thought guiltily about. There had been wild alcoholic binges, pills, rumors of prostitutes. Derek’s new wife thought it best that they, like others in the church, stopped taking this couple’s calls. That was years ago now, and Derek sometimes wondered what became of them. He remembered them in his prayers, and at night, when he couldn’t sleep, often found himself re-living outings and dinner-dates, searching his memory for clues as to the cracks in this couple’s relationship. He came up empty. There was nothing to point to; they had seemed perfectly happy. Derek lay there staring at his ceiling, listening to his wife’s breathing, wondering if anyone else would think that of him. Probably, he thought. They probably would.

Every day, at the dinner table, Derek gave thanks for the food, and for the Lord’s bounty, using the same words he’d recited from childhood. His children said them too. Everyone was hungry.

Then, when he opened his eyes, he gazed at the coleslaw his wife had served in a carved-out cabbage, and knew that his prayers had not been answered. God had not intervened; he was being tested, yet again, by a force greater and with more tenacity than Derek could comprehend. He smiled and held out his plate, and even as the words “that looks lovely, Dear” escaped his lips, he blasphemed loudly in the depths of his heart. 

Salad Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1958

Ham Cabbage Mold

Before the 1890s, the world was entirely black and white and shades of grey. If you wanted to know what something looked like, you had to use your imagination. People had very vivid imaginations, so that was OK. Well, sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes people got it all wrong and lots of folks got killed as a result.

People had no idea what an orange was. They’d ask their grocer for a dimpled fruit yay-big and were handed a melon instead. Or a lemon. That depended on the literacy of one’s grocer, which in the 1890s was iffy at best. The banana was widely thought to be an urban legend until Carmen Miranda rendered all urban legends obsolete. But I digress.

The first color photograph was of a tartan ribbon. The ribbon thought it was posing for a normal black and white portrait and refused to pay. In 1855 a Scottish person named James Clerk Maxwell invented the eyeball by reducing the known universe to red, green and blue. When he mixed them together, he could make every hue there is, but when regular people mix them together all they get is brown. It is not known whether his genius was prompted into being by being hit on the head with an apple or an orange.

People think there are no words that rhyme with orange, but try rhyming anything with apple. People named Hugh are colorblind, a twist of fate they can’t even appreciate. I made that up. There are no people named Hugh.

One hundred years after Maxwell figured the eyeball out, Americans learned to mix anything with lemon Jell-O and set it in a mold to enchant their guests. This lead to the extinction of guests. Hundreds of cookbooks with whole chapters devoted to what to serve unexpected guests had to be torn up and thrown on the fire.

Today it is as unfathomable for us to consider a world without color photography as it is to imagine eating a ham cabbage mold. Never have so many been so thankful for black and white photography as we are now, right this minute, when we look at the top of this page.

Salad Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1969

Also from this book: Salmon Avocado Mold, Banana-Cheese Dressing, Wash Your Mouth Out With Soap

For Whom The Corndog Rises

It was a good day for a cookout. Harry poured himself a drink. Nick was coming over later, and when he did, they would have more drinks. For now, Harry occupied himself with the corndogs. Mary was passed out on the sofa. He wished Mary hadn’t drunk so much so that she could make the dinner and he could go back to writing. He donned an apron and sifted flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a bowl. First, he fished the bullets out of the baking powder and sat them on the counter while he measured out 1 ½ teaspoons of it, then he put the bullets back in for safekeeping. He didn’t know why Mary hid the bullets in the baking powder instead of the flour like everyone else.

Then he stirred in the corn meal. He cut in the shortening until it resembled fine crumbs between his fingers, like rough sand. He poured himself another drink, then decided he’d rather have a beer. He combined egg and milk in a cup and added it to the cornmeal mixture. Things were coming together now, and he felt the afternoon would be a success.

He reached for the frankfurters. They reminded him of the war, when frankfurters were all they could find to eat on the streets of Frankfurt. They were everywhere, being brandished by soldiers with terrible wounds. The memory made him sweat. He drank from his beer. That was better. He pushed each frankfurter onto a stick and dipped it briefly into the batter, coating each one thoroughly. Mary stirred, but did not wake. She was going to feel it tomorrow. It was no laughing matter.

By now the oil was bubbling in the fryer. It make a hissing sound like water in a shallow stream. The one he fished as a boy used to sound like that too, in March when it was swelled by the melting snow and ran fast. He loved to catch fish then — all he needed to do was reach in and grab them with his bare hands. He broke their necks and set them in a basket on the bank.

He put the battered frankfurters in the boiling oil and watched them fizz. He didn’t know how long it would take, maybe 4 or 5 minutes. Meanwhile, he finished his drink. Cooking was thirsty work. Nick would be here soon, and he wanted everything to be ready. Nick was driving all the way from Spain to Idaho and would be thirsty too.

He opened a tin of beans and poured them into bowls. He wondered how to serve the corndogs — that’s what they were, really — and considered waking Mary to ask what to do. But Mary was still out cold, her mouth hanging open. It looked like she'd been shot, but she hadn't. A small puddle of drool had formed on the cushion under her head. Harry was angered by this, her blatant disregard for household furnishings, but many was the time he had woken from a blackout drunk in far worse circumstances, so he left her be. Boy, was she going to feel it.

The corndogs were ready to be taken out of the oil. There was no other choice but to serve them stuck in a cabbage. It seemed a waste of a cabbage, and Nick had not yet arrived, so he hollowed out an opening in the top of it with his pocket knife and inserted a bowl of catsup. He stood back and admired his handiwork. It was a better job than when he’d had to cut his own leg off in the war. Mary would be proud. Mary was a looker back then, and slept with all the soldiers. Harry had wanted to chase them off, but couldn’t. They usually had both legs. Instead he sat in the dark, drinking and brooding. She always came back in the end, legless drunk. Harry took a sordid pleasure in the irony. 

He could hear an engine coming up the drive. It was Nick. He was on his motorcycle. He was holding a case of beer in one hand and three bottles of brandy in the other. It was a wonder he could drive.

            “I say,” he called out over the throttle, “I’m starving! Is Mary about?”

            “Passed out,” Harry replied, taking the beer. “In the living room. Best not disturb her.”

            “Gosh, she’ll feel it in the morning,” Nick said. “We’ll all feel it in the morning I expect. Good Lord — is that your creation?” Nick was pointing at the cabbage impaled with corndogs which sat on the patio table.

            “It’s the best I could do, I’m afraid,” Harry said, opening two beers. “I’d like to think Mary would be proud of it.”

            “Well,” Nick said, taking a long drink, “I’m not sure about that, old chap. But wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?”

Barbecue Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1956

Also form this book: Balls

The Magic Roundabout

In 1973 Great Britain joined the European Community, a precursor to the EU, and all hell broke loose. Specifically, a slow kind of arithmetic hell broke gradually loose as it dawned on normal British people that the weights, measures and currency they had adhered to for many hundreds of years were now deigned stupefyingly nonsensical by their new Euro cousins, and that in order to enjoy all the Continent had to offer in terms of armloads of cheap wine and pastry procured by day trippers to Calais, it would be necessary to convert to the damnable Metric system.

Naturally, this impertinence to the beloved Imperial system was resisted vehemently in an attempt to cling to the very stuff that made British people British: namely, their bloody-minded oddness. Why describe a person’s weight in kilograms when you can use stones? (1 stone = 14 lbs. 1 lb = 16 ozs.) What the heck is a centimeter and aren’t inches and feet obviously better units of measurement for building things? (1 foot = 12 inches.) What does 18 degrees feel like, and would you have to don a cardigan? (Freezing = 32 degrees.) You could hold a pint of milk in your hand, but could you carry a litre? How many kilometers to the litre can you get for 60 pence? Shillings, guineas, pounds and pennies all morphed into new coins based on multiples of ten instead of 12 and 20. It was madness. CLICK HERE.

Thus is was that the government had to crack the whip and demand that for a period of time, both Imperial and Metric units had to be displayed on most everything you could buy. If you fell afoul of this law, a Belgian woman would be deployed to your place of business to give you a good seeing-to. Some things made the transition and some didn’t. You’d still order a pint of beer in a pub, though what you’d actually get would be whatever that is in whatever liquid is measured in in metric. Just thinking about it makes you drunk.

All of which is to explain why this appalling recipe from Dougal’s Cook Book has both Imperial and Metric units: it was published in 1973. It’s a recipe particularly unsuited for children’s tastes involving a raw cabbage and a snail. Have you ever smelled raw cabbage? I need say no more.

If you’re not British, you’ll also be wondering what that strange beast is with a chef’s toque on in the cover photo. That’s Dougal, star of a children’s television show that aired between 1965 – 1977 called The Magic Roundabout. The single most distinguishing thing about this show is that it was obviously all about the consumption of massive amounts of drugs and came from France. Dougal was fond of sucking on sugar cubes, after which he’d race around at top speed. It was a show for and about hipster freaks, and as such was beloved by a generation of innocent children who as adults cling to the memory of it with a nostalgia as passionate as that for the good old Imperial system.

Check it out HERE.

The Magic Roundabout has attained such an iconic place in British culture that an actual traffic circle in Swindon is named the Magic Roundabout, mostly because it is so unnecessarily complex that instead of meeting certain death when venturing into it, people tend to emerge dazed but unscathed, because they’d had to drive so slowly to figure it out. It is a feat of post-Imperial engineering that appears to have been designed especially to confound our European visitors as an exquisite revenge, except the joke’s on the poor people of Swindon, because no-one ever goes there.

Dougal’s Cook Book, Hamlyn, 1973

Beet-Pineapple Mold and Other Perfect Salads

 In his foundational text on the subject, The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst notes that “typography exists to honor content.” He goes on to say: “when type is poorly chosen, what the words say linguistically and what the letters imply visually are disharmonious, dishonest, out of tune.”

As far as page layouts go, this one isn’t bad. There is proportion, balance, an easy line for the eye to follow. The recipe titles are clear; there is enough white space to lend a certain grace and clarity to the page. The typographer has utilized italics, all-caps, tab spaces and hyphens with a practiced and subtle eye. The page as a whole exhibits classic depths of margin and gutter. Clearly, a professional is at work and we should rightly take a moment to applaud what usually goes — by design — unnoticed. It is typographic poetry.

It’s a damn shame the actual words constitute such shit.

Salad Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1969