A Brunch and Roosters. Many Roosters.

I'm on a roll. I picked up 12 cookbooks from the local DPS (thrift store) a few days ago. Some of these I have been looking for and I'm glad I found them for less than a dollar. I bet I get more use out of them in the couple hours it takes for me to tab the pics, scan, edit, and post. Yes, for the record, everything in this blog is 100% my work. Except for the cookbooks of course. I do not snipe pics from other websites and use them on my blog. I will post chosen pics on my Pinterest site, but more often than not they lack the captions that are found here. Everything in these blog entries has been picked by me. I just need to throw that out every now and then. 

My blogging area. That stack next to my laptop are blog entries that need to be born. Looks like I'm going to be doing this for a while!

 Anyway, getting back to today's subject. Lunches and Brunches. To me, those never are combined to make a meal of each other. My idea of brunch is that I slept past 11 and I want a bowl of cereal or some eggs. I don't "get together with the ladies for brunch" and my family knows that I wouldn't be interested in Mother's Day Brunch in some restaurant. Easter Brunch? No thank you. It's like a feeding trough to me. I'm eating breakfast food midday and that's it. 

In 1963, there was a lot of hooplah about brunch. More so than today. People still do this, but there was a lot of radish cutting and gelatin molds if this book is any indicator of what brunch was like.


Time to proceed with another installation from Better Homes and Gardens.

Better Homes and Gardens Lunches and Brunches, 1963

The nicest comment I can make about this is that it's busy. I see reds and pinks. I'm distracted from whatever hard boiled egg concoction is in the middle. I will give a golf clap to the individual who took the time to slice every firecracker plum, spread some cream cheese, and put the top back on them. That type of work is just not seen today. Is that a bad thing?

I can see this on someone's pinterest board acting like they discovered something brand new and clever! Looks like you are 49 years too late! Of course if I tried that, my pancakes would break apart or something.

I'm going to give some credit here once again. I can be awestruck and snarky at the same time. To be able to make a clear red cherry gelatin and then add a sour cream pink cherry gelatin into a mold and pull it off requires skills that just weren't handed down to me. Yet I have gone on to lead a semi productive life. Now I know what's missing. The ability to mold gelatin.

Oh Ginger Fruit Freeze..I knew you would never come to life under my culinary prose when I read your ingredients. You lost me at the package of cream cheese and the mayonnaise that make up the first two ingredients. Too bad..Not that this crap looked palatable or anything.

Sometimes a color photo does these molds justice. Maybe it would in the sake of this tangy confetti relish mold. I prefer the monochromatic approach. If I imagined this had color, then I imagine it had life.

The secret to turning out an aspic. I can imagine the woman who made this holding her breath the entire time. The paranoia. The fit of rage that would ensue if only half of it came out right. What to do then? Cube it? Throw it against the wall and cry? Drown her sorrows with a couple of valium and a drink?

Have no fear! It turned out like it was supposed to. So well that radish garnishes, parsley and some "Perfect" potato salad. Life could not get any better for the hostess of this brunch.

This frightens me. I don't know why but I imagine creepo people serving this and smiling as I take a bite and grab a celery stick out of the basket. When I want a sandwich, I usually want whole asparagus spears on it. Stop looking at me creepy woman! Or man because my astute daughter claims the arms are hairier than a Yeti. I'm trying to choke this down as politely as I can.

This drunk trailer food of corn chips and canned chili is not right. Add some beets and green beans and we are looking at a clean colon a few days after consumption. P.S. If your stool is red, you probably do not have cancer. You ate beets. Either that or your hemorrhoids are aggravated. Or both.

I could leave a lot of comments about what this looks like but I'm going to leave it to your imagination.

Forget counting calories! This showmanship is all about who can sawcut the best canteloupe in the neighborhood. Maybe you are lucky enough to have found a contaminated melon and cross contaminated all of the fruit. That'll teach them to question your showmanship skills.

This is busy too. Full and busy. You better really want those strawberries because it looks like the golden guard roosters will happily take your hand off to the middle of the forearm.

This is also just so busy. What do you grab first? The souffle that looks like a leaky boil? The sausages? It doesn't matter either way because that pissed off rooster has managed to merge itself onto the plates. If you still have hands, you aren't going to have a tongue. Mockingly pastel color his unborn children and see what happens. Humans! 

There's about 4 potential ways of burning yourself here. Hot coffee pot, hot toaster, sizzling hot plate, and electric fry pan. Take your chances. Choose well. Is that mess of eggs and asparagus worth it? Grab those tongs that have probably been resting against the hot plate and brand the palm of your hand. This truly will be a brunch you never forget.

Don't get too close to that chicken disguised as a strawberry salt shaker. Are those fingers worth keeping for some kitschy brunch?

This rooster has some rage in him as he stares at the half cooked eggs. If one is going to cook his species, one should make damn sure they cook it right. Half cooked isn't going to appease him at all. Spearing your hand with his beak is what he wants to happen.

What 1960's brunch would be complete without some odd mold to complete it? This potato salad mold with it's artfully arranged pimento flower is no exception. Smear some of that mayonnaise mixture atop it for added ooomph. Can I gag? Because that's what I want to do. Gag. Am I finished. Not even.

Tuna Ring. To voluntarily eat something molded and this shade of pink requires skill, prose, discipline that I cannot possess. I'm not even counting the tuna, tomato soup, mayonnaise, cream cheese, hard cooked eggs, pimentos, etc. that make this happen.

My son is a picky eater. I have said this and will continue to say this. When he was young, I admit that I tried to be cute and arrange his food in faces. I feel that if I took this Eggs Benedict and decorated it as such, he probably would need to be put on a feeding tube for the rest of his years. The face is scaring me. And I don't keep sliced truffles for the eyes so I would have to substitute something.

I'll admit. This book was a lot of fun to go through. Not that I would ever cook anything from it. 

U.N.T