Episode 31: Looking forward and looking back
Here comes Janet with her damn four bean salad! This is the first recipe our mom (Hi Mom!) included in the recipe book she gave to us. It's perfect for the summer when you don't feel like cooking or if your kitchen is under renovation like Bootie's. We made it a little more gourmet by using fresh green beans and fresh herbs. So let's celebrate the "thousand extra hands" that we get when we open a can of beans! Here is the recipe.
Bossy first heard about the Life Magazine January 3, 1955 issue in Drew Gilpin Faust's book, Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury. The issue is devoted entirely to the food industry in America. Here's the cover:
Here's a quote from the article entitled, "Ways to cut down kitchen work": "In this almost servantless day, more servants are available to help in U.S. kitchens than ever before. These servants make it possible to prepare pleasant meals quickly. Best of all, they charge little for their services, are reliable and never talk back. They are the servants that come built into the frozen, canned, dehydrated, and pre-cooked foods which lend busy women a thousand extra hands in preparing daily meals." You can read the entire issue at Google Books. And here is one of the pictures that accompanies the article:
Bootie needs those extra hands because this is the current state of her kitchen:
We discussed the history of canned foods and Bootie found some interesting information on Spruce Eats: the brief history of canning food. Who knew that Napoleon put out the call for a way to keep food fresh while his troops were on the go? Bossy recommends the History Channel documentary of the history of industrialized food called, "The Food that Built America." And speaking of industrialization documentaries, we highly recommend the documentary, "Brandy Hellville and the Cult of Fast Fashion. We found it horrifying and enlightening. In her efforts to reduce waste, Bootie discovered the thrift store Thred Up and recommends it. And when you learn to make your clothes, you're often learning to mend them at the same time. We loved Samantha Moore's documentary, "The Visible Art of Mending" which we discussed in Episode 23. We heard from Samantha Moore after the episode was published and she shared her press release information with us.
Bootie Knits
Bootie is working on Olive Knits 4 day KAL. The pattern by Marie Greene is called "Spill the Tea" and it's a bottom up sport weight vest. Bootie is knitting it for her daughter who works in a tea shop. The yarn is Serial Knitters Dyehouse in the colors ultimate magenta for the main color, uniform for the stripes, and rhymes with magenta for the dots.
Bossy Knits
Bossy's neighbor's baby was born early (the nerve!) and so she's frantically working on another bunny. We talked about the bunnies in Episode 2. She also picked up her Glymur poncho (we talked about this pattern in Episode 27) and discovered that she had misread the pattern (we're here, after all, to make you feel better about your own projects).
And whatever you do, don’t knit like my sister!
