Kansas City Food Blog

Full of gay cooking ideas!

​Cooking with ice -- how totally 20th-century! This super-groovy, full-color pamphlet published in the 1960s by Servel ("Makers of the famous Automatic Ice-Maker Refrigerator") was probably included with the purchase of one of those state-of-the-art iceboxes. I've never actually seen a Servel fridge, but vintage advertisements make it look pretty alluring.

One doesn't actually cook with ice, of course, but this booklet is loaded with ideas for relish trays, finger foods ("Keep 'em gay, keep 'em cool ... on ice!"), salads and beverages, including Iced Mexican Chocolate.

The recipe follows the jump.

Swinging '60s chicks with recipes!

​In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown made publishing history with Sex & the Single Girl -- an advice book that encouraged single women to be independent, make their own money and experience pre-marital sex. It sold two million copies in three weeks. Three years later, a copycat cookbook hit the bookstands. This book, Saucepans & the Single Girl, was written by two married women, Jinx Kragan and Judy Perry. But they explained that they had been single, you see, before snagging those mates. And one of the ways they lured those men into marital bliss was with their skills in the kitchen, not the bedroom! The flyleaf explains it all:

"Guaranteed to do more for the bachelor girl's social life than long-lash mascara or a new discotheque dress, Saucepans & the Single Girl tells how to handle the menu and the man when a Lover with a Leica comes to dinner or A Man with a Million drops in for an evening ... Here is the ideal kitchen guide for the gal who wants to make the leap from the filing cabinet to the flambe."

The filing cabinet? Well, remember, back in the early 1960s, most bachelor girls with careers were schoolteachers, nurses or secretaries (like Helen Gurley Brown before striking it rich with her first book). It took some clever scheming to go from making coffee for the office staff -- one of the complaints about having a "career" in this book -- to finding Mr. Right. And a man's heart is through his tummy, right? 

 

​If you were a pop star in the late 1960s, man, it wasn't groovy enough for you to simply soar to the top of the Billboard charts or appear on Hullabaloo or American Bandstand. You needed to cook too! In 1967, all hottest stars of TV, movies and the jukebox were featured in the 96-page paperback cookbook called Singers and Swingers in the Kitchen (Parallax, $1). This "Scene-Makers Cookbook" features "dozens of nutty, turned-on, easy-to-prepare recipes from the grooviest gourmets happening."

I don't know whether gourmet is the right word, since a lot of the stars provide pretty low-brow recipes. Paul Revere (of the Raiders) offers his chili dog chili recipe. Lesley Gore -- of "It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To" fame -- reveals her fave recipe for "Snick Snack Hamburgers" (tomato soup is the secret ingredient). And Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy has a yen for "Cold Soup Nimoy" made with sour cream and two cans of cream of celery soup. The Rolling Stones submitted "Hot Dogs on the Rocks," which requires only three ingredients: hot dogs, mashed potatoes and canned baked beans.

The book also features Egyptian-born Omar Sharif's fried chicken recipe (who would have guessed?), Sally Field's cheesecake, Jane Fonda's "Curried Chicken a la Kiki" and Sonny and Cher's "Perfect Pork Chops." Each member of The Monkees submitted his own recipe, including Peter Tork's "Mad Mandarin Salad" which the book describes as "a great no-cook dish that everyone flips over."

The recipe's after the jump.

 

Pray away the temptation to eat

​Thanksgiving week is difficult for someone on a diet. Who can resist the sinful temptation to fill a plate with roasted turkey drenched in gravy, mashed potatoes, candied yams all sticky with molten marshmallows, yeasty buttered rolls and all those fabulous desserts?

This is when Beth Hammond's book of 57 devotions, Lord Help Me! The Desperate Dieter (Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1983), might come in handy. When the temptation to overindulge is overwhelming, just turn to page 32:

Lord, It's me again. Your favorite dieter. I have another problem that I need help with -- company. My family will be visiting here for the next two weeks. I can't serve them my diet foods or my diet portions. What is there to do with my diet meals? How dull! No one has ever written a book of 101 ways to serve carrot or celery sticks... Help me Lord not to covet the food of the non-dieters ... Amen."

Or "Litany," the devotion on page 12:

Lord, Do you know what it's like? Can you imagine being fat?"

This book was sold for a quarter at a church white elephant sale last weekend and it was a bargain, since it's rich with confessional revelations, like "Secret Eating" on page 55:

Lord, I can't hide from You. You know about the "goodies" hidden in my dresser, in the laundry hamper, and under my pillow ... Lord, help me stop hoarding food like the squirrel gathering its nuts for the long winter..."

In the 1960s, it wasn't enough to just cook chicken, damn it. One had to cook it gloriously. At least, that's what the manufacturers of "lighter, clearer" Wesson pure vegetable cooking oil wanted their customers to do. That's why Wesson published this free 15-page booklet (consumers had to order it by writing to "The Wesson People" in New Orleans) filled with recipes for cooking up some glorious chicken. There are several recipes for pan-fried chicken, of course, as well as oven-fried, oven-baked, broiled and grilled out on the barbecue.

I found this treasure at an estate sale in midtown -- in one of those 1920s cottages that look so adorable from the exterior and then you walk in and it's practically a scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The kitchen was a wreck, but filled with cookbook pamphlets that the former owner had dutifully sent off for back in a happier, more domestic era.

There's a recipe for chicken croquettes called "Chicken Logs" and for something completely different, one for "Chicken Pancakes" served with a dill-yogurt sauce. But nothing beats the creativity of "Fruited Chicken," which isn't just darn tasty, but fights constipation too!

The recipe's after the jump.

You simply can't have enough tasty snack ideas

​As holiday season approaches, it's time to start thinking about entertaining with tasty snacks -- which is why 500 Tasty Snacks Ideas for Entertaining could come in handy. Found at the FleaMart on Highway 40 for a very reasonable 50 cents, this 50-year-old relic features recipes for hot and cold canapes, hot and cold hors d'oeuvres, jellied salads, frozen salads and sweet snacks.

The 48-page booklet, illustrated with distinctly unappealing black-and-white photographs, was was edited by Ruth Berolzheimer, director of the Culinary Arts Institute ("One of America's foremost organizations devoted to the science of Better Cookery") and published by the Consolidated Book Publishers of Chicago in 1949.

Among its suggestions for entertaining at home: "Maids may circulate among the guests, frequently seated at small bridge tables."

Many of the menu selections still sound very tasty: cheese souffle, roquefort puffs, Oysters Rockefeller, broiled mushrooms. Other ideas come off as a little dated: stuffed frankfurters, bologna sausage cubes, tongue mousse and shrimp wiggle. As for Ham Banana Roll -- the easy recipe follows -- you'll likely be the only guest bringing this oddly phallic 1949 innovation to the cocktail party.

HAM BANANA ROLL

6 thin slices of ham

Prepared mustard

6 firm bananas

Cheese sauce

Spread slices of ham with mustard. Wrap a banana in each ham slice and place in shallow baking dish. Pour cheese sauce over bananas and bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) for 30 minutes.

Who cares about the food? Give me a gold ring!

​Leave it to Pitch archivist Alan Scherstuhl to find the most amazing treasures in Fat City. This 32-page special insert to the Kansas City Star dates back to August 8, 1976, just days before the city hosted the Republican National Convention at Kemper Arena.

​The Republican delegates not only had to vote for a presidential candidate (Gerald Ford narrowly defeated a challenge from Ronald Reagan) -- they had to eat! So this tabloid is full of restaurant ads, including the entire back page: a full-color ad devoted to the "largest and finest buffet in the U.S.A."

Yes, the legendary Gold Buffet (pictured above) in North Kansas City: "Where the superstars dine!"

One can only guess whether some of the visiting dignitaries and superstars who were in town for the big convention stopped in to see that week's headliner in The Celebrity Room: Foster Brooks, who had a long and lucrative career playing a drunk on TV variety shows and the amazingly unfunny Dean Martin Roasts. And in case any visitor thought Kansas City wasn't sophisticated and cultured, the September headliner at the Buffet was Jimmy Dean.

Some of the advertised restaurants still exist, 33 years later (The Golden Ox, Jasper's, Waid's, Cascone's, Leona Yarbrough's and the Bamboo Hut!). More interesting are ads for long-gone places like Maggie Jones Restaurant & Pub in The Landing at 63rd and Troost. Owned by realtor Jerry Gaines, Maggie Jones was offering a champagne dinner for two: two charbroiled club steaks, two baked potatoes, sauteed mushrooms and a half-bottle of champagne for $12.95. Meanwhile, Jacks or Better at 76th and Metcalf had a Monday night "all-you-can-eat" chicken dinner for $2.19.

I'd vote for that!

Bea Johnson told radio and TV audiences how to have a "Happy Home"

​This 55-page, spiral-bound cookbook was published in 1955 by the KMBC Broadcasting Company. The TV and radio studio aired the daily Happy Home program, hosted by Bea Johnson -- who, the book informs us, "began her career at KMBC in 1936 when she was known as 'Joanne Taylor.' "

​Johnson, who is barely remembered today, was a big local media star in Kansas City in the 1950s and was one of the pioneer women broadcasters. In the book Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting, author Donna L. Halper writes that in 1955, Johnson logged her 2,500th broadcast. "But she too, despite having press credentials, worked only on women's news."

In those years, "women's news" was limited to shopping, cooking and entertaining. But Bea was up for the challenge. Her biography in the cookbook describes her as "one of Kansas City's finest hostesses" and someone who "has a flair for the new and unusual in foods." The bio goes on: "Yet, as a busy mother, she knows the value of quick and easy food preparation. Her 'Lazy Johnson' menus and recipes on her daily radio program are nationally famous."

The book features photos of Bea with fashion designer Christian Dior, the Queen Mother, and Lady Astor.

​With a nod to the archival treasure-seeking master Alan Scherstuhl, creator of The Pitch's Studies in Crap, Fat City will occasionally bring you culinary treasures from the past (both seriously historic and not-so-distant).

We begin with this trove of recipes from 1980, when the conglomerate known as Kraft was having great success marketing its Parkay margarine with TV commercials like this (featuring future sitcom star Tracey Gold) and this one, with another future sitcom star, Vic Tayback, having a late-night conversation with the talking Parkway tub.

This spiral-bound cookbook retailed for $5.95 back when that was real money -- gasoline was averaging $1.18 a gallon -- and opened with the history of margarine (created, the book says, by French chemist Hippolyte Mege-Mouries in 1869) and the story of how Kraft created Parkay, which it introduced in 1937. After that, the book is chock full o' recipes, all made with heaping helpings of delicious Parkay, of course.