8.11.2008

What's for Supper? . . . and . . . Do I Have to Make it?


One of the best things about my job is that I get to peruse my extensive old magazine collection as often as I wish while still pretending to work -- everyone should be so lucky! So I decided I probably have a moral obligation of some kind to share the wealth, especially since most of the time only tiny bits of print show up in my work and therefore, I get most of the benefit from my old magazines and you get -- well -- none. Since I shared one of the best recipes in the world with you on Friday, here's what is probably not one of the best recipes in the world. But if you're still looking for dinner options tonight . . . HAVE YOU CONSIDERED TOAST TULIPS??!!

I find it comforting that there was a time when housewives spent their days looking for truly excellent recipes for tuna a la king, taking special care to be sure the presentation would be as pleasing to the eye as the cream-of-mushroom-soup-sauce would be to the palate.
Unfortunately, my family is more likely to encounter a ball of thread scraps or some wool bits than a tasty and nutritious supper dish when they come to me at the end of the day. But at least my two oldest children remember when I used to cook real dinners (tablecloths and everything!) I fear my youngest suspects those dinners of legend are merely family lore, subject to the vagaries of memory grown rosy with telling and re-telling. I will confess I never served toast tulips, with or without a tablecloth.

But to the matter at hand: I have decided to, in the interest of sharing my process, let you see a piece as it unfolds (some stages will be approximately as interesting as watching paint dry -- I'll try to skip those or spice them up with additional tasty recipes or something). Please be aware that good things take time, and that this may take up to a month. But I will enjoy chronicling the process, and perhaps it will help me to work a little faster. I'm not specializing in fast this summer for some reason. We'll begin with the sketch: (here you can imagine a pause while I try to decide which piece to share with you -- yes, I think that one will be good . . .)




Tomorrow I will choose some of the SPECTACULAR wool I recently brought home from Taos and we'll get this party started! Until then, I wish you a warm supper prepared by someone who loves you and is willing to dirty a tablecloth just to catch your crumbs.

6 comments:

Amelia Poll said...

Oh, it's going to be so cool..I can feel it already!

We definitely ought to invite all the family girls to the next extravaganza...how selfish of us.

Jake and Chelsea said...

hahahah, toast tulips. sadly we are not equipped for such extravagant meals at the old south royalton place. i keep hearing soft thumps...maybe people are going in and out, maybe not...this has got to be someone's ancestral home.

great blog. you were born to blog baby!

Jessie said...

Though the doughieness of our physique would suggest otherwise, I rarely make dinner (or any other meal, for that matter) for Bon and myself - and I certainly would never have thought to make "toast tulips". In this way, I have failed as a wifey.

By the way, I am SO EXCITED to watch the progression of this lastest project of yous! I absoloutely LOVE your work!

Ann said...

OK, you have probably seen them but if you have not, check out http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html for great old WW recipes. We have been looking at Mom's old Joy of Jello cookbook, amazing!

And maybe we talked of this when you were here, but my friend's mom has a theory that a each women has only a certain number of meals she is intended to make in her lifetime(each woman having a unique number) and when you have reached that number you are just done. I think I wasted all of mine making Lean Cuisines as a teenager so lucky I married a cook.

Hannah Francis said...

i like the limited number of meals idea...mom, i realize i came in the menopause of your cooking career, and don't worry-- i believe that we used to eat real food, and i almost remember it too. (hehe)

susan m hinckley said...

Hannah, don't patronize me -- remember who it is that takes you out to eat all the time now. There are different kinds of mom-love; mine has just morphed into the kind that allows others to cook so I can devote ALL my attention to you!

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