Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

I felt my big toe push a hole through my fishnet stockings as I stepped on the gas and drove south on Fairfax. I nibbled on the broken corner of my dark red thumb nail and made a right turn onto Pico Boulevard.  I thought about lighting a cigarette to calm myself but didn’t.

I was driving to see “Vertigo Road”, a band that my recently ex-fiance and I knew quite well and my social fears were getting the best of me.  They were playing at a bar with one of those anti-esoteric names I can’t remember exactly, like “The Place”, or “The Gig”, or “The Thing”. 

It was an unseasonably cool night for Los Angeles in early September so, when the closest parking space I found was 8 blocks from the bar, I knew I wouldn’t mind walking.  I flipped down the mirrored visor to check my lipstick and stared at my reflection for a moment.  I hadn’t seen many of these people since the break up and I knew they would search my face and demeanor for clues as to how I was doing.  I wanted to look amazing.  I wanted to seem like I had it all figured out.  I knew that was going to take some effort.  I applied more lipstick.

When I turned off my Honda, it suddenly sounded like I had parked in a war zone.  Sirens screamed and glass shattered.  I was overtaken by the smell in the air.  It was luscious and earthy and charred.  I shut my eyes and gulped the aroma down for a moment and then walked quickly toward the commotion on Pico.  It was a fire.  A big one.  And as mesmerizing as the flames were, nothing could compare to the smell.

Recently I was at a library book sale and as usual I scanned for hidden treasure among the cookbooks. Browsing cookbooks is nothing short of a history lesson. Here's what I found, as men came back from fighting overseas and Americans travelled abroad for pleasure, their hunger for exotic recipes increased and so did the number of international cookbooks.

Cooking on a budget was a popular theme in times of recession like the 1970's. Curiously the cookbooks from the 50's and 60's were dominated by the use of processed foods. Browsing the volumes, I began to wonder, just how did processed food come to such popularity anyway?

Not long after my shopping trip I began reading Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America. Not a cookbook at all, but a rich and fascinating history of cooking in America in the post WWII period up until the early 60's. Suddenly it all made sense! 

I'm still rolling through my office, trying to organize every inch of it, with the help of my friend, the professional organizer. We're making great progress. Tops of my desks have stayed mostly clear. My files are filling up. I'm finally seeing blank space on the shelves in my storage closet, the result of some purging.

There is much more to do before the job is done. My organizer strongly suggests I get my cookbook collection all in one place and that place should be my office. Cookbooks live on shelves in the storage closet in my office, on shelves and in a bookcase in an extra bedroom, in a pile next to my bed and a few on the ottoman in the living room. I shudder when I think of consolidating this enormous number of books into one space in my office. I fear the "organizer" will tell me to start choosing cookbooks to put in a "give-away box."

I was given this recipe by a friend over 10 years ago. and I have been making it for years. It’s perfect for a bar-b-que side dish that always gets rave reviews, and it does in fact feed a huge crowd. The original ingredients were filled with preservatives; Jiffy corn bread mix, canned creamed corn, canned corn, etc.

I haven’t made it for over a year and with this coming week being a holiday, the invitations to dinners and pool parties was on the agenda. All of the fresh corn at the farmers market inspired me to dig up the original recipe. I knew I wasn’t going to use the boxed ingredient, for two reasons; it’s boxed and it’s not gluten free.

After searching for creamed corn without all of the stuff in it, I decided to simply make my own. No, really, it’s not that hard. The additional ingredients of eggs, butter, and sour cream all still worked.