Cavalcade of Food: Late-Winter Whimsy

It's above freezing in Michigan once again, and Kevin shows us his newly redecorated dispay windows, full of colorful kitchen appliances and nostalgia, not to mention the elephant next door. BTW, it's sunny and 80 degrees here in Texas.

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Cavalcade of Food: Green Onion Dip

Spring is here and Ralph is back!  He's behind the camera as Kevin shows how to make a tasty Green Onion Dip with cream cheese and lemon juice, using a vintage Sunbeam food processor.  Looks yummy - think I will see if I can get M.P. to try this recipe.

P.S. - In case you missed it, you can catch a glimpse of the elusive Ralph in the video I posted last week, beginning in the Diner Museum here.  I don't know these fellows personally, but they seem like great guys.

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Cavalcade of Food # 428 - Walkthrough

In anticipation of a visit by a class of 2nd-graders, Kevin takes us on a walkthrough of the fabulous Cavalcade collection, including the typewriter section.  Ah, sweet memories of life B. C. (before computers)!

 

BTW, I agree with everything Kevin says at the start about cursive writing.

Bonus: From a few years ago, Kevin and Ralph cook up some yankee fried chicken on the back porch:

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Kevin's Cavalcade

We've been watching some videos from Cavalcade of Food lately.  It's based in the little town of Croswell, Michigan, up in the "thumb," where a fellow named Kevin is the friendly proprietor of a mind-boggling collection of vintage appliances, kitchenware, and furnishings from the 1950s to the 1970s.  His collection is so big that he bought a former five-and-dime store to display it all in.

We weren't too impressed at first, because what Kevin has collected is the same kind of everyday stuff - sometimes the very same make and model - that M.P. and I grew up with in that era, which all seem rather ordinary to us.  (Functional, yes; beautiful, maybe; glamorous, not at all.)  But you have to admire Kevin's energy and passion for amassing such a huge collection, each piece of which he can tell you all about in minute detail.  

Kevin also loves to cook, as M.P. does, and we've watched several of his cooking videos with interest.  The first one below is a crowd-pleasing treat we might make the next time M.P.'s family comes over - or maybe just for our own delectation some autumn night.

The second video gives an overview of the collection.  It's kind of a trip, looking at this huge display of so many familiar items from the past - maybe you'll get a kick out of it, too.

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Meet Mrs. Swenson (1956)

LIve Better Electrically - click to enlarge

A well-plotted, well-acted little drama that is a cut above the usual promotional film.  In March 1956, American appliance makers and electric power companies united in a marketing campaign to promote "all-electric" homes chock full of comforts and conveniences - and why not?  The phrase the American dream was not yet in common parlance - but the American standard of living was the envy of all the world.

The long, grim years of depression and war were a fading memory, the postwar economy was booming, and new electric generating plants were being built all over the country.  The idea of an energy shortage was unheard-of, much less the bizarre notion of global warming.  The future was not only bright, it was here now!  And increasingly affordable for everyone.

The producer, John Sutherland, was a man of many talents who started out as an animator and voiced the adult Bambi in Disney's 1942 film of the same name.  All of the cast were seasoned actors; you can find biographies of most of them on Wikipedia.  Of special interest to us baby boomers with long memories are Michael Winkelman, who went on to play Little Luke McCoy, Walter Brennan's TV grandson, on The Real McCoys from 1957 to 1963.

And big sister should look familiar too:  she's Sheila James, who played the brash, brainy Zelda on Dobie Gillis from 1959 to 1963.   Later, using her real last name of Kuehl, Sheila went on to earn a law degree from Harvard and became the first out lesbian to be elected to the California state legislature, where she served for fourteen years, and is currently a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Related: I noted with a little sigh last week that the mighty Sears and Roebucks has gone bust, after more than a century of renown. Another icon of a vanishing America gone. Without researching the question, I suppose its decline began with the rise of discount department stores in the early 1960s - first K-Mart and the like, then Walmart, then all the big-box stores that dot today's landscape.  And then the Internet, which is the modern-day equivalent of the Sears Catalogue and its cornucopia of merchandise for sale.

Probably no one under 50 can remember when the Sears store was the heart of every downtown, and everybody went to Sears for all kinds of goods - just about anything you needed.  And of course that's where you went every Christmas to tell Santa what you wanted, and had your picture taken sitting on his lap.  If your town didn't have a Sears and Roebucks, you were really living in Podunk.

But Sears has been mismanaged for the last fifty years at least - when their market share declined in the 1970s and 1980s, they reacted by trying to be all things to all people, stupidly opening insurance counters and stockbroking counters and other goofy stuff that had no business in a department store. Finally, I think it was taken over by people who just wanted to squeeze out all the profit out that they could and the public be damned. Well, that's business in America, isn't it?  All too often, I mean.

I am no businessman, but it seems to me they should have concentrated on what they did best - Sears sold ugly clothing and mediocre electronics, but it was always the go-to place for Craftsman tools and Kenmore appliances, which were all top quality. Well managed, those two things should have made a perpetual profit, even if they had let everything else go.

Anyway, that's all water under the bridge now. But for those who, like your Head Trucker, enjoy some juicy kitchen porn, here is a link to the Sears 1958 Kitchen Book, with color pictures and all you need to know to modernize and beautify your plain, dull kitchen. Have fun.

A Touch of Magic

This is the gayest ad for GM cars and Frigidaire appliances ever. Enjoy.

Out of This World

The Kitchen of Tomorrow from Frigidaire at the time of the New York World's Fair, 1964. I swear to God, this had to be produced by some big ol' stoner.  Gets trippier and trippier as you go along.

If Gay Marriage, Why Not Polygamy?

John Corvino is chair of the Department of Philosophy at Wayne State University in Detroit.