Saturday, May 19, 2018

Vintage Russian recipe card:
салат чимчик тили


If you're looking for a new recipe to whip together in your kitchen this weekend, how about taking your lead from this 1973 Russian (Soviet) recipe card? It was basically from their Brezhnev-era version of the Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, as featured in so many American TV commercials and magazine advertisements of the 1970s.1

I'm not sure if there was specifically a USSR version of Betty Crocker. These days in Russian, though, it's chef Vladimir Mukhin getting high praise. But I digress.

This 3½-inch-wide card features a picture of салат "чимчик тили", which translates to Salad "Chimchik Tili." Other than telling us that it's a salad, which we can already see from the image, that's not very helpful. So what is the recipe? That's where RussianFood.com helps out, with the following translated recipe/description:
Salad "Chimchik Tili"
Peeled onions, washed salted or marinated cucumbers cut into small cubes. Fill with black pepper, wine vinegar, mix, put in a salad bowl. Salad decorate with mugs of cucumbers and onions. From above you can sprinkle with herbs.
It will surely be a hit at your summer block party! (Or your Bloc Party ... get it? That was a free joke for the Russian bots that follow Papergreat.)

Footnote
1. Betty Crocker Papergreat posts:

Friday, May 18, 2018

Book cover: "Sold to the Lady in the Green Hat"


  • Title: Sold to the Lady in the Green Hat
  • Author: Emma Bailey
  • Illustrator: Doug Anderson
  • Publisher: Dodd, Mead & Company, New York
  • Printer: Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, New York
  • Year: 1962
  • Original price: $3.95
  • Price these days: Used copies can be found for about $4.
  • Pages: 213
  • Format: Hardcover
  • Dust-jacket blurb: "Have you ever attended a bang-up country auction? Even if you haven't you can hardly resist entering the bidding as Mrs. Bailey places a locked trunk on the block. Does it contain things of great value or is it filled with just plain junk? Emma Bailey needed spirit and character to enter a field long dominated by men. Fortunately she also had the faith and active support of her husband and two daughters. So nothing stopped her — shady competition, social criticism or lack of funds. Her account of her adventures is most intriguing. In addition Mrs. Bailey shows you what to look for in furniture, glassware and other desirable items, how to bid like a professional and ways to outwit sharp traders. She tells her story with high good humor."
  • First sentence: "Ladies and gentlemen," I began, "welcome to the first auction at the Bailey place on Black Mountain Road."
  • Excerpt from last paragraph: In closing, both Jack and I want to extend a welcome to you, should you ever be in this vicinity [Brattleboro, Vermont]. ... Drive for a mile until you come to a red colonial house with white trim. Our mail box has our name marching across the top.
  • Random excerpt from middle: If Bibles cannot be bid on, then what can be done with them? To destroy them would compound the desecration. And yet every home in these parts has a Bible. The problem is solved without offense to even the most saintly by leaving the Bible with the other books and selling them as a lot. If a Bible is already in a trunk, it is left with whatever else is there, and the trunk is put up for auction.
  • Goodreads rating: 4.13 stars (out of 5)
  • Goodreads review excerpt: In 2012, Phyllis wrote: "...it was interesting reading about the whole auction scene, types of bidders, and some of the problems of being an auctioneer. A real grandma's house type read, seemingly lost in the mists of time."
  • Amazon rating: 4.7 stars (out of 5.0)
  • Excerpt from Kirkus review: "This account of Emma Bailey's move to Vermont, where eventually she became Brattleboro's first woman auctioneer overcoming the resistance to her sex, the doubts of her husband and the suspicions of the natives, provides a catchall of experiences, people and of course things — and it has a genuine human interest."
  • Note: Emma Bailey, who died in 1999, has her own Wikipedia page, so you don't have to take her book's word that she was famous.

Bonus: The bookplate

Roberta Swann was born circa 1925, graduated from Camp Hill High School, received a scholarship to study journalism and art at Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham) in Pittsburgh, at some point became Roberta Swann Tipton, and was involved in some community theater in southcentral Pennsylvania circa 1970. That's all I have at this time.

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Instagram snapshots of Ruins Park in Glen Rock, Pa.

Ruins Park is the graffiti-covered "bones" of the former Enterprise Furniture Company warehouse located in downtown Glen Rock, Pennsylvania. In its colorful and inspiring new life, it serves as an event venue and off-the-beaten-path destination for travelers seeking something a little different.

I first learned about it from Wendyvee's Roadside Wonders, and you can read some more about this "wonder" on that website, where you can also lose yourself in a zillion other cool things. (Go surf it. I'll wait here in this tab.)

Ashar and I took a trip to Ruins Park last week, when the sun was still shining in York County and before the endless rains descended upon us.

Here are some of my Instagram snaps from that groovy expedition...













Related photography posts

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Silly thoughts on a Victorian child being attacked by gooses


"Highway Robbery" screams the caption on this 2⅜-inch-wide Victorian advertising trade card for James Pyle's Pearline, which I wrote about in much more academic and less silly fashion way back in 2012, when the world was a simpler place.

I don't know why the child is so unhappy, even with the loss of the cracker. I love gooses/geese, even when they're belligerent and cranky. You haven't truly lived until a goose has hissed at you. (Note: I am not advocating goose abuse, violence or pranks toward these animals. Always be respectful. But, given their space and treated respectfully, I find them wonderfully amusing creatures to be around. I will not be swayed on this.)

Turning to the back...


"...[I]nhaling the hot steam and odors which rise from the tub, impregnated with the filth of soiled clothing."

Man, that's just some great ad copy right there. I'm going to be the contrary one, though. Who wants pretty hands? I want hands that show the effects of outdoors work ... garden work.

I don't want computer-keyboard hands or Dorothy Lamour hands. I want the craggy hands of a soap-using witch or wizard who lives in a cottage in a far corner of Schwarzwald and practices peace and benevolence toward all the forest creatures, including passersby carrying enchanted dolls.

I do not reckon James Pyle's Pearline would have hired me for the marketing department.

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

1951 postcard: "camped ... behind a big pile of Gravel"


This generic linen postcard features a "Greetings from KULPMONT, PA." caption on the front. Kulpmont, a borough in Northumberland County, has tumbled from its peak population of about 6,200 residents in the 1940 census to an estimated population of 2,800 today. (Well, not today literally. More of a "these days" thing.)

The postcard was mailed from Wellsboro and postmarked on October 3, 1951. The postmark includes a stamped message urging people to "HIRE THE HANDICAPPED, IT'S GOOD BUSINESS."

The card was mailed to Middletown, Delaware, (birthplace of Silas Simmons, a pro baseball player who lived to age 111) and contains the following cursive message:
Oct. 2
Here we are camped near Sunbury Penn. behind a big pile of Gravel. We went thru Crystal Caves today. It's a beautiful sight. We are having a grand time. Plan on being in New York by tomorrow nite if we don't see to [sic] much before then.
Love Ina & all

Monday, May 14, 2018

Mystery photo: The class picture


I have entirely zero, zip, zilch, nada, noll, dim byd when it comes to information or leads regarding this this old class picture from an unknown school. It's possible, I suppose, that it's a Sunday school class, rather than a public school class. That might be a church behind them, given the design of the window in the upper-left corner of the photograph.

Beyond that ... help! I would guess this was taken in the early 1950s, but that doesn't narrow things too much. And, given where I find most of my ephemera, it's a good bet this is somewhere in southcentral Pennsylvania. Circulate it among your friends and see if they recognize anyone!

Here are closeups of some of the kids...




Sunday, May 13, 2018

Vintage postcard: A lady and her goat


"It's Bill and I" states the witty caption on this old postcard, referring to the young woman and her nice billy goat, both smiling for the photographer while posed in front of a painted background. That goat is real, right? Based on where her arm and her head are, a live farm animal is actually there, right?

Or is it a visual/perspective sleight-of-hand featuring the goat as part of the matte painting, with maybe a hole for her arm to go through, to enhance the effect? What is reality, people?!?

This postcard was mailed, in October 1911, between two of the tiniest Pennsylvania boroughs ever featured on Papergreat.

It went from Addison, in Somerset County, westward to Carmichaels in Greene County. Carmichaels is known for its historic covered bridge and its Coal Queen Pageant. (For more on that tradition, you might wish to watch the 2005 documentary The Bituminous Coal Queens of Pennsylvania.)

This postcard was mailed to Miss Vera Minor (1893-1973) of Carmichaels, but there is no message.

Here's an excerpt from Vera Edith Minor's obituary in the August 29, 1973, of The Morning Herald of Uniontown, Pennsylvania:
"She was the daughter of the late Samuel Owen Minor and Frances Stepenson [sic?] Minor. She was a lifelong resident of this area. She was a member of John Corbly Memorial Baptist Church, Girards [sic] Fort, Pa., the Mission Circle, Thaego Class of the Church, Carmichaels Grange, and Greene Academy Chapter of D of A.R. She served several terms on an Election Board."
She must have lived alone on a good-sized farm, as the advertisements for the estate sale that was held a few months after her death list a significant number of pieces of farm and dairy equipment.

Previous posts featuring goats