Four Pounds Flour Snapshots

My friends Mark and Jess just bought a house in Cleveland (technically Lorrain).  Although good things are on the horizon for the Cleveland area (according to NPR), there are areas that are still in recovery.

Mark invited me over to explore his new home: is has a residential area in the first floor rear, offices areas in the front with doors to the street, and the upper floor used to be a boarding house.  

The entire building was owned by a lawyer whose offices were on the first floor—and in that office, we discovered a two-way mirror, designed to look like and exterior window, facing a conference table.  There was a hidden entrance to the tiny room where you could look at unbeknownst at the conference table.  No joke.

The building was filled with weird, sad, creepy shit like that, especially in the thirteen rooms of the former boarding house.  I snapped photos because in a few months, the whole building will be transformed into beautiful new offices and artist’s studios.  But until then, I’m going to be sharing some of my images over the next few days.

I’m hosting a Progressive Dinner / Safari Party this Saturday night, and since my friends are obsessed with British historical drama Downton Abbey, that was picked as the theme.

To help inspire the courses, I pulled a few menus recommended for June from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, to go-to book for the Downstairs/Kitchen scenes in Downton Abbey.

One of my favorite things in the world is when people in history dress up as people in history, like the folks in this photo.  This is from my own collection, included in a banker’s box of other photos bought for $2.  The image is from the turn of the century (identified from photo processes/technology) but they’re wearing costumes from the 1840s—and proudly displaying their oldtimey washpans and brooms.  I don’t know anything else about this image other than that!

One of my favorite historical history moments is from the 1863 Brooklyn Sanitary Fair, a fundraisers for the Civil War, which featured a Colonial era restaurant.  Read more here.  

You have never seen someone so excited about bottle caps as this girl right here.

I’ve been on the lookout for caps that would be period appropriate for 1916, which is admittedly a very specific and odd task.  I want to recreate a 1916 street game called “skelly” at my job at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.  I’ve heard the game is essentially marbles but played with bottle caps — because marbles roll away on city sidewalks.  But after more reading, there seems to be a more specific game board and rules set.  I’m not sure.  

Despite the fact that several people have been on the lookout for caps, no one has found them.  No one really knew what they should look like, and there are no dealers on Ebay labeling their sales “1916 Bottle Caps.”  So imagine my elation when, wandering through a favorite antique barn in Ohio, I found a box of vintage-looking bottle caps.

The box was from a brand called “Anchorlok,” which seems to have been established in the 1920s.  The caps are the generic kind, sold for home bottling.  The box suggests them for soda and catsup, but it’s interesting the company was founded during Prohibition.  When I pulled out a few of the caps, I flipped them over to discover the underside was cork!

If you look at the underside of a modern bottle cap, notice there’s like a plastic/rubbery piece.  That creates the seal when the bottle is capped.  Cork seals predate plastic seals; the design was patented in 1892 by Crown Caps.  Now you know!

A while ago, I recreated a historic dish on my blog called “Buttermilk Pop:” cooked, thickened butter milk with pears, poured over a piece of fried bread.

One of my readers commented that she makes Buttermilk Pop at home:

“Our granny did buttermilk pop thus:

combine one or two eggs with enough flour to make a thick dough
bring a quart of buttermilk to a seethe.
drop chunks of the dough into the buttermilk.
when all the chunks float, serve with brown sugar.

a weird treat, but we think it’s yummy!”

I thought that sounded yummy too, so I gave it a try.

I used two eggs, and mixed enough flour to make a “thick dough”

I dropped dumplings into boiling buttermilk and quickly discovered I should have used a bigger pan.  In two minutes, my dumplings had doubled in size and were fighting to escape the sauce pot.  

I turned off the heat, dished out some dumpling, and poured some boiled buttermilk over top.  

I topped it with brown sugar and cinnamon.  I deem it pretty good!  Dumplings are always comforting and the sweetened buttermilk has a citrus tang. I  was confused by how watery the hot buttermilk was until, spooning out another helping of dumplings, I discovered I had made cheese!

The acidic buttermilk, when boiled, separated. It was curds and whey! Covered in sugar and cinnamon, it was amazing.

This cider is the best—and the apple breed originated in Queens!

I’ve tasted this cider and it is delicious.  Not too sweet, but not too dry or tart; it’s appley, without being juice-like.

From the Original Sin website:

Newtown Pippins “The Prince of Apples”

• First harvested in 1740 in Queens, NY.
• Coveted by George Washington and Thomas Jeferson and planted in their personal estates.
• Benjamin Franklin had Newtown Pippins shipped to him in London in 1759.
• Credited with establishing the U.S. fruit export industry.