VTT: The Dinah Bank

I always remember this bank sitting on the top of our kitchen cabinets in my parents home.

I was (and still is) fascinated by the ugliness of Dinah. Do you know the expression: Scare little children? It probably came from that period. Kids were scared in saving their moneyby big Dinah.

My dad already told me a couple of times where he got it but I keep forgetting....So I called him and he got it in the mid sixties at his favorite thrift shop.

I had to search the web for more info. It was manufactured in England at the beginning of the 20th century (1911-1920). The company's name was John Harper & Company. It is made of cast iron and weighs a ton. It would definitely make a dent in a burgler!

When my mom had to liquidate the house and stuff, I kidnapped Dinah because I didn't want her to end up in a dusty thrift shop...

Around 10 years ago, I was an avid watcher of the Antiques Roadshow and there was Dinah in all her ugly splendor.It was worth...2000 $


The chinese got real busy and floaded the market with endless copies of Dinah. So now it's not worth much. You can find quite a few on eBay for 30$....


Anyways, it's a bank. So you put a coin in her hand and activate the little lever on her shoulder and she puts the coin in her mouth and rolls her eyes! Scary! LOL


So to all my readers far and near a very Happy New Year! May all your wishes and dream come true!

And for more VTT deliciousness please with Suzanne at www.coloradolady.blogspot.com



Love thy neighbor...they might have Pyrex!

Resolutions???

As the year closes, one cannot help but think about resolutions. I don't like resolutions because they almost always include torture and sacrifice!

I don't like pain.

I want things to go smoothly in 2010. I want to have painless renovations ( we need to re-do the patio, waterproof the basement, new floors on the first floors)

I want to ride my bike more (I'm still trying to figure out how to bike this winter). I want to ride my bike to work (which would mean that I landed a job near my house). I want to thrift more and find really good things. I want to find a Pyrex drippings jar. Oh and the job I want it to be a cinch to get, no mean interviewer and impossible to pass tests; it will be the perfect job for me! And most of all I want to be happy!

The picture is of Yoda in the snow wearing her Xmas collar; isn't she adorable?

Retro Tuesday: It's all about color!

I was looking for something that would cheer me up coz' I'm all stuffed up and feverish and voice less! It seems it's the Xmas flu that you have because you're too tired and stressed out.

I had a friend call last night wanting to come over for coffee and I just had to say no, raincheck please!

Colored paper tissues! I feel an allergy coming on! I remember a time when you had to have paper tissues that matched your bathroom! I remember pink
tissues in our downstairs powder room...

Notice all the lilac in the pic! the background, the flowers in her hair, THE HAIR!!! Too much! I'm calling the hairdresser RIGHT NOW! I need some lilac hair!

I'm sure you realise I'm puling your collective leg! But it would look cool nevertheless!

Hummm! Food coloring! Subject of many childhood food fantasies...I loved dyeing everything I could lay my hands on! Blue milk is soooo cool even some 30 years later! That runs in the family too! My dad used to dye milk too!

Here's my craziest food coloring adventure: I was having an Halloween party and wanted to make a cool cake. Orange cake and black frosting...So I buy special paste food coloring and the clerk tells me to use just a bit, it stains! So I bake a beautiful orange cake with tangerines pieces inside and orange liquor. I make the icing and I put a bit of black paste in, I stir....it's pale grey, I add some more, still pale....I swear, I add some more,I stir, still not black....I end up adding all the jar of black food coloring! The icing turns out charcoal grey, I tell myself that i'll serve the cake that way, what can I do about it?

The party was a success. However I had a couple phone calls the next day....people who had dentures, now had royal blue dentures, one friend vomited bright blue and the rest went pottie royal blue! We laughed about it for days! Now 15 years later, I know that I should make chocolate icing and then add black food coloring!

Be sure to visit my crazy friend Tracy at www.crazysuburbanmom.com for more Retro Tuesday!

Retro,kitschy appetizer supper

So we celebrated Xmas on the 24th with an appetizer supper....It had been a kitschy fantasy of mine for quite a while now. I love the idea of having little bites of this and that and I didn't feel like cooking a turkey! I will probably cook the turkey for new year....turkey....YUM!

Ok now for the appetizer supper! Clockwise from left: Salad buns stuffed with meat (ti-pains fourrés a la vinade), green salad with homemade catalina dressing,asian green beans, smoked salmon, cold cuts plate, cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon, an assortement of crackers, herbed cream cheese and pot stickers.

The big hits were the pot stickers and the bacon wrapped sausages. They went in a blink of the eye! They might not have been all vintage recipes, but I had the please everybody and some vintage recipes can be scary,jell-o mold anyone?

The real vintage recipes were the bacon wrapped sausages and the salad buns stuffed with ground meat. The salad buns are a real hit here and I have a suspicious it's a Campbell recipe because you need a can of Chicken Gumbo. But alas I have looked for it in the Campbell web site and nothing. I nearly made Cheese Dreams from Kraft (another vintage gem) but decided against it. Cheese Dreams id made by taking hamburger buns splitting them, spreading them with Cheezwiz and adding half a slice of bacon on top and broiling it 5 minutes. It might make tis next year but with baguette slices instead of half a hamburger bun. Next moring I noticed that I had extra cocktail sausages (which were dangerously close to their expiration date so I took out the bacon and wrapped another batch....We had those for breakfast! LOL

See you tomorrow for Retro Tuesday! Bye

The apple didn't fall far from the tree...

Last night we went over to my dad's for our Xmas dinner.

As usual we ate too much! Is that a surprise? NO! We had a lovely cucumber/yoghurt/onion salad, a seaweed salad and a green salad with 2 kinds of smoked salmon from Gaspésie (a Quebec region).

After we had Timbales aux huitres. I can't find a translation...sorry. It's kind of a oyster a la king in puff pastry. Unfortunatly I found out that a puff pastry shell has 12 grams of fat (which might explain why I feel all weird after eating some) so my dad experimented with toasts and bread and let's just say next year we'll have the puff pastry because it's so much better! Also dad gave us so much sweets and cheese that they should last until lent! Yes that much! I felt like I was in a imported groceries shop. But that's my dad! Generous like you would not believe!

Okay so by now you probably figured out that I LOVE Pyrex. Well recently I learned that my grandfather was a collector as well, a collector of everything....and my dad is a big collector of glassware,fry glass,clear Pyrex,dept 56 Dicken's Village and Fontanini Nativity figurines.

So the 2 pictures are of his nativity scene. It takes him at least one week to install and another to put it away. It's between 7 and 9 feet long and 6 feet high. I couldn't take a picture of the ceiling but it is filled with angels just floating around. It is very impressive.

It also makes me feel really good about my crazyness.It makes me feel that I'm not alone and I come from a long line of collectors....and characters!

More from Henry!

I was informed by Henry yesterday that I had forgotten to load the lunch pic where he had a big bowl of vietnamese soup. So here it is!

That was one hot soup! the waitress asked us if we wanted hot and we said medium!

Henry is enjoying the harbor view from the hotel room. Isn't gorgeous? The ice is just beginning to form...And believe it or not, we could open a window! I'd never seen that!

Here Henry is enjoying a hearty breakfast of eggs,bacon and hash browns at Morrison's (great dinner)

Henry loves tea and took the opportunity to shop at Cook's fine food for last minute gifts...

After all that excitment Henry waited for us in the car while we shopped.

Then we went home after a brief stop at Value Village....

At home Henry went straight to bed! That was one tired little Xmas elf!

Henry's big adventure!

I got Henry as a Xmas gift 2 christmases ago. He fast became an hilarious tradition.

You can record messages in Henry and he replays them with a little quirky elf voice! So, us being the fun loving folks that we are, keep changing the messages and laughing and thinking of other ways to surprise the other with it.

last sunday I noticed that his batteries were dead, so I changed them but put them in the wrong way...If Dan hadn't checked it, I might have not been here today to blog about it! The batteries had become very,very hot and had become a dangerous fire hazzard!

Very carefully I removed them and let them cool. Once cooled i put them the right way and checked Henry a good part of the day and this time he kept his cool. We were scheduled for a roadtrip the day after so on a whim I decided to bring Henry on his first big adventure!

First pic: Henry is hanging out on the winshield...

Second pic: What is a roadtrip without Tim Horton's coffee??? Henry is sampling a double-double!

He loves his Tim! Here's a well known fact: Canadian's love their Tim Horton's coffee!

It was supposed to be a thrifting/shopping roadtrip and we had assumed that like here in Quebec the stores would be opened until 9 pm...But were not! And even some of our fave flea markets were closed all day.....!"/$%?&*(). In case you're wondering that is me swearing!

Rest at last! Here Henry is adjusting his side of the sleep number bed at the Radisson. We got a great deal on the room because, it's the off season and an additional rebate from the CAA...

Well, sleep tight Henry!

Again a very Merry Xmas to all!

It's 1 pm, I'm still in my pjs. We might go to the movies later....might is a big word. We don't have to go if we don't want to. We're having leftovers for supper. We had the Xmas dinner last night coz' here it's all about flexibility...

VTT: Vintage Xmas pics

It's been a really busy week. Cooking,gifts, wrapping,cleaning, taking care of my Etsy orders....

So I stole some time to go through my family pictures and I found these 2 gems...

Here we go! First pic is of my grandma (GranMimi) and her grandchildren.

From left to right: My cousin Josée, me (in the really cute xmas pjs),my cousin David (looking like a big Buddha) and my cousin Nathalie. This was my first Xmas. December 1966. My grandma was horrified that my parents dressed me up in the red and white pijamas. She thought they were laughing at me, but that probably gave me a HUGE love of all things Xmas!

Second pic: Me and my cousin David (the Buddha) in December 1969. I find myself really adorable and mischievious, and I find my cousin...how can I say that? Not baked enough. Well 40 years later, things have changed...My cousin had time to bake some more and is now the proud papa of 2 kids. GrandMimi is gone now and we're not close, but hey these things happen!

To all a very Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year and don't forget to visit Susan at www.coloradolady.blogspot.com for more VTT!!!

VTT: Michele Richard

I found this Christmas CD while looking for Xmas music.

Is that a hoot or what? I love her one piece pijamas, and look at that bouffant hair! Holy bumpit Batman!

To tell you the absolute truth I've never listened to that record. I'm not a big fan of hers. But I did my research!

She was a child star and the daughter of a famous Quebec musician Ti-Blanc Richard. By the time she was 16 she had appeared in 450 tv shows!

She was really popular in the 60's and 70's. She's still going strong and recording record. She had a reality tv show about her life.

So I'm including vintage videos that I hope you'll enjoy!

Be sure to say hi to Suzanne at http://www.coloradolady.blogspot.com/ for more VTT

Erin,Erin!!! I was able to youtube my blog!!!! HeeHaw!!!

It's a Xmas miracle!!!

This past summer I won a Poffertjes package from Kim at The misadventures of Mub blog. I know that overseas mail takes a long time, but in this case I never got the package and some person somewhere, is stuffing their faces with my Poffertjes (small puffy pancakes)!!!

Well Kim was nice enough to send me another package that was waiting for me when I got home. Look at all the goodies the box contained! A poffertje pan (ok I can spell the word, but for the love of god I can't say it !!!), a box of poffer thingie mix and a squirt bottle specialy designed to pour the batter in the pan. Also a chocolate initial (I'm a sucker for european chocolate) and a totally amazing hand made full apron! To tell you the truth I have never seen an apron such as this...Total coverage! I could wear a party gown and still be able to cook with that apron.

And look at that cute pattern! Totally retro!

Thank you Kim! This was really worth the wait! By the way the initial is goooood! And I 'll keep you posted on the poffertje making!

Retro Tuesday: Salads....

Just what is a salad?

Here's what I found on the Webster online dictionnay: any of various usually cold dishes; small pieces of food mixed with dressing;OR SET IN GELATIN!!!

Which explains a LOT! I already spoke of my Jell-O mold aversion. My mother's family would do them all time and of course this being the 60's and 70's I had NO CHOICE, I had to eat those giggly pucky things!

So today I bring you the Salad Cook Book from the Better Cooking Library.

Printed in 1964....right smack in the Jell-O mold heyday!

I found this book at the Salvation army of course and I could not resist it....Unfortunately the pics are black and white....but still quite explicit.

Beets and Cucumbers in Jell-O....I rest my case! And perfect for Xmas too!

ok now what is this??? Frosted vegetable loaf...I laughed sooo hard I just scanned the picture and didn't bother with reading the recipe!

Do you entertain with Jell-O molds? Jiggly salads? Frosted food? Please leave a comment to tell me how! It will be fascinating!

Have a great day and for more retro fun stop by www.suburbanmom.com !

Sad morning

Today I received a package I had been looking forward to for a couple of weeks...To tell the truth I'd been eyeing this Pyrex Opal 401 for quite a while now...

And since Xmas was near I decided to give myself a little Pyrex bowl. It didn't come from eBay but from a Canadian eStore.

So the mailman made me sign for the box and off I went to open this box full of Pyrex goodness...

I had ordered a Terra cup as well ( I had been fantasizing about a cactus in one of those) I'll post a pic soon. And then I see my sweet little opal bowl all wrapped in Saran Wrap....It looks like there are cracks in the bowl...Could it be??? Oh NO! I opened the plastic wrap and the bowl all came apart....RATS!!!

So I took a picture and wrote to the eStore. I don't know what will happen, I didn't receive an answer yet.

So I watched some True Blood and made a batch of caramel corn!

I have to go I still need to shovel some new snow!!!

BROKEN PYREX UPDATE! The store wrote back and they refunded my full payment! WOW! Fast and professionnal! I'm impressed

VTT: The day after...Delphite in the snow

Whew! I just spend part of the day digging myself out of all the snow we got yesterday!

You know what they say: Better late than never!

A couple of weeks ago I did the VTT on my Delphite (Pyrex) collection and I got great responses; Thank you everybody!!!

So I decided to show you the rest of the collection. It's still quite small but it's a work in progress!

In the second pic you can see the pitcher, the cream and sugar set (a gift from my crazy friend Pat) and a cup and saucer.

I think I mentionned in the post before that I was missing a cup...well I was lucky enough to find it 2 weeks ago in a flea on the west island. And the nice seller had one extra cup so she made me a deal! SWEET!

The hunt is definitely fun! I got those dishes one at a time and some I got even before I knew what Pyrex was....I just loved the color!

Taking pics of Pyrex in snow has been a project of mine but I needed the snow to be just right. I also had to be extra careful in hauling everything outside!

Bottom pic: The refrigerator set. In the Pyrex refrigerator sets that you normally find the lids are clear. The blue lids were made only for a short time; they were not as practical as the clear ones. You can see that the lids are not striped in the middle and that gives us the indication the lids are pre-1950's as well. They changed the lids to all striped after that because the process was less time consuming.

The plant in Ontario opened in 1945, so the fridgies are from between 1945 and 1950. Nobody has Ever seen (so dramatic) the larger fridgie in Delphite...Nobody knows if it was ever made....

Well that's it for me! I hope you had fun and speaking of which be sure to visit the Queen of VTT Colorado Lady at www.coloradolady.blogspot.com

Retro Tuesday: Homemade Vintage Wreath

I've been procrastinating about my Xmas wreath. Probably because of that nice mild weather...



It was on my to-do list since last week. I love to-do lists and it's no big thing if I don't do everything on it...There's always tomorrow! If I don't have a list, I run all over the place like a chicken without a head. To-do lists keep me focused and a bit more orderly!



So this morning everything was covered in a blanket of snow (will I ride my bike again in 2009???). This was it, I had to decorate my wreath today or there was hell to pay! Just a figure of speech....Or I might punish myself and force me to eat Xmas cookies , that would be crual and unusual, no?




I had cut some cedar in my yard, and proceeded to arrange it around a wreath base and securing it with fine metal wire.

See second pic. Then I pulled out all the vintage and tacky decorations I found a couple of weeks ago in my fave church basement.... I glue guned those...I love my glue gun!

See? All the glorious vintagy goodness?

It turned out even better than I expected! It fills me with fuzzy joy!

I'm sure Dan will like it. But I'm pretty positive other family members will roll eyes and pass not so positive comments....But who cares?

It's my wreath on my door!

I believe most of the stuff on the wreath is from the 60's or 70's. Hard to tell. I remember seeing these before....I can't help feeling I traveled through time, I'm 5 years old watching A Charlie Brown Xmas on my mother's knee. I was snug as a bug!

Have a great afternoon!

Isn't it totally fab? look at that hanging basket on the bottom!

Don't forget to visit my pal, the original Retro Tuesday's hostess Crazy Suburban Mom at www.crazysuburbanmom.com

It's always fun! TTFN!

Smarties....yum

In my last post I blogged about Smarties not existing in the U.S...

I found it real strange because in my little mind everything exists in the U.S.

I learned about this from a postal worker who was busy packing a whole lot of boxes of Smarties for her cousin living in Arkansas.

We maybe they're available in some states, but nor all.

To tell the truth I don't really like Smarties...I prefer M&M with peanuts...I love peanuts...

So Smarties are little disks of chocolate dipped in a colored sugar coating....I don't like them because I find them , well kinda boring....

Mott's Clamato

This is the Clamato I've grown up with and love. I remember it being a special treat around the holidays. Mom and I would drink big glasses of the stuff (without the booze). I've since learned that it's basically made with tomato paste,monosodium glutamate,spices and probably the bottom of some aquarium...

But I still love it. I have nice memories of it. I think the bottle was glass back then. Well after my post yesterday about cocktail napkins I learned from a fellow canuck blogger that I was giving myself away because the Ceasar doesn't exist in the U.S....What the ???

Smarties don't exist and now ceasars? THE CEASAR? So of course that got me real curious and I went a diggin' on the web.

Here's what I learned about the Ceasar (bloody of course). I copied it becasue of my HUGE lazyness factor this morning...

And guess what? I can't paste the info !"/$%?&*()*&?%$!!!

Ok so One factor contributing to the success of clamato was the invention of the Bloody Ceasar in 1969. Walter Chell was commissioned by the proprietors of Marco's restaurant in Calgary, Alberta, Canada (who knew?). After 3 months of experiements, Chell discovered a spicy drink made of Clamato juice,vodka,salt,pepper,worchestershire, and a dash of oregano (oregano? OREGANO??? In MY ceasar???).

One strange fact: It seems that the majority of Clamato drinkers in the U.S. are Hispanics.

So the Ceasar is 40 years old. And if that is not vintage I don't know what is... I always thought you put Tabasco in a bloody ceasar...

Here you can buy little pre-mixed bottles of Ceasar, but I don't really like them. I haven't had one in over a year, make that 2 years! And the BESTEST Bloody Ceasar is made by one of my most faithfull reader (who happens to be my sister in law) Yes Johanne you! LOL

So get ready 'coz I might ring your doorbell and head for the kitchen to wait for my Bloody Ceasar!

Have a nice weekend y'all and don't drink and drive! And buckle up! And have your pets spayed or neutered!

VTT: Vintage Cocktail Napkins

I got these as a bonus when I ordered a cocktail shaker for a gift last Xmas. They caught a bit of humidity over the years...It is paper ephemera after all.

I was looking for some kind of indications of the year they were produced and I did. well at least I found the 1951 copyright! They were manufactured by Monogram of California.

I find the 3D details on each napkin. And the captions are funny, well most of them are...I imagine with a lot of cocktails they could be, well HILARIOUS!

Look at the cute kitties!

I don't know a lot about cocktails because my parents never had some. We had some wine in the house. Around Xmas some people would give my dad gin or other liquor and those bottles left the house real fast (I think my parents re-gifted them).

So no cocktails...I know the simple ones like rhum and coke, screwdriver (ewww) and jack and coke. Let's not forget the bloody mary/ceasar! That is one I enjoy once in a while, I must remember to buy some clamato!

That is quite a bomshell! I wonder if Don Draper met her....

These napkins are older than most of the people I know! LOL

You know I might just try my hand and make some cocktails thie holiday season....

Don't forget to visit the original VTT at www.coloradolady.blogspot.com

It's always fun!

Retro Tuesday on a Wednesday Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

I'm one day late for Retro Tuesday becase yesterday I installed all the Xmas lights outside and I was too tired to blog!

It's beautiful! Not quite Griswold-esque but a good show nevertheless! Speaking of the Griswold's AMC was showing Xmas Vacation last nite and tonite. Definitely one of my all time fave Xmas movies! Everytime I cook a turkey I think of them!

But I digress! I have a confession to make...I'm totally addicted to the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook collection. I love their size, the pictures, the colors....hum cookbook....

I only made one recipe from that collection, very good apple betty. But I use those books more like novels or picture books...I read the recipes and look at the pics and daydream of having a 1963 kitchen. I wouldn't want Betty Draper's kitchen I found it quite drab!

Look at the cover! It all looks so glossy and perfect (and green). This book is designed to save time to homemakers. I didn't realize that it was a preoccupation in the 60's. This books relies heavily on canned and frozen foods (not that there's anything wrong with that)

Check out the ingredients for the Shrimp Almond Sauce....Frozen shrimp soup...eeeeewwww!

Look at the last pic...with it's little sandwiches around the mustard pot...and those meaty blobs with mashed potatoes and a toato wedge on top...Mystery meat...

Even if I find some ingredients gross I can't help buying those books when I see one...Help! LOL

If you haven't please check out the creator of Retro Tuesday's blog at www.crazysuburbanmom.com . It's always fun!