Okay, guys. I would love to post the recipe for my walnut-basil-cherry tomato pesto, but camera issues have gotten in the way (because what’s a recipe without amazing after shots??). So instead, I will tease you with a couple before shots of my pesto ingredients:
Beautiful basil, fresh from the garden
Cherry tomatoes. I like how they seem to be glowing from inside 🙂
The walnut: my nut of choice for pesto
Now that I’ve whet your appetites, that’s all you get!
Let’s move to a different topic, shall we? As your tummies rumble with the sweet, nutty goodness of pesto on the brain, I now direct you to a fantastic little gift I received from the friendly folks over at Good Old Vintage, a new shop on Broadway in Midtown Kingston (yay for one less empty storefront and one more secondhand wonderland!).
Sweet vintage glory and corporate propaganda all in one!
This is a cookbook that doubles as an advertisement- we’ve all seen those recipe pamphlets based around different breakfast cereals, right? Well, this baby was put out by the Furst-McNess Company, which was established in 1905 and based in Freeport, Illinois. Â No other year is listed, and judging by the wording of the recipes and the fragility of the pages, I wouldn’t bet the publication date is any more recent (Okay, Google has just informed me that it was published in 1935. Slightly disappointing, but it’s still pretty old).
“Where sunshine and cleanliness abound”! Splendid!
One of the craziest parts about this book is how nonspecific the instructions are. In one cookie recipe, after it lists the ingredients and tells you to shape the dough into balls, the remaining step is to “bake in hot oven”. That’s it! No mention of how long to keep them in the oven, and no temperature! And the recipe directly underneath, for “ginger creams”, whatever they are (it doesn’t even tell you if they’re cooked in a pan or on a cookie sheet or what), says “bake in rather hot oven”. I love it! Is this hot, Mother? No dear, that’s awfully hot. We’re actually aiming for rather hot with this recipe.  I simply must show this gem to every baker I know so we can laugh at it and marvel at all of our modern kitchen conveniences together.
This has to be the most ridiculous page in the whole book. An anonymous “widely known and thoroughly experienced physician” is willing to share his expertise for free. What saints doctors were in the good old days!
And now, continuing with the random topic-jumping, I thought I’d share something I recently signed up for: Foodie Pen Pals. Basically, there’s a long list of people all over the country who love food and receiving mail. Each person gets a pen pal once a month, and someone else is assigned to you. The spending limit is $15, you discuss preferences and any allergies, and everyone (hopefully) receives a package full of homemade treats and/or local food items from their pen pal! Assignments were just sent out this morning, so I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks what I’ve gotten. It’s kind of exciting! 🙂
Going back to my love of all things vintage, take a look at these television ads from 1950! Some of the Motorola fonts are super cool– Anyone else agree that advertisements today are nowhere near as stylized as these are? Or am I just idealizing the past again? 😉
What are your plans for the weekend? Here in Kingston, it’s time for the third annual O Positive Festival. Â It’s a great medley of art and music and health and wellness: basically, all participating artists and musicians (including my husband, yay!) get free medical screenings and wellness services all weekend from participating practitioners in the area. Sweet! Andy’s already been to the dentist, had a blood pressure check, and received acupuncture. It’s grassroots events like this that really make me believe in the awesomeness of community, rather than feeling hopeless and pessimistic about the state of healthcare in our country.
That’s it for today, friends. As always, I appreciate your presence, support, and feedback so very much. I hope life treats you well today 🙂
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Stand tall, laugh loudly and be who you truly are. Â –SARK
Well, I can’t wait to use the rest of my basil plant to make some pesto, do we use the walnuts too? Girl, I have a lot to learn, thanks for your help!
Yes, I seem to remember your basil plant being huge! Walnuts are a good alternative to pine (pignoli) nuts, which are the traditional pesto nut, but also crazy expensive.
[…] just mixing things together. Really!) The other day, I got creative at lunchtime and since my pesto and hummus come together so well in the food processor, I decided to venture into new territory and […]