Can't Help Myself

I've been reading a book by Therese Ann Fowler called Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and as always I wanted to see if the author is a competent researcher.

And in my research of research I found the dress that inspired a scene from her book.

This is a dress designed by Jean Patou and I can't imagine a woman who was brought up in corsets being able to switch gears so quickly.  I don't know what one could wear under this and according to the author of "Z", stockings and garters.

and yes, we DON'T

Kugelis, It's Been a While...

The last time I posted in this blog, was the last time I made kugelis.  So, today I decided to create a pictorial recipe. Here goes.

Start with 5lbs of Russet potatoes, peel them and grate them with this tennis racket kind of grater.
Add an egg (6 total) for every couple of potatoes you grate and mix it up a little
I use my hand it is always convenient. This will help to keep the potatoes from turning dark.
I takes a while to grate 5lbs of potatoes.
preheat oven to 450*

Grate 2 onions into the mixture. Same grater. Stir.

Fry 1lb of bacon until crispy. Drain a little of the grease. Not too much.

.

Add a stick of butter to melt in the bacon and when it's melted,

add it to the the potato mixture and stir it up again.

Add salt to taste.  Add 1 can of evaporated mild. At this point, my mother would add

some minute tapioca (2 teaspoons) if there was too much water in the potatoes, but it isn't necessary.

Stir it up!

I use a 9x13 glass pan  sprayed with Pam. Holds everything and is easy to clean.

Bake for 30min. at 450*. Turn the temperature down to 400* and bake for 30 minutes. 

Turn down to 325* and bake for another 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the color during 

the last half hour and take it out if it start to get too brown.

Perfect!

Farewell

My mother prided herself on how well she made Kugelis. Kugelis is a Lithuanian dish, a savory potato custard with bacon, potato being the operative word. In our house, it was made for special occasions and holidays. It takes five pounds of potatoes to make a 9X13 cake pan of kugelis. My mother made twenty pounds of potatoes at a time. This meant that twenty pounds of potatoes had to be peeled and grated and put in the oven, all before they started to turn dark. Nothing said so much about a cook as a dark kugelis.
I learned to grate potatoes at a very early age. They had to be grated on a special kind of grater and grated quickly. My mother would peel the potatoes, but there were always no less than three of us grating. My dad was the master but everyone did well.
In the late seventies, my mother heard of a retired old man who made electric graters and sold them from his garage. Someone she knew had one and she had tasted this woman's kugelis. Although it was not up to her standards, the potatoes were grated perfectly. And so the quest began. There was no back alley drug addict who had anything on my mother and her search for this machine. She found the man. The grater was, I think, $120 up front. You paid and he made them as an order came in, so she had to wait, and the waiting was hard. In the end, it was worth it. This machine resembled something you would find in someone's tool room, but it did the job. My dad could now grate twenty pounds in five minutes.
Time passed, and when my mom no longer cooked, I inherited the machine. Let me tell you, because of all those years I spent cutting my knuckles on those awful tools, I never grated more than five pounds at a time. But now, holy smokes, ten pounds, no problem. So I made those holiday meals and even some just because I could.
Cut to today. My sister is making a Turducken(?) and I told her I would make the Kugelis. It doesn't take too long and I don't need help, so I could start it this morning, everyone else could sleep and it would get to her house hot and ready to serve. I peeled the potatoes. I cut the onions. I fried the bacon. When I was ready to grate, I took out the machine and turned it on. NOTHING! I unplugged it, plugged it in another outlet. NOTHING! It's broken. I want my mother's money back, but the guy's dead.
I am writing with scratched knuckles, a cut finger and a pan of hand grated kugelis in the oven. One pan, five pounds of potatoes, just like the old days. Lucky for me I have six wire graters in the cabinet. But only me to grate. Lucky I learned early.

Shoes for a garden wedding

I have attended a few outdoor weddings in heels and ALWAYS sink into the grass. Wedges are great, but most often are too casual. I have found the perfect shoe.

Sarah's New Skirt

I have been keeping all my vintage fabric for so long, it'sbeenvintage twice!
My daughter has been showing some interest in all clothes vintage, so I decided to break out a piece of bordered seersucker and make her a skirt. I didn't use a pattern, gathered skirts are pretty easy and one seam was already sewn. I think someone used this as a daybed cover or something.
Well she really loved the finished product, but wouldn't let me take a picture of the skirt actually ON her. She did look cute, though!