Chapter 25 (Bettina Entertains Alice and Mr. Harrison continued)

How It Tasted

Pork Chops

These chops looked beautiful on the plate: nicely browned and simply bursting with porky goodness.

Unfortunately I didn’t much care for them. No question they were cooked thoroughly, but I prefer pork that’s shredded, falling-off-the-bones tender, and (when possible) doused with barbeque sauce.

Still, my husband and son seemed to like these, and I must admit they had a nice flavor. In fact, DH was annoyed that, after the meal, the chops went straight into the meat grinder for the next day’s croquettes—he’d planned to have one later as an evening snack!

Potatoes Maître d’Hotel Butter

These turned out to be excellent—the butter sauce really did a lot for them. My dining companions enjoyed them too, and by the end of the meal there were none left in the bowl.

Bread and Butter

This met with a collective *eh* from the family, and the fact that the bread was less than fresh didn’t help matters any.

Broccoli, Miami Style

Filip: I can hardly taste the broccoli!

I too noticed this odd phenomena: a broccoli casserole that tasted nothing at all like broccoli. The sauce, cheese, and cracker crumbs so predominated that the broccoli almost seemed like an afterthought, a garnish--like that sprinkle of parsley on the potatoes.

In fact, this recipe made eating broccoli such a pleasure it almost seemed like cheating, like dumping raw egg into a milkshake or dosing a glass of OJ with castor oil.

Cabbage Salad Served In Lemon Halves

Milomir: You put cabbage in these lemon skins?

Both Husband and Son seemed a little taken aback by the sight of this dish. Cabbage salad is common enough on our table, but I’ve never once served it in lemon halves (and, judging by the reaction, probably never will again).

Taste-wise the salad was fine, and I enjoyed the hint of lemon added by the fruit cups. DH and Son though were definitely not impressed. They both toyed with their salads and, despite a fair amount of coaxing, I couldn’t get them to finish.

Coconut Blanc Mange

I was surprised by the taste of this dish—it was remarkably un-sweet even though the recipe called for sugar and grated coconut besides. I suppose I was expecting something super-rich like coconut cream pie filling, and this certainly wasn’t it. If I didn’t know better I’d swear this dessert was healthy—as healthy as anything coming out of Bettina’s kitchen gets, anyway.

Custard Sauce

Well, Bettina’s version is definitely NOT Ma’s Home Cooking. My husband dutifully spooned some over his blanc mange, but I could tell by the slow action of his spoon that he really didn’t care for it.

Filip, on the other hand, lapped his up and I even emptied the dregs from the serving dish onto his plate. I myself thought it was good (maybe not quite that good) but not the best topping for coconut pudding. Fruit (raw or cooked) would have made a much better base.

Iced Tea

No one seemed to be in the mood for iced tea—no doubt because our coastal city was blanketed with fog. Milomir wanted coffee, Filip milk, and that beautiful pitcher of tea ended up going down the drain!

Would I Make This Again?

I definitely got mixed signals from the family regarding this meal. Everyone but me liked the pork, DH and Son were disconcerted by the look of the salad, and no one really enjoyed the dessert (although Filip definitely gave a thumbs’ up on the custard sauce).

So yes, I probably would prepare this meal again but with a few modifications. I’d choose thinner chops, ditch the lemon cups cradling the salad, and serve the custard sauce over slices of fruit or cake (or perhaps fruit and cake).

But the iced tea—nyet! Everyone is tired of Bettina’s favorite summertime refresher, and on this foggy California coast no iced drink is really met with handclapping. It bothered to see almost a whole pitcher of tea go to waste, but I really couldn’t blame anyone…after just a cup I got so chilled I had to put on a sweater.

Chapter 25 (Bettina Entertains Alice and Mr. Harrison)

Introduction

THAT MAN is coming to dinner, and for reasons unknown Bob chooses to invite Alice as well! Perhaps life has grown a bit dull in the newlyweds’ bungalow?

Well, not for long. Mr. Harrison and Alice quarrel on the steps of the house (one imagines them elbowing each other to get through the doorway first), bait each other across the dinner table, and squabble nonstop from first course to last.

But of course spunky Alice manages to have the last word. This spirited lady effectively shuts Mr. Harrison down by announcing that she’s “not a natural-born housekeeper” like Bettina, expects some day to marry a millionaire, and will spend her life “traveling from one end of the world to the other!"

The Menu

Pork Chops

Potatoes Maitre d’Hotel Butter

Broccoli, Miami Style [1932 Edition]

Bread

Butter

Cabbage Salad Served in Lemon Halves

Coconut Blanc Mange

Custard Sauce

Iced Tea

Pork Chops

Determined to turn out a scrumptious main course I chose some good-looking pork—in fact the best that I could find.

Spread out on a plate the chops looked very impressive—plump, brightly colored, and incredibly well-marbled.

Really, Bettina’s recipe seems almost too simple: sear the chops in a hot frying pan, add some water, clap on the lid, and let poach for about twenty-five minutes. My only concern here is the smoke factor—the recipe specifies that no fat is to be added to the skillet.

No, the chops didn’t smoke—but they did stick like Velcro the greaseless surface of the pan. With just a little bit of effort though I was able to pry them loose.

A little water, roughly a half hour cooking time, and voila! Pork chops a la Bettina.

Potatoes

Potatoes again *sigh* but at least there’s the maître d’hotel butter to jazz them up a bit.

Frankly I’m rather thankful tonight calls for a potato dish—it means I’ll have the opportunity to use the last of a large sack of Yukon Golds I purchased (on sale, of course) some weeks ago ago.

In fact these waxy yellow spuds have proven suitable for both boiling and baking, but still I’ve grown tired of them and long for the familiar Russets.

Rather surprising that this oh-so-elegantly named butter concoction consists simply of butter, lemon juice, seasonings, and parsley. Certainly it’s easy to prepare, but it does seem peculiar to be mixing potatoes and lemon juice.

The lemon halves I’ll later be stuffing with cabbage, and the pulp will provide the juice needed the butter mixture. These lemons have quite a thick rind—am I going to be able to pile more than a tablespoon or two of salad into these tiny cavities?

Looks tasty <not!>

Hmm…is this going to be enough to spread/melt over a large serving dish of potatoes.

Bread and Butter

Another staple I’m beginning to get tired of. In fact, I’ve reached the point where I’m looking forward to seeing Bettina's homemade breadstuff appear once again on the menu—baking soda biscuits sound pretty appealing right now.

Cabbage Salad Served in Lemon Halves

After that fiery tea room salad last week I can’t help but feel a little suspicious about any cabbage concoction. Still, reading the list of ingredients is somewhat reassuring: chopped celery, cabbage, salt and pepper, and of course boiled dressing to hold the stuff together. Short of mixing in with Pablum I can’t imagine any way it could be milder.

The lemons, of course, has already been squeezed as I needed the juice for the maître d’hotel butter. Though as noted above there won’t be a lot of room in these cups for salad after I remove the remaining shreds of lemon flesh—the rinds are incredibly thick.

Celery, clean and ready to be diced

In the end I decided chopping all that vegetable matter by hand was for the birds—grating the stuff will be far less of a hassle

And now I have to choose a cooked salad dressing from Bettina’s extensive list (Boiled Oil Dressing, Cream Salad Dressing, Delicious Cream Salad Dressing etc). It’s a never-ending quest to find a dressing that entirely pleases my family—everyone’s adamant that it contain only a small amount of vinegar, and heavy lashings of dry mustard and paprika haven’t gone down well either.

In the end Boiled Salad Dressing carried the day—with only 1/3 cup of vinegar and minimal spices how could anyone complain?

Well, I wouldn’t say this salad looks exactly elegant—maybe being crammed in the lemon cups with give it a much-needed touch of class.

Broccoli Miami

This dish didn’t appear in the original edition of A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband, but by 1932 the book’s editors apparently knew the value of riboflavin and folic acid!

It’s also another possible nod to Bettina’s Southern heritage. Broccoli cooked to the point of flaccidity, mixed with a cream sauce heavy on the cheese, dumped in a casserole, and then topped with a layer of cracker crumbs—has such a dish ever been seen north of the Mason-Dixon line?

Step one was of course to precook the broccoli in boiling water. But even before I got the pot on the stove I had reason for concern. The produce manager at the grocery had sold me on the flavor and versatility of “broccoli crowns” (broccoli trimmed of its stems). The stuff looked great at the time but now, laid out on the counter, it seemed pretty skimpy. Would there be enough broccoli for the amount the recipe called for?

Death by boiling (Adelle Davis must be spinning in her grave)

Next the cheese-laced sauce…

Another problem…I’ve almost out of milk ☹

White sauce 101: melt the butter

Add flour and milk

Bring to a boil and then toss in ½ cup of cheese

Good lord, does this sauce look rich!

Despite the broccoli this is basically liquid grease...

Buttered crumbs to be spread on top—yes, the caloric and cholesterol count continues to mount

The final assemblage. Who would ever guess there’s close to a pound of green vegetable lurking beneath this buttery crust?

Coconut Blanc Mange

This pudding certainly sounds good—better, certainly, than one of Bettina’s dry-as-dust cakes. My family enjoys pudding of all kinds—rice is a real favorite around here—so I’m sure they’ll be please with this.

I think I have all the necessary ingredients…

A basic cornstarch paste mixed with milk

The (uncooked) eggs whites have to be whipped and added separately— once again an open invitation to salmonella, but so far our luck has held…

Looks great, and for once I made the pudding early enough for it to have a real chance to set

Custard Sauce

I’ve made custard sauce exactly once in my life and, if I remember correctly, DH was thrilled (“My mother makes this!”). I’m not sure how Bettina’s version will stack up to dear old Mom’s—guess we’ll find out.

Wow, what a lot of flour for a dessert sauce!

Double boiler time. The sauce is to be cooked until it’s thick enough to coat a silver spoon…

…or in this case a silver-plated knife (the only available utensil for this purpose)

This sauce can be served either hot or cold…guess I’ll refrigerate it and warm it up just before the meal.

Iced Tea

I wish it was possible to brew all at once the tea—say, ten gallons or so--needed to get through Bettina summertime meals. I like iced tea and so does my family, but making it has become a bore and some iced fruit juice or coffee would definitely be a nice change.

How It Looked

Chapter 24 (Bettina Visits A Tea Room continued)

How It Tasted

Tomato Cup Salad

How this ten-alarm salad slipped into a sedate ladies’ tea room I’ll never know…after just a few bites I swear I could see smoke billowing out of the ears of my dining companions. The dressing did absolutely nothing to temper the peppery onion-and-radish bite--in fact only made it worse by adding a vinegary sting as well.

Even my husband (who’s generally amendable to spicy foods) couldn’t finish his. And as for my son and I, we merely picked at the lettuce—rabbit food, to be sure, but better than the dragon fodder stuffed in the cups.

Iced Tea

A Bettina must-have, at least summer—and this time very welcome after that tongue-blazing tomato salad. It took two glasses to put out the flames still raging in my gut, and DH and Son quickly emptied the pitcher.

Bread and Butter Sandwiches

These so-called sandwiches were a huge disappointment--just as Bettina warned, fresh bread really is too soft to be cut.

In fact, the bread tore so badly under the knife I didn’t attempt even to spread the ragged slices with butter. I simply arranged the bits and pieces on a plate, set down a crock of butter, and announced blithely that this was a do-it-yourself-project (no way was I going to be responsible for the ensuing mess!)

Vanilla Ice Cream

The ice cream was fine—but would one expect anything else from a commercial brand? Going into the meal I felt a bit bad about not making my own but, in retrospect, it was fortuitous (see below).

Chocolate Sauce

This was some strange stuff—quite in keeping with the rest of the meal’s oddities.

The sauce had the right color and aroma, but the flavor was sadly lacking. In fact, it had all the chocolate wallop of a Wendy’s Frosty, and the consistency was even more bizarre—like soap bubbles, or an open jar of something fermenting at the back of the fridge.

Marshmallow Cakes

                        Do not add the marshmallows while the icing is hot, or they will

                        melt, and the little “bumps” are attractive when spread on the cake.

Ha. I’m not sure who would find these lumpy morsels intriguing—an aspiring dermatologist, perhaps—but certainly not anyone at my table.

At a supposedly dainty luncheon these warty-looking cakes looked out of place, to put it mildly—like leftovers from a Halloween party I’d stashed in the freezer. They didn’t look the least bit appetizing and, much to my disappointment, the taste and texture were only a little more appealing than sawdust.

Would I Make This Again?

*gag* No. (did I really have to state that?)

This meal was a disaster from start to finish—the “Friendly Inn” would be out of business in no time if they dared serve this dreck to their clientele.

The salad was inedible, the “sandwiches” piles of buttered crumbs, and the cakes only appealing to pointy-hatted folks mounted on broomsticks. Just the ice cream and the tea were acceptable—in fact critical for washing this fright-fest down our respective gullets.

Chapter 24 (Bettina Visits a Tea Room)

Introduction

Honk! Honk!

Out of the way, World—Mrs. Dixon is at the wheel!

And what a womanly woman she’s becoming! Between numerous assurances to a nervous Bettina (“[Frank] says I’m as good a driver as he is!”) Mrs. Dixon gushes about her newfound domestic skills (“I’m really learning to cook!”) and ever-strengthening marriage (“It seems [Frank] can hardly get home quickly enough!”).

After a Mr. Toad-like ramble through the countryside Bettina seems more than happy to accede to her companion’s wish to stop at a local tea room, the “The Friendly Inn”.

And friendly it is—but not, perhaps, to waistlines. After a brief chat with the proprietors Mrs. Dixon and Bettina find a table and give their sweet tooth free reign!

Part 1

The Menu

Tomato Cup Salad

Iced Tea

Bread and Butter Sandwich

Vanilla Ice Cream

Chocolate Sauce

Marshmallow Cakes

Preparing the Food

Tomato Cup Salad

Once again I needed to choose a cooked salad dressing…not an easy task as at least six are listed in A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband and a dozen or more in Bettina’s Best Salads And What To Serve With Them!

Still, thanks to my family’s aversion to vinegar (1/3 of a cup is generally their limit) the list was trimmed in short order, and in the end Bettina’s Cream Salad Dressing was the favorite.

(Still hadn’t remembered to buy dry mustard, so the stuff out of the bottle was my only option)

To be cooked in a double broiler—yuck.

The dressing came together quickly—too quickly, as it was rather lumpy and had to be strained

Looks good (good enough, anyway)

Of course the tomato cups meant to hold the salad had need a hot water bath to be easily skinned

Preparing the tomatoes wasn’t difficult…not was the salad itself—but good grief! was it spicy. The chopped cucumbers and green peppers did absolutely nothing to negate the peppery punch of the onions and radishes…I can only hope that mixing in the salad dressing will help to tame that bite.

Iced Tea

Iced tea again?

I’m beginning to wonder if Bob and Bettina’s honeymoon bungalow is located in the South—iced tea seems to be their favorite summertime drink and crops up at almost every meal.

As this is being served in a tea room “dainty” is the order of the day—bring on the lemon slices and mint leaves.

Bread and Butter Sandwiches

The type of bread needed for these sandwiches wasn’t specified so, just for fun, I decided to make my own. But homemade bread isn’t my forte, so I decided to rely on my trusty Joy of Cooking rather than Bettina’s vague bread-making instructions and equally confusing lists of ingredients.

Since I didn’t want to have to rush the bread through its first rising I decided that Joy’s Slow-Rising White Bread was most suitable—not the quickest bread to prepare but, as it has all night in the refrigerator to rise, who cares?

Surprisingly few ingredients for the so-called Staff of Life…

Stir, stir…the dough was pretty sticky…

…and didn’t look very promising when I dumped it out of the bowl to knead

Much better. Ten solid minutes of kneading whipped it into shape and gave my arms a workout too

Now into the refrigerator for some midnight action...

Must have been a slow night…the dough didn’t rise nearly as much as expected

That’s better. Six hours in my warm kitchen woke it up

Drat! Once again I didn’t have the proper-sized loaf pan. Supposedly this quantity of dough should fill two 6-cup pans, but since mine are all bigger or smaller I’m going to have to bake two different loaves of two different sizes

The dough cut in two—small loaf on the left, large loaf on the right

Shaping the dough was more challenging than expected—its slow rise made it tough and resilient

Time for the second rise

Perfect!

Although the loaves went into the oven at the same time the smaller loaf of course finished first. And so desperate was I to ensure the loaf was neither over- nor under-baked I impaled it with a thermometer.

Loaf #2. The loaf didn’t brown as evenly as I hoped, but I wasn’t going to argue with a thermometer that had hit the magic number of 195 degrees Fahrenheit.

Both loaves finished. Now this lovely fresh-baked bread has to sit on the counter until it’s stale enough to make sandwiches out of [weep weep]

Vanilla Ice Cream

Hey, it does say “homemade’ on the carton, right? <grin>

Chocolate Sauce

Once again I had to contend with Bettina’s vague measurements and the hope the her “1 square” of baking chocolate translates into 1 modern ounce…

A pretty simple sauce to cook up—just chocolate, sugar, salt, flour, butter, and vanilla

Marshmallow Cake

Bettina says to “use any white cake recipe” and it’s so tempting to take that at face value and use one of the Joy of Cooking’s failsafe recipes. Unfortunately Bettina does list a white cake recipe—even more unfortunately I’ve already tried it (Chapter 4 Bettina Gives A Luncheon) and am still having flashbacks.

Still, I’m twenty chapters beyond that now—surely it won’t fail on me again.

Flour, eggs, sugar, etc…nothing out of the ordinary here

Creaming the fat with the sugar was easier than usual because for once I remembered to take the butter out of the refrigerator early, to give it a chance to soften

Of course the egg whites had to be whipped and added to the batter separately (a favorite Bettina complication). I always feel that I should really get into the early-20^th century spirit and whip the whites without the help of modern appliances (fortunately for my hands and wrists that sentiment never lasts)

Cause for celebration—I get to use my gem pan for the first time. A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband said nothing about greasing and flouring the cups, but I’m not foolish enough to skip that step

Look tea room-worthy (so far)

Now for the icing—White Mountain Icing, my old nemesis. In the past it’s been very hit or miss but, as I’m now using anti-crystallization techniques gleaned off the Internet (use a thermometer, avoid sudden changes in temperature etc) I think it’ll work this time

Once again my electric mixer swoops in to save the day...

Looks OK, but now it has to cool to room temperature (Danger, Will Robinson!) The recipe says not to add the quartered marshmallows until it reaches that point as “the little bumps are attractive when spread on the cake”. Hmmm…I’ve never considered lumpy cake particularly eye appealing, but presumably the owners of “The Happy Inn” know what they’re talking about!

How It Looked