Some Second-Hand Finds

I just wanted to share a few great (and cheap!) finds we made recently.  As I've mentioned before, we're totally obsessed with thrift shopping, and have acquired most of what we own as second-hand items in some way or another. 

There was a large consignment sale in town for kids' items last week.  A friend gave me an early admission pass, so we hit the sale early...along with about a hundred other people!  The line was over an hour long!  But I think it was worth it for the deals we got.

Tom picked out all the stuff for Sly, which means he chose entirely brown-colored sweaters and corduroys (which is exactly Tom's ideal outfit)!

I love the leather elbow pads on the one

I picked out all the stuff for Stella (some of which she won't fit into for a couple years), which means she got a bunch of girly dresses and cute mary-janes.

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A few days later, we were browsing Goodwill, and I found this little treasure.

It's from 1957.  Now I can add this to my "collection" of vintage Betty Crocker cookbooks (I have the 1950 one - the reprint - as well as the 1969 one, which is the one my mom used and that I grew up with).  I Googled this one, and it looks like they now sell a reprint of it as well, if anyone is interested.  The one we found at Goodwill, though, is definitely an original.

The recipes are all pretty straight-forward and simple.  One thing that's a bit frustrating is that for a number of the dessert recipes, they want you to use a Betty Crocker boxed mix as a starting point.  This wouldn't be a problem, necessarily, except that in 1957 they offered many more varieties than they do today.

The singular of "cookies" is spelled "cooky"...interesting

"Why go to the drug store?  You can make your own sodas at home" - oh, so charming...

Ways to make your breakfast cereal more interesting by adding fruit decorations.  But check out the last one: Old Black Joe.  Oh my gosh!  Tom and I are wondering whether they left that one in the book for the reprint.

 I love looking through old cookbooks, largely because it's so interesting to see the changing tastes of society.  There are plenty of things that people apparently used to eat that just sound weird or unappetizing now.  Such as this recipe below, from a 1950s sorority cookbook I picked up somewhere.

Guh-ross!