The Finer Things in Life

Posted on May 28, 2012 by judypeter

The Jaguar XKE

Call us parochial, but what were the chances that on last night’s episode of Mad Men (“The Other Woman”) both of our New Jersey hometowns would be mentioned in the same sentence? When Pete and Ken are wining and dining Herb, the Jaguar exec whose price for the Jaguar account is a night with Joan, he mentions Jaguar dealers in Englewood and Paramus. This has nothing to do with food of course, though Herb is a man with an appetite. But we got a kick out of it.

The most appetizing moment in last night’s episode, unless you count Joan’s shakedown of Pete and the rest of the partners, was the lunch Roger orders in from The Palm: whole steamed lobsters. It’s his only contribution to the creative process ongoing in the Sterling Cooper conference room as they struggle to find a winning pitch for Jaguar.

The Palm

The Palm opened on Second Avenue in 1926 serving primarily Italian cuisine, although itsoon started serving steak to New York journalists and became known as a steak house. In the 1940s, The Palm added Nova Scotia lobsters to the menu, and along with steak, the two-pound lobster became a signature dish. Today, 837 Second Avenue remains the restaurant’s flagship location, but The Palm is now an international chain with close to thirty locations. Lobster remains a Palm favorite. This isn’t The Palm’s first appearance on Mad Men: in season 4, episode 7 (“The Suitcase”), the younger staff of Sterling Cooper go to The Palm for dinner and drinks before watching a screening of the heavy weight bout between Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay. (Also see our recipe for The Palm’s Wedge Salad in The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook.)

The other New York eatery to get a shout-out last night was the now defunct La Caravelle. When Peggy meets Don’s nemesis, Ted Chaough, of rival agency Cutler, Gleason and Chaough, looking for a new job, he surprises her by offering a salary higher than the one she asks for. Flustered by the offer, Peggy says, “I need a chocolate milkshake.” Ted promises to celebrate her first day of work with dinner at La Caravelle.

The dining room at La Caravelle

La Caravelle was located on in the Shoreham Hotel on 55th Street (in Season 4, Don makes a dinner reservation there when he’s having his dalliance with Faye Miller), and was, along with Lutece and La Pavilion, one of the city’s “elite of New York’s French restaurants,” according to Florence Fabricant, author of The New York Restaurant Cookbook (Rizzoli, 2003). It was a favorite of the Kennedy family and it was the owners of La Caravelle, when asked to recommend a French chef as White House Chef after JFK’s election, who suggested Rene Verdon whose recipe for Beef Wellington is featured in The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook.

When La Caravelle closed in 2004, Fabricant wrote in The New York Times, “the closing is likely to hasten the end of an era when fine dining in Manhattan meant haute cuisine in a formal environment, and when a reservation at restaurants like La Caravelle, Lutèce or La Côte Basque meant dining alongside Kennedys, Rockefellers, members of the fashion world, and anyone interested in having cream sauces and delicately roasted veal on their plates.”

“This elegant Midtown temple to French gastronomy offered a pampering, Paris-in-Manhattan experience to food enthusiasts and the A-list of American society for more than 40 years,” added Fabricant. Although the restaurant is closed, you can still drink La Caravelle champagne (http://lacaravelle.com/) produced by owners Rita and André Jammet. Use it to toast your purchase of a new Jaguar.

Christmas, Kosher Food and Flying Spaghetti

Posted on May 21, 2012 by judypeter

One of the many reasons we love Mad Men is that it takes us back to our own suburban New York childhoods in the 1960s. And it was sometime in the middle of that turbulent decade that my father announced we were going into the city to one of its famous kosher delis. As a lover of pastrami, corned beef and rye this wasn’t a hard sell. But presented with the menu, I saw nothing that appealed. We were at Ratner’s on the Lower East Side, where Harry and the erstwhile Paul Kinsey, now a Hare Krishna, meet for two meals on last night’s Mad Men (“Christmas Waltz”). It’s a logical choice for the now-vegetarian Paul because Ratner’s specialized in kosher dairy: there wasn’t a wasn’t a corned beef, brisket or pastrami sandwich to be had.

Ironic that Matthew Weiner should feature two kosher dairy meals in an episode titled “Christmas Waltz.” But as usual, he got the details right. One of Ratner’s specialties was its kosher baked vegetable cutlet with mushroom gravy and we see two signs on the walls suggesting it to customers.

Ratner’s recipe for baked vegetable cutlets (which we will soon share) comes from The World Famous Ratner’s Meatless Cookbook by Judith Gethers, the owner’s daughter, and her niece, Elizabeth Lefft (Bantam Books, 1975). The baked vegetable cutlet was a patty made of potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, onions, green beans and peas combined with matzo meal and egg and topped with vegetarian mushroom gravy sauce. Oddly, the mushroom gravy includes mushroom broth and powdered mushrooms, but no mushrooms! The cutlets called for canned vegetables, although we prefer them with fresh.

Ratner’s, which closed its doors in 2002 after almost a century, was what food writer Alan Richman called, “the Lower East Side’s high temple of the soothing kosher dairy lunch.” Ratner’s and other kosher dairy restaurants concocted meat substitutes for dishes such as chopped liver and served them along a with blintzes, gefilte fish, herring and chopped eggs and mushrooms, and soups such as borscht. According to The New York Times, when Ratner’s first opened in 1905, half a million Jews lived on the Lower East Side and on any given day it seemed most of them “gathered from dawn until dusk for its vegetarian dairy menu of onion rolls and latkes served in a cheery brightly lighted setting.”

Two other food related notes from last night’s Mad Men. The financially desperate Lane and his banker sipped Cutty Sark as Lane finagled an extra $50,000 line of credit for Sterling Cooper. Cutty, a blended scotch whisky produced in Glasgow, debuted in 1923 and was produced by the Berry Brothers, who were wine manufacturers. According to the company, the Berry’s “knew what their customers liked and felt that heavy, dark whiskeys would spoil the palate of their wine-loving clientele.” Indeed they did, for in November 1966, just two weeks before we see Lane sipping Cutty, The New York Times reported that the company was having trouble producing one gallon bottles for the United States market which was “screaming” for them.

Speaking of screaming, another flying food incident last night when Megan, furious with Don for coming home late, drunk, and without a phone call, flings a bowl of spaghetti against the wall of their apartment. Shades of Pete tossing Trudy’s roast chicken over their Manhattan balcony. Now that he lives in Cos Cob we wonder where he throws his food for dramatic effect.

Weighing In: Crab Rangoon and Brussel Sprouts

Posted on May 14, 2012 by judypeter

So many calories to eat, so many to lose on last night’s Mad Men (“Dark Shadows”) from Crab Rangoon at Trader Vic’s to Betty’s Weight Watchers meetings where one of the weight loss strategies appears to be heavy smoking.

Poor Betty. Desperately trying to shed some pounds, Betty is seen at the opening weighing cheese cubes to go with her half grapefruit and single piece of plain (burnt) toast. Her Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook sits forlornly on the counter. “I can’t eat fish five nights a week,” explains Henry when Betty finds him frying a rib-eye in the pan just before midnight. In the Thanksgiving scene, she’s still fighting the good fight: her plate, with a spare portion of brussel sprouts (see recipe) looks like it belongs to an anorexic obsessed with portion control. And to think, just a year ago she was making sweet potatoes with marshmallow for the holiday dinner! Betty’s diet is as spare and empty as the rest of her life.

Betty tries to find some inspiration and consolation at Weight Watchers, founded in 1963 by Jean Nidetch of New York City who combined a diet plan and group therapy in a new approach to weight loss. By 1967 there were 297 classes in New York City and her first Weight Watchers Cookbook was released. (Weight Watchers was later sold, ironically, to Heinz whose baked beans ad campaign has been such a tough nut for Sterling Cooper to crack.) Participants were given lists of acceptable and off-limit foods, a regular weigh-in, a lecture and group therapy of a sort, one that encouraged open discussion of their weight problem. According to Betty’s group leader, “you don’t stuff yourself to keep from telling your family your problems.”

Meanwhile, back at Sterling Cooper the focus seems to be on new clients in the food industry. Along with Heinz and Cool Whip they are now pitching for Pepsi Sno Ball and Monarch Wine, which is trying to extend beyond its Manischewitz brand of sweet, inexpensive Jewish holiday wine to a more diverse customer base. Or, as Roger so aptly put it, they’re trying to branch out from selling wine for Jews, to selling wine to normal people.

Weighing In: Crab Rangoon and Brussel Sprouts

Trader Vic's

Roger woos the Rosenbergs from Monarch Wines with dinner at Trader Vic’s, one of the popular “tiki” restaurants of the era offering faux Polynesian cuisine amid bamboo, flaming torches and drinks served in grotesque goblets meant to invoke tribal totems and deities. Since Roger’s soon-to-be former wife Jane is Jewish, he persuades her to join them (better to make the Jewish connection), but at a price. Everyone, it seems is profiting from Roger’s desperation to stay relevant at Sterling Cooper: Jane’s price is a new apartment; Ginsberg and Peggy settle for cash to do Roger favors.

Trader Vic’s opened in the Savoy-Plaza hotel on the Southeast corner of Central Park, offering “exotic cuisine in a tropical setting,” as New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne described it in 1958. “It would be difficult to categorize Trader Vic’s Cuisine under single heading,” he wrote. “ It’s a combination of Cantonese, Indonesian and islander cooking, plus a few native American specialties to satisfy less adventurous palates.” Claiborne also mentioned the house specialty Roger suggested to Jane: Crab Rangoon, crabmeat deep fried in a crisp thin shell and served with a hot mustard sauce and a tomato barbeque sauce (see recipe).

Rumaki, an appetizer typically made with water chestnuts, chicken liver, bacon and soy sauce served in Season 1 by Betty at her Around the World dinner, was another dish popularized by the tiki restaurants. If you’re wondering why Chateaubriande was on the menu (Bernard, the Rosenberg’s con, suggests he and Jane split the dish), Claiborne noted that Trader Vic’s often went beyond Polynesian cuisine. “One is inclined to ask why Hungarian Goulash was featured on a recent luncheon menu,” he wrote.

As for the Sno Ball, it was a new, semi-frozen soft drink using products from Pepsi owned companies in 1967, liquid enough to be sipped through a straw. Don puts his sinfully delicious spin on the successful pitch – using a devil to appeal to kids’ sense of mischievousness. Personally, we preferred Snowballs of the Hostess variety: marshmallow and coconut topping over devils food cake. Which do you prefer: white or pink?

Trader Vic's Crab Rangoon

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Yield: 190-195 servings

Weighing In: Crab Rangoon and Brussel Sprouts

Original polynesian hor d'oeuvre crab rangoon recipe -- crabmeat fried in a crisp thin shell -- from Trader Vic’s Pacific Island Cookbook by Vic Bergeron (Doubleday,1968).

Ingredients

½ pound crab meat
½ pound cream cheese
½ teaspoon steak sauce , such as A-1
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
Won ton squares
1 egg, beaten

Instructions

Chop crab meat and blend with cream cheese, steak sauce and garlic powder.
Put ½ teaspoon of in center. Fold square over cornerwise. Moisten edges slightly with beaten egg and twist. Fry in deep fat until delicately browned. Serve hot.

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Weight Watchers Brussel Sprouts

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Yield: 1/2 cup; 1 portion

Weighing In: Crab Rangoon and Brussel Sprouts

Weight Watchers Brussel Sprouts (1/2 cup = 1 portion) from Weight Watchers Cookbook by Jean Nidetch (Hearthside, 1966). In Mad Men, Season 5, "Dark Shadows," Betty has a Weight Watcher Thanksgiving dinner, with her "limited vegtable" portion of brussel sprouts.

Ingredients

1/2 cup brussel sprouts
2 teaspoons caraway seed
1/4 teaspoon thyme
Salt

Instructions

Soak brussel sprouts in cold water for 10 minutes. Drain.
Place in saucepan with small amount of water with caraway seed, thyme, and salt to taste.
Cook until tender but still green, approximately 15-20 minutes.

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Lucky Man: Beef Bourguignon

Posted on May 7, 2012 by judypeter

Just when Pete’s existential crisis couldn’t get any deeper, propelled in part by the first pictures of Earth from space making the planet look insignificant in the vastness of space,

Beef Bourguignon

Don’s life is looking pretty sweet. Last week Megan, who is un peu more comfortable in the kitchen than Betty, was serving up Dover Sole and in this week’s episode (“Lady Lazarus”) Don comes home to beef bourguignon. Boeuf bourguignon, classic French beef stew in red wine with braised onions and mushrooms, were the first words uttered by Julia Child on the very first episode (titled, of course, “Beef Bourguignon”) of what would become the legendary TV show, The French Chef, in 1963. (See recipe below.) “Carefully done and perfectly flavored,” Julia once said, “it is certainly one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man.” It’s a natural for Megan who hails from French stock herself. Just taste it!

Cool Whip was the other gastronomic event on Mad Men last night. Bird’s Eye introduced the “frozen non-dairy whipped topping” in 1967 (along with gelatin salad mixes and 5-minute vegetables); it was part of an onslaught of processed food substitutes, an era when the culinary theory seemed to be “there’s nothing in nature that man can’t improve upon.” And, so, natural whipped cream yielded to the convenience of faux whipped cream from a container. We saw Don, Peggy and Ken at the General Foods test kitchen in Rochester, NY (where they were tasting and pitching an ad campaign) because Cool Whip was in fact being tested in 1966 (the current Mad Men year) in preparation for its market debut the following year.

So what exactly is Cool Whip? The original contained water, hydrogenated vegetable oil (including coconut and palm oils), high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, skim milk, light cream, sodium caseinate (a milk derivative), natural and artificial flavor, xanthan and guar gums, polysorbate 60, sorbitan monostearate, and beta carotene (as a coloring). Wow — almost sounds like a Twinkie! Cool Whip, quickly became Bird’s Eye’s best-selling product and by the early 1970s, when television advertising made the topping hugely popular, recipes abounded for desserts made with frozen whipped topping.

Good thing, too, because, as The New York Times reported on August 29, 1967, according to Andrall Pearson, a director of the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., product diversification was going to be the key to success for makers of grocery products such as Bird’s Eye. “Industry has reached a point of equilibrium where it tougher to come up with better new products and sustain them,” said Pearson. “It would be hard to imagine a more demanding – and just plain tough—competitive environment than in the grocery business over the next ten years.”

DannysHideawy Lucky Man: Beef Bourguignon

Danny's Hideaway

Coincidentally, that article, part of the day’s advertising column, mentioned a restaurant where Don ate dinner last night. Danny’s Hideaway was the largest of the many steak houses (eleven rooms seating 300 customers) on East 45th Street between Lexington Avenue and First once known as Steak Row. Others included Joe and Rose’s, and, because these eateries catered to employees of mid-town’s publishing and advertising firms, places with names such as The Pressbox, The Editorial and Pen and Pencil. Today, they’d be named The Blogosphere, The iPad and Blackberry.

For those who aspire to cook like Megan, here’s Julia Child’s recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon.

BOEUF BOURGUIGNON (Boeuf à la Bourguignonne) Beef Stew in Red Wine with Bacon, Onions and Mushrooms

Prep Time: 4 hours

Total Time: 4 hours

6 servings

BB Lucky Man: Beef Bourguignon

Julia Child's classic recipe for boeuf bourguignon, French beef stew in red wine with braised onions and mushrooms from Mad Men, Season 5.

“Carefully done and perfectly flavored,” Child once said, “it is certainly one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man.” From Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child (Knopf, 1961)

Ingredients

Serve with boiled potatoes, rice or noodles.
6-ounce chunk of bacon
9- to 10-inch fireproof casserole, 3 inches deep
1 tablespoon olive oil or cooking oil
Slotted spoon
3 pounds lean stewing beef cut into 2-inch cubes
1 sliced carrot
1 sliced onion
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons flour
3 cups of a full-bodied young red wine, or a Chianti
2 to 3 cups brown beef stock or canned beef bouillon
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 cloves mashed garlic
1/2 teaspoon thyme
A crumbled bay leaf
Blanched bacon rind
18 to 24 small white onions, brown-braised in stock.
1 pound fresh mushrooms, quartered, sautéed in butter
Parsley sprigs

Instructions

Remove rind, and cut bacon into lardons (sticks, 1/4 inch thick and 1 1/2 inches long). Simmer rind and bacon for 10 minutes in 1 1/2 cups of water. Drain and dry.
Preheat oven to 450°F.
Sauté bacon in the oil over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon. Set casserole aside. Reheat until fat is almost smoking before you sauté the beef.
Dry the beef in paper towels; it will not brown if it is damp. Sauté it, a few pieces at a time, in the hot oil and bacon fat until nicely browned on all sides. Add it to the bacon.
In the same fat, brown the sliced vegetables. Pour out the sautéing fat.
Return the beef and bacon to the casserole and toss with the salt and pepper. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly with the flour. Set casserole uncovered in the middle position of preheated oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to oven for 4 minutes more. (This browns the flour and covers the meat with a light crust.) Remove casserole and turn oven down to 325°F.
Stir in the wine and enough stock or bouillon so that the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato paste, garlic, herbs and bacon rind. Bring to a simmer on top of the stove. Then cover the casserole and set in lower third of preheated oven. Regulate heat so liquid simmers very slowly for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.
While the beef is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms. Set them aside until needed.
When the meat is tender, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve set over a saucepan. Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it. Distribute the cooked onions and mushrooms over the meat.
Skim fat off the sauce. Simmer sauce for a minute or two, skimming off additional fat as it rises. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly. If it is too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, mix in a few tablespoons of stock or canned bouillon. Taste carefully for the seasoning. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables. *Recipe may be completed in advance to this point.
For immediate serving: Cover the casserole and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce several times. Serve in its casserole or arrange the stew on a platter surrounded with potatoes, noodles or rice and decorated with parsley.
For later serving: When cold, cover and refrigerate. About 15 to 20 minutes before serving, bring to the simmer, cover and simmer very slowly for 10 minutes, occasionally basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce.

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Fish Story and Minetta Tavern Zabaglione

Posted on April 30, 2012 by judypeter

It was a whale of a tale on last night’s Mad Men episode (“At the Cod Fish Ball”). It began with Megan’s Dover Sole and ended with poor Sally facing two very unpleasant

Fish Story and Minetta Tavern Zabaglione

Shirley Temple with a Shirley Temple

sights, one of which was a whole cooked fish and the other…well, let’s just say Roger is up to his old tricks. “At the Cod Fish Ball” was a song made famous by Shirley Temple, so we weren’t surprised to see Sally served a cocktail by that name with her dinner.

Megan didn’t scrimp on dinner for her visiting parents and Don. Dover Sole, imported from Europe, “is considered by many food lovers to be the best-tasting fish in the world,” according to an article in the November 1964 issue of Life Magazine. “If you by chance have a fish market elegant enough to carry it, filets may cost $3 or $4 a pound.” Julia Child called Dover Sole “a dream fish” with a “texture firm enough to hold yet delicate to the tooth.”

Given Megan’s French heritage and Julia Child’s overwhelming popularity in the mid-1960s, Sole meunière would have been a natural choice. To make this French classic the sole, whole or fillet, is dredged in flour, pan fried in butter and served with the resulting

juliachild Fish Story and Minetta Tavern Zabaglione

Julia and a friend

brown butter. Simple and elegant it was one of Julia’s personal favorites. As she wrote in her Memoir, My Life in France, her first meal in Rouen was Sole meunière: it was “perfectly browned in a sputtering butter sauce with a sprinkling of chopped parsley… I closed my eyes and inhaled the rising perfume. Then I lifted a forkful of fish to my mouth… The flesh of the sole was delicate, with a light but distinct taste of the ocean that blended marvelously with the browned butter… It was a morsel of perfection… It was the most exciting meal of my life.”

The Hemisphere Club by day; The Tower Suite by night.

Two New York restaurants got shout-outs last night, too. When Don and Megan save the Heinz account, they’re at the Tower Suite, the evening incarnation of the Hemisphere Club, a private luncheon dining room for Time/Life executives on the 48th Floor of the Time and Life Building on Sixth Avenue. “Although New York viewed from a great height is one of the visually exciting places on earth, there are astonishingly few restaurants that take advantage of the fact,” wrote New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne shortly after the Tower Suite opened in late 1960. The Hemisphere Club was one of a series of private clubs for businessmen that opened in New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Pinnacle Club and The Harbor View Club were two others. “One thing all of these clubs have in common, of course” said The New York Times on August 25, 1960, “is their altitude, a factor that seems to fulfill some inner need of the executive ego.”

The sky-high cakes (one appeared to be German Chocolate) we see on the table were part of the Tower Suite’s six-course meals served over two to three hours. The club was a creation of Restaurant Associates, the outfit behind the over-the-top Forum of the Twelve Caesars featured in Mad Men Season 4, Episode 7 (“The Suitcase”).

Further south, the cozy Minetta Tavern where Peggy expects a marriage proposal from Abe but gets only a consolation prize – an invitation to “live in sin,” as her mother puts it – is still going strong on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. (It was bought and revamped in 2009 by Keith McNally.) “A neat and frequently crowded restaurant…[i]t has a loyal, genteel clientele and the quality of the food, which is Italian, ranges from the ordinary to the excellent,” said The New York Times on March 20, 1964. The steak, which Abe says is supposed to be excellent, cost $4.25 back then; it’s $26.00 today with Pommes Frites.

Baked Alaska, that classic dessert that enjoyed immense popularity in the 1960s finally makes an appearance in Mad Men at the smoke-filled fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Baked Alaska is a dessert made by placing ice cream in a pie dish lined with slices of sponge cake or Christmas pudding and topped with meringue and placed in an extremely hot oven for just long enough to firm the meringue. The meringue insulates the ice cream during the short cooking time. The name ‘Baked Alaska,’ also known as a Norwegian omelette, dates to 1876 when Delmonico’s Restaurant named it such to honor the new American territory of Alaska. It didn’t look like Sally was enjoying that either but maybe Roger ruined her appetite.

Minetta Tavern Cold Zabaglione (Foamy Wine Custard)

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Yield: 6 servings

Zabaglione Fish Story and Minetta Tavern Zabaglione

This recipe for Minetta Tavern Zabaglione comes from the Greenwich Village Cookbook (Fairchild, 1969) In Mad Men, Season 5, Episode 7 (“At the Cod Fish Ball”), when Peggy and her beau, Abe, have a date at the cozy Minetta Tavern in Greenwich Village, Peggy expects a marriage proposal, but gets only a consolation prize – an invitation to “live in sin,” as her mother, Katherine, puts it. Minetta Tavern is still going strong on MacDougal Street: it was bought and revamped in 2009 by Keith McNally.

Back in 1966 when Peggy and Abe ate there, Minetta Tavern was an Italian restaurant and The perfect dessert for the couple would have been the house specialty, Zabaglione, a custard made with wine that can be served warm or cold.

Ingredients

6 egg yolks
6 tablespoons sugar
½ cup sweet or almond cream Marsala wine
1 cup heavy cream
Maraschino cherries

Instructions

Beat egg yolks in a large mixing bowl. Add sugar gradually, beating continually Continue to beat egg-yolk sugar mixture while adding wine. Put the mixture in the top of a double boiler, and cook over boiling water, stirring constantly until thickened, about 3 or 4 minutes. Do not allow custard to boil or it will curdle. Cool completely.
Whip heavy cream until stuff and fold into cool custard. Spoon into sherbet glasses and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Serve chilled and decorate with maraschino cherries.

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Under the Orange Roof

Posted on April 23, 2012 by judypeter

Acid trips, road trips…it seems everyone was going somewhere in last night’s episode of Mad Men (“Far Away Places”). It swept us away, too, back to the days of Choward’s Violet candies (Don’s father’s favorites; you may recall him rhapsodizing about them in Season 2, Episode 4, “Three Sundays”).

Today we’re craving a Howard Johnson’s fried clam roll, French fries and some orange sherbet. Talk about flashbacks of the non-acid variety! It was the on-the-money re-creation of Howard Johnson’s that stole the show from a culinary point of view, unless you see LSD-laced sugar cubes as a food item. Anyone who grew up in the Mad Men era can identify with Don’s simple sentiment: “I love Howard Johnson’s.”

: Howard Johnson’s in Plattsburgh, New York

For us, well one of us, The Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge and Restaurant on Route 17 in Paramus, NJ was unforgettable. They really did have sherbet in Technicolor orange (it matched the color of HoJo’s distinctive orange roof) and the fried clams, mentioned twice last night, were about the only way a ten year-old kid would even touch a clam. Even better if ordered as a clam roll. In fact, they never deep-fried the whole clam; it was more like clam strips and the batter disguised what was left of the taste of the clam. But we loved them! And don’t get me started in the ice cream sundaes and the milk shakes. My Dad often drove us in his Ford Fairlane, and later his Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, to HoJo’s just for dessert. Poor Megan: she wants pie for dessert but Don sets off a firestorm by overriding her order and insisting she have the sherbet.

One of the nation’s first restaurant chains, with some stores company owned and the others franchises, there were more than 600 Howard Johnson’s across the country in the early 1960s. Over the years, and through many changes in ownership, HoJo’s restaurants (but not the motels) went the way of the record album and the black and white TV. Only three remain, in Lake George, NY, Lake Placid, NY (not far from Plattsburgh where Don and Megan have their disastrous HoJo’s date) and Bangor, ME.

And what’s become of the Howard Johnson’s on Route 17 in Paramus? This is it today and we’d say it’s not an improvement. Fifty years from now we doubt this place will make anyone nostalgic.

Big and Brown

Posted on April 21, 2012 by judypeter

At last, some food we could really sink our teeth into on Mad Men! In last Sunday’s episode, “Signal 30,” we had lobster, Irish pub food and a spectacular Beef Wellington prepared by Cos Cob, Connecticut’s own Trudy Campbell. Anyone who can pull off Beef Wellington while tending to a very young baby really has her act together because this dish is no easy feat.

“Big and brown” may have been the most memorable phrase of the evening when the Cosgroves and the Drapers (Don reluctantly) make the trek to Cos Cob for Trudy’s dinner party. There’s been some speculation in the blogosphere about what this means; we’re of the opinion it’s Don’s way of asking for a large serving of his favorite whisky, Canadian Club.

But it’s the Draper’s gift of William Greenberg brownies in the red tin that made a splash at the Campbell’s, giving Pete and Trudy a pang of homesickness for the city they left behind for life in the suburbs. “Look what they brought,” Pete says to Trudy. “Doesn’t it make you homesick?” There are no bakeries and no Greenberg’s in Cos Cob Trudy informs her guests. Pete wants to try them “my way,” frozen, but apparently he’s alone in that. But we don’t think he’s talking just about the brownies.

Greenberg Brownies

William J. Greenberg’s bakery had a location at 1181 Madison Avenue in the 1960s (today the Madison Avenue location is at 1100). A specialist in “hostess gifts,” according to an article in The New York Times on May 17, 1960 titled, appropriately enough, “Gifts Rich in Calories to Please New Mothers,” Greenberg gifts became the food gift to give to young moms. “The reasoning behind this development,” said the Times, “seems to be that after months of careful diet control, every girl is entitled to a good cooky binge or at least the chance at one.” Greenberg’s brownies and other baked delicacies, such as his Schnecken, a type of cinnamon roll, were rich and expensive. A tin of four dozen brownies cost $5.85 in 1960 (today it’s $36 a dozen!). But they were worth it. In 1980, New York Magazin called them an “old money brownie — well bred and adventurous with a refined dazzle.”

Speaking of rich and expensive, that certainly describes the advertising prey of the evening, Jaguar Motor Cars, a potential account lost to that most humble of comestibles, if one can call it that, a simple piece of chewing gum. We hope we don’t have to explain.

Where Y@?

Posted on April 16, 2012 by judypeter

Last night was a banner night for food and dining on Mad Men but those of you who made sense of the headline may have gotten the hint that your faithful correspondents are in New Orleans at the moment and in no condition to write our usually insightful and clever blog. We’re going to have to digest last night’s episode of Mad Men for a little while (along with the begnets, gumbo and po’boys) and get back to you later. So, consider this our way of saying, excuse us for being late, which is the usual state of affairs in New Orleans described by some as not the worst organized city in the United States but the best organized city in the Caribbean.

How to Make a Killing (and Tuna Fish Sandwich)

Posted on April 9, 2012 by judypeter

Last night’s episode of Mad Men, “Mystery Date,” was almost an appetite killer given its exploration of men behaving badly. Very badly. The 1966 murder of eight Chicago nurses by Richard Speck was the historical backdrop for an episode in which Greg Miller, the most unlikable TV doctor since forever, returns home briefly to Joan and his infant son only to trot back to Viet Nam where he’s really needed. And Don, in a feverish delirium, dreams of knocking off an old paramour. So, let’s have a drink. Or three.

How to Make a Killing (and Tuna Fish Sandwich)

Gin Fizz

Mad Men has been filled with Old Fashioneds, Martinis and Manhattans over the first four seasons, so it was refreshing to hear Joan order a gin fizz at the Italian restaurant where she and Greg and their parents retire to celebrate his homecoming, a dinner ruined by Greg’s ham-sized ego and Joan’s discovery that his return to Viet Nam is voluntary.

The family of drinks known as fizz was a creation of New Orleans in the late 19th century and was especially popular in the first half of the 20th century. There are many variations: the basic gin fizz is made with gin, of course, lemon juice, sugar and carbonated water (hence the fizz) over rocks. Fizz variations include the use of lime juice, simple syrup, cream, eggs (either the whole egg, just the yolk or just the white), and even crème de menthe. A Sloe Gin Fizz is made with a blackthorn-based spirit (a prune variant).

By the way, when we were her age we would have agreed with Sally’s complaint about the tuna sandwich (see recipe) Henry’s warm and cuddly mother, Pauline Francis, makes for her: “it has relish.” But, according to the authors of Clean Plates: Cooking for Young Children (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964), “with sandwiches, it is pleasant to serve some special condiment such as watermelon pickles, sweet pickles or spiced crabapples. If a child is tired, such an inducement will often start him eating and, once having begun, he will finish the meal with relish.” Oh, really?

Of course today we think relish makes the tuna fish sandwich shine. Tastes change as we mature. Just ask Peggy, flush with Jameson’s Irish Whiskey as she shakes down Roger over the Mohawk Airlines ad campaign.

Tuna Fish Sandwich

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Yield: 2 sandwiches

How to Make a Killing (and Tuna Fish Sandwich)

Relish makes this tuna fish salad recipe from the Mad Men era shine. Adapted from Clean Plates: Cooking for Young Children, Charles Scribners Sons, 1964)

Ingredients

1 7 ounce can tuna fish
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
Chopped sweet pickles or relish, to taste
Bread slices, for serving

Instructions

In a small bowl, flake tuna fish. Add mayonnaise and lemon juice.
Mix in chopped sweet pickles or relish to taste and serve on slices of bread.

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Mad About Calories: Ice Cream Sundae Topping

Posted on April 2, 2012 by judypeter

It was a high calorie episode of Mad Men last night. There was Harry putting away twenty burgers after his failed attempt to meet with The Rolling Stones on behalf of Heinz (who, we learned, once did a jingle in the U.K. for Rice Krispies), the heaping plate of sausages in Betty’s death fantasy and the rye bread and farmer’s cheese Sterling Cooper’s new Jewish copywriter brings home to his father. And we saw Betty munching her way to fighting weight with Bugles corn chips. Bugles was one of a trio of new snack foods introduced in 1966 by General Mills, along with Whistles and Daisys.

The show ended, fittingly enough, with Betty downing her own ice cream sundae and finishing off Sally’s for good measure. (We took note of the pink stove in the Francis kitchen where Betty and Sally indulge.) About the only time Betty showed some dietary restraint was after her biopsy when she sipped tea (the episode was called “Tea Leaves” after all) and left some appealing looking scones untouched on her plate.

If Betty and Sally’s sundaes appeal to your sweet tooth, we offer this sundae topping recipe from a cookbook published the same year Bugles made their debut: America’s Favorite Recipes from Better Homes and Gardens (Bantam, 1966).

Marshmallow Fudge Topping

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Yield: 1 1/4 cups

il 570xN.2334800431 Mad About Calories: Ice Cream Sundae Topping

Enjoy a taste of the Mad Men with era with this retro sundae recipe designed to appeal to sweet toothes of all ages -- marshmallow and fudge combine to make a sensational ice cream topping.

Ingredients

1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup powdered cocoa
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup miniature marshmallows
Vanilla ice cream, for serving

Instructions

Mix brown sugar and cocoa in a 1 quart saucepan. Stir in milk, and cook over medium heat, stirring until mixture comes to a boil. Cook rapidly 5 minutes longer.
Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla. Cool 5 minutes and fold in marshmallows. Serve warm over vanilla ice cream.

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How to Make a Killing (and Tuna Fish Sandwich)

Mad About Calories: Ice Cream Sundae Topping

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