The weekend things

 I did get out on Saturday. I needed it. 

I didn't get a bookcase at Target; they only had one kind available at the moment and it was ugly. So I'll have to keep looking. 

I did get to the natural-foods store. They already have some Christmas things; I bought a small box of Walkers mince pies (like tarts, sort of large-cookie-sized, but looking like small pies). The regular grocery store had their nog out already (but I didn't buy any). 

I also used a coupon I had at JoAnn's; got a couple rolls of pre-cut plain-cream-colored 2 1/2" strips. Yes, lazy, I know - but when you have only a little time to sew and a quilt pattern that calls for plain 2 1/2" strips as well as the patterned ones, it means you have fewer hurdles to actually working on the quilt. 

And I did get to the big antique mall. They were having a large sale, and even had their "private" (normally no customer access) fourth floor open for sales of lots of display pieces. Which makes me nervous they might be closing down, which would be too bad. 

I will say my two favorite dealers - the one with vintage embroidered household linens and sewing stuff, and the one that had vintage cookbooks - were gone, they must have either closed up shop or maybe moved somewhere else.

I will be sad if they close, but not too surprised. The outlet mall n Gainesville closed some time back (I remember going there with my parents in 2002 when they came down here for Thanksgiving) and it's being repurposed into some kind of tractor facility and one of the people doing that commented, in a news story, "It's just not profitable to put retail in rural areas"

Which, yeah, I guess? but it makes me sad. I hate having to drive long distances for stuff. And while I do order stuff online, frankly, sometimes you just want to go OUT and SEE the stuff and CONTEMPLATE it. But I know a lot of antique dealers have now gone to eBay/Etsy to sell their stuff: more broad of a customer base, they might be able to charge more in some regions. But for me, getting out to just roam an antique shop (or a craft store, or a little gift shop type place) was one of the fun things, one of the things that made the grind through the week seem more worth it. Antique stores, especially: no need to buy anything, you can treat it like a "stuff museum" and just look. 

But yeah, I've heard people make the assumption that rural areas should just have dollar stores and wal-marts, that's what we "deserve" for some reason (and yeah, in lower SES areas like where I live, it's harder for a specialty store to make a go of it), but you don't go to shop for fun at wal-mart. At least, *I* don't. I go to buy what I must buy, and then scram - they're too bright, they're loud, everything's unappealingly arranged, it's just not pleasant or fun. Whereas with an antique shop or a small quilt shop, there's nothing you actually NEED, really (not in the sense of medications or food, that you will literally die without it) but they're pleasant places to hang out (at least for me).

But I've seen it for a while - it's been ages and ages since I've been to McKinney; the past few times it felt like more and more of the quirky stores were being replaced by restaurants (I can only eat one meal there on a day trip) or by high-end boutiques, I presume for the richfolk, but I don't wear high-end clothing, so....

Anyway. I hope a few antique shops hang on (there are still a couple in Denison, maybe they are now the nicer place for shopping?) so I have somewhere to go that is not home, work, or church. We suffer in this society considerably from a loss of third places (places neither home nor work) these days. I suppose the library counts as a third place but it's not always a place to hang out, at least not the local library.

That said, I did find a couple pamphlet-type cookbooks at a different stall from the person who used to have them:

"The Way to a Man's Heart," heh. Put out by a gas company. (I think this is yet another one that has a couple recipes reproduced in "Square Meals," which has long been a favorite cookbook of mine).

The illustrations are....well, some of them are a little "yeesh"

I joked on Twitter about "The Pie That Steals Men's Souls."

That said - the vegetable recipes in these tend to be interesting; from an era when making vegetables taste good was more important than "no you must leave off butter or you ruin the health benefits!" that some of the modern "steam and serve with pepper or lemon juice" recipes go for. 

The other one is also interesting; it reminds me of the Betty Crocker "Cooking for Two" cookbook I have, but it's from a different publisher (the old Culinary Arts Institute, from before a place of a similar name became a predatory for-profit school). Both these books are from the 50s; there seems to have been a real flowering of cookbook art then. 

I love these things. Baked bean sandwiches! 

And Anadama Bread. My mom used to make this a lot, but the recipe she used - cut from a newspaper and pasted in her cooking notebook - had a slightly different backstory:

The story on my mom's recipe is that the man's wife was a terrible gossip and was often away from home GATHERING gossip, so she didn't get bread made, and he did what he could, muttering "Anna, damn her" as he worked.

As it's very similar to a longstanding recipe called "Thirded Bread" (It just doesn't have the rye that thirded bread has), I doubt it was done on the fly, but rather perfected over time.

It's good, though. It makes good ham and meatloaf sandwiches, and back when I could eat peanut butter, it made good peanut butter sandwiches (and would probably make good almond butter sandwiches). I should make it some time. 

I also ducked into another, tiny antique shop called The Orchid House. I almost immediately left - it was all Art-Deco/Craftsman style furniture, very perfect, and I knew it would have been way out of my league even if I was in the market for more furniture (but oh there was a beautiful Stickley-style rocking chair). But I kept looking, and towards the back, he had a small case of jewelry. 

I like older jewelry. I don't care if it's costume. In fact, I prefer costume, because if I chip it or lose it I don't feel nearly so bad.

And I saw this:

A charm bracelet made up of old European coins. At first I wondered if it was souvenirs from someone's Grand Tour (in the 1950s) but I don't think so; there's a greater than 20 year span on the coin dates. 

And yes - I looked VERY closely at the dates, especially on the German, Italian, and French coins. (I didn't want fascist or Vichy coins on my wrist). The one German coin is a mark from 1960 from the Bundesrepublik (so: West Germany). The only coins from the 40s are a 3-pence British coin (with King George VI) from 1943- the oldest one - and a Swiss franc that might be silver (it's tarnished) from 1945. The other coins are all from the 50s, and the most recent one is from 1969 (my birth year) from Denmark. 

There are British coins, and the Swiss coin, and the West German one, and a couple from the Netherlands, a couple from Italy, a Belgian coin, and a couple (including one that is very light and feels like aluminum) from Austria. 

It's fun to wear. It makes a nice sound when you move your arm around.

It was only $20, so I feel like I got a bargain. I've seen newer "coin jewelry" with just one coin for more than that. (And no, not precious-metal coins).