Notes on Grandma Renner's Billie Goat Cookies

I’ve written about Billie Goats, also spelled Billy Goat Cookies, before. But it’s time for a more nuanced version of the instructions. Look, no matter how you make them, they’ll be delicious. But I’ve been taking notes every year, so I can get the shape and texture just right. Until now, it’s been hit-or-miss. But I think I’ve got the techniques figured out, now. (As Chef John says, “Never let the food win.”) By golly.

So yes, there's a recipe at the end of this post.

A true, enduring gift from my grandma Clara Renner, these cookies take the strong, separately distinctive flavors of brown sugar, cinnamon, black walnuts, and dates and combine them into a new flavor I can only call “Billie Goat.” It’s a genuine meld; the combination is much greater than the sum of its parts. If you don’t like one of the ingredients, don’t rule out these cookies, because each flavor is tempered and transformed by the others. This is one of the best cookies anyone can make, in my opinion.

And for us, it’s a must-have for the Christmas cookie tray.

I have used this combination of brown sugar, cinnamon, dates, and black walnuts in other recipes, and I’ve found they have the same profound, synergistic effect, where they meld into a new, milder, but very unique flavor. I think of it as “Billie Goat seasoning.” I use this combination in my bran muffins, for example. You could also apply it to a bowl of oatmeal, or use it in pancake batter or a quick bread.

Grandma Renner said these are called “Billie Goats” because they are lumpy and have little points that stuck out, like a goat. (This is why the shape and the texture of the dates is important; read on.) I don’t know why Grandma spelled it “Billie” instead of “Billy.” Grandma Renner, her sister, Lydia Meyer, and their friends apparently all started making Billie Goats about the same time.

Billie Goats/Billy Goats are in a family of similar drop cookies that were really popular among mothers in the 1930s and 40s. This was a generation of moms who were keenly conscious of their role as household managers. In school, their “domestic science” classes taught them to be faithful guardians of their family’s health and good stewards of the family food budget. Vitamins were a new discovery with their generation. These women wanted to pack maximum nutrition into the foods they made, including their children’s after-school snacks—while being very economical (first, because of the Great Depression; next, rationing during World War II).

So, instead of sugar cookies or candies, they made these proto-health-food snacks, using nuts, plus raisins, dates, and/or currants, and sweetening with surprisingly small amounts of brown sugar (some recipes call for a combination of brown and white). Other cookies in this group include “hermits” and “rocks”; oatmeal-raisin cookies are also close relatives. Look for all these recipes in old cookbooks and church ladies’ cookbooks. The names “billy goats” and “rocks” both apparently refer to the chunky, knobby look of these cookies. I don’t know how “hermits” got named.

Some notes about texture and form, since I’ve had some time to figure these out. They’ll taste great no matter what you do, but the goal is to have a chewy, cakelike inside, and a lumpy, chunky shape. So here’s a discussion of challenges, and my “pro tips.”

For generations, most American cooks could only get Dromedary brand dates, which were apparently Deglet Noor dates. They were packed tightly in cellophane (this was before plastic), stuffed into cardboard boxes, and, after languishing in a warehouse or on grocery shelves, they were as tough as shoe leather. Clipping them with kitchen shears, as Grandma’s recipe instructs, would literally hurt your scissors hand. (Grandma’s kitchen shears were stainless steel, dull old things; you know the type—the ones with the rounded “claws” for opening bottles at the base of the red-painted, hard metal handles. The base of my thumb still hurts, just thinking of them. This was way before “Fiskars” scissors were available!)

So billy goat cookies, being a midcentury recipe, were developed using the ingredients that, at that time, were available to most people: dried-up dates. The cooking softened them, but not to the point where they lost a distinctive, chewy, chunky presence.

Today, the Dromedary brand seems to have gone out of business, and you just cannot buy dry, hard dates like them; instead, they are all moist and tender, either packed in plastic or shipped absolutely fresh. This is actually a good thing, but it presents a problem for replicating this cookie’s texture, since moist dates tend to dissolve into gooey molasses during baking, producing a flat, uniformly chewy cookie, instead of distinct, chunky, jagged lumps of chewy dates and nuts in a cakey, rounded matrix of dough.

I’ve learned to replicate the type of dates Grandma had by purchasing them (Deglet Noors) a few weeks ahead of baking, clipping them in the prescribed herringbone pattern while they’re still soft (which is a much easier task, now), spreading these out on cookie sheets, and letting them sit (under wax paper) in a quiet place while they dry. The house isn’t at all humid in November. Or, you can put them in the oven warmed only by the pilot light. Or you can try a dehydrator. An alternative might be to try to find one of the so-called bread dates (varieties such as Thoories that are sold rather dry, dry enough you can carry them in your pocket)—but those might lack sweetness. Also, I think it’s cheaper and easier to use regular Dole (or whatever) brand Deglet Noors, cut them, and let them dry. That seems the best way to replicate the texture and flavor of old-fashioned Dromedary dates.

Another point about texture: These cookies have caused me more vexation than any others, except perhaps when I was first figuring out springerles. If you only make a cookie once a year, it’s hard to fine-tune the recipe! My Billie Goats recipe card is full of penciled-in notes: “try doing _____ next time.” You don’t want the cookies to be so soft they spread out, but you don’t want them crunchy or hard. How to get that cakey, chewy texture, and chunky look? Here are some key tips:

• Use a 50/50 combination of margarine and butter-flavored Crisco. Real butter does make them taste better, but it complicates the texture; the cookies turn out drier, less moist. Save your butter for some other recipe.
• Pack the flour; forget the rule about spooning fluffed-up flour into your measuring cup and leveling it off with a knife. It turns out Grandma R used her measuring cups as scoops: swipe the cup through the flour, like you’re using a dip net to fish something out of water. You can level it off if you want, or just kind of shake off the excess, but you need to pretty much pack the flour into the cups.
• Let the dough sit overnight in the refrigerator or on an unheated sunporch. The flour will absorb the liquids and be easier to work.
• . . . But the dough will still be sticky and hard to handle. Put on some happy music. Use parchment-lined cookie sheets. Try dabbing the dough into little rounds with two spoons, or (if you haven’t much patience for the spoon method) use your fingertips to pinch off bits of dough (put some water on your hands so it doesn’t stick so bad; even then, you’ll have to clean your hands and start again several times).
• I tend to make smallish cookies, because I figure twenty-first-century people would rather select six different morsels from the tray than settle on just two huge cookies. Big cookies are a joy, but variety is the spice of life. Also, with smaller cookies, a single batch of dough goes farther. A 1¼-inch blob of dough, slightly flattened before cooking, produces about a 1½-inch diameter cookie. Back in the day, Mom and Grandma’s cookies tended to end up about 2 to 2½ inches in diameter. Different sizes account for the difference in cooking time; smaller cookies cook faster.
• Do a single tray of cookies first and see how they turn out. These shouldn’t flatten very much. If they spread out flat, you may have to add a bit more flour to the dough, or you might need to adjust the size of the cookies.
• Finally, don’t overcook these, or they will be too hard. Mom says this was a principal criticism Grandma R had about her sister, Lydia’s billy goats: “she bakes them too long, and they get too hard.” (I’ve heard this criticism plenty, too.)
• But if they come out kind of hard, don’t panic. Seal them in a tin, with the layers of cookies divided by wax paper, and take half of a tart apple, wrap it loosely in wax paper, and nestle it in the tin with the cookies. After a week or so, you’ll discover the cookies have softened and developed a je ne sais quoi in terms of flavor.

. . . Does all this sound too hard? Please don’t be put off by these tips; it’s all stuff I’ve learned the hard way, and I’m sharing it here, so you have a super-duper head start!

Finally, again, you can’t really ruin these. They’ll taste great regardless of the texture and shape.

Billie Goats/Billy Goat Cookies

1½ c. brown sugar
1 c. butter [Pat S. uses margarine, sometimes butter-flavor Crisco; I use half margarine and half butter-flavor Crisco; real butter tastes good, but then the texture will be off]
-----------Cream together butter and sugar.

3 eggs: beat whites [till light; use a hand mixer or whisk] and [then] add [whisk in] yolks

1 level tsp. baking soda dissolved in
¼ c. lukewarm-to-hot water

1 Tbs. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. black walnuts [chopped]
1 lb. clipped dates [using a scissors, clip whole, pitted dates in an alternating herringbone pattern; the idea is to have them big enough to kind of “poke out” of the cookies; if you buy pre-chopped dates, it’s okay, but the pieces are too small to achieve the characteristic lumpy look.]
2½ c. flour [basically pack it]

Make the cookie dough [let it sit overnight in the fridge] and drop it onto [parchment-lined] cookie sheets by small spoonfuls. Bake in a moderate (ca. 350-degree) oven like you would other cookies, about 8–11 minutes. [Don’t overcook; they should be rather chewy and cakey inside.]

Makes about 100 cookies.

Sue's Great Aunt Margaret

Now that you’ve seen the Christmas tree we associate with her, I’m going to share more information about the story of Aunt Margaret—whom I never personally met, by the way. But as I sit here in the evenings, enjoying her Christmas tree, I ponder her life and her connections to Sue, to her family, and by extension to me.

Berlin Heights, Ohio, is a small town with a deep and fascinating history. And Sue’s great aunt Margaret seemed to be an interesting, intelligent woman. You want to read more, don’t you?



Margaret Armina Ferber Nottke, born in 1903, got her unusual middle name from her “Aunt Miney,” Armina Baumhart (pronounced with a long i: ar-MY-nuh). Aunt Armina was profoundly deaf. Sue says Aunt Margaret told her about how, when she was young, her Aunt Miney would come to visit and would sleep with Margaret, her namesake. When they were both nestled into the bed, with the covers pulled up and the lights out, they would “talk” by tracing letters on the palms of each other’s hands. (Isn’t that an interesting story?)

Here’s a portrait of Armina Baumhart.



Sue described Aunt Margaret as no-nonsense, direct, opinionated, and very smart. And although she was not extravagant, she recognized quality.

Let’s start this story at about the turn of the century.



Margaret was the baby of her family. Her father was Henry Ferber (seated) (Sue’s great-grandpa). Margaret had five brothers and sisters, including Sue’s grandpa, Nelson (standing in front of his father). Her sister Mabel Ferber (more on her below) is standing at far left. Margaret’s sitting on her mom’s knee.



The backdrop of that photo, by the way, is the side of the Ferber family homestead, a building still standing. Nelson would begin farming there in 1928, renting the land from his widowed mother at first. (Read on.) (Apologies for the poor quality of these images; I took snapshots of a framed photograph, so they’re skewed and blurry.)

Sue thinks Margaret was probably the only one of her siblings to go to college. (Ohio State—go Buckeyes!) Her higher education was cut short, however, when her dad (Henry Ferber) died in 1923, and she had to go home, back to Berlin Heights.

If you look at a map of Ohio, the northern edge forms a shallow U shape. About four miles inland from the very bottom of that U is Berlin Heights (pronounced BURR-lun). Here’s a picture of BHOH we took from a jet in 2006. At the top is Lake Erie/north. Ohio Route 61 runs down the middle of the image. There are two prominent east-west highways. The one toward the top, with the visible exit ramps where Route 61 bends, is Route 2; moving down, the other east-west highway is the Ohio Turnpike. Berlin Heights is the buildings and homes clustered on both sides of Route 61 just south of the turnpike.



Margaret’s story is closely connected with that of her brother Nelson (Sue’s grandpa). Nelson pursued farming, like his dad and grandfather. Nelson and his wife, Mabel (Sue’s grandma), rented the family farm in 1928, then bought it in 1929.

Here's a portrait of Mabel Ferber, Sue's grandmother, and Margaret Nottke's sister-in-law.



Are you ready for a sad story? In July of that year, 1929, the Ferber farm’s enormous barn caught fire and was destroyed (along with the horses in it). Sue’s aunt Nelly, the eldest of the couple’s three daughters, was the first to notice and sound the alarm, and she witnessed the entire thing. Absolutely devastating . . . but wait, it gets worse.

The decision was made to rebuild the barn—a majestic thing—at great expense, with huge 8 by 8 beams joined together with wooden pegs. It and the big old Ferber farmhouse are still standing, east of Berlin Heights, on the southwest corner of East Main (Rt. 17) and Wright Road (Rt. 138). You can just see it from the Ohio Turnpike.



. . . How many things might have turned out differently if they had not incurred this debt?

So Sue’s grandparents had the loan for rebuilding the barn as well as the mortgage. They couldn’t have picked a worse time to go into debt: Black Tuesday was October 29 of that year. Farmers all over America were devastated by the Great Depression, but it was extremely hard on this family. Mabel Ferber’s diary from 1932 is heartbreaking, in large part because she spent so little time writing about her feelings. She mainly wrote about all the hard work they did—and only occasionally commented on the hopelessness of their situation.

Though they toiled fiercely to bring crops from the soil and to produce livestock to sell, they found they rarely could sell for reasonable prices. After months of describing their hard work and accomplishments, on May 16, Mabel noted that a 255-pound calf had sold that day for $12.75, five cents a pound—by my calculations, that’s about a third of its value before the depression, and certainly not enough to cover the expenses of raising the calf. The usually stoic Mabel—in perhaps her most poignant statement in the entire diary—in three simple words expressed the utter despair of their situation: “Everything worth nothing.”

So, as the depression had deepened, the couple finally produced a son. Sue’s dad was born in February 1932. Though “Sonny” struggled to gain weight at first, he finally pulled through . . . But the family's challenges were overwhelming. That winter, they all kept getting colds, but they all kept working anyway. And then Mabel died in December of that year. (I told you her 1932 diary is a poignant read; you can’t read it without knowing that its writer was experiencing her last year of life.) By then, the foreclosure was already in process. By the end of that winter, Sue’s grandpa Ferber and his four children had left the farm. The man who had loaned him the money to rebuild the barn—a cousin, in fact—foreclosed on him in early 1933.

Aunt Margaret and Uncle Stub are mentioned a lot in Mabel Ferber’s diary. The family was close, and during the depression they were all pulling for each other. After Mabel’s death, the four children, including Sue’s father, an infant, didn’t have a clear place to live. Here's a photo from 1933, taken sometime after they'd lost the farm.



Their dad was focused on finding work. So in the first few years of his life, Sue’s dad, in particular, was cared for by a variety of relatives—on his mom’s and dad’s side.

For example, he was often cared for by his aunt Mabel and uncle Clarence Nottke, who had a mom-and-pop grocery store in Florence, on the southwest corner of the intersection of East Main (Rt. 17) and the Florence-Wakeman Road. That building’s still there, too. I guess it’s an apartment building now.



The names are confusing, aren’t they! Get this! Two brothers married two sisters: Great Uncle Stub Nottke and Great Uncle Clarence Nottke were brothers; and Great Aunt Margaret (Ferber) Nottke and Great Aunt Mabel (Ferber) Nottke were sisters! And there are two Mabels in this story, too: Sue’s grandpa’s sister Mabel (Ferber) Nottke, and his wife, Mabel (Johannsen) Ferber; also, there are two Nelsons: Sue’s grandpa Nelson Ferber, and Sue’s dad, also Nelson Ferber. (WHEW!) (Also, in case you’re not sure how to pronounce it, Nottke is pronounced NUT-kee.)

. . . Anyway, here’s a fun aside: So, Aunt Mabel and Uncle Clarence Nottke often cared for Sue’s dad when he was a little boy. They lived above their store in Florence. Sue’s dad remembers that when he would stay with them, they’d sometimes cut off a small wedge of cheese to eat as a snack before bedtime. . . . Sue wonders if even today—when the humidity’s just right—that building might still smell of cheese, milk, and dry goods.

Back to the story. Eventually, Margaret and Stub started caring for Nelson full-time, apparently when he was about three (or before he started school, anyway). They never had any children of their own.

This picture, by the way, was taken in front of Clarence and Mabel's store in Florence.



But Stub and Margaret didn’t officially adopt their nephew Nelson; and they didn’t let him forget who his real dad was. He never called them “mom” and “dad.” At holidays and in summers, he went to stay with other relatives.

Sue’s grandpa Ferber was forced into new work, first farming near Vermilion, later becoming a logger and lumber seller. He worked with a team of draft horses and a big wooden sled for hauling boles out of the woods.



He remarried rather soon after Mabel’s death, and no one seemed too fond of his second wife, Cora. I guess that was because she wasn’t warm to her husband’s family. And Grandpa Ferber himself had grown increasingly, um, crusty. He’d always been short-tempered, and the disasters he experienced certainly didn’t help his disposition.

So Sue’s dad grew up with his aunt Margaret and uncle Stub, and Sue and her sister and brother grew up with a great aunt and great uncle who were, more or less, their paternal “grandparents.” They were certainly emotionally closer to them than to their father’s own father.

What did the Nottkes do? Well, for about one year, they had a dry goods store at the center of Berlin Heights, on the northeast corner of Main and Lake streets, where the town’s U.S. Post Office is now. Maybe they did this with the encouragement of their siblings/in-laws, Clarence and Mabel, who had the store in nearby Florence. Anyway, they got out of that business; apparently they just didn't care for that kind of business.

So mainly, Uncle Stub worked for the Lake Shore Electric interurban railway line, which went through Berlin Heights through what is now the field behind Sue’s parents’ house. Stub must have been employed in some form of maintenance—either of the cars, the line, or the station. The interurban was a big deal in its time, offering people in small towns fast, convenient travel to Cleveland, Toledo, and Detroit. When the interurban declined and closed in 1938, Uncle Stub found other employment; Sue remembers him working for Ohio Edison—as a lineman, she thinks.

Here they are in 1956.



And Margaret worked, too. She worked for many years at the Berlin Fruit Box Company, which all the locals called “the box shop.” For more than 150 years, this basket factory was the town’s main industry. It started in 1854 making bushel, peck, and pint baskets, crates, ladders, and other items needed for harvesting and shipping apples and other fruit and vegetable crops.



The basket factory, at 51 Mechanic Street, was just up the road from the Nottkes’ home at 13 Mechanic Street.



In fact, “the box shop” continued, under sixth-generation ownership, as a small factory called “Samuel Patterson Baskets,” named for the company’s founder. They made extremely high quality, durable, “heirloom” baskets until just a few years ago, when they closed. (Sadly, they sold the awesome vintage lathe and cutting machines, so the business really is d-e-d dead.)

This was their lathe/veneer-making machine; Sue took the photo in November 2004 when we took a tour of the then-revitalized factory.



Although the basket factory is closed, the town of Berlin Heights still has its annual Basket Festival, with funnel cakes, a parade, and a “Basket Queen.”

The 2010 Basket Queen:



The famous Giant Basket in the center of town, and the sign inviting everyone to visit the first week in August:



The basket theme still fits, since the community has a thriving orchard-based economy, including Burnham Orchards, Quarry Hill Orchards, and AB Phillips & Sons Fruit Farm.



So as Uncle Stub worked at the interurban and at Ohio Edison, and Aunt Margaret wove together thin strips of wood and stapled them together into baskets for the region’s produce, Sue’s dad grew up kind of a latchkey kid.

Maybe to help make up for not being home all the time, Aunt Margaret was rather stern with her nephew, her young charge. Apparently she was a stickler for manners—sitting up straight, behaving appropriately at the dinner table, cleaning your plate, and so on. (For ever after, Sue’s dad, I guess, never did feel very comfortable at fancy places, where there were cloth dinner napkins and tablecloths!) Margaret wouldn’t tolerate shenanigans from Sue and her siblings, either. If they started misbehaving, she’d send them right home. But they loved her anyway.

So, now you know a little about Sue’s great aunt Margaret, who is forever remembered with this beautiful aluminum Christmas tree. If she was a little stern, if she was opinionated and direct, if she had a low tolerance for nonsense—you just have to remember what she went through, and what she witnessed.

One more fun fact about Aunt Margaret: a favorite treat for her was to eat a bowl of vanilla ice cream with soda crackers—she’d eat the crackers with the ice cream the way most people would have cookies with it. Crackers and ice cream! . . . Or, if she had them, she’d pair ice cream with cashews, for the same salty/sweet deliciousness. (You’re going to have to try it, now, aren’t you!)

Somehow this tidbit seems to encapsulate what I know of her personality. A kind of opulence amid an ingrained frugality. Taking mundane ingredients and making something unusual and pleasurable out of them. I can get behind that!

Cheers to the memory of Great Aunt Margaret Nottke!

The Personal Recipe Book of Leota Busch

I’ve recently been looking through the personal recipe book of one of Jefferson City’s (and Munichburg’s) notable residents. It belonged to Leota Busch. Leota was the wife of Arthur Busch, and the two ran Busch’s Florist from the early 1940s until his death in 1990. She continued to own and run the florist until 1996, when she sold the business. She kept working, though, doing flower arrangements for another eight years.

Busch’s Florist is just about two blocks away from my house, and it’s still gloriously in business, a true anchor for our neighborhood.



Busch’s is where my dad and his brothers used to buy my grandma flats of pansies for her birthday each March.

If you read Leota Busch’s obituary, you’ll see that she was a pretty neat lady, who lived a long and full life.

She and her husband didn’t have children, however, and when she passed away in 2011, she remembered the Old Munichburg Association in her will. When officers of the Old Munichburg Association met with Mrs. Busch’s bank, they were told that her survivors had declined to take some items that had belonged to Mrs. Busch, and her personal recipe book was one of these items.



I don’t suppose it has any real “value,” in any monetary sense. But then, I’m a collector of old church-ladies cookbooks, and I’m intrigued about anyone’s personal recipe collection.

As I’ve noted before, in prior generations, a lady’s ability to cook was a big part of her “job,” and her recipes reflected her and her family’s tastes. They reflected her triumphs, and they give insights into her creativity, her thought processes, and to some extent, her interactions with her family. It’s almost like a diary. I like reading “between the lines” in recipes. The things not said, because they are so well known, shows areas of special culinary prowess. The recipes splotched and stained with food spills were probably special favorites.



This little recipe book was meticulously prepared. Each recipe was typed (yes, on an old-fashioned manual typewriter!) with an admirable degree of stylistic consistency. She used asterisks as a stylistic way of denoting the ends and beginnings of sections.



It is neatly bound in a quarter-page-size, six-hole looseleaf notebook. There are thumb tabs for the different sections: meat, salad, vegetable, dessert, cake, candy, cookies, and “misc.”



(Yes, there are four entire sections for what amounts to desserts and sweets! Ha ha, take that, you ol’ “food pyramid”! Leota Busch lived to be ninety-nine!)

Anyway, there’s a lot in the recipe book that looks like a vintage church-ladies cookbook. Stuff we’d laugh at today, or cringe at, thinking about cholesterol and sodium and such. There’s a recipe for “Liver Cakes.”

Of course, times and tastes change. As expected, there are plenty of “ethnic” recipes done per mid-twentieth-century, midwestern style, and we’re all familiar with recipes like Leota’s “Spanish Steak,” which is “Spanish” by virtue of its having tomatoes, green and red pepper, onion, and optional “pimentos.”

Likewise, there is the de rigueur midcentury heartland recipe for “Chop-Suey” (from Clara Weber, Leota noted): “Have butcher cut meat into small pieces; put on stove to cook with just a little lard, salt & pepper.” In addition to onions, canned mushrooms, and celery, the recipe also calls for sorghum, a bottle of chop suey sauce, and “1 Can (Chinese) Chop Suey Vegetables.”

And the spellings—well, I shouldn’t talk. I’m an editor, and if it weren’t for the difficulties of writing in our language, I wouldn’t have a job. But I did almost snicker when I saw Leota’s big heading on one page: “Schrimp Salad.” She noted she got the recipe from a Mrs. Kimmel.



But no matter who decided to spell “shrimp” with a “c,” I have to bow to her and say, I can’t blame you, if you lived among German-types all your life!

And who wouldn’t spell it “Orange Sherbert” and “Pineapple Sherbert”? Isn’t that how you say it? (Well, against all reason, that’s how we say it around here!) And we’re not going to laugh at “Angle Food Cake,” because people still make that mistake nowadays, even people who “know better,” because we rely too much on our spell-checkers. And Mrs. Busch was a busy woman!

But I did finally laugh out loud when I saw the following recipe. I haven’t tried it yet, and I certainly wouldn’t serve it to any actual Arabs:




Arabian Stew

6 Pork chops placed in casserole after being seared.
1 slice onion on each chop
1 slice tomato on each,
1 ring green pepper on each,
1 tablespoon rice in pepper ring.
Salt and pepper.
3 cups hot water and bake.

Use raw rice.



Yes! Pork chops! It’s Arabian stew with pork chops! I hope you’re laughing, now, too!

Meanwhile, there are some awesome-looking recipes, too, no matter how they’re spelled or whose ethnicity they stumble over: “Carmel ice cream” must’ve been a favorite, as there are two versions of it.

. . . There was one recipe, though, that I had to try. According to the note at the end of the recipe, it had been given to her by Maryfrances Schwartz. Imagine my surprise, when it registered that that is the maiden name of a woman who was my closest friend my grandparents’ age.



Mrs. Ridgeway—Maryfrances Ridgeway—lived in my Columbia neighborhood when I grew up, and soon after her husband passed away, we became friends.

She owned a large tract of land. She rented the fields to others to grow soybeans, corn, and sorghum. (Or was it millet?) The forested areas were the magical green places of my childhood. The places I would go to think, to explore outside and in.

Her property was basically where the Columbia Menard’s is, and her lake—Lake Ridgeway—was bulldozed and remade into Bass Pro Shop’s “test drive your boat” lake.

Mrs. Ridgeway’s long gone, and I miss being able to ride my bike down the gravel lane to her house and talk to her. We used to talk for hours.

She’d grown up in Jefferson City, here in this Munichburg neighborhood, only a few blocks from where I’m typing this right now. She must’ve been friends with Leota Busch before marrying George Ridgeway and moving to Columbia.

. . . And so I had to make the recipe.

My next post will tell you how it turned out.

Union Pacific 844 Visits Jeff City

Well, now, you can’t not be impressed by this!




A vintage steam railroad engine, Union Pacific 844, is passing through Missouri on its way from Kansas City to Little Rock, Arkansas, reenacting the Little Rock Express—it’s one of Union Pacific’s “goodwill tours” of its historic steam locomotive.

Young folks, naturally, haven’t experienced the spectacle of a huge engine like this, with its hissing steam, enormous wheels, and the hot flame underneath. Even the rivets are huge.

This visitor was showing the train to some young fellows, who were clearly impressed! I show you the picture of this gentleman to give you an idea of the wheels’ size.





This machine is clearly something extraordinary. Yet, of course, during World War II such trains were the norm. As I reflect on that, I start to realize not just the importance trains had on the nation’s transportation industry—but also the incredible impact they made on people’s emotions; their symbolic value.

Most of us probably have at least one relative or ancestor who was connected somehow with trains. Maybe a great-uncle was a Pullman porter (at one point, that was one of the best jobs available to African American men); maybe someone in your family worked at a ticket counter, or sold concessions; if you’re Chinese American, there’s a good chance an immigrant forefather might have helped build the railroads out west.




The railroad industry was so big and so important, Americans of all categories were involved with it. Maybe your grandparents rode trains a lot, or had a farm through which the trains passed. My own great-grandpa was a Missouri Pacific line foreman west of town.

Before air transportation became the norm, trains were certainly the primary vehicle associated with joyful reunions and tearful goodbyes; or the line to opportunity—fortune, fame, education, the exotic, the unknown. To small-town folks, the cities where those unending rails led must have seemed as foreign and exciting as Nepal and Peru seem to us now.




And the blowing, hissing, chugging, million-pound locomotives must have intensified all those impressions, as they did for me this morning as we watched the train depart Jefferson City for whistle-stops at Chamois, Hermann, Washington, Pacific, Kirkwood, and then to St. Louis . . .

When something like this comes through your town, I hope you take a few moments to see it!


Special thanks to Op Op friend Jenice Taggart for cluing me in on this train’s arrival and the coolness thereof!

A Midwestern View: The Artists of the Ste. Genevieve Art Colony

They do things so well here! The Museum of Art and Archaeology, in Pickard Hall on the University of Missouri–Columbia campus, is a perfect gem, and if you’re in Central Missouri, you should visit it regularly. They have a wonderful series of changing exhibits.

Right now, the museum is hosting a special exhibition that my readers might be interested in, as it involves Missouri history, Missouri landscapes, and Missouri art.

The show features about thirty works by several artists, in different styles and media, and of varying subjects; all are connected to an art colony that existed in the 1930s in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.



Jessie Beard Rickly (Poplar Bluff, Mo., 1895–St. Louis, Mo., 1975). Still Life—Lilies and Fruit, ca. 1930. Watercolor. Lent by John and Susan Horseman.

This annual summertime gathering of artists has been overshadowed by the fame of Thomas Hart Benton and by the war that pulled the curtain on the colony. (For more information on the Ste. Genevieve art colony, look at this book here.)

Indeed, although many of the Ste. Genevieve artists received favorable recognition and led successful lives as artists, hardly any of them became well-known; I know of Frank Nuderscher because he painted the famous “turning bridge” lunette at the state capitol (The Artery of Trade—the Eads Bridge). And there’s a single work in this exhibition by Thomas Hart Benton, who apparently spent one day with the Ste. Genevieve group—but the spotlight is on neither of these men.

If growing skills, expanding artistic vision, networking with other artists, and producing memorable, fine artworks are an indication of an art colony’s success, then I’d say the Ste. Genevieve gatherings hit their target. And because many of the works feature Missouri places, this colony did our state a great service by representing it so soulfully on canvas.

If you go to this exhibit anticipating pictures of “cabins, cattle, and colored people,” you’re in luck, because Regionalism, with a strong social conscience, is well represented in the collection. However, if farmers, erosion, and humble homes are all you are expecting, you will be surprised.




For example, there is a modernist landscape by Joe Jones of the St. Louis waterfront—a composition of cool grays in flat planes with smooth gradients. Other works depict people of the European underground in World War II, a nearly cubistic view of an entry gate to St. Louis’s upscale Westmoreland Place (which somehow reminds me of M. C. Escher’s infinite staircases), a few abstract compositions, and a number of satisfying still lifes.

But face it—the colony’s “Missouriness” is the main reason we’re interested in this group, and much of the collection evokes history, geography, and culture.



Joseph Paul Vorst (Essen, Germany, 1897–St. Louis, Mo., 1947). Sharecroppers’ Revolt, ca. 1940. Oil on panel. Lent by John and Susan Horseman.

A painting by Joseph Paul Vorst, Sharecroppers’ Revolt, depicts jobless tenant farmers trying to keep warm near a pitiful shanty covered by an old quilt. This painting must be related to the 1939 Sharecropper Protest down in the Bootheel; I’m guessing that Vorst must have witnessed that event, where hundreds of cotton laborers, organized by the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, lined federal highways to protest their exploitation and misery.

I mean, you can read about the protest, and you can see photographs of it—but Vorst’s oil-on-canvas helps you to feel it.




See what I mean? A time, a place, a culture.

Here’s another one: The Quarry, by Bernard E. Peters. This painting is a landscape; the subject of the painting, a quarry of stark bright limestone with miscellaneous weedy foliage at its base, all gaily reflecting sunshine, occupies the back/upper half of the painting. The front half of the scene is all in cool, shady greens: a small Ozark farmhouse surrounded by small but long-established crop fields, shade trees, and a winding lane.



Bernard E. Peters (St. Louis, Mo., 1893–St. Louis, Mo., 1949). The Quarry. Oil on board. Lent by John and Susan Horseman.

Both halves of the landscape have been modified by humans. One gathers that the quarry, and the broad expanse of cropland beyond it, is new, and the farm old. The quarry and the expansive new field with its precisely parallel rows are newly disrupted lands; the homestead is settled and quiet. The quarry and mechanized agriculture is the future, the little farm the past. Yet the farm also provides a glimpse of the future, perhaps: The yellow-highlighted plants invading the quarry site remind me that nature in these parts tends, eventually, to the wooded, cool, and shady.

Another landscape, by E. Oscar Thalinger, also strongly evokes a particular place and time. In Farm Landscape in Winter, you see what is probably a late February view of a 1930s farm, with a gray sky and damp ground—the kind of gray and dampness we’ve had for weeks—with leafless trees and fields that are muddy but just starting to green up. Next to the humble home and barn, and nearly lost in the surrounding browns and grays, is a woman with a head scarf and her chickens. As I looked at this painting, I said silently to her: “I know what you’re feeling: I want spring to get here, too!”



E. Oscar Thalinger (Alsace-Lorraine, France, 1885–St. Louis, Mo., 1965). Farm Landscape in Winter, ca. 1932. Oil on board. Lent by the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

And although most of the still-lifes in this collection are quite colorful with lovely jewel-like tones, there is a small untitled oil—and early work by Aimee Schweig—that is monochromatically brown. The small scene is of the most humble of subjects: a worn wooden table with a coffee grinder and a few Irish potatoes on it . . . and a little cotton kitchen towel. And that’s it—no vase of pretty flowers, no blue skies, not even a shaft of sunlight to spice it up. The paint isn’t even shiny.



Aimee Schweig (St. Louis, Mo., 1897–St. Louis, Mo., 1987). Still life, n.d. Oil on board. Lent by Terrie Liberman and Martin Schweig.

Still, we can sense in this humble collection of objects a time (the now-antique coffee mill) and a place (a rural kitchen). And via this painting—the fact that it exists at all—we learn something about the painter. The note alongside the work points out that Schweig and others of her generation had been influenced by the comments of artist Charles Hawthorne, who said, “We must teach ourselves to see the beauty of the ugly, the see the beauty of the commonplace.”

I don’t know about “ugly,” but I do know that Missouri (and all places) can be full of the commonplace. And perhaps that’s why this exhibition is so much fun—like all art, it helps us to see our world with fresh, appreciative eyes. And what a beautiful world it is.



Bernard E. Peters (St. Louis. Mo., 1893–St. Louis, Mo., 1949). Untitled (Landscape), ca. 1930s. Oil on canvas. Lent by John and Susan Horseman.


Exhibition Information

A Midwestern View: The Artists of the Ste. Genevieve Art Colony
January 29–May 15, 2011

Admission is free, free, free!

Museum of Art and Archaeology
University of Missouri–Columbia
1 Pickard Hall
Columbia, MO 65211-1420

Phone: 573-882-3591

http://maa.missouri.edu/


Galleries are open
Tuesday through Friday: 9–4
Thursday evenings: until 8 pm
Saturday and Sunday: noon to 4 pm
(Closed Mondays and on University holidays)

The museum (Pickard Hall) is located on MU’s Francis Quadrangle; you can find it at the intersection of S. Ninth St. and University Ave.




My grateful thanks to the Museum of Art and Archaeology for providing me with high-quality jpg’s of the six paintings. I also thank the museum for granting me permission to take additional photos of the exhibition.

Miss Rhue and the Deer Print

I thought you’d like to read this. After reading my last post, my dad sent me an e-mail that said:

Since I don’t do blogging or Facebook, this will have to do. I enjoyed your vignette of Lena Rhue. When I started reading, I expected to find something about the deer painting at your front door, probably because I took time the other day to look at it closely again and reread what was written on the back. Mom treasured it not just because of its beauty but because, well, as Mom would say, “Lena gave that to me!” Lena gave away a lot of her precious “things.” I suppose many people around central Missouri have mementos of her.

The other thing on my mind is my Mom talked to her about her name, Rhue, which is pronounced just like the German Ruhe, meaning peace. Mom thought it fitted her perfectly—a peaceful lady.

So I will share with you a few views of this painting (actually a silkscreen print), front and back, so you can see for yourself how my grandma treasured this gift.

I believe the work is entitled Frolic. If you search the Internet with the artist’s names, you’ll find more silkscreens of this very image for sale on eBay and elsewhere. (Fifteen bucks!)

I haven’t been able to tell when the original was painted, though the artist, Percy Tsisete Sandy, or Kai Sa (Red Moon), lived from 1918 (he was born on Armistice Day!) to 1974. Apparently Lena Rhue bought this print during a trip to Taos, where, I assume, they were selling them at Carl Schlosser’s trading post (now, I think, it’s part of a bed and breakfast). (The “Knpobo” on the back is Cradle Flower, the wife of Schlosser—Google her name, and you can find many nifty silkscreen prints featuring her poetry.)




Kai Sa studied painting in Albuquerque and at Santa Fe; the “maiden” he married was Peggy Mirabel, from Taos Pueblo. Apparently, Kai Sa became unwelcome in his home pueblo, Zuni, because he had had the temerity to depict sensitive, sacred subjects in his artworks. Thus he relocated to Taos.

Another interesting fact about Kai Sa: He was the illustrator for a children’s book by Ann Nolan Clark entitled Sun Journey: A Story of Zuni Pueblo (1945). (Maybe this is the artwork that got him in trouble with his pueblo?) It’s the story of a ten-year-old Zuni boy who has spent the last three years at a government boarding school and has forgotten or missed out on his own culture. But now, he has returned to his pueblo, and his grandfather and others teach him what it means to be Zuni. Thus, in the course of the book, this child is reintroduced to his people. And the reader learns about Zuni lifeways along with the protagonist.

I think this was a progressive notion for 1945, and I found it even more interesting when I read that the book was originally published by the education branch of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I had thought the BIA in those years was generally insensitive to Native cultures—and I understand the bureau is still controversial among Native Americans—but here, they employed Clark to provide multicultural educational materials for both Native children and mainstream Americans. Fascinating, huh?




Clark, by the way, was born and educated in New Mexico and spent many years teaching Native American children. She discovered (naturally) that the children learned better when the reading material bore some relation to their own lives, so she ended up writing her own books and primers. She eventually wrote more than forty children’s books that we would today call “multicultural.”




So, Lena Rhue, an unmarried woman and professional sociologist, visited Taos at some point, and I can infer that she had a prescient interest in multiculturalism, too. She gave this picture to my grandma, who in turn gave it to me, in 1993. And now I get to look at it every time I head out the front door—and feel layers of appreciation.

Lena Rhue of Apartment B

Grandma Schroeder’s house has always been a duplex—well, ever since it stopped being a church building, anyway. The original idea, when my grandparents got married, was that the downstairs apartment was going to be where Grandma’s mom and dad spent their golden years. But since it was the Great Depression, my great-grandparents chose to occupy a bedroom on the second floor, allowing the family to rent out the first-floor apartment for extra income.

Back in those days, renters would stay for several years before moving on to whatever was next; also, because they lived under the same roof as their landlords, they became friends. Grandma was extroverted and good-natured. Most of the renters visited with Grandma and Grandpa on summer evenings in the backyard.

The renter I remember most was “Miss Rhue,” who was elderly when I was a little kid. I don’t know when she moved in, but she must have passed away in the 1970s.

She was friendly and inquisitive. You could say she was “sweet.” It seems she always had a candy dish with lemon drops in it. I remember it being on a corner table in the dining room. As a kid, I didn’t visit her very often (I grew up with the idea that the tenants downstairs were not to be harassed by children)—but when I did visit her, she was gracious and pleased to have company. And she was generous with the lemon drops. Maybe I remember her as talkative because I was always quietly sucking on candy when I was with her.

She wasn’t tall, and she kept her little-old-lady white hair in a bun. I recall she wore reading glasses. And she had what was described to me as a “harelip”—a thankfully obsolete term for a cleft lip or palate. It had been repaired, but the surgical techniques of the early twentieth century weren’t as perfected as they are now. I distinctly recall her unique voice, kind of airy, which I suppose resulted from the irregularities in her palate. It reminded me of Sterling Holloway’s. (To a child of the seventies, any voice like Winnie the Pooh’s would have seemed comforting, eh?)

I suppose her deformity might be one reason she had not married. (Though, of course, there are lots of other reasons not to become married, or officially married, as well.) But more than anything, I suspect her lack of a husband resulted from the plain fact that in her life, she had other things to do.

My dad says she was a sociologist, and, of course, for a woman of her vintage to have earned a college degree is fairly remarkable. But in addition to the bachelor of science degree she earned in 1919 at the University of Illinois, she went on to receive a master’s—we think at Chicago. She had intellect, and curiosity; she was darned smart; she had had a profession.

Like other women who left no progeny, it’s difficult to find information on her. Her older brother, Perry, never married, and he left no heirs as well, so except perhaps for cousins and their descendants, there don’t seem to be any family left.

Perry, by the way, born in 1896, was a veteran of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in France; part of a machine-gun battalion, he’d been wounded in action. Like her, he got his bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois.

Perry and Lena were the children of Jessie William and Sidney Elizabeth (or Elizabeth S.?) (Cochonour) Rhue and grew up in the Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, area.

Somehow or other, her path seems to have led from commerce and agricultural interests to social welfare work, because her professional position in this state was with the Missouri Association for Social Welfare, whose papers from 1908 to 1971 are housed at the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection in Columbia. I guess I can see how, during the Great Depression, agricultural work could easily have turned into social work.

Maybe I’ll have to go visit those records someday. I wonder how Lena got to Missouri? My dad says she played an important role during the foundational years of the Missouri Association for Social Welfare, that she did great work on behalf of orphans, destitute folks, and others in need.

Dad recalls how Lena came to leave this house; she had gotten quite elderly, and she started seeing things that weren’t there, and talking to people only she could see. One day, Dad said, she had her front door open to let air through the screen door (which by itself is no big deal), and he knocked lightly to get her attention and then opened the screen door a little in order to hand in her newspaper, which had been lying outside. At this, she suddenly exclaimed that a small dog had just rushed into her apartment as he opened the door! A dog only she could see. It wasn’t long after this that some of her trusted friends found alternative living arrangements for her, and she never returned to good old Elm Street.

I understand she was buried, near her brother, in the Champaign area.

Sometimes I wonder why I think of her so much. Partly, it’s the “if these walls could talk” syndrome. She lived under this same roof for many years, and everyone who lives in an old house wonders about the lives of their predecessors. But partly, too, I see in her a kindred path.

I, too, am the mother and grandmother to no one, and my papers and photos will, after my death, be tossed out. On any lists where I am included, mine will be a name that no one looks for. Who will remember me when I’m gone—even if just for a bowl of lemon drops, or a silly bean salad recipe? Well, maybe someone.

Do unto others.




So when’s the last time you had three-bean salad? I found this recipe in my Grandma’s collection. I have to say, this is a mild salad—not bitey with vinegar—and the flavors of the beans come through nicely. I suggest interpreting the last “ingredient” as 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. black pepper. The “cans” are the usual 16-ounce size. And if, like me, you don’t “do” dried onion flakes, try a little minced shallot or onion.


Lena Rhue’s Bean Salad

1 can each of green, wax, and red kidney beans, drained.
1/2 green pepper cut fine
onion flakes
2/3 cup vinegar
1/3 cup salad oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt and pepper

Mix and let stand over nite stir occasionally.

Lena Rhue
May 1964

Peet-za, United States, 1949

Another treasure from my beloved copy of the Good Housekeeping Cook Book of 1949!

I’ve told you about this book before; the more I cook out of it, the more impressed I am with its recipes. It must have been one of the last thorough, general-use, make-it-from-scratch cookbooks to be published before “instant” this and that, and all kinds of needless shortcuts, came into vogue.




I was reading it recently and discovered a recipe for pizza! Curiously enough, it was in the “Vegetables” section, under “Tomatoes”! Huh?

Well, what was the American version of pizza in 1949? I mean, what constituted the basic, no-frills pizza that a generalized cookbook would offer for the standard American cook? Pizza! It has garlic in it! That’s ethnic! That’s Eye-talian!




Another thing that caught my eye was the subheading under “PIZZA,” informing the reader that it’s “pronounced peet-za.” Yes, pizza was that novel in the 1940s. (Anyone remember when Taco Bell, and thus Mexican food, first came to the Midwest, and the menu boards coached us in pronunciations like “buh-REE-toe” and “TAH-co”?)

Well, guess what: This pizza recipe is dang close to the real thing, the traditional pizza napoletana. And the one variation for toppings that is provided—for Anchovy Pizza—is very close to pizza marinara, which has no cheese, plus the added anchovies (which is a very traditional topping). I was surprised to find such authenticity, when I was expecting something frightfully, embarrassingly Americanized.




I guess what happened was this: The Good Housekeeping Cook Book (“copyright 1942, 1944, 1949”) completely preceded the births of Pizza Hut (1958) and Shakey’s Pizza (1954), whose presence would play a huge part in establishing the “norms” for the American idea of pizza. And before the arrival of chain pizza joints (and not counting various regional versions of pizza that emerged in big cities like Chicago), the only kind of pizza most Americans knew was the authentic kind—made by immigrants, or tasted in Europe.

And yeah, a lot of Americans had been introduced to authentic Italian pizza during and after World War II!

So I suspect that there was a window of time, post–World War II and pre–Pizza Hut, where the only pizzas available were ones made by ethnic Italians and available to other Americans only in big cities, and those made to be as close as possible to the traditional Italian pizzas.




So this recipe must be one of the latter. Yes, there are clearly adaptations for the limitations of the typical midcentury American pantry (note the use of “shortening” in the dough), but even then, the recipe is strikingly authentic. It doesn’t say to use a rolling pin, and it calls for olive oil. (Just Google “authentic pizza recipe,” and see the Wikipedia article on “pizza,” to see tons of examples of what I’m talking about: rolling pins are verboten, and olive oil is a requirement.)

I was so curious! I had to give it a try. I’ve retyped the recipe below. My changes and comments are noted at the end.


PIZZA
(Pronounced peet-za)

It’s like a huge pancake, topped with a tomato-cheese mixture, and baked until crust is crisp and golden brown. Hot out of oven, it’s cut into wedges. You fold a wedge; eat it with your fingers. Use as appetizer, bread with dinner, main course for lunch, or evening snack.

Pizza Dough:

1 pkg. dry or compressed yeast
2 tablesp. lukewarm water
1 cup boiling water
2 tablesp. shortening
1 1/2 teasp. salt
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour

Sprinkle yeast in lukewarm water; let stand 5–10 min. to completely dissolve. Pour boiling water over shortening and salt in a large bowl. Cool to lukewarm; stir up yeast, then add. Add half of flour; beat until smooth with spoon. Then add remaining flour; beat smooth. Divide dough in half for 2 thin pizzas such as are served in restaurants. Or use all of dough for 1 thicker pizza. Place dough on floured board; pat gently with hand into 2 11” rounds or 1 13” round; have edges slightly thicker (this keeps filling from running over during baking). Place on greased cookie sheets. Let rise in warm place (85° F.) until double in height. Then proceed as directed in Tomato Topping.

Tomato Topping:

Pizza Dough
1 tablesp. olive oil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 lb. sliced Italian mozzarella cheese or process American Cheddar cheese
2 cups diced, peeled ripe tomatoes, drained
1 minced, peeled clove garlic
1/2 teasp. salt
1/8 teasp. pepper
1/2 teasp. dried oregano or thyme
1 tablesp. olive oil

Heat oven to 450° F. After the round or rounds of Pizza Dough doubles in height, brush with 1 tablesp. olive oil. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese; then arrange 1/3 of mozzarella cheese on top; sprinkle with diced tomatoes combined with garlic, salt, and pepper. Arrange rest of mozzarella on top. Sprinkle with oregano; then drizzle on 2 tablesp. oil. Bake in hot oven of 450° F. for 25–30 min., or until crust is golden brown.

Anchovy Pizza: Make Pizza with Tomato Topping, omitting all oil and all cheese in Tomato Topping. Dot tomatoes with 2 oz. can fillet anchovies, finely minced; drizzle on oil from anchovies. Garnish with a few slivers of green pepper. Bake as directed.





My Changes and Comments

The recipe gives you the option of making one large or two smaller pizzas; I chose the latter. However, I made one pizza be the standard type, and one the anchovy version (halving various components as necessary). Why? Because variety is the spice of life!

Another thing I changed is that I used diced, drained canned tomatoes instead of fresh. Why? Because it’s February, and even the tomatoes that look ripe taste pretty lame (especially given the price). (But see my note about salt, below.)

Also, as you can see in the pictures, I didn’t have any green bell peppers, so I used the yellow one I had on hand.




Finally—and I think I wasn’t giving enough credit to the writers of the cookbook—I used a plain old bouncy-bouncy rubbery brick of grocery-store mozzarella instead of the fresh kind I know is authentic (and much better). Why? Because I assumed that’s what people had access to in 1949. Now, however, I’m not sure about that.

Indeed, the recipe calls for “3/4 lb. sliced Italian mozzarella cheese”—and I’m betting that in 1949, anyone with access to any mozzarella at all probably knew where to get the good stuff. In fact, Kraft might not have even been making the rubbery kind back then. I’ll bet that’s why the recipe calls for “sliced” mozzarella, and names the alternative (for the truly limited grocery shopper) as “process American Cheddar cheese.” (Yuck!) Next time I make this, I’ll go for a ball of genuine, fresh mozzarella. (Or else, if I use the rubbery kind, I’ll be sure to shred it, so it melts better.)

Hopefully I don’t need to tell you this, but use real Parmesan cheese, and not the dusty stuff from the green can.




Finally, if you try this recipe, I recommend cutting the salt way back for the tomato mixture, especially if you’re making the anchovy version and using canned tomatoes (which are already salted)—heck, even the cheese is salty enough. In fact, you probably don’t need to put salt with the tomatoes at all.

I kept a close eye on the pizzas, and I found that they only needed about a third of the cooking time recommended—ten or twelve minutes was plenty! Trust your instincts, check the pies, and the crust will turn out fine.




And yes, these were really good! I was kind of worried about whether I would like the anchovy pizza, since there was no cheese (whine, whine!), but I didn’t miss it at all. The saltiness and richness of the anchovies and their oil completely made up for the lack of cheese.




As an added bonus, the Good Housekeeping Cook Book includes the following variation, as well:

Kitchenette Pizza: For 2 people, or a few guests, use 4 English muffins, split in halves, instead of Pizza Dough. Top with 1/2 recipe for Tomato Topping. Bake at 450° F. 20 min.

How about that! I thought the kid-friendly English-muffin pizza was a relatively recent invention/bastardization, but here it is alongside fairly authentic recipes, made for an American audience that had never even sampled Jeno’s! I’ll be darned.

The recipes on this post were published in The Good Housekeeping Cook Book, ed. Dorothy B. Marsh (New York: Rinehart and Co., 1949), 418–19. It’s long out of print, but it’s truly worth hunting for! See this blog post for more on this book.