Slice of Pie Cookbooks & Entertaining: Been Junkin' Again!

My daughter and I love to visit collectible shops ... and we know where the best ones are in our neck of the woods! I've been collecting for decades and while she blurted out ... when a teenager ... "I'll never collect that stuff" ... she does! We've already ruined 7-year old Phoebe ... too. We have one shop where we take her because they have a huge collection of children's books ... and from an early age, she has obeyed the 'don't touch anything' rule and done really well. She ventures through the shop and always finds things in addition to the books she finds ... and spends her money wisely!

In the past few weeks, I've found a couple things that have prompted memories and a little research!

Here's the cute vignette I placed on the kitchen counter!

Here's what I bought!

This cute arrangement in a 1950s coffee server brought back memories! When I was a little girl, the folks that managed the bus station in my hometown had a pet mynah bird that talked! My family didn't have many occasions to visit the bus station, but I remember my oldest brother taking me there a couple times just to see the bird! It lived in a cage on top of a tall refrigerator ... and talked up a storm! They served coffee in a pot just like this one. It may have looked like the drip pot below. I don't remember if they had a big coffee machine or not, but I distinctly remember the waitress pouring coffee for my brother!

At another shop, I found this oookbook ... It was published in 1949 and it is filled with recipes from my childhood! Baking cookies was an effort for my mom who cooked for a hungry husband and five kids! For special occasions, Mother made Spritz Cookies ... with one of the old turn presses (which I still have) and hers were always perfect. She excelled in baking pies and Daddy preferred pies over any other kind of sweet! This book is pretty cool ... and categorizes cookies based upon how long they keep! That was really important in the days before everybody had a freezer!

I found this cute cookie cutter wheel the same day I found the cookie cook book! I've seen many modern versions, but this one was made in the 1950s or possibly earlier by the Foley Manufacturing Company. Maybe you've heard of the "Foley" food mill. That was one of the first kitchen appliances made by the company in the 1930s. Lots of things came after including a "Gravy Fork", lemon juicers and dumpling molds. Foley was located in Minnesota and provided household kitchens nationwide!

This cookie cutter wheel ... just rolls across the cookie or biscuit dough and makes a couple different shapes.

The last picure is the Foley Gravy Fork. I've never seen one, but thought it was an interesting early whisk! My mother used a table fork to beat lots of things ... and the big jobs were done with the old fashion egg beater! She whipped cream with that thing ... and even the egg whites for divinity were whipped with the rotary beater! I remember when she bought her first electric mixer, and it was a glorious day!