What do you do when you are in the kitchen cooking 1940s food or relaxing on the couch reading by candlelight during black out? Listen to the radio of course BUT in 2010 you’d be pushed to find a local radio channel solely dedicated to 1940s music..
However today I found just the best thing ever- a streaming 1940s radio station that I can simply connect to with my lap top and play 1940s music all day long…
Well despite a social function in the loft above the pub, a couple of hours on the deck at Lunenburg Yacht Club and a fun couple of hours in a floating holiday cottage moored in the harbour at Mahone Bay I’ve pretty much successfully stuck to food that was available in the 1940s with only one slip up. I guess my only vice this week has been drinking too much ale and too much rhubarb wine… have decided to not drink alcohol except socially or on special occasions in the future. Will save money and get the weight shifted quicker that way…
No interesting meals this week- have more or less stuck to quite basic foods based on my rations and ones that were quick to prepare liked fried spam (see above)
Trust me, when you no longer have salty junk food in your life SPAM becomes a real treat!
SPAM became widely available in the UK around 1942 and was not rationed… most families if they could afford to buy it, would have done so to supplement their meagre meat rations. Grocers may well have limited their distribution of it so it was available to more people (but that is just my guess)… it seems there are many favourable memories of spam during WWII from the families who enjoyed it.
C xx
PS If anyone has any further information on spam used culinary in WWII please share!
Woooooo Hoooooo ! Now if I hadn’t drank rhubarb wine to excess this week it may have been more but am REALLY very satisfied with this result.
Just getting ready to go to work and jumped on the scales so thought I’d just scream ( ahhhhhhhhh) with delight a little on the blog- just for fun because I can.
It was too warm today to be eating hot stodgy food but somedays you just need something big inside you- this filled me all up for sure.. my youngest hobbit (Em) and I had two slices each for lunch and this was a substantial meal. Something lighter tonight for sure.
Potato Rarebit
1 medium potato and 1 oz cheese per slice of toast (although I used just 1/2 oz of cheese to be really frugal)
Use mash potato as a basis for a rarebit. Beat the mashed potatoes until soft and smooth (add a little butter and milk if too stiff). Potatoes should be like a thick whipped cream..
Put in as much grated cheese as you can spare with plenty of seasoning to your own taste.
Sometimes it’s good to fill your time with fun and friends rather than food! Having received an invitation the other day from Chris Banfield, Skipper of “Risky Business” on southshoreboattours.com for a complimentary sunset tour, after work, had to jump at the chance!
Chris had invited several of the Mahone Bay Regatta crew to enjoy an evening out on the water. This particularly made me really very happy as it had been 2 year since I had been out on a boat, something I had missed..
The weather was perfect, the scenery beautiful, the sunset divine and the company fun. Even enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine and a few little crackers and didn’t feel too guilty about it.
This morning, as a write about it, still have a big smile on my face. If you have a Facebook account and would like to enjoy some of the beautiful sunset around the Mahone Bay Islands last night please go to my photo album- click here
Cor what? TREPIDATION was the big word looming in front of my eyeballs as I carefully placed my feet on the weighing scales Monday morning…
I had lost a little weight over a few weeks, back in June, but stopped jumping on the scales for the last 5 or 6 weeks as I knew my eating was getting out of control again because of very hectic work, volunteer and social schedule. Fast, horrible food on the go, was the order of the day most of the time.
It is so unfair that weight goes on so quickly. Anyone else find the same?? Last time I weighed myself, sometime in June, I was 289 lb but standing on the scales on Monday morning saw the needle thrust itself outrageously to the 314 lb mark. Basically in 5 or 6 weeks my weight had ballooned to just 1 lb less than when I started this back on August 2009. The alarming thing was that 25 lb had attached itself to me in just 6 weeks. How could that be possible?
How did I feel? Shitty for about 10 seconds but relieved that I finally had faced the reality of my situation. At least now it was time again to really try hard to make a final push and conquer this demon of mine..I know that fat lady isn’t me, I want to hike, run, go swimming and buy smaller knickers!
So here once again, for the third time in my life, its time to finally finish what I set out to do- lose 100 + lbs and improve my health by eating a diet low in processed, chemically enhanced crap and sticking to a tried and tested method, eating lots of fresh local veg and “non-fiddled” with food that kept that nation healthy during WWII.
VIDEO- Chillin this evening sat in my car overlooking harbour in Mahone Bay
So although I have continued to cook 1940s meals here and there, the 1940s experiment fell by the wayside early this year for a number of reasons..
To help myself and anyone else who is new to my blog or skim reads it, try and understand that I am not a total flake, guess I should start at the beginning…
In January 2009 my marriage broke down. We had known each other 25 years and had been married 23 years. Although things had been strained for a while and his decision to leave wasn’t totally unexpected, it was however quite a shock. We have remained on good terms, however, the first 6 months were an enormous emotional strain on the children & I. After my commitment to a volunteer role was over end of July in 2009, I decided to throw myself into a social experiment and become all consumed by it….. this would address two problems, my obesity and keeping myself busy.
The first 4 months of this second attempt at living on a purely wartime rationing diet were VERY successful. I felt fabulous, I dropped tons of weight and the preoccupation with this way of eating kept my mind busy..
Christmas came and went… the first Christmas alone with the children. We had a nice time but that was when the loneliness began to creep in. Although my life was busy with work, children and blogging it would be nice to feel the comfort of a man- someone more than a friend. I couldn’t ever imagine myself opening my heart and home to someone for quite sometime however it would be nice to think about the odd date once the snow disappeared.
The loneliness began to pre-occupy me, began to feel lost and consequently my focus on my social experiment took a back seat especially as in March 2010 my volunteer role as fundraiser, publicity and website coordinator with the http://www.mahonebayregatta.ca began to take up more of my time.
The weight began to pile on as I began to eat MODERN food again- how quickly that weight goes on….
And then I began speaking to a nice guy called M. We became virtual friends and built up quite a bond and decided to meet. We hit it off and had the longest first date of my entire life- 14 hours! Despite the distance and my misgivings about allowing a man in my life, we kept in contact daily by e-mail and eventually by telephone every night. We gave each other friendship and companionship. Oh and did I say that we also did some real fun road trips?
M and I met up as often as we could but with my children, work & volunteer commitments it didn’t happen very often. After three awesome and happy months we talked as we always did, very frankly and truthfully and agreed mutually that come winter the relationship would become very frustrating and impossible with the added difficulty of snow. After three fun months we called it quits before we invested more emotions in something that probably was doomed to begin with…… This was two days ago.
“M”gave me so many things that I had recently been deprived of in my life, I will always remember our time together with huge affection- will never forget him…. xxx
So now I return to focusing on getting myself into shape. Dropping 150 lbs and living longer. I’d like to set an example to my youngest daughter Emily..
I look forward to returning to the 1940s Experiment