What I do when starting a new study

A bonus family member named Sheri says to me, I love that with every new study the furniture in your home must always be moved :)

And yes, I was moving furniture all over my house when that text came in. :)

I have removed the led votives from the oil lamps and put the wicks and oil back in the lamps since we are now in a cold season and the warmth from the oil lamps feels good.  We have started a fire in the fireplace twice now.

I am also organizing and cleaning, it is always good to take on new challenges such as a new study to get me deep cleaning the house.  

We are making the old meals from the past, not that we ever stopped but we haven't had the soft boiled egg in a while and the toast cut in a way they  call soldiers. 

Before we get to rationing butter and sugar I did something that I have been wanting to do, and that is I wanted to make a pound cake without using an electric mixer.  I had come across a news article from the 1930s that talked about how difficult it was to make a pound cake. I searched starting at the year 1900 and many people asked the same questions about the difficulty of making a pound cake.

There were many suggestions how to make one that did not fall flat but others said no matter what they did they had trouble making a pound cake.  

What I could tell is that the pound cake came about when they needed to use up eggs and butter when the chickens were laying well and the time of year when there was an abundance of milk and eggs. 

So I sat  myself down in a kitchen chair with a pillow and towel in my lap and still in my warm flannel pajamas and an apron, I set a large bowl in my lap with some sugar and butter and went to work hand mixing a cream cheese pound cake. I used the recipe that I have always use when making this pound cake, I got out some simple kitchen tools that I though would help to end up with a fluffy, thickish batter.

I did use the hand beater after I got the butter and sugar hand blended with a spoon and rubber scraper. 

In the 1930s and 40s they had rubber scrapers with wood handles and several years ago the only thing I could find was a rubber scraper with a plastic handle but it did work well for mixing. A spatula is too floppy for a batter like this.

I beat the eggs in with the vintage rotary hand beater but knew that I would not be able to beat the flour because it would be too thick. 

After I sifted a little of the flour at a time into the mix and added the vanilla I mixed it well with a wood spoon and my little rubber scraper thing.

A pound cake has a thicker batter but it looked very similar to what my electric mixer does.  Photo above it is ready to go into the oven. 

I do not have an electric mixer anymore, mine broke during Thanksgiving and it had only lasted two years.  I want to mix things that need mixing by hand from here on out.

The cake was just a little shorter, maybe an inch than what I would call a normal height for this cake.  The top was a bit cracked but Charles said it tastes the best yet. :)

We are now thinking about next years victory garden, this is a raised tank of Daikon radish we have growing in our backyard garden here on December 11 1941/2025.  We have reached freezing mark twice here at our house now.  Our official winter will start on December 21 but it feels like it has already started.

We pulled a radish for our supper, I love the taste of daikon radish and the nice big size of them adds a lot to the meal. The daikon radish leaves are edible.

I am showing some of our vintage kitchen items that we use.  Throughout our history studies we have traded our modern items for older items since they do not use electricity.

I like the smaller size box grater, the strainer with the clip on the end.  The large enamel measuring cup.  I am not too fond of the front left mixer to make mayonnaise.  We have not mastered this tool at this time. 

I really like the soap saver.  This is a little basket that opens and we place the small leftover parts of soap inside the basket.  Then when you need a little soapy water to clean with you just swish this in the water or run water over it and you have put a good use to that last bit of bar soap.

This is an egg separator.  Many of the egg separators today are made from plastic. 

I have been reading the newspaper microfilms each day and today in the paper, December 11, 1941 our town of Dothan Newspaper says that Boy Scouts meeting postponed until after Christmas to concentrate on a mobilization plan.  Every scout would receive intensive first aid training and that emergency service corps compound of older scouts would be organized throughout the country. The scouts issued a call to all boys between the ages of 9 to 17 to enroll in one of the programs of boy scouts and be ready to assist the defense of their country. 

The1941 news has been discussing voluntary rationing.  The paper discussed Gasoline, Tire and possible meat rationing.  

By 1941 my mother had lived through the 1920s less traumatic time and then 1930s great depression.  My Grandmother well understood the ramifications of what life was like during world war 1and, the Spanish flu pandemic and a great depression.  I can only imagine what she was thinking after Pearl Harbor was attacked.  Her understanding the last war and what was required of them to conserve and ration, how they needed to volunteer to help and knit bandages, use up and not waste so everything possible that was needed for the war could be sent to those fighting was going to start all over again.  

This is why when we start a new study we also study what happened before this time.  We need to know what they have already gone through and realize that many people were barely getting their situations improved from the great depression as we are entering ww2. 

It is still good today to learn how to can our own food. It is a wonderful feeling to go into the pantry/larder/cupboard and pull off a jar of something that is home canned.

Our go to thing is to can homemade stew.  That has helped us so many times to be able to go in the pantry and take out a quart of homemade stew with meat and vegetables and simply warm it up for a meal, a piece of buttered bread to got with it.  It is our fast food.  At this time we do not have even one jar in the pantry of that stew and we need to do something about that and get some more on the shelf.  

The important items for canning is a water bath canner, a pressure "canner" (not a pressure cooker, completely different item).  Canning jars, lids and bands. To me, this is as important as money in savings. My neighbor Naomi and I would visit one another many years ago, and she would tell me the story of how her mother kept them fed during the great depression with her pressure canner. She had a pressure canner and others did not so they brought food and jars for her to can for them and her payment was keeping part of the meat and vegetables that she was canning. 

At this time in the study, I have starting thinking about the need to start my garden seeds early and get a good head start on the spring garden, which will be our victory garden.  

I need to pot these seedlings to give them a chance to see if they will grow in the greenhouse.  We have been pulling the small lemon tree in the greenhouse and then out of the green house depending on the temperatures. 

I am not adding any new books at this time as I have study books, cook books and a few catalogs.  I will be researching online as well as reading my diaries and journals and books that I have made from research. I will continue to wash laundry the old way as I have during the 1930s study and actually will be applying most everything from the 1930s to our home life because these skills will be needed. 

Charles just finished repairing my old 1920's wooden clothes rack and I am excited to be using it again.  I will take a photo of it set up and using it before the next post. 

I have two crochet projects to do, warm crochet sleeping hats and matching house shoes for both Charles and I.  They are not vintage patterns.

I also have my vintage bandage knitting project and also knitted wash cloths that were knitted during the war.  

We gain knowledge during our studies, there is much to learn about this coming 1942/2026 year. 

It is not necessary to change anything in our home with the study but sometime we just do.  Charles has added a new book to our studies, it will be arriving today and is called December 1941 by Craig Shirley.  It is about The Pearl Harbor and what happened after this attack that changed America.  

Are you preparing to join in on the new study or just read along as we go through 2026/1942?  

How are you preparing for 1942?

Do you have any special projects that you want to do?

Do you feel more skills or helpful knowledge due to the history studies?

Hope to see you in the forum, anyone can read the forum without signing up.  To comment you need to sign up, it is only for safety and to keep the spammers out of our forum.

Grandma Donna