On This Date in History: Special Summertime Twofer!
NPR's Weekend Edition had an interesting interview this morning with Margaret Sartor, author of the new book Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets and Growing Up in the '70s. The book is the actual text of the rather minimalist diary she kept as a preteen and teenager in the early 1970s: "Wore a halter top today. Bought a new bra." (More excerpts are at the same NPR link as the interview.)
Damn. Who knew I had a publishable book sitting in my desk drawer all these years? Sartor is a couple of years older than me, but I too -- as faithful Mantelpiece readers know -- kept a minimalist diary around roughly the same time. So in honor of this publishing event, it's time for another On This Date in History -- Twofer Edition!
Sunday, July 15, 1973 [age 11]
We saw the movie Man of La Mancha today. We all liked it. The reviews I read didn't praise it too much but I liked it. It was a musical.
It was rainy and dull today except for the movie.
Monday, July 15, 1974 {age 12]
We celebrated Dad's birthday today. I gave him the book August 1914. M. gave him the Harvard Lampoon [I meant National Lampoon] yearbook parody, the girls gave him a shirt. Mommy gave him alpine shorts and two china coffee cups. We had a lazy daisy cake.*
I finished The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. It was a good book but I'm glad to get it out of the way.**
____________
* A standby from my mother's recipe card box. I still make it.
Billy's Mother's Lazy Daisy Cake
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1 tblsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
Topping:
5 tblsp brown sugar
3 tblsp cream [I've substituted milk]
3 tblsp butter
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Beat eggs. Add sugar gradually. Beat until fluffy. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together. Add to egg mixture. Beat thoroughly. Heat milk and butter to boiling point. Add to butter. Add vanilla. Beat slightly. Pour into greased 8x8 cake pan. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) about 30 minutes. When done, spread immediately with topping and place under broiler until browned. Topping: Mix ingredients and heat just enough so it is of the right consistency to spread.
____________
** The school I went to had a summer reading list. We were required to read some excellent books (I really did like this one), but it was always an onerous chore to get through them all and, as was usually required as well, keep a journal on them. The second sentence of my "review" would make a funny book-jacket blurb, wouldn't it?
Damn. Who knew I had a publishable book sitting in my desk drawer all these years? Sartor is a couple of years older than me, but I too -- as faithful Mantelpiece readers know -- kept a minimalist diary around roughly the same time. So in honor of this publishing event, it's time for another On This Date in History -- Twofer Edition!
Sunday, July 15, 1973 [age 11]
We saw the movie Man of La Mancha today. We all liked it. The reviews I read didn't praise it too much but I liked it. It was a musical.
It was rainy and dull today except for the movie.
Monday, July 15, 1974 {age 12]
We celebrated Dad's birthday today. I gave him the book August 1914. M. gave him the Harvard Lampoon [I meant National Lampoon] yearbook parody, the girls gave him a shirt. Mommy gave him alpine shorts and two china coffee cups. We had a lazy daisy cake.*
I finished The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. It was a good book but I'm glad to get it out of the way.**
____________
* A standby from my mother's recipe card box. I still make it.
Billy's Mother's Lazy Daisy Cake
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1 tblsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
Topping:
5 tblsp brown sugar
3 tblsp cream [I've substituted milk]
3 tblsp butter
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Beat eggs. Add sugar gradually. Beat until fluffy. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together. Add to egg mixture. Beat thoroughly. Heat milk and butter to boiling point. Add to butter. Add vanilla. Beat slightly. Pour into greased 8x8 cake pan. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) about 30 minutes. When done, spread immediately with topping and place under broiler until browned. Topping: Mix ingredients and heat just enough so it is of the right consistency to spread.
____________
** The school I went to had a summer reading list. We were required to read some excellent books (I really did like this one), but it was always an onerous chore to get through them all and, as was usually required as well, keep a journal on them. The second sentence of my "review" would make a funny book-jacket blurb, wouldn't it?
posted by Billy at 10:30 PM
6 Comments:
mmm cake.
i heard that interview. pretty funny.
I didn't hear the interview but I read a glowing review of her book, more as a cultural artifact than for lyricism or insight. Bob Greene also published his high school diary from his days in Bexley, Ohio, home of the factory where people sent baby shoes to be bronzed.
I like your diary entries. I hope you post some more. With recipes.
Summer reading lists--i am so glad I was forced to read them, Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native
is the only book I did not finish--I used Cliff notes..just could not get into it...too much standing around in a field....or rather a "vast tract of unenclosed wild," I still have the book and the intention to read it some day.
Maybe Lazy Daisy Cake could enhance a "vast tract of unenclosed wild"
i loved the cake recipe and have added it to my list on my computer.
i've never read that particular book, but i have to say that your review was sort of damning in it's faint praise.
DW, did you see the footnote about that? I kind of commented on the faint-praise-sounding aspect.
It's a great book -- really, it will break your heart. I've never forgotten it. But it was one of like a dozen I had to get through that summer
I spend too much time with Diablo. The first thing I thought to write was "mmm cake."
And, he'd beaten me to it. GAH!
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