Baldur

The only canned vegetable purchased for Chez Baldur are beans and tomatoes. Generally chickpeas, kidney beans, cannellini beans and occasionally others like black or navy beans.
I use large cans of crushed tomatoes, tomato puree, stewed tomatoes and always have at least a few tomato paste on the shelf.

Baldur loves canned fruit, especially cling peaches but rarely buys them.
Something inside just won't let me spend $1.39 for a can of peaches. That is highway robbery.

Baldur

I love Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, but always prefer the creamier baked homemade version. The blue box gets served occasionally but probably only 3 times a year

Once in a great while when no one is watching Baldur will have a can of Spaghettios for dinner, I heat it up in a sauce pan and then dump it in a small strainer and drain off about 1/2 cup of liquid. They make it far too wet.
It wasn't always like this, Baldur doesn't remember it looking like soup when I ate it as a kid.

sheftali52

lol Baldur about the Kraft mac and cheese and Spaghetti o's. Sheftali hates to admit it, but she sometimes sneaks a piece of Spam into her sushi--something about growing up in Hawaii. Folks in Hawaii just LOVE spam, or did when I was a kid growing up there.

Baldur

Baldur got a book today in the mail.
It is big glossy hardcover museum catalogue on an exhibit of the works of William Morris at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Heavens this is delightful.
My favorite magazine, American Bungalow, has an online bookstore full of such treasures, Sadly they have decided to liquidate their offerings.
This is really a shame as they have the most wonderful books.
However everything was greatly discounted and Baldur was quite happy to aquire this volume for his library at a tremendously reduced rate.
Were I gainfully employed perhaps there would have been several other books in this shipment as well.

Baldur

I first bought Spam for Robert on a hunch, he had never mentioned liking it.
What I do is to slice the whole piece into 8s. Then I serve two slices right away and wrap the rest up in 3 small bundles and freeze them.
This way he doesn't get tired of it.
My hunch was correct, he is rather fond of it.

sheftali52

So Robert and Sheftali are Spam eaters! I know it must be horrible stuff, but it can taste good when jazzed up a little. However, no matter what you do to Spam, I doubt you can coax any umami out of it--lol.

Baldur

All you get there is salty.

Back in the day, and Baldur is speaking of the early 1980s I hosted what was promoted as a 'tacky' dinner party in his first apartment. The 6 guests were told to dress tackily and bring horrifying but edible food.

What a scenario ensued.

Baldur

The women all wore mismatched polyesther clothing that was too tight and wore too much makeup and gaudy jewelry.
Baldur wore several different plaids at the same time. For the men plaid seemed to be the way to go.

Baldur

Baldur made cream of Spam soup and was it ever ugly.
Basically it was a very smooth cream of potato soup tinted a horrid pink.
There were small cubes of Spam stirred into it for texture and excitement.

Mary from Connecticut brought cheese & crackers on a very elegant silver tray. The doily was hysterical as it was a Xerox copy of a paper doily roughly cut out and laid on the tray. Then she artfully arranged Saltine crackers around and aerosol can of Cheez Whiz.

Frank was the star of the show, he must have cooked all week.
He made a Mount Saint Helens Meatloaf, this was a mountain shaped blob of hamburger with a flaming can of Sterno fitted into the apex.
He adorned the slopes with little broccoli floret trees and little canape sized hot dogs with screaming faces painted on each one with food coloring.

Then he made a green Mold with Gummi fish and Gummi Worms floating in it.

As the crowning touch he filled a shallow aluminum pan halfway with granola and little nuggets of homemade fudge. The fudge was rolled in the crumbs and he called it 'Litter Box Delight'

Baldur

I provided an ample assorted of the cheapest wines.
For 99c you could buy a bottle of Ripple, or Annie Green Springs back then.
So Baldur bought a selection of different ones and had a supply of paper cups to serve them in.

sheftali52

omg--what a hoot to hear about the "tacky' dinner party. And cream of Spam soup--that's the funniest thing I've heard of.

marius

All I can say (nodding off towards dreamland) is that the story of the Mt. Saint Helen's entree made me laugh like Precious the cartoon dog.

Remember him? It's kind of an in-the-nose-giggle, cracking up ... LOL ... waay too funny story, Baldur. Goodnight! And thanks...... I think....sides aching.....

Baldur

Paul brought Canapes, which was a tray with a half dozen open small cans of peas upon it, each was provided with it's own plastic spoon.

Baldur

goodnight marius.

Stephen from New Jersey bought a stack of McDonald's Cheeseburgers, cut them into wedges and stuck a frilly toothpick in each piece.
We scavenged in all of our homes for an assortment of paper plates, cups and napkins and mixed them all.
So it was an assortment of every different holiday motif with birthdays and even some things with fast food logos.

Baldur

I had 2 small radios set on different stations playing at the same time, though mercifully on the quiet side, plus we had the turntable set up and played dreadful records all evening

Baldur

and -d =an

sheftali52

Parties at Chez Baldur are nothing short of unusual and fun--love it!

Baldur

Well actually this was the Fabulous Baldur Penthouse.
It was glorious in it's day.
This was a dirt cheap apartment on the top floor of a tenement building in a bad neighborhood. Once it had been a rather nice area but had fallen on hard times and was long since no longer fashionable.
When it was renovated a bit the older architectural details and the hardwood floors were amazing

sheftali52

Actually the Fabulous Baldur Penthouse could also have been a precursor of Chez Baldur, for Sheftali contends the Chez Baldur is a state of mind as well as an actual place.

Baldur

Certain aspects were slight of had decorating at it's best.
The kitchen had a nasty unsalvageable wood floor. My rent was an amazing $65 per month (even in 1982 it should have been 4 times that amount) so the landlords weren't about to upgrade anything.
After painting every biy of woodwork off-white Baldur went and gave the kitchen floor several coats of glossy jet back enamel. It was incredible looking but needed to be touched up frequently, I didn't mind.
One day I was bored and cut a rubber stamps in the shape of stars from some Art Gum erasers and stamped a starry sky onto the floor.