On June 10th, a group of approximately 60 people (mostly women, with a few men scattered among them – most likely similar to the ratio of women and men who frequented tea rooms!) gathered in Luther Hall to hear me speak as part of the Taft Museum of Art’s public programs. I spoke about what downtown used to be like and provided brief histories of the department stores and tea rooms. It was fun to hear comments buzz through the audience when new images appeared on the screen: “Oh look, I remember that!”
Following the presentation, Chef Luke delighted everyone’s palates with cucumber sandwiches, and other sandwiches topped with pimento cheese spread, as well as egg salad with olives; a pineapple Waldorf salad; and bread pudding topped with warm whiskey sauce. All of these items disappeared very quickly!
It was fascinating to hear from the Executive Chef that he’d found the recipes to be interesting in that there were some definite differences in both ingredients and their ratio amounts compared to current recipe trends. He said he couldn’t remember a recipe that called for celery seeds, and he found the amount of milk to bread in the bread pudding recipe was unusual by modern standards. Regardless of those “oddities”, everything was delicious!
I received a very nice note and some photos from Ellen Stedtefeld, the Manager of Adult Programs, part of which is below:
“Thank you for your wonderful talk! Our members loved it! We had numerous enthusiastic responses to our survey evaluating the event and one comment which I have to share: ‘It’s incredible to have such a great time especially at my age.’ Thank you for offering such a fun afternoon!”
It was a full house!
Ellen took this photo thinking it was really sweet that this lady wanted to have her picture taken with me.
This woman shared a story with me about how her family knew Elizabeth Kelly, one of my contributors who was one of the cooks in Shillito’s kitchen.