Famous Eating Places (PART TWO)

Another near dozen perfect dishes served up from The Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places (see part one HERE for more images and info!) The focus of course is on the art, and yes indeed these are incredibly fun illustrations with a nice range of loose, playful styles and lovely design and painting-- they really make these restaurants look like "must see, eat, and drink" destinations for our lucky folks back in the 50's! I'll pull this collection out again next month and we'll take an even more colorful look at the fully painted entries in this book, they're just as spectacular :) Oh, one other thing: I'll be really surprised, possibly even upset, if no one mentions the teeny drum set with the wagon trains on it!

Famous Eating Places (PART ONE)

Illustrative highlights from The Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places, (1950), as compiled by Nancy Kennedy, with super great art direction from Arthur Lougee, as he assembles a jaw dropping team of incredible artists to make each and every page a stunningly visual winner! Some of the art is credited, some isn't, and there's over 240 pages of recommended restaurant spotlights including their most popular and "famous" recipes-- but let's just take a look at some of my favorite art, shall we? I'll have more in the next post too-- stay with us!

























MORE IN OUR NEXT POST HERE!

Strange ESP

A few years back (HERE) I posted some creepy cover illustrations from a late 60's Popular Library paperback series pertaining to strange encounters with the supernatural and the unknown! Well, strangely enough, I've found another one, and just as before I've scanned the itty bitty (uncredited) cover images up 400% so we can all really get an eerie eyeful! The book itself ain't too bad either, incredible but "true" documented case histories of people with perplexing powers of the mind-- powers that go beyond the already weird ass world we know and into another sphere altogether-- the sphere of ESP: People that can exist in two places at once, people that communicate with the dead, people that create matter out of nothingness, etc... And just as in my previous "Strange" post from two years ago, when on that fateful day I gazed into my crystal computer screen and knew with absolute certainty that I would be creating this very post for you all today-- yes my friends, stories of those that can see into the freaky deaky future!

Behold! Karswell (not Criswell) hath spokenth!

Salt & Pepper Bunny Baskets

I haven't been doing so hot lately with the holiday themed posts, have I? Yeah, I definitely blew it at xmas, New Years Eve I was a total no-show... and then Valentine's Day came and went and I didn't even mention it or post a single cute Valentines card! Hell, even the stores have turned their backs on cupid at this point and slashed candy hearts and stuffed animal prices 90%-- they've even begun unleashing the fuzzy pastel Easter junk already-- AIEEEEE! Well, I'm not one to be beat to the rabbit punch by no gun-jumpin' Walgreens, no sir! See, instead I'm gonna post these pix of my newly acquired Bunny Basket Salt & Pepper Shakers (late 50's, by Holt) which are incredibly adorable ceramic wabbits with shifty eyes and cork stopper bottoms, and lil wicker baskets for to stay snug as a bun in an oven in! And it's sort of somewhat questionably Easter themed, yes? I do so hope this goddamn post starts to make sense, *sigh* Anyway, this is my $3 find of the week...

Arctic Cooler

Recently picked up a vintage Spring / Summer '64 catalog for the True Value Hardware stores (more from it coming up too), but first things first, I wanted to share this ad for the molded foam, solid plastic insulated "Arctic" Cooler, --plus its smaller variations, the Cub Cooler and Picnic Jug. I had completely forgotten about these wonderfully designed, colorfully dotted containers, but seeing them again seriously sent me reeling back in time, because... well... being the evil older brother that I was in the mid 70's, I remember telling my innocent lil sister that these coolers were actually made out of delicious Certs mints, and I dared her to take a bite out of one. And she tried-- and almost succeeded! And needless to say my parents were't too happy about it and I got into big bad trouble. Memories.

Old Hickory Smokehouse Eggs Carton

I recently found this wonderful vintage Old Hickory Smokehouse Eggs carton (50's?) at an antique mall, and just look at all the great design and incredibly cute artwork / photography. To my dying day I will never understand why packaging like this was simply so much fun at one time, while these days most packagers seem to be happy just settling for a more complicatedly bland and boring appearance.



Let's take a closer look, shall we...

Fun With Mind Reading + Riddles!

Some super fun pages with great illustrations from the Jan. '65 issue of Children's Digest #144.

70's Super Sugar Crisp Commercial Animation Cel

Received an amazing gift this week: a vintage 70's Super Sugar Crisp cereal animation cel, featuring not only my favorite breakfast food mascot ever (Sugar Bear), but also a rad robot! This 4 layer combo of hand painted awesomeness is from a commercial that I have unfortunately not been able to find on youtube-- if someone else knows another place to search for it online, please let me know! I've photographed all 4 levels of it assembled in order below, because it's a little larger than my scanner. Condition is a bit rough in places because of its age, typically, but man it's such an incredible piece, and I love all the stuff on the table-- especially the cereal box! Super sugar thanks again to my equally cereal obsessed partner in crime for the extra sweetness this week! 💖

Travel Posters

In a time when travel bans should be remembered as ancient history (or even as science fiction), let's take a gander at a few travel posters with "REAL" reasons why we wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't travel to certain places around the globe. And this my friends, is about as political as you're ever going to see me get around here!

From the Feb-March 1955 issue of Panic #7, art by Joe Orlando.