Monday, August 08, 2005

and everywhere that margrocks went, a diet book was sure to follow.


i wonder if she has to pee.
















as i was walking back from the post office on saturday, i happened to pass a thrift store that had a couple of tables outside the store, heaving with boxes of books.

Mecca!

Medina!

Mount Saint Michel!

i cannot, try though i might, pass by any BOOKS FOR SALE sign without stopping to rifle through them. even if it's just to run my fingers over their dusty spines. you never know when the Thrift Store Goddess will choose to sprinkle your noggin with a little luck and direct your fingers to the "right" bin, the "right" book.

and so She did on saturday, God bless her.

my fingers alighted upon this little Knox Gelatine Modern Gel-Cookery (eww) Silhouette Recipes (copyright 1960) pamphlet between a couple of dusty 'n' lusty romance novels. you know the cover art - inflated breasts pressed against inflated pecs, rippling hair flowing in the wind, lips moist with passion. her female body round and fecund, bursting with vitality, wild - uncontained, uninhibited. you get the feeling she may have just devoured a healthy slab of steak au poivre and a bowl of fresh peaches drowning in heavy cream and honey.

and then...this.

scary Silhouette lady. strapped in. contained. cinched waist. pursed lips. boobs lifted and sculpted to resemble torpedoes. and, of course, she's not smiling. how could she be? she lives off of a diet of tomato aspic and jellied meat salad. hurl. (jellos should not, as a rule, be savory. nothing that is shiny and wiggles should ever taste like chicken. i don't care what the ladies who lunch say.)

it includes recipes for Cucumber and Grapefruit Mold, Tuna Fish Mold, and the piece de resistance - Silhouette Salad which counts 1 (10 1/2 oz.) can condensed cream of chicken or mushroom soup as one of its ingredients. no wonder they lost weight. vomiting will do that. nowadays we call it bulimia.


feast your eyes upon silhouette salad - yummy to your tummy!

not unlike many of the diet books today, it promises:

Eating for FUN While Keeping the Waistline Trim

If you like good food, here are some secrets that make eating more fun --and also make weight-control far easier.

Modern Gel-Cookery Silhouette desserts salads and main dishes give you light, non-filling textures.

And fresh, real flavors.

They are good, wholesome eating.

Completely satisfying to the whole family.


i just found this little book fascinating...and alternately, nauseating. i guess we all know that there have been quick fix 'diet plans' since, what seems like, the beginning of time, but it was interesting to see how things have changed...and of course, how they haven't.

protein drink, anyone?

barf bag standing by.


As a hot drink: sprinkle 1 envelope Knox Unflavored
Gelatine on 1/4 cup cold water to soften, Add
1 bouillon cube and 3/4 cup boiling water. Stir
until gelatine and bouillon cube are thoroughly
dissolved.

2 comments:

Karima said...

mmmm....jello

Anonymous said...

from now on, when i get hungry, i'll just look at that silhouette salad. that's just wrong on so many levels....