From Soap to Nuts

I often shop in thrift stores; you never know what treasures you'll find there. Most stores have a glass case at the cash register where especially valuable or fragile items are stored. This usually consists of dollar store figurines, gaudy costume jewelry, and out-dated computer software. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a genuinely valuable item in the case at the local Salvation Army: a mint-in-box Mr. Peanut Avon soap set! At just two dollars I couldn't resist adding it to my Mr. Peanut collection.

Here's the lime-green box with Mr. Peanut on one side and non-anthropomorphic peanuts on the other:


The top - Avon Nutty Soap Dish:

And the back with the carefully packed soap:

The soaps themselves, nestled in their plastic peanut shell dish:

This soap dates from 1975, the height of the 70s novelty soap craze. First came soap-on-a-rope, then all kinds of strangely shaped soaps followed - I even had a box of Soapaghetti! Truthfully, the soap and dish are a little disappointing. The soaps are very realistically shaped, but they don't smell like peanuts, just a generic pleasant soap scent. The plastic dish can be used for serving real peanuts, as the inside lid flap suggests, but there's no trace of Mr. Peanut on the soaps or dish. Still, a very good find!

Recipe for Success

I recently got a baggie of old recipe booklets and clippings at a flea market that had a few great food with eyes finds inside:

This little pamphlet, "How to put Variety in your Milk Beverages" was produced by Carnation Evaporated Milk. Variety would be a sun bathing orange and an Eskimo pineapple complete with snowshoes and igloo. Kind of a Heat Miser and Snow Miser in fruit form.



This low-budget cook booklet was produced by the New York State Department of Agriculture to extol the many virtues of eggs. Not only are they incredible and edible, but they are also economical, plentiful, rich in Vitamin D, combine well with other foods, etc., etc.


A close-up of the top illustration:

And the bottom:

The rich egg doesn't look very happy about it.


This newspaper clipping recipe for creamed vegetable soup must be from the World War II years as it mentions using veggies from your Victory Garden (and provides a bit of trivia about tongue).

The veggies and milk bottle all look so friendly, but that cauldron is really terrifying!