The new trailer for the upcoming remake of the Great Gatsby was just released. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jay Gatsby. Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan are playing Nick and Daisy.
The movie doesn’t come out until late December, so we have a long way to go yet, but it will be fun to follow the progress of the film from now ’til then. This version was directed by Baz Luhrman, which means it comes with a lot of pomp and circumstance and big stage dramatics. Ms. Jeannie can’t wait!
Hopefully my dears, you had the chance to watch the Preakness on Saturday.
It was nail biting all the way down to end, when I’ll Have Another won literally by a nose or a neck, depending on your vantage point! How exciting to watch him barrel down the last quarter stretch neck and neck with Bodemeister, only to summon that very last bit of “umph” to guarantee himself the winner of the Preakness!
It was cute to watch him saunter around the track afterwards like it was no big deal. Just another day of racing!
If you missed it, here’s the race in full…
I’ll Have Another’s jockey, Mario Gutierez sang the praises of his talented partner. Here’s what he said:
“This is not about me. We talked about it with Mr. Reddam and Mr. O’Neill. We wanted to be a little bit closer to Bodemeister this time because normally that horse runs a huge race. My horse has a tremendous kick in the end. He has been proving that in the last three races. He didn’t disappoint again today.”
“I want to put the pressure a little bit on the side because the credit he earned all this. He has proven a lot of people wrong. I just have to prepare because I want to be at the same level as him. He’s an amazing horse.”
Such a humble pair those to are! And now it is on to the Belmont. If I’ll Have Another wins the Triple Crown, he will be the first horse since Affirmed in 1978 to hold that honor, proving how rare and spectacular an athlete all the Triple Crown horse winners really are.
Last night Ms. Jeannie had a craving for a little dessert. So she pulled out her recipe books and flipped through the pages to see what jumped out at her. As luck would have it, she discovered she had all the ingredients on hand to make Whoopie Pies, one of Mr. Jeannie Ology’s favorites.
If you’ve never had a Whoopie Pie, it is kind of like a cross between a homemade oreo cookie, an ice cream sandwich and cake. Here’s a picture of one from Ms. Jeannie’s batch…
It is essentially a whipped peanut butter cream filling sandwiched between two chocolate cake mounds. You can use all sorts of different types of filling (sweet cream, mint, maple cream, etc) but Mr. Jeannie Ology is such a nut for peanut butter, she decided to surprise him with a little sweet treat.
Originally made famous by the Pennsylvania Dutch, Ms. Jeannie first learned of whoopie pies when she visited Amish Country in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania years ago.
While flipping through Martha Stewart Living magazine some years later, Ms. Jeannie came across the recipe. So that’s the one she uses. You’ll find that version of the recipe listed at the bottom of this blog post.
Sources trace the first whoopie pie back to the early 1920’s. Named from the sheer delight of discovering such a treat, eaters of the delicious dessert often said “whoopie” when they were offered one to enjoy.
Both Maine and Pennsylvania are the state leaders when it comes to the commercial production of the whoopie pie. Maine loves them so much they are considered the official state treat.
Labadie’s Bakery in Maine has been making whoopie pies in the same location since 1925!
And every September in Pennsylvania, in the heart of Amish Country, occurs the Whoopie Pie Festival, where people participate in all sorts of challenging feats like the whoopie pie treasure hunt, the whoopie long shot, whoopie checkers, whoopie yell off, whoopie pie eating contest and more!
It’s an easy dessert to make and a fun project for little ones., since they can help spread the filling and make the “sandwiches”. Etsy has all the equipment you need to make your own batch of wonderfully delicious whoopie pies. All you need are the following…
Two mixing bowls:
One hand held mixer or stand alone electric mixer (this one comes with both!)
One wire whisk:
One large baking tray:
One wire cooling rack:
One spatula:
Or for those that aren’t the baking sort, you can buy them already made in a variety of flavors!
From original…
to red velvet…
to vegan pumpkin cinnamon…
to lemon buttercream…
to tropical…
Either way, whether you decide to make them yourself or by them already prepared you are in for a sweet treat!
Here’s the recipe that Ms. Jeannie used. Many thanks to Martha Stewart for incorporating the peanut butter:)
Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies –
Makes 18 Cookie Sandwiches
Ingredients
BLOG UPDATE! A lovely reader wrote in to say that Maine has its own Whoopie Festival too! This year, the Maine Whoopie Pie Festival is held on June 23rd from 10:00am – 4:00pm in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine.
Like the Pennsylvania Whoopie Pie Festival, there is a bevy of themed activities, but one of the most creative is the Whoopie Pie Trail which takes you on a tour of several bakeries in the Dover-Foxcroft area. This sounds like one delicious way to spend an afternoon!
Oh my darlings, today is a celebratory day. Ms. Jeannie is pleased to announce that there has been a birth! A petite little beauty greeted the day. Here she is…
This was from the Botanical Interests Autumn Beauty seed packet, which all have red, orange or gold petals with brown centers. It’s supposed to reach heights of 5′ to 8′ feet tall but this little gem is only about 2.5′ feet tall. She must be an early bloomer:)
You can see her height best in this picture…
In the midst of all this excitement Ms. Jeannie did experience a little set-back this week. It appears some sort of war rampaged in the garden. Ms. Jeannie lost 3 of the troops…
Ms. Jeannie is not sure what happened. Her first guess was deer, thinking they bit it right off. Here’s another angle…
This is the second stalk that was tampered with…
And the third…
Whatever it was, deer, worm, bug…it didn’t eat the tops of the leaves. Ms. Jeannie found two in the dirt inside the beds and one in the grass next to the trough.
All the destruction occurred in the same section but not with stems right next to each other. It is a bit of a mystery as to what happened. Ms. Jeannie was a little ruffled at the scene. If a deer ate the sunflowers for nutrition, then fine, but just to bite it for no reason and then leave the tops to wither seems wasteful and unnecessary.
Ms. Jeannie is hoping that the stalks, which are still in hearty shape, might recover, and grow new leaves. So she will leave them be to see what happens.
She also consulted her handy dandy Bug Book that’s for sale in her Etsy shop…
In case it is a bug of destruction, they recommended spraying a solution of Dawn dish soap, water and rubbing alcohol on the sunflowers to create a sticky environment. So Ms. Jeannie sprayed all her garden with this and so far there has seemed to be no other damage.
If it is deer, that are eating the sunflowers, Ms. Jeannie is not quite sure what she will do yet. If you have any suggestions. Please let her know!
Ms. Jeannie’s neighbor has a lovable little dog named Belle who has taken, on her own accord, to come visiting Ms. Jeannie everyday.
Ms. Jeannie loves seeing her furry little face at the door in the morning, especially because Ms. Jeannie’s beloved border collie passed away this winter, and she has been dogless since.
Belle is a blue heeler, which means she is incredibly smart, just like Ms. Jeannie’s border collie was. She is a herder by nature, so Ms. Jeannie’s two cats now get a little more exercise than they did before!
Ms. Jeannie can’t help but wonder… was Belle brought into her life to help “heal” the sense of sadness Ms. Jeannie felt over losing her border collie? Ironies like this in life seem like lovely reminders that, perhaps, everything does happen for a reason!
Belle likes to lay in the sunshine next to Ms. Jeannie’s garden and keep her company while Ms. Jeannie weeds and putters about. Ms. Jeannie always keeps a couple dog treats in her pocket too – you know, in case Belle gets a little snacky.
Belle lives with two other dogs, both boys, so Ms. Jeannie thinks she likes to come over to get a little girl time in. Like a mini vacation layered in peanut butter.
Blue heelers, also known as a Australian Cattle Dogs were originally bred by homesteaders in the Australian outback. They needed a durable type of dog that could withstand harsh weather conditions and austere environments.
Their first attempt at creating such a bred was to cross the Smithfield collie with an Australian dingo to see if that would produce good durable offspring.
A typical Smithfield dog looks like this…
And an Australian dingo looks like this…
Unfortunately this match produced red pups that were a little overzealous in the biting department and wound up killing their herds instead of just rounding them up.
The next attempt was to cross a rough coated collie (the Lassie dogs!) with the dingo…
But this union just produced dogs that barked so much they stressed the cattle to the point where cows were losing weight instead of gaining weight.
In 1840, Englishman Thomas Hall bred a blue smooth coated collie with a dingo and deemed it a success, naming his breed Hall’s Heelers.
But brothers Jack & Harry Bagust thought that they could still improve upon the Thomas Hall’s creation, so they bred a Hall’s Heeler with a dalmation.
This turned out not to be quite the right mix either, as the dalamtion/heeler mix lacked a level of skillmanship that the original breeds had. So next they bred a Heeler with a Kelpie …
A little more breeding with dingos produced the blue heeler and the red heeler we see today.
Ms. Jeannie suspects Belle might contain a little Welsh Corgi also. They have similiar markings and a long body shape, and while Belle is taller then a typical Corgi – Ms. Jeannie thinks their faces are similiar. What do you think?
All in all, at the end of the day, Belle’s genealogy looks a lot like Ms. Jeannie’s, a little bit of everything from here and there!
Blue Heelers have there own presence on Etsy too. The following are some of Ms. Jeannie’s favorites. Click on each picture to find more Heeler themed items from each artists shop!
We have a bud, ladies and gentlemen! That’s right – one sunflower bud is on it’s way to flowering!
Funny enough, this is one of the little guys that sprouted long after the others. It’s only 14″inches tall while most of all the other sunflowers are now 3″ feet tall.
Do you remember Ms. Jeannie’s other garden patch project? The one that involved the hard to make, impractical but so so beautiful twig fencing? Well, Ms Jeannie discovered that yes indeed – it is definietly hard to make a twig fence. Hats off to all of you that have the paitence to muddle through such construction.
Ms. Jeannie fears that she is a tad short in that department!
After what seemed like a thousand trips into the woods to find perfectly straight, not too big, not too little sticks, Ms. Jeannie discovered that she had only gathered enough to build about 1/16th of her fencing. Goodness gracious!
So the fencing plan was modified just a smidge.
Ms. Jeannie wrapped her garden in 1″inch strips of hardwood and heavy duty steel wire instead. It is still impractical and won’t keep any sort of small critter out, but Ms. Jeannie loves it’s rustic look! The twigs were re-purposed as a little decorative barrier at the front and back of the garden.
Ms. Jeannie clipped some wild thistle and hung it at the entrance for a little early color. Mr. Jeannie Ology found a buzzard feather that same day, so added to the bouquet it was!
The vegetables and herbs don’t seem to mind that the fence is sort of quirky. They just keep growing anyway! Both tomato plants are already flowering!
Ms. Jeannie also had to make some amendments to the garden after a cutting worm or two came to enjoy some sprout salad. Ms. Jeannie has filled in the bare patches with cosmos flower seeds and peas around the garden edge.
Besides the bin of three feet tall sunflowers, Ms. Jeannie also has two other water troughs full of sunflowers. They were planted a couple of weeks later then the initial batch of sunflowers to help stagger the bloom time, so they are just getting their soil legs now, so to say. This morning they were just peeking over the rims of the troughs.
After learning so much about the starlings, Ms. Jeannie is on the watch for other birds in her garden. She’s delighted to find that a woodpecker now comes to visit every morning! He sure is a handsome thing…
A family of european singers has moved in with Ms. Jeannie!
Tucked into the side porch – they chose to reside in a rotted out hole on the underside of the roof eave. Ms. Jeannie didn’t even know there was a vacancy there until she heard these vocalists warming up one morning. It started with two of them, but soon after came three babies chirp, chirp, chirping.
All black with bright yellow beaks and iridescent feathers, Ms. Jeannie identified these singers as European starlings with her handy bird book.
They are one of the most common birds found in the US, with over 200 million of them occupying all 50 states.
Interestingly enough, starlings were first introduced to America by Eugene Scheifflin in 1890. Eugene, a lover of all things Shakespeare, wanted to bring all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays to America. The starling is mentioned in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1:
“I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but ‘Mortimer,’ and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion. “
Eugene released all the birds in Central Park in 1890, but only the starlings survived. Wondrously 30 pairs of starlings turned into 200 million just a hundred years later. Simply amazing!
If you want to read more about Eugene, a great book about his life and membership with the American Acclimatization Society is detailed in Tinkering With Eden: A Natural History of Exotic Species in America by Kim Todd.
A fascinating documentary was also done by Penny Lane about Eugene and his flight of fancy, called The Commoners. Here’s a clip from youtube…
Some people think that starlings are irritating because they are so vocal and can mimic many different types of birds. But Ms. Jeannie loves her new roommates. They can be destructive in the garden- pulling up newly planted seeds, but luckily Ms. Jeannie’s garden has remained untampered with so far.
The average lifespan of a european starling is 5-7 years but the oldest one on record in the US was 15 years old and in the UK, 22 years old. In general, they can lay up to 10 eggs a year. The babies get kicked out of the nest when the mom deems it appropriate so that they can learn to fly, forage and protect themselves on the ground for up to 5 days before they fly off.
Both parents teach the babies how to survive during this time. Not all babies make it though. Since they can’t fly yet when they are kicked out of the nest they become vulnerable to the initial fall, predators like snakes, house cats, etc or they succumb to dehydration or malnurishment. It is definitely tough to be a baby bird. Knowing this information now, it seems EXTRAordinary that birds ever even make it to adulthood.
Once starlings reach maturity, they are acrobatic flyers, reaching speeds up to 48 miles an hour. They can be aggressively territorial and dive bomb other birds if they feel threatened.
Male starlings choose the nesting sites and then go in search of a mate. The male starlings are also the primary nest builders, but the females like to come in at the end of construction and look the nest over before settling in. The females will even remove certain types of nesting materials if they don’t suit!
The poet, Mary Oliver, wrote this beautiful poem called Starlings in Winter…
Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly
they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,
dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,
then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine
how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,
this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.
Ms. Jeannie found some gorgeous starling art on Etsy. Take a look…
Starlings are cavity nesters. If you want to attract some starlings in your yard, Twig & Timber offers several styles that starlings would love…
Or if you want to start identifying the birds in your yard, these items might be helpful…
If you have any starling pictures from your yard, send them in. Ms. Jeannie would love to see! Until then…happy birding!
In case you missed it last night, Ms. Jeannie is proud to say that one of her picks, I’ll Have Another, won the Kentucky Derby!
It was a fabulous race! And I’ll Have Another surprised them all by sailing past Bodemeister to win by 1 1/2 lengths.
Hansen (Ms. Jeannie’s first favorite) was high-strung from the beginning, perhaps burning too much energy in the line-up. He ran well staying betwen 3rd and 4th position the whole race until he he lost steam in the end and finished 9th.
Purchased for $11,000 at the yearling sale, Southern California based, I’ll Have Another earned $1.459 million for his win at the Derby. This is a first Derby win for Mexico born jockey, Mario Gutierrez, who learned how to ride horses from his father, also a jockey.
Now it’s on to Pimlico Racetrack in Maryland for the second phase of the triple crown. Ms. Jeannie hopes that I’ll Have Another, really will have another win in Maryland – it would be exciting to see! There hasn’t been a triple crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.
Stay tuned – the next race is just two weeks away!
Well my dears, in what surely must be some sort of record, the sunflowers have grown an amazing 11 inches since our last garden update 14 days ago.
That’s about 3/4 of an inch per day!
How exciting! Ms. Jeannie’s not trying to rush the days – but she can’t wait until they flower:)
Just to refresh- the target bloom date is Ms. Jeannie’s birthday – June 16th. A month and a half away. If they continue on this growing rate they will be about 55″ inches tall in mid-June, which would put that at about 4.5′ feet tall.
According to the seed packet, this Moulin Rouge variety of red sunflower reaches an average height of 6′ feet tall, so we don’t quite know yet if Ms. Jeannie will have that birthday bouquet or not. Oh the garden suspense!
Magic surrounds a diner. Ms. Jeannie has always said this. Any diner. It doesn’t matter where it is located, who runs it, how its decorated, or what they serve. There is something about sliding into a leather booth, ordering breakfast at midnight and not being hurried along that does wonders for a soul.
When Ms. Jeannie lived in New York, Sundays were the designated diner days. First she started going with her parents, her brother, her sisters when she was small to the local diner just up the street from their house. Coloring books in hand, endless stacks of pancakes and hours later, a leisurely family breakfast was had. And nobody had to fight about whose turn it was to wash dishes at the end! Perfect, said Ms. Jeannie at 5!
As Ms. Jeannie grew, she carried on dinering with her friends, then her roommates, then boyfriends and then ultimately, the best diner date of all, her handsome husband.
Everything under the moon was discussed at the diner. Friendships were forged over steaming stacks of homestyle potatoes. Politics defended over pancakes. Boys dissected over burgers. Life marked important over pie.
Or not. Sometimes, nothing was said at the diner. Sometimes you just got lost for sleepy hours in the comfortable company of the New York Times, and a crossword puzzle or two or three. That’s where the magic comes in. Conversation, spoken or unspoken was always cathartic, always interesting.
Now that Ms. Jeannie lives far far away from any diners, she has had to be a tad more creative in order to get her diner fix. So when Ms. Jeannie stumbled upon Jana, the shop owner of Luncheonette Vintage, Ms. Jeannie knew she had found her next diner date.
As you’ll read, Jana’s roots are steeped in diner mentality. She’s fascinating and thoughtful and has interesting things to say about a range of topics. So grab a cup of coffee, take a seat and slip into the world of all things vintage…
Ms. Jeannie: Your shop personality is so fun and retro quirky, how did you land on the name Luncheonette Vintage?
Luncheonette Vintage: Thanks! There were a bunch of reasons. I wanted to combine all good stuff: food, deliciousness, vintage, and, well, friendly service in one term. Even the word, “luncheonette,” has such a vintage feel and really rolls off the tongue. But the name is also way to honor my grandparents: my grandmother worked at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Manhattan,
my grandfather was one of the legendary Hungarian waiters in the 1930s and 1940s (I bet you didn’t know there was a such a breed, but they were all smart, sophisticated, handsome, and very graceful with a tray). He worked at the original, famous Lindy’s.
My father was a hat check boy there and still remembers checking Rita Hayworth’s hat.
On the other side, my maternal grandmother was a legendary cook known for heaping plates of her phenomenal cooking in front of her guests, and then coming out with even more. Food is a big deal in my family.
I’ve had so many waitressing and cooking jobs over the years — it’s so common among writers (my other hat). That hustle bustle, serve-it-up with a smile and make people happy stays with me. Sometimes I dream of having a whole empire based on the theme: a men’s vintage shop called Grill Cook, a vintage bookshop called Cook’s Secret Life, but in the end I like the varied, endless menu of my Luncheonette.
MJ: You live in scenic upstate New York, how much do you do think location affects the items represented in your shop?
LV: That’s a great question. I live in the Catskills in a very rural area filled with woods and farms and tons of history. It’s a tangible history: old farmhouses, cabins and barns, old stone walls, old middens you’ll find while hiking that are filled with trash from 100 years ago.
People are thrifty here: they do not throw things away until there is absolutely no use for them, or until the house is changing hands after decades. So you can find amazing treasures at yard sales. I love old hunting and fishing gear and old cabin furnishings, old dishes, mason jars (you don’t even want to know how many I’ve got here — I’ve got to get them listed!). And old linens: in the old days women around here prided themselves on handiwork, and I’m always amazed by their embroidery and crocheting. The other day I can across a garbage bag filled with hand embroidered linens, including notes from a mother to her daughter, written in 1876, on how to work certain stitches. “Stay small,” the mother wrote. “It may be a temptation to stitch large but it is always a mistake.” I love that.
MJ: At what point in life did you realize you were destined to become a collector?
LV: I was born into it. It’s in my DNA. My father is a photographer and a writer who has collected cameras and books since he was a child, my mother (a really, really talented painter) collected art books and loved Danish modern. My first obsession was horses, and I accumulated a mythical horse farm in my room, populated by dozens of Breyer horses. Whenever I see a Breyer horse from those days my childhood comes flooding back.
MJ: Why do you think people are lured towards vintage items?
LV: So many reasons. I always say, Go green, eat vintage! But it’s true: buying, wearing and using vintage is a great antidote to our very disposable society, a small way to stop wreaking havoc on the earth. Imagine if instead of running to UO or H&M for yet another cheap T-shirt made by third-world kids with toxic dyes and textiles that will never break down, we all just reused and recycled?
And vintage is sometimes so much better made. Way before the concept of planned obsolescence (like, 10 years for a car), things were made to last. It drives me nuts to see cheap new stuff that is designed to look like great old stuff — until it winds up dumped in a landfill.
For style, vintage is so amazing. There’s a decade that will work for any body type, and the clothes just give you that slightly other sensibility.
You can rock a 1940s suit and take on a whole different persona. That goes for men as well as women. Think of Mad Men.
I also think that vintage items can be a very personal way of reconnecting with your own past. It’s different for everyone, but certain items can cause a rush of nostalgia and memory. My mother kept her paintbrushes in antique Dundee marmalade jars (she probably found them in a barn sale around here), and I’m always reminded of her when I see one.
I’ve had buyers tell me how happy they were to find that one old cookbook, for example, that they remember from childhood. This past Christmastime, a member of the Larkin family came to the shop and bought a Larkin family cookbook to give to her daughter. To have a physical, touchable way to connect to memories is lovely.
MJ: What is your most favorite item in your shop right now and why?
LV: I love it all. And I don’t just stock my shop with a chockablock mess of whatever is old. If I don’t like it, I don’t sell it. I’m not super big on chintz and I can’t stand sexist or racist kitsch. It may be kitschy and retro but it’s still and always offensive.
But my total favorite right this second is an 1850s ambrotype — a type of old, Civil Ware era photograph — of a very serious looking young woman, and I am fascinated by it.
Who was she? Was she a soldier’s wife? A widow? Was she pregnant? She looks it. Was she happy? Where did she live?
There’s a story there, an enigmatic sense of history. I find irresistible. It makes me kind of thirsty.
MJ: Is there one vintage item that you are striving to attain for your own collection?
LV: Since I collect vintage and antique everything, the easiest answer is everything. But I do gravitate towards very functional things that happen to look amazing. I have this thing for mason jars that I am going to have to get over, because I have about 200 of them, in all sizes, some going so far back they’re warped and warbled.
I am always looking for very old black and grey pearls, too. I love 1930s dresses and it’s a lifelong quest for that perfect one. And I have a thing for old stationery, old notebooks.
That might be genetic too, since my grandfather Charlie (the one who wasn’t a Lindy’s waiter) had an office furniture and stationery shop, Acme Paper. The family jokingly called him the Paperclip King.
MJ: What era do you most identify with or seem naturally drawn towards?
LV: That’s a funny question for me, because I am drawn to all of them. One of my college majors was history, and I was fascinated by American from about the industrial revolution to after World War II. You can see the nature of the time in objects.
I love the proportions of the 1950s, both the outsized, tailfin, atomic era craziness and that very clear form and function kind of modernism. When I was writing about World War 2 era industrial design (I cowrote a book called Great Inventions/Good Intentions for Chronicle Books), I realized that there was so much that went into the style of that time, so much hope, so much faith, this idea that design by itself can improve our lives. I am still moved by the sight of a Raymond Loewy pencil sharpener.
MJ: You also mention in your profile that you are sourced by production companies like Mad Men and Boardwalk empire. How exciting! Have you ever seen one of your items on either show?
LV: I wish! They buy tons of stuff and copy so much of it. But there was a gym scene on a Mad Men episode where I think I caught a glimpse of a bag I’d sold them. It was in the background, sitting on a bench. But it looked perfect and I was very proud.
MJ: If you could be the prop master for any tv or movie set, past or present, which would you choose?
LV: I think it would be super fun to be the prop master for Bonanza, the old TV series. I love those old Western saddles and clothes.
Or a Depression era movie. Those 1930s dresses, wow. Those men’s shoes. I could go on. But if I could just be a prop assistant on Downton Abbey for a season, oh my, that would be marvelous.
MJ: What one type of item is a consistent seller in your shop? What seems to be the slowest to sell?
LV: Anything military, like a WW2 jacket, flies out the store.
Cookbooks, especially old and illustrated, often fly off the shelves.
Some pieces of dinerware.
Clothing from the 1950s is gone in a fingersnap.
I just got in an amazing 50s daydress by a designer who was kind of the queen of the 50s daydress: Caroline Schnurer. It’s got an amazing neckline with a wraparound, attached scarf, that strapless bodice, a huge billowy skirt. I can’t wait to list it.
On the other hand I have this 1970s pantsuit that looks like a skinny dowager on acid that I can’t seem to get rid of. Sometimes things don’t sell because the photos just aren’t that appealing, too. I’ll reshoot something so freshen it up, and 9 times out of 10 it looks much better and someone finds it.
MJ: What are some of the challenges of being a vintage seller?
LV: If you are not an obsessive personality, who can sink into research for hours and drive all over the county and farther looking for vintage, then forget it. You need to be driven. And I am. So the biggest challenge for me is time management, because I can lose myself in a search, a sale, a library or online looking up information.
I recently had someone ask me if I could find her some old, white diner platters for her wedding, and I went at it like it was a search and rescue mission. Then realized I had an article due to a magazine in a week that I hadn’t even started. And last weekend I walked into a storage space filled with vintage clothing and the hours turned to minutes. But that is one of the joys of what I do. I get to immerse myself in days gone by.
Service: it’s a challenge, and an important one, to describe and measure things right, especially clothing and shoes. I’ve been buying and wearing vintage since I was about 10, and sometimes you don’t know how something is going to fit until you try it on. The idea of not being able to return something bought online — I just find that preposterous. I make it a point to not only take returns, but make it easy for the seller. Actually that’s probably one of the challenges of being a vintage buyer too. For shops that don’t take returns, you have to make sure and ask all the right questions.
MJ: On the organizational side, how do you inventory and/or store all of your items? Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your supply? Do you have any helpers that work behind the scenes in your shop?
LV: I have an encyclopedic and somewhat photographic memory, which helps. And I’m a Virgo, so I’m an obsessive list maker. I have a warehouse with labeled bins, a Z-rack (professional garment rack) with garment bags, and all sorts of boxes with categories. And I have an annex, which is right next to my studio, where a lot of the delicate stuff goes. Storing things carefully and safely is so important.
That ironstone platter that somehow survived for 100 years without a chip is an accident waiting to happen. And never jam vintage clothes on a rack: sometimes old dyes are unstable and will actually leach into another fabric. So each piece, ideally, needs space to breathe and hang. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, but I think of luncheonette’s inventory (and inventory that isn’t part of luncheonette) as a vast and everchanging, growing archive, and that helps. As do excel spreadsheets.
Helpers are great! I’ve had and have some wonderful helpers. I am really particular about how things are folded, packed, photographed, etc. — I’m a very demanding head cook. It has to be done right, but I’ve had a few people who really got it and I love working with them.
And I have some great sources for knowledge and wisdom: My Dad is a font of knowledge about mid century stuff, knows everything about old cameras, and has a great eye. I work with a few people who know antiques a lot better than I do, and I’m always asking questions of wiser folk.
I think I’ve pestered Chris, of the lovely etsy shop MissFarfalla, dozens of times.
She’s a genius when it comes to vintage clothing. She knows so much. Finally, my chickens help by supplying those pretty brown eggs I used in cookbook photos.
MJ: In a previous blog post, Ms. Jeannie mentioned that she would like to sit down to lunch with 20th century novelist, Kathleen Norris and contemporary writing phenom Stephenie Meyer. If you could luncheon with anybody, living or dead, Who would you choose?
LV: I live in an area that is so rich with writers that I have a great time at such lunches, and I’m lucky to be a part of that community already. But I’ve been feeling very nostalgic lately for my grandmothers, and I think if I could have lunch with anyone, it would be them.
Then, of course, my Mom, who I miss every second and is probably my biggest inspiration. We’d go to Serendipity 3 on East 60th street in Manhattan and have iced hot chocolate and Ftatateeta’s Toast.
But I would not turn down an invitation to lunch with Gertrude Stein.
We’d talk dog. I love dogs. Dogs and vintage and writing seem to work together quite well.
MJ: What is the name of your most favorite real-life diner, where is it located and what do you normally order?
LV: You can’t just have one favorite diner, can you? Here are four: Mom’s Open Kitchen in Lorain, Ohio; the luncheonette (I don’t know its name) on 83rd and Lexington in Manhattan; Dietz Stadium Diner here in Kingston; and the old, old Friendly’s in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, home of the best chocolate frappe ever.
MJ: You mentioned that you have written some short stories and are currently working on a novel. Can you share a little bit about the storyline? What authors inspire your writing? What book are you currently reading?
LV: That story collection, Russian Lover and Other Stories, came out in 2007.
I’m now working on a novel that takes place in the northern Catskills. It involves wolves and people who really care about animals, and interestingly there’s a character who works with vintage.
She stumbles into a community that is kind of wild and crazy and on the fringe, half wilderness and half internet, and some of them have really out there ideas about e-commerce that are slightly inspired by people I know.
I’m hoping to be done by September. I’m endlessly inspired by authors. It’s a really, really long list. But Flannery O Connor was an early influence, for sure. TC Boyle. Margaret Atwood. I’m currently reading a book about the photographer Disfarmer, by Julia Scully.
MJ: If you weren’t a writer or a vintage shop owner/collector, what would you be?
LV: Wow. I think I don’t know the answer to that. I am so much what I am. I might be have loved to work with horses, or if I had the talent, I would have loved to be a photographer. But I am really in a Popeye phase of life now, after doing so many things in my life, including assisting photographers, playing bass in bands, and lots and lots of cooking and waitressing: I yam what I yam.
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This interview is part of an ongoing interview series, that Ms. Jeannie is orchestrating about artists, writers and musicians and their inspirations. The interview was with Georgia based rustic home decor designer, Frick & Frack Scraps, in March. Read that interview here.
This month, Ms. Jeannie conversed with Jana, writer and shop owner of Luncheonette Vintage, based in New York’s scenic Catskill Mountains. Visit her shop here.
In the Vintage Kitchen: Where History Comes To Eat 