’70s flashback

Family heirlooms

When I was 11, Dad asked Mom, “Shouldn’t Alison learn to cook something?” Her response: “Why?”

I’m not sentimental about much, but as I pack up my crap to move, I still can’t let go of our family’s meager culinary heirlooms. In our case, that amounts to my mother’s A-Z Woman’s Day cookbook collection, and her clipped and scribbled recipes gathered in a quaint little red binder and a green spiral notebook. There’s some cookware that will make the trek, too: a large yellow early’50s mixing bowl that my father brought into my parent’s marriage, my mom’s Bundt pan (she was proud of her Bundt cake), her red enamel cast-iron Dutch oven.

It’s interesting that I’m so attached to this stuff, because, Bundt cake aside, my mom wasn’t an eager cook. When I was 11, Dad asked Mom, “Shouldn’t Alison learn to cook something?” Her response was, “Why?”

Perhaps I hang onto this stuff is because it’s an amusing time capsule of ’70s culinary ephemera. We were a Southern California ’70s family, down to the redwood hot tub out back, the lessons our family took in Transcendental Meditation (my brother and I only recently revealed our mantras to each other), and an enduring fondness for fondue (we clung to our fondue dinners long after the  Swiss dish fell out of favor).

So it’s no surprise that my mom was a huge fan of Vidal Sassoon. Yep, the hairdresser known for his geometric, low-maintenance cuts that were a departure from the wash ‘n’ set approach of the ’60s. In particular, she enjoyed A Year of Beauty and Health, a self-help book he wrote in the late-’70s with his then-wife Beverly.  The Sassoons were big proponents of health drinks–this was the era of the smoothie, remember–especially those incorporating brewer’s yeast (for energy-boosting B vitamins), lecithin (for a host of supposed benefits), and wheat germ (for fiber, etc.). Her spiral notebook of recipes begins with these two gems.

Sassoon’s Vitality Drink

(For Two)

2 tablespoons powdered protein

1 tablespoon granular lecithin

1 large banana

1 teaspoon raw honey

2 cups low-fat or skim milk

1 teaspoon brewer’s yeast (introduced very gradually)

Whip in blender for 30 seconds.

Vim & Vigor Breakfast 

(serves 4)

1 cup sprouts

1 cup sunflower seeds

6 apples, cored and quartered

3 tablespoons brewer’s yeast

3 tablespoons raw honey

1/2 cup powdered nonfat milk

1/2 cup wheat germ

Juice of 3 lemons.

Liquify in blender.

Are you gagging yet? My parents drank one or the other of these concoctions most mornings. I think Mom induced me to sample the vitality drink once or twice. It was some nasty-healthy-tasting shit. But I have to say, if you saw Vidal on Bravo’s “Shear Genius” last year, you’d know he was onto something.

At nearly 81, dude looks, well, vital.