Recommended Reading: "Thoroughly Modern Milkshakes," by Adam Ried

I’m not hosting my weekly radio show, tonight, on the Internet station “Radio Once More.” The show will return next week.

I’d like to mention, however, a very enjoyable book by an author who recently appeared on the program. (Actually, it was his second visit to the program.  He was a terrific guest on both occasions.)

Adam Ried is the cooking columnist for The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. His book, Thoroughly Modern Milkshakes, was first brought out in 2009 by the publisher W.W. Norton. The softcover edition of the book came out this month, also published by Norton.

The book includes recipes for familiar milkshakes—vanilla, chocolate, strawberry. Yet much of the book highlights the idea of what Ried calls “milkshake modernization.” The book, for example, presents recipes for “Mexican Chocolate Shake with Chipotle and Almond,” “Chocolate-Tangerine Shake,” “Chocolate-Guinness Shake,” “Peanut-Molasses Shake,” “Peach Shake with Brandy and Nutmeg,” and “Malted Caramel Shake.”

Here is the amazon link for the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Thoroughly-Modern-Milkshakes-Creamy-Shakes/dp/0393342778/

Here, too, is the address for Adam Ried’s website:

http://www.adamried.com/

(Above image: the cover of the softcover edition of Thoroughly Modern Milkshakes)

Merwyn Bogue and Sue Bennett, Cleveland-area TV magazine, November, 1950

From the second season of Kay Kyser’s television show, on NBC: a photo of Ish Kabibble (Merwyn Bogue), and my mother, Sue Bennett, on a November, 1950 cover of TV Today, a television guide from the Cleveland area. The magazine also featured listings for television stations in Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit and Lansing, Michigan.

There was no story, inside the issue, about the Kay Kyser program (other than a brief description of the cover photo).

One brief feature in the issue (as noted on the magazine’s cover) concerned television’s “Worst Show.” Readers were asked to submit nominations; the winner of the contest was Mrs. A. L. McCleary of Detroit. She argued, in a letter to the magazine, that TV’s worst show was the quiz/game program Beat the Clock. (This, despite noting that she liked the show’s host—who, though unnamed in the letter, was Bud Collyer—“very much.” )

Though selecting her as the contest’s winner, the editors disagreed with her view of the program, writing that Beat the Clock was “pretty good entertainment.” (Incidentally, Mrs. McCleary, in her letter, made note of her fondness for other quiz shows—such as What’s My Line, Kay Kyser’s program, “and many others.”) The article is presented here via two scans.

Here are three images from 1950.  The first two are from a January, 1950 issue of TeleVision Guide, a New York-area magazine; the magazine later became TV Guide. Kay Kyser, whose television show had made its debut on NBC the month before, is featured on the cover. Also seen here:  the first page of the article about Kay Kyser, from inside the issue.  The photograph is of Kay Kyser and my mother.

In the third image, also from the time my mother sang on Kay Kyser's TV show, she is seen on the cover of TV Showtime, an Omaha-based television guide.  The issue is from May of 1950.