Be-Bop Lashes: 70s

Showing posts with label 70s. Show all posts

Sunday, March 10, 2013

♥ Be-Love series: Red Velvet cake ♥

Hello!! I was so busy last few weeks, I'm moving out, so many things to pack... and I couldn't finish my Be-Love Series, so here it is.
Baking a cake or a heart shaped one for Valentine's Day is something usual. Anyway this was my first experience in 'romance bakery' and The experiment called : Red Velvet cake, an American typical dessert.

Tea&Love

Vintage ad 'I feel a kiss coming on!'

On my previous post, I showed a vintage makeup brand whose one of its star products, was a cream blush for instant rosy cheeks and lips. Red is blood, Red is tempting, even in cakes.

Funny retro ad

A Red Velvet Cake is a cake with a dark red, bright red or red-brown color. It's traditionally prepared as a layer cake topped with cream cheese. Nowadays the reddish colour is achieved by adding red food coloring. This cake is well-known in United States and Canada. However, it's widely considered a Southern recipe.

The Red Velvet cake is confused on its origins. Because the ingredients were expensive to buy, cake itself was considered to be a rich man's food in early America. After the American Industrial Revolution took place between late 18th century and mid 19th century, baking ingredients were easier to come by and made more affordable for the common folk. At that time, cake became more of a common dessert rather than a delicacy afforded only by the well-to-do.

In fact, in the 1920's a story and a recipe began circulating around America, about a cake that was served at the restaurant in New York's Waldorf Astoria. The legend says there was a woman who was staying at the hotel, she loved the caked and she had sampled there so much that she wrote to the hotel, asking for the baker's name and a copy of the recipe. The recipe arrived in the mail alongside a rather large bill. As soon as she saw the excessive bill, the woman was so furious that's why she copied the recipe and sent it to everyone she knew.

The main ingredient, most Southerners won't do without in their homemade recipes, is cocoa. Many believe the additional ingredients of vinegar and buttermilk will turn the cocoa into a deeper red color due to a chemical reaction. During World War II, some bakers who refused to forgo the cake's signature color despite food rations, used boiled red beets instead of food coloring for their secret recipes.

On the other hand, other people believe its name, red velvet, is because of bakers used to add some brown sugar and its colour was never red. Then food colorings came along. John A. Adams had a fairly prosperous extract business until the Great Depression. His company then started setting up displays to drive business…of course the picture was of a bright Red Velvet cake. With purchase of his red food coloring came the Red Velvet Cake recipe :)

I've followed next recipe and demonstration from Joy of Baking.com

My Red Velvet Cake

My Red Velvet cake

Three layers red velvet cake:)

A resurgence in the popularity of this cake is partly attributed to the late 80's film Steel Magnolias in which the groom's cake (a southern tradition) for one of the film's main character, is a red velvet cake made in the shape of an armadillo.

Have you ever made a Red Velvet cake?

Would you like to make it?

Love,

♡Lorena Be-Bop♡

Monday, October 29, 2012

╬ Be-Boo series: Vampirella ╬

Forrest J. Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia. In 1969, he was the creator of one of the sexiest women in comics: The superheroine Vampirella, in the company founded by James Warren, Warren Publishing.

This company published his first magazines in 1957 and continued in the business for decades. These magazines, which were only for adults amusement, had the American letter format and offered brief articles, well-illustrated with publicity stills and graphic artwork, on horror movies from the silent era to the current date of publication, their stars and filmmakers.

Warren Period: From 1969 to 1983

Vampirella was born by chance. Firstly she was a secondary character for the magazine 'Creepy'. However a voluptuous vampire had to own her magazine. She was drawn by the artists Frank Frazzetta and the Spanish Pepe González.

Vampirella #1 (Sept. 1969). Cover art by Frank Frazetta

In spite of the fact that the comics were a big success, the true reason behind was both their covers and illustrations. Pepe González was a great pin up artist, but he wasn't a good comic creator. It reads, he wasn't crazy about the comics, and he used to draw characters out of proportions without previous sketches, poor-quality staging and strip layouts. However his pin up illustrations were masterpieces, he used to contract real people as models. Moreover, Vampirella's adventures took up 5 or 6 inside pages and the rest of the magazine was other comics, therefore readers were utterly pleased. Vampirella had been enchanting fans around the world with her eroticism.

James Warren, little by little, replaced Pepe González on the 'Vampirella throne'. One of my favorite is Enrique Torres. If you want to see the best top ten of Vampirella artists, check out this link.

This is the most famous illustration by Pepe González.

Have you ever read a Vampirella comic? (I used to borrow them from the library). They epitomize a purely 70's aesthetic! The superheroine wears 70's makeup trends such as false lashes, bold eyeliner, the ever-present blue/green eyeshadow and tanned body (although she's a vampire). She is always drawn by artists as a busty woman, wearing a red suit with gold bat emblem, with a white cotton collar attaches to suit, gold ringa, bangs, snaps, and a pair of black leather boots. Vampirella always shows a suggestive pose, that's why male audience loved her comics.

It's not only Vampirella and other characters, the comic's atmosphere is full of 70's references: cars, upholstered sofas and walls, mirrors, furniture, psychedelic backgrounds etcetera.

Unfortunately, the company Warren Publishing demised in the early 80's, Vampirella slept in her coffin during a limbo period. Then, Harris Comics bought the Vampirella stories....and so on But as far as you know... Be-Bop Lashes doesn't like either 80's or 90's ;) so if you want further information check out this website.

Who is Vampirella according to Warren Publishing?

Vampirella is an inhabitant of the planet Drakulon, a world where a vampiric race live because blood flows in the rivers. Drakulon orbits around two suns, Satiro&Circe. The first one usually erupts and causes droughts across the Drakulon, marking certain doom for Vampirella and her race. Due to those effects, the race of which Vampirella is born, the Vampiri, are able to transform themselves into bats at will, have superhuman physical attributes, spread wings when require to fly, and of course they drink blood.

The story begins with the inhabitants of Drakulon dying slowly due to the drying up of its blood. The last few lie dying when a spaceship from Earth crashes on the planet. Vampirella, sent to investigate, is attacked; retaliating, she discovers that the astronauts have blood in their veins. In order for her race to survive, she manages to pilot the ship back to Earth where her adventures begin. Vampirella becomes a 'good' vampire, and devotes her energy to ridding our world of the homegrown 'evil' kind.