Giving Lady Lazarus a more mundane supper

I've got something valuable for you today.

It's the July 1937 Little Gem Recipe Book no. 1 from the Crane-Krieg-Flory Co. If 1930s families in Newark, OH, needed hardware, washers, lawnmowers, or paint, apparently Crane-Krieg-Flory was the place to go.

Also, if anyone needs nightmares about a ghostly woman with long red hair (or maybe fire?) descending from the sky to devour dinner before anyone else can touch it, this is the booklet to get.

I'm not sure who Arthur B. Bishop was, but maybe he had secret fantasies about giant red-haired ladies. I am not here to judge.

Well, I'm not here to judge secret fantasies, anyway. I am totally here to judge really depressing appetizers...

...like Hot Mayonnaise Puffs, which is apparently a nicer name for mayonnaise meringue toasted atop crackers. Yum! (Just don't let Arthur make any, or that may not be mayonnaise, if you get my drift.)

There are also finger sandwiches:

Yay! Damp bread rolled around celery with just enough soft cheese to make you regret tossing them in the trash after all the other appetizers have disappeared... except for the mayo meringues, which you won't regret tossing at all.

The booklet has the obligatory Jell-O salads:

Ever wanted to try lemon Jell-Oed tomato soup with mayo, cream cheese, stuffed olives, and assorted veggies trapped inside?

Then there are the weird but non-Jell-O-based salads:

Like tomato shells stuffed with shredded pineapple and nuts, then rolled in mayonnaise and crushed pecans. (Maybe it's just because Easter was last weekend, but I imagine these being presented as Easter eggs in hell. They'd be round and white with mayo.)

The booklet offers largely flavor-free main dishes too, like this Chili Con "Carni":

Apparently, chili simply means "Beef Stew with a Can of Kidney Beans Tossed In." Don't look for spices; that teaspoon of kitchen bouquet is as close as you're going to get.

You know, maybe letting that red-haired ghost steal dinner isn't such a bad idea after all. She can have  my full share of wadded-up celery sandwiches and mayo-slathered tomatoes filled with pineapple. Hell, I'll even let her eat men like air if she wants. Arthur B. Bishop would probably like that.