August even make the cucumbers hot

As we stagger into the last truly hot month, Modern Meal Maker (Martha Meade for Sperry Flour Co., 1935) is here to tell us how home cooks kept meals from overheating the kitchen and the diners before home air conditioning was much of a thing. So how did they keep cool as a cucumber?

Really? The instructions call for heating up a food renowned for its cool? But hey, all those Sperry Wheat Hearts weren't going to eat themselves. Martha Meade had to figure out some way to work them into the menu.

Of course, the August chapter has the expected aspics, ready to chill on dinner plates. If the cook is bored and wants a craft project to last a good part of the afternoon, Treasure Chest Salad is a good pick.

First, there's the grated carrot/ green pea-suspending sour aspic to make. A bit needs to be hardened in the bottoms of six teacups, but the rest needs to be kept liquid. While the bottom gelatin sets, tomatoes have to be peeled, scooped hollow, and filled with chopped celery, meat, and walnuts.Then the tomatoes get popped into the teacups, covered with what's left of the aspic, and chilled until serving time.

If I were 6, a name like Treasure Chest Salad would make me soooo excited. And then the sight of a raw tomato suspended in vinegary pea gelatin would make me ask to go to bed without any supper.

For a more festive-looking aspic, like a pastel pink-and-white-striped candy cane with occasional pops of green for a Christmas in August vibe, there's Saratoga Loaf.

It's layers of ham spread with a cottage cheese, pickle, and olive gelatin-- so maybe even the ham will be a little reminiscent of the holidays? Serving it will, at the very least, make the family want to fast forward a little bit. Maybe not to Christmas, but at least past the moment they realized dinner was this loaf of ham and sadness.

So let's end with something that's a little more fun. Here's a quick and easy dessert that even fits a current craze-- waffle iron cookies!

Okay, the name Waffle Doughnuts made me imagine an under-cooked elephant ear being pulled out of a fryer and shoved into a waffle iron, since doughnuts are generally fried. These Waffle Doughnuts just have the nutmeg flavoring of old-fashioned cake doughnuts and a roll in powdered sugar for the classic doughnut coating. This seems like a pretty sweet ending for a month with hot cucumbers and jiggly ham-and-cottage-cheese towers.