You’ve heard of the “Mad Men” parties where everyone dresses in vintage clothes, drinks too much, and fogs the air with cigarette smoke. Oh, and let’s not forget the rampant sexism.

Your Bombshells party will be so much better! If you want the cigarettes and the bottomless cocktails, go right ahead. But, let’s forget about the sexism, okay?

Remember “Mad Men” happens in New York and Bombshells takes place in Jacksonville, Florida. That means the food will be very different.

Deviled Eggs were a staple of any ‘60’s party. So let’s start there.

Then you’ll need something that uses frilly toothpicks. How about skewering some good old Vienna Sausages (halved) along with a cube of cheese and an olive.

Of course, you’ll need some dip to go along with your Charles Chips. You know, the ones sold from door to door in the big speckled can.

Popular dips from the early sixties were blue cheese (my mom made the great recipe below).

If you’re drinking a lot, you’ll need something substantial. Try some pimento cheese finger sandwiches. Trim the crusts from thin white sandwich bread (sorry, it much be white bread), spread with pimento cheese and cut into triangles.

Of course, you’ll need lots of good music. Check the Bombshells Playlist for a great selection of music so you can twist the night away! Send us a picture of your Bombshells party and we’ll put it on the website.

Mom’s Blue Cheese Dip

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 4 ounces crumbled blue cheese
• 1 tsp. garlic salt

Combine and refrigerate over night for best flavor.

Pimento Cheese Spread

• 8 ounces cheddar cheese, grated
• 4 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, grated
• 4 ounces chopped pimentos, drained
• 2 tablespoons Duke’s mayonnaise, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt

Combine all ingredients.

Click here to listen to the entire playlist, or click on each individual track below.

• Pat Boone – April Love
• Connie Stevens – Sixteen Reasons
• Paul Anka – Lonely Boy
• Paul Anka – Puppy Love
• Kitty Lester – Love Letters
• Gene Chandler – Kissin In The Kitchen
• The Marvelettes – Please Mr. Postman
• Adam Faith – Poor Me
• Sue Thompson – Sad Movies Make Me Cry

Get your free Spotify.com account so you can listen to these tunes.

Listen to the entire playlist here or click the individual tracks below. Enjoy!

Dave Willetts – Baby Mine – From ‘Dumbo’
Doris Day – Que Sera Sera
The String-A-Longs – Sentimental Journey
Craig Douglas – When My Little Girl Is Smiling
Hank Locklin – Please Help Me I’m Falling
The Shadows – Guitar Tango

You’ll need a free Spotify.com account to listen to these songs.

Remember, you need a free Spotify.com account to listen to these songs.

Click here to listen to the entire playlist, or click each individual track.

John Lee Hooker – Boom Boom
Leroy Van Dyke – Walk On By
Johnny Tillotson – It Keeps Right On A-Hurting
James Darren – Goodbye Cruel World
Elvis Presley – Can’t Help Falling In Love
Peter, Paul & Mary – Lemon Tree
Johnny Tillotson – So Send Me The Pillow That You Dream On
Johnny Tillotson – Listen To The Rhythm Of The Falling Rain
John Lee Hooker – Blues Before Sunrise
Andy Williams – Moon River
Jackie Wilson – Night

This is a short chapter, but deserves some good tunes. Enjoy!

Click here to listen to the entire playlist, or click the tracks below.

• Marion Hutton, Glenn Miller Orchestra – Yes My Darling Daughter
• Etta James – Something’s Got A Hold On Me

I’m fascinated with anthropology, particularly the anthropology of the family. As far as I’m concerned, food and the area used for preparation is the heart of the family whether the home is a cave, a nomadic tent or a suburban tract house. The process of procuring and preparing food for the nourishment of a family is important work. Norah would accomplish this task much the same as we do today. Her family would have eaten fewer convenience food items, with the exception being frozen vegetables, because pre-packaged items were comparatively more expensive.

The same would apply for eating away from home. A fast food burger for an average cost of 20 cents seems like a real bargain to us, but in 1962 spending two dollars for a family of four was ten per cent of their entire food budget.

The first thing for  Norah to consider would be transportation. Most families owned one vehicle in 1962. Arrangements to take her husband to work so she could keep the car for a day of errands was a scheduling necessity.

Next she’d look at her budget. Median family income in the early ’60′s was about $6,000 a year. Housing costs would be in the $100 per month range. For reference, a 1962 dollar had the buying power of $7.50 in 2011.

Norah would have had about $20 a week for her food and housekeeping budget. Staples like milk (49 cents/gallon), bread (20 cents/loaf), eggs (32 cents/dozen), would go into her cart first. Next she’d build meals around meat. Beef was a popular choice in the ’50′s and ’60′s. Chuck roast rang up at about 49 cents a pound and hamburger–not referred to as ground beef then–nipped the bottom line at about 40 cents a pound. For the cost of that fast food burger meal, Norah could prepare five meals based on one pound of hamburger each.

Meat loaf, anyone?

Ham, always a popular staple in the South, came in at 45 cents a pound. Chicken, the backbone of most Southern recipes was a budget-friendly option at about 29 cents a pound.

Fresh vegetables would have been a good buy for Norah. For example, corn priced at six ears for 25 cents would nicely round out a fried chicken dinner.

Frozen products were readily available, and the refrigerator of the time was equipped with a freezer perfectly shaped for stacking the rigidly shaped boxes of Birds Eye or Green Giant frozen peas and brussel sprouts. Birdie hates peas, even though she loves the Green Giant (Ho Ho Ho). But that wouldn’t have stopped Norah from putting them on  her daughter’s plate and expecting her to join the clean plate club.

Other popular frozen convenience foods were the ubiquitous TV dinner  and the pot pie, both items relatively expensive for a family of four. While these items didn’t require much preparation, they had to be cooked in the oven (remember no microwave), so dinner was still at least thirty minutes away.

Spam is a convenience food that would have found its way into Norah’s kitchen. Yes, that versatile melange of meat by-products became a household staple after World War II. Norah could serve pan-fried Spam, packaged dinner rolls, frozen green beans and a wedge of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing for a quick, easily prepared meal. This salad  idea was new and exciting in the ’60′s. Another exciting salad idea for the time was the leaf of iceberg lettuce topped with a canned pear half, cottage cheese or mayonnaise, and grated cheese.

If Norah had time to think about entertaining, she may have tried something exotic like Swedish meatballs over noodles. Well, it’s not your traditional Southern soul food.

Treats like Coca Cola cost about 10 cents for the six ounce glass bottle which would be returned for the deposit. The girls could purchase candy bars at the corner store for 5 cents each. Mellie could reply to Robert’s letter with a stamp that cost 4 cents, and 45-rpm singles were priced at 50 cents.

I found several excellent websites with information about food trends, food innovations, and prices. If you are a cultural anthropologist at heart, you’ll enjoy taking a look at these sites.

Here’s an in depth government document breaking down the nutritional needs of a family–from infant to adult male, including the pregnant or lactating mother–as well as prices and menu suggestions.

If you’re really into food history, check out FoodTimeline.org. It goes all the way back to 17,000 B.C.

Here’s a dance party. Enjoy the fun! You’ll need a free Spotify.com account to enjoy the tunes.

You can listen to the playlist in its entirety or click individual tracks below.

• Chris Montez – Let’s Dance
• Dee Dee Sharp – Mashed Potato Time
• Chubby Checker – The Twist
• Dee Dee Sharp – Slow Twistin’
• Ray Charles – Unchain My Heart
• Dee Dee Sharp – I Will Follow Him
• The Orlons – The Wah-Watusi
• Dee Dee Sharp – Rockin’ Robin
• Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass – The Lonely Bull (El Solo Toro)
• Elvis Presley – Are You Lonesome Tonight?
• Chubby Checker – Limbo Rock
• Dee Dee Sharp – He’s So Fine
• Patsy Cline – Walkin’ After Midnight
• Paul Anka – Eso Beso (That Kiss!)

I present to you the playlist for September 13, 1962. You’ll need a free Spotify.com account to enjoy these tunes. You can listen to the entire playlist here, or you can listen to individual tracks by clicking on them below.

• Richard Chamberlain – Three Stars Will Shine Tonight
• Jimmy Dean – Big Bad John
• Jimmy Dean – P.T. 109
• Bobby Vee – The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
• Bobby Lewis – Tossin’ And Turning (Re-Recorded / Remastered)
• Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen – Midnight In Moscow
• Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen – Green Leaves Of Summer
• Chordettes – Mr. Sandman
• Leonard Bernstein;New York Philharmonic – Night on Bald Mountain
• Gene Kelly – Good Morning
• Debbie Reynolds – Give Me the Simple Life

In Bombshells Norah, Mellie’s mother, forces her to endure a Toni home permanent the night before school starts. If you had one of these back in the day, you understand that the night before the first day of school was not the best planning. But, we forgive Norah. She has a lot on her mind. The question is, can Mellie?

The process is not pleasant: smelly lotion, tight rollers, more smelly lotion, more rollers, an hour under the hair dryer or a sleepless night in brush rollers. Then, the next morning was always a surprise. How did it turn out? Luckily, for Mellie her hair looks great, but that just permed smell follows her around all day. You don’t know what that smell is like? I really wish we had an app for that. But I can give a visual.

Of course, Mellie was not this happy about it.

Numerous beauty products were available in 1962, but not near the variety we have in 2012. Favorite brands like Maybelline, Cover Girl, and Revlon were well established household names at the time. In fact, Maybelline was one of the first companies to use a version of modern mascara applicator.

On the bus on that first day of school, Mellie’s friend, Stephanie, offers her sister’s lipstick for Mellie to try out. Girls in junior high generally weren’t allowed to wear make up then, and a swiped lipstick would be a popular item. Most likely Steph borrowed a Maybelline product from her sister, because Maybelline was among the popular drug store brands. Other easily available, inexpensive brands included Hazel Bishop and Revlon.

The teen look was fresh and clean as shown on the cover ”Seventeen” magazine. This issue is September, 1962, perfect for back to school.

Norah, busy and on a budget, probably relied on her friendly Avon representative to supply her with her standard red lipstick, powder and some eye make up. Nothing terribly exciting for Norah.

But Lola, sassy-girl-about-town, would have loved Revlon’s tribute to Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra look. Revlon developed a line of specialty products with themed packaging.

On every bathroom shelf you’d find trusty old Aquanet hairspray, Secret or Tussy deodorant, and talcum powder.

Here’s the soundtrack to September 4, 1962. To listen to these tracks you’ll need a free account on Spotify.com. Listen to the entire playlist on Spotify, or click on the individual tracks below.

• Jerry Orbach – Try to Remember
• Peter, Paul and Mary – If I Had A Hammer
• Dave Brubeck – Take Five
• Connie Francis – Where The Boys Are
• Faron Young – Hello Walls
• The Shirelles – Mama Said
• The Miracles – Shop Around
• Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons – Sherry
• The Highwaymen – Michael
• John Coltrane – My Favorite Things
• The Everly Brothers – Crying In The Rain
• Burl Ives – A Little Bitty Tear
• Ben E King – Stand By Me
• Dinah Washington – Mad About The Boy
• Elvis Presley – Can’t Help Falling In Love