Monthly Archives: October 2025

Foodie Friday: Liver Spoon Cakes

It wouldn’t be the Spooky Season without an equal mix of tricks and treats. In that spirit (pun very much intended), for Taste of the ‘Chives this year I chose the September 1945 recipe from our Rationing Calendar: Liver Spoon Cakes. I’ve always enjoyed offal – what’s not to like about menudo, especially in the fall and winter months? – and thought this recipe had the potential to be unexpectedly tasty. TLDR: I was mostly wrong.

Liver Spoon Cakes

1 pound sliced liver
Warm water
2 tablespoons milk
1 onion
2 eggs
6 crackers*
¼ cup lard or bacon drippings
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt

Simmer liver in water for 5 minutes; drain. Put through food chopper with onion and crackers. Add seasonings, milk, and beaten egg. Mix thoroughly. Drop by tablespoonfuls into hot drippings. Brown on one side. Turn and brown on second side until crisp.
*We used Ritz, but Saltines would work. Both were available and widely sold in 1945 (we checked).

Reggie, our Quality Control Manager, stood ready (above) to taste most parts of the recipe to ensure freshness. While he refused to try the onions, he was very excited about the livers (below).

The recipe doesn’t call for garnishes of any kind, though it does suggest buttered noodles with mushrooms, green beans, and coleslaw to round out the plate. Basil leaf added for a bit of color (see finished product below).

Surprisingly, my Mom liked the finished product more than I did, though serving the cakes on a Ritz cracker did wonders for me. I can’t say I’d recommend making this recipe, but if you really enjoy the smell, flavor, and texture of liver, and want to give it a try, we made the following adjustments:

We cooked just half a recipe; even so we ended up with so much extra cake “batter.” If you made these as hors d’oeuvres, I would recommend a quarter recipe for 4-6 people. Also, be ready to air out your house before your guests arrive (the smell is truly awful).
We also added more crackers; for a half recipe, we ended up using a half sleeve of Ritz crackers (8-10). The batter just didn’t seem thick enough to hold together otherwise. Part of the problem could be the use of a food processor versus a “food chopper.” If the ingredients had been more roughly chopped, the batter may have been closer to meatball consistency (as opposed to pancake batter).
These cakes were likely eaten with a bite of noodles or green beans, not alone. If you decide to make them as hors d’oeuvres, consider putting them on crackers and topping with a small dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche and chives.

Overall, I’d give this recipe a two-and-a-half stars out of a possible five – despite the smell, it managed to be edible. When the chefs were polled, however, the decision was unanimous: it’s not worth making again. Our QC Manager abstained out of a conflict of interest.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Foodie Fridays: Spiced Waffles!

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The recipe below is derived from a 1945 wall calendar from Portland’s own First Federal Savings Bank that featured scads of recipes from their “Cooking Club.” We prepared some of these for our 2015 “Taste of the ‘Chives” recipe showcase and at that time, I opted to prepare Bombay Salad for our public sampling event (requiring that I secure and a break open a fresh coconut-a first for me!). This time, I went for a less adventuresome route and decided to make the spiced waffle recipe.

Spiced Waffles

2.5 cups of cake flour                                                       3 eggs
3 teaspoons of baking powder                                    3 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon                                                      3 tablespoons of butter/oil
.5 teaspoon cloves                                                            1.5 cups of milk
.5 teaspoon salt

Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Beat the egg-yolks
and add sugar and the butter or oil. Add milk and dry ingredients alternately to the egg-yolk mixture and fold in the egg-whites, beaten stiff. Measure the batter in a deep ladle or shallow cup. Pour on sections of well-greased waffle iron and bake approximately 20 seconds on the first side; turn and bake 40 seconds on the other side.

Pretty straightforward, though the egg yolk separation threw me a bit as this is something I’ve done maybe only once or twice before. But I managed the yolk situation well and got everything mixed just fine.

I added a dash of allspice to the mix to provide a little more depth. Otherwise, I followed the recipe to the letter (or so I thought…….). After the waffle iron heated up,
I poured the mix and eventually formed maybe 14 waffles in total. And the easiest part was serving them up with maple syrup from Vermont and chowing down!

Tasty stuff, with a nice hint of spice. As my friend Susan and I devoured these, we both noticed that the consistency was a bit thick and not as fluffy as they could have been. Throughout the process, I had wondered about the separation of the egg yolks and whites, assuming that the whites were not to be used. Wrong! When I typed up the recipe for this post, I finally read the recipe thoroughly enough to understand that the whites were to be added after everything else was mixed (and not to be used to make an extra dish of scrambled eggs to accompany the waffles!) The waffles were still toothsome and worth making again, and hopefully will be even better next time when the recipe is faithfully followed!

Susan is planning to make these waffles this upcoming weekend to see how the inclusion of the egg whites changes the taste. Either way, I’m down to try them again!

Karl McCreary – OSU SCARC

Foodie Friday: Tea shortbreads

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Every year, SCARC hosts the “Taste of the ‘Chives” event, historically held in October during Archives Month. This event features recipes from our collections, some tasty and some not so much. The event is being moved to Winter Term to coincide with the OSU Food Drive.

But, in honor of Archives Month and as a teaser for the Taste of the ‘Chives event, we are making recipes that were featured during the 10th annual Taste of the ‘Chives in 2015.

Tea shortbreads

1 ½ cups butter

1 ⅓ cups confectioners’ sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups pastry flour

Cream butter, gradually add sifted confectioners’ sugar and cream thoroughly. Add vanilla and sifted pastry flour. Mix well and roll out on slightly floured board to about three-eighths inch in thickness. Cut in fancy shapes with a floured cookie cutter. The dough has a tendency to fall apart and must be handled gently and quickly. Prick each shortbread with a fork, decorate with bits of candied fruits and with grains of puffed rice. Lift onto a greased cookie sheet with a pancake turner and bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, or about thirty-five minutes. Serve with tea.

I personally love shortbread, or other not-overly-sweet cookies, with a cup of tea. Like Walker’s Shortbread or Anna’s Ginger Swedish Thins. So this recipe really appealed to me. Plus, I liked that it did not include specialized ingredients I don’t already have in my pantry or could easily substitute. I do not have pastry flour, but you can substitute two tablespoons of cornstarch and the rest with flour for each cup.

The most challenging part of this recipe was rolling the dough out to the right thickness and choosing which cutters to use. The dough was a little crumbly when I first took it out of the bowl, but it was easily mashed together before rolling. I decided to try three different cookie cutters: 1.5-inch round, cat, and bear. The recipe mentions topping with candied fruits and puffed rice. I did not have either, so I put a few sprinkles on a couple to try. I do not feel that it added much to the overall taste and texture.

The first sheet I baked for the full 35 minutes, which was a little too long. The shortbreads were brown and had, not a burned taste, but certainly a taste of being more cooked. The second sheet, I baked for about 25 minutes before checking. These came out the more golden-blond color I was wanting. Using cookie cutters that had smaller sections (tail and ears for cat, and head and legs for bear) meant those sections got a little more cooked. This wasn’t a problem, but something to be aware of in selecting shapes.

These shortbreads were delicious with a cup of tea! Whether they were hot out of the oven or room temperature, they were a nice compliment.

For those who did the math, yes we will be celebrating the 20th Taste of the ‘Chives in February 2026. We hope to see you there!

Add Glitter to the Archives! A Crafternoon with the OSU Queer Archives and the OSU Pride Center

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The OSU Queer Archives was delighted to collaborate with the OSU Pride Center for the Center to host the event “Add Glitter to the Archives”!

The crafternoon event “Glitter in the Archives” began in 2016 as part of Oregon Archives Month and OSU’s Queer History Month celebrations to feature copies of materials from the OSU Queer Archives to use for craft-making. It was hosted in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center’s 5th Floor Reading Room in the Valley Library from 2016-2019, and in 2023-2024, we collaborated with the Libraries’ Crafternoon series and the event was hosted in the main lobby of the Library — hence the new name “Add Glitter to the Archives.”

Hosting the event at the Pride Center was extra special because the event was an opportunity for many new students to come to the Pride Center for the first time as part of the start to the academic year. It was an event by and for the community in a safe community space. And, it was a great opportunity to get to know the Pride Center staff!

For information and photos from past events, see the blog posts for Glitter in the Archives, 2016-2019 as well as Add Glitter to the Archives 2023.

Below is the crafternoon setup featuring lots of glittery collaging supplies and copies of OSQA archival materials ~ about 12 students, plus Pride Center student staff, joined us for the event!

Event Space Set Up

Crafting supplies, including button-makers!

Copies of archival materials available for craft-making

Event space set up – supplies and crafting materials

New for this year: posters the Pride Center is not retaining, and OSQA documented via photographs, were made available for crafting

Event Participants

Photos of some of the beautiful crafts!

A collage made by the same artist who crafted the buttons

Be sure to visit the Pride Center!