The Compleat And Actual Adventures of Marcella White Campbell

Q: What do Betty Draper and Marcella White Campbell have in common?

A: They both own this cookbook:

I will prove it! I will scan my cookbook’s cover!

That’s right. Separated by decades and the mists of real and not-real, Betty Draper and I both cook from Betty Crocker’s Hostess Cookbook. I’m sure that both of us do so ironically — me because I require proof that the desserts of the sixties were as horrible as they appear to have been (they were), Betty because the idea of her actually wishing to prepare a meal by hand is kind of hilarious.

So this foodcap just got a lot more authentic, you guys. I think I just brought it.

Last Week:

Last week, Joan suffered a tearful farewell party, British Guy suffered a foot amputation, Pete whined and probably flounced, Betty preened, and Don was actually surprised for a change. Most of the action (with real fake blood!) took place over Champagne, caviar, and “delicatessen.”

Disclaimer: We got as far as “champagne” and “delicatessen” last night thanks to Yom Kippur-related fasting and, later, gorging on Underdogs crispy tacos and carnitas nachos. Not my fault: nobody expects Yom Kippur.¹

I assume the Sterling Cooper “delicatessen” consisted of sliced salami, maybe some bologna, probably some pimiento-stuffed olives. This was my approximation.

From left to right: Trois Petits Cochons duck liver mousse; Molinari pistachio mortadella; Molinari sopressata.

I added a Trader Joe’s truffle cheese we had lying around, and a La Brea baguette since Andronico’s was out of sweet Acme and it’s not like La Brea isn’t fantastic anyway (Summer 2008 in LA. La Brea Bakery prosciutto, burrata & olive tapenade sandwich on sourdough ficelle eaten at a picnic table at Travel Town in Griffith Park. I dare you to make me a better sandwich. I dee double dare you.)

These are not as amazing as Boccalone, but they are very, very good. The pistachio mortadella is a porcine Proust’s madeleine for me; I still remember riding around in my grandparents’ van to Oakland and coming out of an old-school delicatessen with pink butcher paper-wrapped packages of mortadella and sliced headcheese, either of which I could and did eat out of hand. (Does it surprise you that I am eating mortadella right now?)

In honor of Guy’s ill-fated toast and bloody carnage, we served a deep, reddish sparkling Cristalino Brut Rose Cava that I would totes drink again, hopefully nowhere near farm machinery.

Ironically, though I actually saw Betty with my cookbook this episode, and squeed loudly, I didn’t have time (or energy) to make a nasty and authentic dessert beforehand because hungry. Luckily, this week held the promise of future nasty desserts.

This Week:

The episode begins at the end, with Don Draper, amazingly, waking up bloodied and hung over in a motel room; Peggy waking up naked next to a mysterious man; and Betty lolling around Divinyls-style on some pretty pink upholstery.

(See the prominently-featured wedding ring? Every frame matters on this show.)

“Seven Twenty Three,” we will soon see, is about trying on new (or old) personas.

Messrs. Sterling and Cooper gradually forced Don into a corner, intent on bullying him into signing a contract, the very lack of which led to Duck’s ouster last season. Somewhat predictably, Don reacted to losing control of his career by losing control of his personal life, starting by tearing Peggy into little pieces and ending by picking up a pair of shady hitchhikers and downing two red barbiturates with a mouthful of scotch, while driving, which has never been legal.

Always loyal, Peggy — on the run from newly-insistent Duck — went looking for approval from Don and, instead, got reamed by some Don/Dick Whitman angry hybrid. Deeply hurt and searching for some other daddy’s approval, she met with Duck, who is only Pete all grown up, which is of course why Pete despises him. Let’s try to remember that Peggy is playing around with this new sexually liberated after-work persona, so that we can try to understand why she (gag) accepts Duck’s creepy sexual advances (UGH). Duck should not be touching Peggy, for any reason. I will not be posting any photos of that, no thank you. And I blame Don for this madness. Gah!

Don and Peggy reacted (badly) to circumstances beyond their control. Betty, meanwhile, acted for a change. Acted on multiple levels, too: trying on a new Junior League persona, she initiated “having coffee” with Henry Francis, the political operative who hit on her while she was pregnant.

We all know that, Silent Spring or no, Betty couldn’t give an empty highball glass about the environment. Nuclear winter could come to Ossining, and she’d watch at the picture window, stub out a cigarette, and then cross silently to the liquor cabinet without missing a beat. So this meeting is the flimsiest possible excuse to explore a new Betty, the Betty we last saw disappearing with a strange man into the back room of a bar. This Betty is confident, alluring, and experienced at playing the flirting game.

Betty is surprisingly blunt, at the same time, asking Henry personal questions, saying completely out-of-character things like “I’m interested,” and volunteering that she has “skills she doesn’t use” such as an anthropology (!) degree from Bryn Mawr (is anyone less interested in people outside her rarefied social circle than Betty?). She reminds me of Don with strangers; both Drapers relax when they’re able to create a new persona or relax into an old one, and only around people they don’t know.

Henry and Betty have an odd little exchange where Henry invites her to eat something, Betty declines, and then somehow Betty ends up ordering two slices of pie — one with ice cream, one with cheddar cheese, stay tuned for next week’s menu — and ending with a highly enigmatic expression:

Self-consciously pretty, yes, but also highly self-satisfied. What has Betty just ascertained or accomplished? I’m frankly stumped. But I do like Betty’s lengthy pause after Henry admits he may not be able to save the water tower: she has clearly forgotten about the supposed reason for their meeting.

So, for once, only Betty comes out ahead. She ends the episode on a fainting couch — where Victorian women retired with so-called “female hysteria” that was thought to stem from sexual dissatisfaction and treated with “pelvic massage.”

Exactly.
We’ll certainly be seeing more of Henry.

Peggy, meanwhile, appears at the office in the same outfit from yesterday, with a definite spring in her step. There’s no way she’s going to accept the job offer from Duck now, I’d imagine — but she got plenty of ego boost last night, anyhow. Don, however, wakes up with a broken nose and signs the contract under threat of exposure, definitely the furthest from on-top we’ve seen him come out in a long time or ever. Girls rule, Don drools this week.

In other food news, Peggy was “raised on whiskey” (wha?), and I have no plans to serve barbiturates next Sunday.