Latest / Mega Rock On Demand / Quick Hits with Sharon Stewart: Kroger Closings, Gas Prices, and Google Pixel Tag

Transcript

Quick Hits with Sharon Stewart: Kroger Closings, Gas Prices, and Google Pixel Tag · Mega Rock On Demand

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's Friday afternoon, and that means it's time to light the torches once again for Tiki Talk.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's Ben Willis with you, with the rapid spread of Tiki style, architecture, cocktails, and the association of every leisurely moment with island style in the mid-20th century.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was perhaps inevitable that it would eventually come to also invade the mid-century American household in many ways, especially when it came to eating utensils and the kitchen.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, Tiki was never fully confined to grand bars and palaces and restaurants like the Kahiki, Trader Vicks, the Kowloon, the Mai Kai, all of these grand places, and the small restaurants nearby as well.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: For a good 20 years in the middle of the 20th century, you could outfit your kitchen, your home, your backyard, your sunroom with a dizzying array of tiki pop items.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, author and tiki historian Sven Kirsten has this to say in his book Tiki Pop, which I highly recommend if you have any interest in the history of tiki as an art form in the United States and beyond.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is what he says: In the American tiki pop household, the use of the tiki image was fully democratized, from mugs to bowls to spice racks.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: The housewife could exercise her personal taste and decided where she wanted to, quote, go native in her kitchenware.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Besides the availability of complete tiki tableware sets, the crafty homemaker could try their hand at do-it-yourself tiki pottery.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Making ceramics was a favorite hobby for American housewives in the 1950s, and a home kiln was eventually added to the list of household appliances.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, an entire industry developed of suppliers of pottery clays and glazes, of which Duncan Ceramics became one of the leading firms, offering a whole range of tiki molds.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Sven continues to say the Marquisian-style tiki designs that were used for the mugs created by Paul Marshall products were perhaps the tiki-shaped most fashioned into utilitarian objects.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: That design could be found in ceramic as salt and pepper shakers, cigarette lighters, coffee mugs, and in plastic and patio string lights, luau torches, more salt and pepper shakers and condiment squeeze bottles, and including a line of soaps and toiletries shaped like tiki's.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when discussing serving wear, you can't forget about monkey pod bowls and plates and the giant wooden forks and spoons that you'd hang on the wall in your kitchen or dining room.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: But you also had glassware, things like the Siestaware series of not just Polynesian but generally tropical themed glasses and mugs as well.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can actually see a set of Siestaware glasses that I came across very recently up on our Facebook page at Mega Rock PA.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Even furniture, especially that for the patio, was heavily influenced by the jungle Polynesian island aesthetic.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so you had a big explosion in the sale in the mid-century of Rattan patio furniture.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes not even on the patio.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: You'd have that down in your basement bar, your rumpus room, what have you.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you might have heard of a little thing called Elvis' jungle room, which he outfitted with dark, heavy, carved, primitive, tribal pieces of furniture created by Whitco, which was a furniture and artwork company that specialized in chainsaw carving of redwood into absolutely fantastic and mind-boggling shapes.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if you ever get to see the jungle room at Graceland, just bear in mind that even Elvis was not immune to the influence of the tiki aesthetic.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what might Elvis have been sipping in the Jungle Room back in the mid-20th century?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: It could have been the classic Chi Chi.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially a pina colada that swaps out vodka for the rum, there is a fascinating modification to the classic Chi-Chi.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's the macadamia nut Chi Chi, which comes to us from the 1960s from Hawaii itself.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: In this version, we take eight ounces of unsweetened pineapple juice, two ounces of Coco Lopez coconut cream, four ounces of vodka, and two and one half ounces of macadamia nut liqueur.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Put everything into a blender, fill it to the top with ice cubes, blend until slushy, garnish with a cocktail cherry speared to a pineapple chunk.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or however else you'd like to garnish.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Serves two or one very thirsty drinker.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go, the macadamia nut cheat cheat, perfect for sipping in your jungle room.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So until we meet on another island out there, somewhere, this is Ben Willis saying Aloha.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And like the reimagined macadamia nut cheat cheat, we're going to leave you with a reimagined surf rock classic from 1994.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's Man or Astroman with Intoxica on Tiki Talk.