An illumination I was asked to create, to illustrate a beautiful poem written by the piemaker’s sister.
Aunt Francie & Uncle Ken 1941
Tag: Food
Lemonade
A new painting has won an honorable mention at the Art League’s All-Media exhibit at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria (the opening reception is tomorrow evening).
The hot summer weather inspired both the painting and my research into lemonade recipes. The one I like best is found in How to Make Real Lemonade from Scratch at TheKitchn.com.
Mom’s Apple Pie
On my mother’s birthday, I always bake her an apple pie in honor of the hundreds of apple pies she made for us, and we light a candle and sing, our voices some years joined by those of friends (thank you Karla, Rob, Kathy, and Ivan). I’m sure my mother is getting much better pie in the Great Beyond, but we continue the earthly tradition. Happy birthday, Mom!
Mom
April Fool
Actually if they were available I would totally eat these.
Giampaolo
Happy Pi Day
SuperPen
Frosting as an art medium. For my son’s birthday, I decorated his cake with some of his lifelong favorites: dinosaurs, Lego, and Superman, who is demonstrating the mighty power of the written word, in deference to his current pursuit of an MFA in writing. My son’s, that is, not Superman’s. Superman already has his.
Devin
Valentine Treats
A giant chocolate-chip scone on the table this morning, and a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). Happy Valentines Day, everyone.
Love’s Philosophy
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle.
Why not I with thine? –
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain’d its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Jack
Bill
Christmastide
A December tradition in our family is the Linn Barnes and Allison Hampton Consort Celtic Christmas concert at Dumbarton Church in Georgetown, where our Christmas season is annually launched by beautiful music for lute, harp, flute and drum, accompanied by Robert Aubry Davis’ readings. This ballad is a favorite. Merry Christmas, everyone. May joy, love and peace fill us all and “drive the cold winter away” from our hearts.
When Christmastide
Comes in like a Bride,
with Holly and Ivy clad:
Twelve dayes in the yeare,
Much mirth and good cheare,
in every houshold is had:
The Countrey guise,
Is then to devise,
some gambole of Christmas play:
Whereas the yong men,
Do best that they can,
to drive the cold winter away.
When white-bearded Frost,
Hath threatned his worst,
and fallen from Branch & Bryer:
Then time away cals,
From Husbandry Hals,
& from the good Countrymans fire:
Together to go,
To Plow and to sow,
to get us both food and array:
And thus with content,
The time we have spent,
to drive the cold winter away.
—English Ballad, 1625
Ann
Stephanie
Noah
Tony
Nevin
Saint Lucy’s Gingerbread
A warning to all my cookie guinea pigs! This year I set aside the traditional gingerbread cookie recipe to try a new one. I set it up last night and trudged to the kitchen before dawn (which is, admittedly, pretty late by mid-December) to finish the dough, which now must chill thoroughly before it’s cut and baked. If it’s a success, I’ll post the recipe in time for next Santa Lucia Day.
Pie Love/Paris Love
My husband doesn’t care for cake, so every year we celebrate his birthday with an apple pie. Here is this year’s model.
He also shares his birthday with Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) and so I include a poem, along with a poor translation for which I apologize. In honor of my husband’s birthday, I tried to find a jolly poem among all the melancholy meditations on de Musset’s difficult love affair with Aurore Dupin (Georges Sand); but, failing that, I include a poem set in Paris, where my husband and I lived a happier love story than did poor Alfred. (The poem’s use of both forms of second person singular shows what we’ve lost in English when we gave one up.)
Que j’aime le premier frisson d’hiver ! le chaume,
Sous le pied du chasseur, refusant de ployer !
Quand vient la pie aux champs que le foin vert embaume,
Au fond du vieux château s’éveille le foyer ;
C’est le temps de la ville. – Oh ! lorsque l’an dernier,
J’y revins, que je vis ce bon Louvre et son dôme,
Paris et sa fumée, et tout ce beau royaume
(J’entends encore au vent les postillons crier),
Que j’aimais ce temps gris, ces passants, et la Seine
Sous ses mille falots assise en souveraine !
J’allais revoir l’hiver. – Et toi, ma vie, et toi !
Oh ! dans tes longs regards j’allais tremper mon âme
Je saluais tes murs. – Car, qui m’eût dit, madame,
Que votre coeur sitôt avait changé pour moi ?
—Alfred de Musset
How I love the first winter chill! the stubble,
Under the foot of the hunter, refusing to bend!
When the magpie comes to the hay-scented fields,
In the depths of the old château the household awakens;
This is the time of the city. – Oh! when last year
I returned, I saw the good Louvre and its dome,
Paris and her smoke, and all this lovely realm
(I still hear in the wind the shouting postilions)
How I loved this gray time, these passersby and the Seine
Beneath its thousand lanterns seated supreme!
I would see the winter return. – And thee, my life, and thee!
Oh! in thy long looks I would drench my soul
I would salute thy walls. – For, who would have told me, madame,
That your heart had so soon changed toward me?
Jimmy
Chris