A while back I posted a blog on the history of silhouettes, or shadow portraits. As I noted in that post, while some silhouettes were proportional or close to the actual size of the person whose profile was being traced, as an artistic form with affordability a major contributing factor,...
My family has a unique casserole dish created by my maternal grandfather when he worked as a short order cook during the Depression. The recipe consists of hot dogs, tomato sauce, spices, onions, and cheese baked together. My wonderfully humorous grandpa named it King’s Delight, an ironic moniker due to the basic, cheap ingredients....
I would be lying if I claimed to be a Classical music aficionado. Unless chatting about 1970s and 1980s rock-and-roll, I am clueless. For this reason, when I decided to write Georgiana Darcy as a gifted musician and composer for Miss Darcy Falls in Love, I was almost biting off more...
We have all seen the stories of bizarre so-called “support animals” brought (or attempted to be brought) onto airplanes or into public places such as restaurants. A rapid Google search yields dozens of reports and photos of reptiles including snakes, potbellied pigs, assorted birds (ducks and turkeys seem popular), miniature...
Over the years I’ve written a bunch of blogs dedicated to my favorite holiday season. This year will be no different as I always manage to uncover more fun facts, history, recipes, and carols to highlight. In the days ahead leading up to Christmas Day more entertaining and educational blogs...
The need to supplement or substitute breast milk is not a modern problem. For a host of reasons, the functioning breasts of a mother (or wet nurse) were not always immediately available. What was one to do for the hungry baby? Infant feeders and bottles! FEEDERS (examples above) and BOTTLES (examples below) designed specifically...
The low-tech and most common method for roasting meat was to hang the haunches and poultry from metal hooks over the flames. (see image below left) The cook or assistant cook manually turned and moved the meat to the desired temperature zones as needed. More commonly, however, young servant boys...
Even if one has never played charades, the game of mime and acting skill is familiar. We can all envision a person standing silent before his/her fellow players as the mystery word or phrase is conveyed with dramatic performance. Not an easy game to be sure and the biggest challenge...
Continuing on with the series delving into the many secondary characters inhabiting the nine novels and one novella comprising The Darcy Saga. It is fun for me to revisit the plethora of pivotal, important characters interacting with the main characters. Hopefully it is a fun endeavor for all of you...
Thanksgiving is the holiday of peace, the celebration of work and the simple life…a true folk-festival that speaks the poetry of the turn of the seasons,the beauty of seedtime and harvest, the ripe product of the year— and the deep, deep connection of all these things with God.~ Ray Stannard...
Way back in 2015 I wrote a series of three blogs on random Thanksgiving related trivia. While facts of the past do not change (usually), trivia related to statistics can. I figured it was time to peruse the internet for any fun-facts I might have missed previously and to update...
In many ways New York City invented the Christmas season as we celebrate it here in the United States. From NYC artists creating our version of Santa Claus to the commercialization of shopping for presents to massive trees erected in town squares, New York deserves the credit for cementing the...
Continuing on with the series delving into the many secondary characters inhabiting the nine novels and one novella comprising The Darcy Saga, this post will complete the study of the gentlemen and ladies comprising the closest friends of Darcy and Elizabeth. It is fun for me to revisit the plethora...
Turkeys are so indelibly linked to Thanksgiving that it is natural to imagine the delicious birds have been the main dish since the Pilgrims and Wampanoag feasted together in 1621. As revealed in my blog on The Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving last week, turkey was not recorded as part...
