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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Practically from birth, American children are taught the story of the Pilgrims’ arrival on the Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor in November 1620. I’ve covered this historical event and the aftermath in yesterday’s blog: The Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving. Stories of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving are certain to...
On September 16 in 1620, the Mayflower left Plymouth, England. The ship’s 102 passengers and around 30 crew members were comprised of religious separatists known as Puritans who were seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith, and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and...
THANKSGIVING is fast approaching here in the US, and as everyone knows, food is a BIG and central aspect of this traditional holiday. For most of us, we have our established dishes that must be cooked year after year. In my household that “must have” no-compromise dish is the dressing recipe passed down...
November is well under way and with the clocks turned back an hour, the cold dark of night comes sooner than many of us probably want. Here in the northern hemisphere, if we haven’t yet turned our thermostats to the hot setting, we will eventually. Thanks to industrial innovations and...
Ever wonder just what the inside of a typical London townhouse in an upper-crust neighborhood looked like? Of course there were variations in design, size, styling, and decor. These cutouts and floor plans give an idea of what was standard. The typical London townhouse of the 18th century was a...
For hundreds of years, until the invention of the camera, the only quick and cheap method of immortalizing a loved one was through a shade, also referred to as a shadow portrait. As opposed to more decorative and expensive forms of portraiture like painting or sculpture, a shade was a simple and inexpensive...
As is noted on page 1 of The Housemaid’s Complete Guide, written by A.M. Sargeant in 1851, “Dry toast may be made before it is wanted, and should be set up in the toast-rack the moment it is done.” On page 341 of Mrs. Beeton’s Dictionary of Every-Day Cookery, published...
