Linocuts and Letterpress: Printing Seed Packets and Cottage Food Labels

I've been having fun this year in the print shop, turning out seed packets for saving seeds in.  The Pecan Corner Press is a hobby, and this kind of ephemera is what I usually produce. I use handset type and some fun old cuts.  I've been taking these to the local Farmer's Market since the grasshoppers and deer have eaten all my gardening efforts this year.  The empty ones are great for saving seed and tucking into a get well card or garden club seed exchanges. Some people even said they were going to use them in their little miniature display cabinets.

My Swiss Chard went to seed this year (it is a biennial, and can be harvested as long as it lives - it is never tough or bitter), so I made the linoleum cut and filled these to see how the seed would sell. This is the old variety, Fordhook, and they can be planted in Texas all the way though the fall.

I didn't take a press but I have taken a locked-up chase and it has drawn a lot of interest.  I have a ways to go before I sell enough to pay for my market fees, but this is a good way to support our little market and help it grow.

 
 When September rolls around, I'll be able to offer more items - we all will. Texas passed a Cottage Food Law a couple of years ago that made it possible to open one's home to sell baked goods and jams. It is a common-sense approach that recognizes that if we know the person doing the cooking, we can decide for ourselves whether we want to eat what they have cooked.  The newest version, which takes effect Sept 1st 2013, is pretty exciting, because it expands common sense to foods that are pretty much going to be safe to eat and allows us to take our products to Farmers' Markets and locally sponsored Fairs, as well as sell from home.

 Here's another place where we - Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Tea Party, Occupy... pretty much everybody but the Socialists and Communists - can come together, I think. We all want personal sovereignty over our food!!!!

 So, in anticipation of HB 970 (still awaiting the final rules to define exactly what items we can sell), I have been carving linoleum blocks to use on labels for my homemade jams, jellies, relishes, sauerkraut, syrups and baked goods. The linocuts, combined with Art Deco era typefaces, give the labels a fun old fashioned look. These are the first proofs of a few of them, printed on dry-gummed paper. I will tweek the colors and ink coverage a bit for the final labels.

Barbarian Days: A Family Doctor's Home in the 1920s & 1930s (the Home of Author Robert E Howard)

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Cross Plains, Texas, and toured the Robert E Howard home as part of their "Barbarian Days Festival".  Howard's father was Dr. Isaac M. Howard. This simple frame house served as the family home, and, also, sometimes, doubled as Dr Howard's office where patients were seen. The home was continually in use as a place to live for various families from the time Dr Howard sold it until Cross Plains' Operation Pride recovered it for preservation in 1989.

 Since that time, they have worked to furnish it with period furnishings and house those artifacts they can obtain (such as the camel inkwell that stood on Howard's desk - a gift from Cecil Lotief, local Cross Plains  dry goods merchant - and first Texas legislator who had been born in Lebanon. He was first elected in 1932). Other furnishings are close copies of items either known to have been there, or true to the period.  Below is a photo of Bob Howard in front of this house, circa 1925.

My main interest was that I enjoy touring simple historical homes: the kind of house in which ordinary citizens lived a hundred years ago. In this case, the home of an ordinary small-town family physician. During that epoch in American history, there were similarities among all Americans of frugality, economy of space and furnishings, and natural closeness of proximity to household members and neighbors, that is readily apparent when we walk through such a home and consider how life would be lived in it.

 By today's standards, the author's cell-like bedroom/study (below) is tiny, cramped, and simple. But by the standards of the day (continuing even up into the 1970s in most of the country), it was probably much like the rooms of Howard's own unmarried peers. The room offered simple comfort, privacy, a bright and airy place in which to write and attend to the voluminous correspondence an author would keep up in that era when postcards and letters would be mailed daily for the same purposes email and messaging would serve today. 

The bare bulb was a common feature of most homes until new homes built in the prosperous 1950s and 60s popularized inexpensive, built-in light fixtures. My grandmother's house had several while I was growing up.  Our current house still had bare bulbs in the mid-1940s during WWII, when Rita's family first moved here, and it was the first time they had electricity. This house at that time had 4 rooms - and her family rented one of them out to a soldier and his wife, who kept all their household goods in that one small bedroom, brought pots out to cook and went back into their room to eat their meals! This gives an idea of how economically indoor space was used during these earlier eras.

 Porches were converted into bedrooms more often than not - and existing windows and doors were just left intact. During pre-electric times, such windows and doors still had use for ventilation and light, just like the transoms found above interior doors in so many old homes. If not needed to carry daylight and breezes, these unused windows and doors were often covered permanently with a heavy curtain or drape to block light and drafts, and furniture would be placed in front of it as though it were a solid wall.

My mother's house, of similar or slightly earlier vintage as this one, has two such converted porches: one very similar to this one resulted in her kitchen having a window-to-nowhere (well, technically, a window-into-the-next-room). Her kitchen also has another window that faces into the remaining screened "sleeping porch" that could have been, if needed, similarly converted. The other converted porch left a door-to-nowhere behind the sofa in her living room (but alas, there is no "door into summer"!).

Not only were bedrooms added to accommodate growing families, but also young adults tended to live at home until they married, and were given their own space by adding a room or converting a porch. Our house has a converted porch that we now use as the laundry room. but which once turned a crowded 4-room house into a three-bedroom home  and housed a family's sons, who had previously slept in the living room.

From the back, it is each to see the flat roof of the addition - also very common for what is known as "lean-to" add-ons. Our house has a similar flat roof over the portion added in the 1970s.
 

 I was particularly interested to see the plate block for Dr. Howard's original bookplate (or Ex Libris as some call them). It is a linoleum cut and bears the doctor's own signature. A corresponding print from it is framed with it, but I couldn't tell whether the plate was designed to make prints onto gummed paper for application, or to print directly onto a book's fore-leaf.

 The docents at the museum, all members of Cross Plains' Project Pride, were wonderful, and I appreciated their friendly guidance through the tour. Here is one of these nice ladies with the Cross Plains Centennial Quilt, displayed in Mr and Mrs Howard's bedroom of the home, to which she had contributed a square. Each block was made by local women to celebrate the town's history, and its recovery from the devastating wild fires that burned 130 homes and killed two people in 2005.

 We wrapped up the day with the Barbarian Festival in a lovely, oak-shaded park, complete with live music, free watermelon (courtesy of AMA-Techtel), Conan the Barbarian artwork, and fabulous food. There was even a car show. This is an annual event and it was a lot of fun. I hope we will be able to go again from time to time!

Much more about Howard, his writing, his family, and life can be found at various places, including REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, REHupa (the Robert E Howard United Press Association), and the Robert E Howard Foundation.

7/4/12 Update: Thanks to OpiningOnline.com for the link! :-)

Computer Failure and Summer Pleasantries

My trusty Dell Inspiron lies comatose, due to hard drive failure. It is 6 years old, so unlikely that we'll have it repaired. I'm going to ask Devin to look at it, and if it is costly to fix, he can have it for parts. There go all my bookmarks, photos, blog notes. C'est la vie. We won't replace it soon, there are more important priorities. For the time being, Paul is letting me share his computer - which is also our tv source.

So blogging will be lighter, but will not disappear. This blog has done well as an outlet for me and I enjoy my readers and the friends I've made through it.  I'll simply be posting once a week instead of 2 to 3 times. Maybe the quality will improve! Ha! :-)  Anyway, thanks for reading and for continuing to follow along. In the meantime, feel free to visit our sponsors.   :-)

It's actually been pleasant to be without a laptop.  At Paul's urging, I've resumed an old hobby, making costume jewelry and stringing beads - and making beads. When we met, I sold my jewelry in a couple of shops and did shows, but had let the hobby fall to the wayside long ago. Expect to see some pieces here at some point.

I've also been working on a big project that has been sitting and waiting for a couple of years: a tiny Cardinal travel trailer, vintage late 1960s. It had been gutted and I guess used as a food cart or something so it was a real mess! We aren't "restoring" it as such, but making it liveable as a secure place to sleep. Whereever we camp will certainly have "facilities" with showers and clean toilets, thank you very much! I am a big fan of hot water and indoor plumbing even when roughing it.  Paul shored up the inside and got the tags on and will take care of the electrics. My brother in law is going to paint the outside of it for us when we get to that point. Yesterday I finished the second coat of paint on the interior and now I'm searching for curtain material. It needs to have a touch of the avocado green of the naugahyde cushions, have a little blue, either  beachy, tropical or mid-century modern pattern. I lost the "before" pics on my computer, but I'll put up some "in progress" ones soon.

Yesterday morning after I got off work, we went to Cross Plains Texas to Robert E. Howard Days (aka Barbarian Days). I've been wanting to go to that since I first heard about it but something always interfered. We toured the author's house, bought various bits of Conan the Barbarian comic art, took pictures (I'll add them in a later post), and went to the Barbarian Festival. Cross Plains has a great, oak-shaded park for this kind of event. It was cool and comfortable. Live music, great Fair food, free watermelon and neat tshotshkes. One book I bought was "Lone Scout of Letters", the collected correspondence of Herbert C. Klatt, who died at 21 on 1928. Not only for those interested in Boy Scouts history, the Lone Scout organization, or the history of amateur journalism, the book also gives a glimpse into the life of a teenaged boy in rural Texas in the early part of the last century. 


We'll pick up the grandkids today to come spend a week or two. They are older, and they come each summer to help with the community Vacation Bible School. They always have a lot of fun, and we are so happy to have them. 

Now, off to church. Dinner on the ground and baptisms this afternoon, as more people answer Jesus' call to "Come, follow me."   


God bless you this Sunday, and through your week!

How to Prevent Weevils & Pantry Moths & Get Rid of Them Forever

In Home Economics class, they taught us how to sift flour, but never owned up to the real reason sifters were invented: to remove weevils from flour back in the days when throwing it away might have meant starvation. Some people call them flour moths, mealy bugs, Indian Moths, pantry webs... lots of names because good housewives everywhere have been plagued with them for centuries.

I will never forget how horrified I was in my first home when weevils were in my flour. It really freaked me out. That was when I talked to my grandmother to find out what to do. She told me 3 things: (1) Put a bay leaf in everything, (2) store in airtight containers, (3) if you have them, clean thoroughly to get rid of them, then follow (1) & (2).

Getting weevils in grains or moths in the pantry doesn't mean you don't keep a clean house but once you know how to keep them away, you never have to cope with them again. 

(1) Put a bay leaf or two (a dried, culinary Bay Leaf) in each canister or bag. It will not put out any flavor or odor to the food, but will prevent weevils or moths. Mema told me that weevils come in the flour/grain, and that the secret is to keep them from hatching. That prevention is what the bay leaves do, and they really work. Even an airtight container may not prevent weevils, but the comination of a bay leaf in a closed environment well.

(2) Store everything in airtight containers. I like clear containers so I can see what I have. Otherwise I forget. And I like plastic because I'm a klutz, but glass is superior otherwise. Clear plastic, clear glass, or brand-name zip storage bags (like Zip-Loc heavy-duty gallon bags) are all fine. Tins and opague plastic, such as Tupperware, will work great too so long as you can remember how to find things.

I leave things in their original package, and use a container big enough to just drop them down into. The Bay Leaf can then go into the container and doesn't have to be directly in the package of flour or barley. Plus that way I can remember what brand I bought.

Keep birdseed and pet food in airtight containers too. These are notorious and easy to forget. If possible, keep both of these items outside the house, in the garage. Rubbermaid tubs are super for large quantities or for storing several kinds of items in their original packaging.  Airtight & watertight, Rover and the red birds will love you for keeping their food fresh. Birds don't mind the protein from the bugs but still I'm sure they'd rather have the sunflower seeds!

(3) To get rid of a problem with them if you already see pantry moths or weevils, empty the pantry and brush it thoroughly, including the joints, with a stiff brush, then vacuum using the crevace tool or a dust buster- including the joints. If you don't have a vacuum, use a whisk broom or other stiff brush and give it a good brushing on all surfaces.

If it won't hurt the pantry to get it damp, wipe it down after that with soap & water and allow to dry completely. Don't use pine oil or anything with a strong scent as foods might pick it up. Just use soapy water and wring out your washcloth well. No need to rinse - the soap residue will also help keep pests away.

When you put things back, put them into containers with a bay leaf first. Inspect the stuff you took out to be sure it doesn't have weevils before putting it back. Telltale signs are small holes in the packaging, webby
clumps in flour or meal, and of course, weevils themselves.

All of this may sound like a lot of work, but it's not really. Once you get the pantry set up, it's only a matter of keeping it up. So when a new bag of flour comes in, straight away it goes into the flour tub. New boxes of cake mix can go into the same Zip-Loc bag the others came out of. Easy-peasy.

And it doesn't have to cost much at all. Some will be free: recycle containers you'd otherwise throw away. Start one at a time, with flour and grains, as you get a container, put something in it. Any kind of containers that fit your budget are fine. My stuff is stored in pickle jars, Zip-Loc brand bags, mason jars, cannisters that rice came in, Tupperware from garage sales, big cannisters from the dollar store, sugar in a plastic sherbet tub.

Voila! Vintage living at its best: no more bugs, no more waste, and no poisonous pesticides. Just clean, all-natural remedies and a tidy house.

Display Ideas For Vintage Recipe Booklets

A lot of my collections are made of paper. Vintage advertising recipe booklets are one such, and I have a few I just couldn't part with. Colorful and witty, those cute little recipe folders are just too fun to leave in a drawer.

I mean, in our Tex-Mex kitchen, who could resist 1920s and 1930s "Tasty Tested Anglo Recipes", "Gebhardt's Mexican-Style Foods" and "Walker's Red Hot Chile Con Carne"? The Walker's one, red with a bright green sombrero, is actually from 1918, the WWI era.

The company was based in Austin, Texas. Gebhardt is also an old Texas company - I still use their chili powder today for general cooking (I use Morton's Chili Blend for actual chili). And Anglo not only made canned hams and corned beef, but also advertises Deviled Ham, Deviled Tongue and Liver Spread!

One of the little projects I've had on my list was to find a way to display them that didn't take space away from some other wonderful thing that needs a prominent home!

Inspired by my new cabinets, I finally got around to it last month.

This is a super-simple project. I used the hard clear cases that sports cards collectors use, and glued a piece of sheet magnet on the back. It's a good use for those magnetic business cards we keep long after the realtor pictured has moved on.

Voila! (which is how the word "Walla!" is spelled!)

Refrigerator magnets that can be changed out, and the keep the booklet available, just in case we suddenly decide to try that recipe for jellied liver tea sandwiches.

Aren't they cute? If you have other ideas for showing off vintage paper, please share! There's always something cute that needs just the perfect treatment....

Flood Watch: Louisiana

Pat Austin at SIGIS is in Shreveport, away from the flood zones, but is keeping the watch and posting roundups of information on the cresting waters of the Mississippi River, including the work the Army Corps of Engineers is doing, the preparations the people are making, and the human determination in the face of disaster.  Pat has a series of posts up already that can keep you up to date with reliable sources.

Bobby Jindal shows his mettle as a fine leader who is having to make terrible decisions. It's remarkable what a difference a good governor makes in preparing for the inescapable.

To all of you in Louisiana, we hold you in our prayers. May God keep the people and the land in His hand throughout this ordeal, and give you stamina, and good hope.



 Photo: one we took coming across the Mississippi Bridge between Mississippi and Louisiana last year.

Refinishing the Bath Tub

As I mentioned in the bathroom remodeling post, our choices with the worn-nearly-down-to-metal porcelain enamelled cast iron tub were to (a) bring in a cutting torch and cut it in half to enable two power-lifters to carry it out through the door or (b) tear out the entire exterior wall of the room including removing the weight-bearing framing in order to hoist it out that way.

We chose (c): give the ugly tub a make-over and restore its erstwhile beauty.

I had planned to have a professional come refinish the tub, but no one local does this. So, I bought a two-part spray epoxy kit called "Magic ReNew Tub and Tile Refinishing", and did it myself.

Some years ago, I used spray Appliance Epoxy to paint a built-in oven exterior with good and lasting results. So I figured, as bad as this tub was, I certainly couldn't make it worse by trying.

If we only had one bathroom, we'd have had to arrange to shower at a friend's and brush our teeth in the kitchen for the couple of weeks this project required. As it was, we have two so just kept the door shut on this one.

The hardest part was cleaning and prep. This took a long time (several repetitive hours over the course of a week), but the final result will not work if the preparation is not scrupulous. Any residue of soap or oil hidden in a scratch will prevent the epoxy from adhering and cause it to peel.  I was careful not to stay on my knees too much and did as much work as possible from a crouch or sitting position.

I removed the drain cover and overflow cover before starting. The I put on my goggles, my rubber gloves, and set to work. I scrubbed, cleaned with TSP (per directions on refinishing kit & using all precautions listed on the TSP package itself), sanded, steel wooled.. then scrubbed, cleaned with TSP, sanded, steel wooled... some more for at least three times. I'd work on it after work each evening until I gave out, then start over the next day.

After the final final rinse, I let it dry for several days. That's another essential - absolute dryness.  Then I  masked EVERYTHING.

Seriously, this job can't be done without covering everything from the floor to walls with sheets and paper, as the spray paint will drift and settle and is impossible to remove. I left it all masked until the whole job was finished.

I followed all instructions carefully, especially the safety instructions, and including the interesting chill one/heat one method for mixing the contents of the two cans.

This task requires an experienced hand with canned spray paint. It would be wise to practice by repainting a set of wicker lawn furniture or something until one gets comfortable with the on/off, back/forth motion that covers without drips. I applied the several coats of epoxy over a course of days in the evenings, and closed that bathroom off completely to allow the full length of time to cure undisturbed.

While I will not be volunteering to do this for anyone else, and I still would recommend a professional if you can possibly get one, I am VERY happy with the results for a "homemade" job of it.

A Leader Shows the Way: Sarah Palin goes to Israel

Via Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection (good blog, linked from my sidebar), comes Andrew Sullivan's important points about Sarah Palin's common links with other great women leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, and Elizabeth I, and thoughts on her upcoming visit to Israel (more at Texas for Sarah Palin).

Palin's trip to Israel is vital, and I believe, will in future be seen as a decisive event. She needs no election to serve as an effective ambassador for Americans like me who love Israel, and who hold great hopes for a blossoming future of true liberty for all people in the coming years.

Sarah Palin is in good company with her support for the Jewish homeland:

"Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality. "
Dr Martin Luther King Jr

"Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom."
John F. Kennedy

"Today we should all recommit ourselves to ensuring that the miracle of a Jewish state endures forever."
Sarah Palin, 2010

Sullivan's article at The Atlantic is illustrated with the ill-fated Celtic Queen Boudicca, but the image above is Lady Liberty herself, here depicted in her WWI era garb as the ardent American defender of the Armenians against the 20th Century's first genocide.

Christmas for a Sharecropper's Orphan: The Salvation Army, Then and Now

The 1920's - "the Roaring Twenties" - was a boom time, much like the 1980's or the 2000's, the communications and manufacturing revolution was going on, prohibition stoked a powerful illicit economy, lots of people had money and the stock market saw massive inputs from young, inexperienced traders. Many fortunes were being made - in theory. Mostly, the money was available for people engaged in emerging industries or occupations, or who were dishonest enough to be smugglers or distillers. Those in traditional occupations continued to live much as they had for the prior 50 years.

My grandfather's family were poor during this time. There were 8 children in the family, and Nandy was in the middle. Nandy's father was a share-cropper in East Texas and Southern Oklahoma.

At that time - around 1900 through until 1940 - seventy per cent of all farmers in the whole region were share croppers. Race had nothing to do with it - then as now, money, effort, ingenuity and plain luck were the deciding factors between poverty and wealth. People who could not afford to buy land worked for those who did. Everyone I have ever known who was born before 1935 picked cotton at some time in their lives.

This is Nandy's story of Christmas when he was 8 years old in 1922, and the part The Salvation Army played in it. While other "charities" have forgotten their mission, only The Salvation Army still focuses on precisely the same people & needs they always did.

From "Precious Memories" by Sidney Gilstrap:

"We finally arrived in East Texas [in 1921] and stayed at Grandma and Pappy Bruton's until Papa could find a "share-crop" farm for us to live on. A Share-crop farm is one that the owner furnishes the farming tools and buys all the seed to plant a crop with. A share-crop farmer is one who works the farm, planting, plowing, and harvesting the crop. He also takes care of the farm, such as clearing land, building fences and things like this. All profits are shared half to the owner and the other half to the farmer. This and a house to live in is the farmer's pay. The better the crop, the better the pay.

"Papa had to clear nearly all the land of trees and underbrush. Most of this was done with an ax and crosscut saw. There were no such things as chain saws. It was all done the hard way, by hand. The larger trees were cut for firewood for cooking and heating. There was no such thing as natural gas, propane or electricity, especially in the country.

"Our new home was a three room house (almost new), with a porch all across the front... Our house was located on the West side of East Mountain, right at the foot of it. There was a small creek about 200 feet between our house and the mountain. It had little waterfalls and was spring fed. This was our water supply as there was no well at the house.

[After about a year in East Texas, the family moved back to Cornish (near Ringling) Oklahoma, and Papa found another farm to share crop.]

"In the Spring, Papa was plowing and getting the ground ready for planting. Back then, it was done with horses pulling a plow and the farmer walking behind the plow and guiding it. Nothing but old hard work for a farmer in those days. One morning the weather was cold and misty and Papa worked until about noon. He came to the house with chills and fever that developed into pneumonia. Old Dr. Dorsey came (by horse and buggy) but he couldn't help Papa. This was on April 13, 1922. ...

"I remember Papa as kind, gentle, pleasant, and a hard worker. He would kid with us and we always had a good time when he was around. We missed him for a long time....

[His mom then took the children and moved to Denison, where she had family.]

"Mom got a job at a peanut factory and Lester [older brother] and I got us a job selling papers in the afternoons. [In the summer when school was out] we would also go down to the Farmers Market and get vegetables and cantalopes to carry up and down the streets to sell. We had to carry them in tow sacks. We would get a percentage of what we sold. Sometimes we sold some and sometimes we didn't.

"Mom's job didn't last long, so she got another one at the cotton mill. They made cloth out of cotton. We moved to the other side of town [close to] the factory and close to school too.

"We spent our first Christmas without Papa there and it looked like it would be just another day. We were just barely getting by and nothing to spend for Christmas. We all knew that. On Christmas morning, I went out on the front porch. I couldn't believe what I saw. There were two large boxes with all kinds of goodies, toys, clothing and food in them. No one could have made me believe that there was no Santa Claus.

"I found out, later, it was the Salvation Army that brought our Christmas to us. I still have a very warm spot in my heart for them. They are still helping families like we were. In those days [1922], there was no such thing as welfare, food stamps, Social Security, WIC, AFDC, or any kind of government assistance for the needy."

And today, 90 years later, the Salvation Army stills puts its first interest into sheltering people no one else will help, and giving needy people a real Christmas. The Salvation Army is the only organization all over the country that provides transient men a safe and warm place to sleep for a couple of days. They also help with disaster aid, work therapy, locator services to reunite families with loved ones, meals, and many many other essential daily needs.

They don't pay their administrators outrageous salaries and they don't do it for publicity.

When we went through Hurricane Claudette, the Salvation Army helped us and our neighbors. The hurricane was stronger than expected, and by the time it was over on Monday the area looked like a war zone. Power was out everywhere, many were without water too, and several of our neighbors' homes had been destroyed.

The Salvation Army showed up in our tiny beach community on Wednesday morning and fed hot, cooked meals three times a day for the rest of the week until power was restored and everyone had decent living arrangements.

They refused to take a single dime for the food, made no test of need, and would not even accept donations. They were the only outside group to help our community. None of the "famous" organizations or agencies came, not even to look around.

So we put money in every bell ringer's pot, going in and coming out. They've been there for us, and we want to be there for them.

God Bless the Salvation Army.


*Photo: "Papa, Mom, and Rosalie" (Thomas Lester Gilstrap, Minnie Lee Bruton Gilstrap, and youngest daughter Rosalie).

How Paul Makes Caesar Salad

Caesar Salad is named for the Mexican chef who invented it in Tijuana in the 1920s. Our family agrees that Paul's Caesar Salad is the world's best. It has simply ruined me, as all others disapoint in comparison. One of the most eagerly awaited courses of our Christmas dinner, even the children love it. His Caesar is a fully traditional version, including anchovies and egg, and he makes his own croutons. Here's how he does it.

NOTE: if you are concerned about the raw egg, you can pasturize the yolk by mixing it with the lemon juice and vinegar and heating over a double boiler, whisking constantly, until it reaches 150 degrees. Here is a place with full directions: http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Mayonnaise.html


Paul mixes his dressing right in the salad bowl, starting with a tablespoon or two of anchovies, 3 or 4 whole, peeled cloves of garlic, and a sprinkle of coarse salt. Mash these together with a fork. The coarseness of the salt helps grind the garlic and anchovies into a paste.



Add about a tablespoon or two of Dijon mustard. A little secret Paul taught me of making salad dressings is that dijon mustard helps to emulsify the oil, so always add a bit to your vinegrettes and they won't separate as quickly.

Add the juice of half a lemon and an equal amount of red wine vinegar.





Add one raw egg, and mix it all together well. (If you are pasturizing, follow the instructions in the link above about mixing the lemon juice, vinegar and egg and warming it all, then add it into the bowl).


Drizzle in Extra virgin Olive Oil, whisking as you go. The amount will be about equal to the total of the lemon juice and vinegar together, but taste from time to time to get the right balance.



Toss the romaine lettuce into the dressing well. When fully tossed, add copious amounts of grated parmesan cheese.




Add lovely homemade croutons, and toss again. Because of the number of photos involved, I posted a separate post on how to make the croutons, just after this one.







Plate and add a grind of fresh cracked black pepper. Serve immediately.

Bon Appetite!

The Naturalist's Vintage Calendar

This page for the week of January 10 through 16 from the 1926 John Burrough's Calendar reads

"The apples that cling to the trees, the pods that hang to the lowest branches, and the seeds that the various weeds and grasses hold above the deepest snows, alone make it possible for many birds to pass the winter among us." From "Signs and Seasons"

Three Kings Cake For Epiphany, Vintage Bisque Dolls, & the Industrial Revolution

The Kings Cake celebrates the arrival of the Three Wise Men who brought gifts to baby Jesus. A tiny doll, or a coin or almond, is hidden in each cake and the person who gets that piece is king for the day, and believed to have luck all year. One piece of the kings cake is set aside, the "piece for the Virgin" to be given to the first needy person who comes to the door. That part of the tradition reminds us to be good neighbors - and that need may be right on our doorstep.

The Kings Cake isn't a tradition in our family, and that's unfortunate. It is for my grandson, because his stepdad Francis is from Louisiana, and he buys a King Cake every year. In the South - and especially in Louisiana - the King Cake tradition is an important part of the Mardi Gras season up until Lent.

When I found this simple recipe for one using canned cinnamon rolls, I decided to try it for our Christmas breakfast this year and it was a big hit. Traditionally, you'd have this cake on January 6th, Epiphany, which is "twelfth night" or "the twelfth day of Christmas". Click here to see the original recipe at www.holidays.net

It is very easy to make your own colored sugar using food coloring, 3 separate little bowls (custard cups work great). I use toothpicks to stir with so I can just throw them away. Just stir one drop of color into a couple of teaspoons of regular granulated sugar until it's mixed in and the sugar is the color you want. Maybe two drops, but you don't need much. Red and blue mixed together (2 drops red, one blue) make purple.

Shape the canned cinnamon rolls into an oval ring, and hide a miniature baby doll in the dough. Bake as directed on the package, and use the icing that comes with it. After icing it, sprinkle with the 3 colors of sugar you made up, and serve immediately! Use 2 or more cans to serve more people. I used one of my tiny antique bisque dolls for this (an unpainted bisque one for safety since these are antique). Do be careful to warn everyone if you are using a bisque doll, so they won't break a tooth by biting it! Plastic would be better but I didn't have a plastic one.

You could also use a dried bean, a whole almond or a coin - that would be quite traditional and just as much fun. In fact, it is most likely that a coin or a bean probably were in use for centuries before the little "king babies" began to be used instead. These miniature dolls were called "pudding dolls" in England (because they were put into the Christmas pudding), and "feves" in France (Feve is french for Fava Bean, which originally represented the baby in French "Galettes des Rois" or "Couronne"). They might also be referred to as "santons", "Epiphany dolls" or "frozen charlottes" (although frozen charlottes are not always pudding dolls).



I'm no expert but the tradition of using a little doll probably started in the Victorian age. This is when the Industrial Revolution made mass production possible. Before the Industrial Revolution, most goods were handmade, and made locally. Only the wealthy could afford imported products made elsewhere that weren't necessary to life. But when machines began to be invented, the creation of factory jobs and markets meant ordinary people had money to spend on something other than necessities. Trinkets and toys were suddenly inexpensive to make and the availability of money generated more commerce - locally as well as between regions and nations.


In France, the tradition of the baby in the cake really took off, and whole sets of little people in different costumes, called "feves" were made and used in the cakes. The various costumes represented each of the people in the village, who also would have visited the baby Jesus during the Nativity. Bakeries encouraged sales by putting a different figure in each cake. I always wondered why the popularity of those little sets. Now we know what their original purpose was!

Most of my little porcelain and bisque figures were made in Germany or Japan in the 1920s through the 1950s. I wonder how many of them were originally used in Kings Cakes, here in the USA?

Happy (Old) New Year! A Naturalist's Vintage Calendar

Did you find a vintage calendar for the upcoming year? Here are the first pages from a beautiful weekly one of John Burroughs quotes. It was for the year 1926, and is accurate again for 2010.


The page for January 1 and 2 reads "The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.", from "The Summit of the Years".

Week two, January 3 through 9, has this "A severe artist is Winter! No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel." from "Winter Sunshine".



In a previous post, there's a list of the calendars that correspond to 2010, and a link to information on which of the 14 calendar grids are applicable to any particular year. Jot down years from your favorite eras and take the list shopping with you.

"What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun."
Ecclesiastes 1:9 (New International Version)

Happy (Old) New Year!

Flea Marketeer Party! Recent Favorite Finds

The Flea Market Style Magazine Blog is hosting an "I'm a Flea Marketeer" party. I am posting a little early since I go to work at 6:30 am. Be sure to see the fun posts from other Friends of Flea Market Style over at their website after you finish reading here. Thanks to them for linking back here too, both on their Friends page and for this party!


Since Paul sells antiques (check out our Ruby Lane Shop linked from the sidebar - he lists new things each week), there's always a good excuse to shop. Selling is fun because there is always something even more wonderful around the corner. But it's even more fun to keep things for a while until (if ever) I am ready to part with them!

Recent keepers include this adorable old German Porcelain Pig milk pitcher, dressed like a Monk with his keys and his cowl. He probably dates from the turn of the last century, 1890s to 1910ish. Why yes, I do have a small collection of figural animal pitchers, and he is my new favorite.


Another collection that kind of crept up on me is World War I and WWII Homefront memorabilia, and other keepsakes from WWI. This candy tin features a portrait of King George V of England, and was made as a Christmas gift in 1914 from the Cadbury company to the wounded soldiers and sailors in hospital. Paul brought it home recently and I batted my eyes until he turned loose of it. Ok maybe that doesn't count as *my* find but it is my keeper! :-)



Our church had a rummage sale last week and I bought an antique "Taylor Storm-O-Guide" Barometer, dated 1927. I have been keeping my eyes open for one since I started getting interested in traditional weather prediction a couple of months ago.

What makes this particular one extra special is that it used to be in my house. The woman who donated it to the rummage sale used to live here and had it during that time (More about the history of our little house in a post later this week).


I bought this English cutting board at Ricochet Antiques, my favorite shop in town. The verse woodburned around the edge is called "The Lancashire Poacher". The little mouse in his hunting gear, with his shotgun and sack is also woodburned. Only three words to decribe it:
cute-cute-cute!


Do you have favorite finds you want to share? Come join the party! Post over at Flea Market Style, and do feel free to post your link on Pecan Corner here as well!

Obligatory Cat Post ... and Cat Lore!

This cat in our yard is not our cat. She/he/it belongs to the neighbors but loves to hang out in our yard. She makes us smile to see her.

We are between cats at the moment. when Baby died, we decided against getting another for a while. It's now been the longest either of us has ever gone without a pet. Thanks I'm sure in part to this cat and other animals in town, we still don't feel the need for another yet.

That day will come, but for now it is nice to not have to worry about who will feed the cat and such. Baby really spoiled us, because, even though she was a mostly-in-the-house cat, she got to a point where she only "went" out of doors, so we did not have to keep a litter box! Oh that was wonderful! My expectations for cat behavior will now forever include "asking to go out"!

I learned recently that cats can be used to predict the weather. Other than that when they are wet it is raining, I mean. Heh.

"When a cat washes her face over the ear, tis a sign the weather will be fine and clear." The other indicator in the same vein is if, when you pet the cat, it raises a lot of static. Both of these are because the humidity is low. The drier the air, the more static electricity cat fur will generate. The cat is licking itself to get a bit of moisture into its fur and stop those annoying little flashes of static. Cats groom themselves daily, but this proverb relates to increased grooming, specifically about the face and head.

That one makes so much sense to me. Baby was a long haired cat, and when we lived in West Texas, where it is always dry, her poor fur was always tangled and matted. No matter what we did, or how much we brushed her, her fur was always a mess. But when we moved to the coast, her fur became silky and soft and untangled. As if by magic, we didn't even have to brush her, she was able to attend to her own grooming. The constant humidity gave her a beautiful well-kept coat.

The second bit of lore, you will have to test for yourself. Not having our own cat, we can't observe for ourselves. It is this: you know those times when suddenly, for no reason at all and at a truly random time like the middle of the night, your cat leaps up and dashes madly around the house and over the furniture and skids around corners and leaps and bounds and whizzes around for 3 or 4 minutes and then just as suddenly stops and goes on about her business? When the cat becomes loud and boistrous and carries on - again for no reason?

Well, they say that indicates a storm is brewing. So next time this happens, watch and see if you don't get some kind of bad weather in the next, say, 24 hours or so!

My family was not generally very superstitious. But there were a few superstitions that people held to, and I will mention them from time to time. The old idea that a black cat crossing your path is bad luck was strongly believed. Nandy wrote that when his family moved from
Cornish Ok to West Mountain Tx (near Gilmer) in their covered wagon in 1921, a black cat walked across the road ahead of them. His "Papa" pulled the wagon to the side and waited. He said he would not move until someone else had crossed that spot before him. They ended up
camping there overnight. The photo of the man in overalls is Papa, with Little Grandmother and Auntie Rose, one of Nandy's sisters. Notice how pale her hair was? Nandy was towheaded as a little child too. It was only later his hair turned black.

And as late as when I was a child, Big Grandmother, Mema's mom, turned her car around one day and went around the block to avoid crossing the path of a black cat. The photo with the seashore backdrop is of Big Grandmother and Big Grandaddy and Mema.

Most superstitions that I heard about were considered jokes, and they told them to children as a way of teasing us. But the lore of the black cats was strong and the old folks weren't taking chances! Of course, later on we had a black cat as a pet and I think that dispelled the last of that old belief. :-)