story-inspired recipes

One of the great pleasures of reading for me is having the chance to do some vicarious eating. My husband and I often read at bedtime, and we've discovered that many of the books I read mention food but very few of his ever do. (Hm!) My earliest memory of food in books was Ramona Quimby talking about how her father used to bring home a white paper sack of gummy bears as a treat, and of course reading about Mrs. James Wilder's groaning feasts just encouraged this fixation on food further.

As such, it was only natural that our little children's swap group would do a trade for recipes inspired by children's books. I printed mine at home and included recipes for Anne Shirley's raspberry cordial, Ma Ingalls' vanity cakes, and Mary Poppins' thin, crisp gingerbread cookies.

I've always loved the anecdote in Mary Poppins when the children are taken to a gingerbread shop, where they choose cookies wrapped in paper gilt stars. Later on that night, Jane and Michael see Mary standing on a tall ladder pasting the silver stars to the sky with a bucket of glue...amazing! If you watch the film and pay attention to the scene when Mary and the children are headed out for errands, there's a mention of stopping by the gingerbread store, although they don't actually show it in the movie.

I also included a recipe for Chicken and Almond Mousse, a recipe I adapted from the Ginnie and Geneva Cookbook. The Ginnie and Geneva series is one of those gems like the Betsy-Tacy books that I'm surprised more people haven't read. Set in the idyllic 1940s and 50s, the books were similar to the Beverly Cleary books in that they are just everyday stories about a girl growing up and her place in the world. Along the way, Ginnie discovers a love for the kitchen in Ginnie and the Cooking Contest  and runs into various trials and tribulations with deciding what recipe she wants to submit.

When I read the book, I dearly wanted to taste what's described as a "rich, succulent concoction" with "tender white meat of chicken, whipped cream, olives, almonds, and flavoring." It wasn't until 20 years later that I discovered that the author had written a cookbook, and I was so happy to find the recipe for chicken loaf in it. I've posted a slightly altered version below in case you'd like to try it out.

Ginnie Fellows' Scrumptious Chicken and Almond Mousse

Ingredients:

3 egg yolks

1 cup chicken broth

unflavored gelatin

1 tablespoon cold water

1 chicken breast, poached and shredded

1/2 cup almond flakes, lightly toasted

salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 pint heavy cream

pimento olives, roughly chopped

Directions:

Beat the egg yolks in a medium heat-proof bowl with a whisk. Add in the chicken broth.

Bring a pot of water (filled 1/3 of the way) to boil and set your bowl on top for a double boiler effect. Cook the mixture until it thickens, stirring every so often.

Dissolve gelatin packet into a small dish with a tablespoon of cold water. Take your egg mixture off the heat and stir in the gelatin. Add the chicken to the mixture, and season with salt and paprika. Let the mixture cool to room temperature using an ice bath, stirring every now and then so it does not set.    

Using a stand or electric mixer, whip the cream until it’s thick and firm and fluffy. Gently fold the cream into the egg mixture along with the chopped olives, but don’t mix too much or the whipped texture will be destroyed. Pour the mousse into a loaf pan sprayed lightly with vegetable oil.

Chill the mousse for several hours until very firm. To unmold, run a knife around the edges of the pan and turn it carefully over onto a serving plate. 

Adapted from the Ginnie and Geneva Cookbook by Catherine Woolley.

This is a really delicious dish that's easy to do but elegant enough for company, and I highly recommend trying it if you're intrigued. With warm weather coming up, it'll be just the thing for a summer evening with a crisp salad and a glass of white wine. Enjoy!

velveteen rabbit adoption

Well, there was more drama on Swap-Bot over people not sending swaps they were supposed to. Fortunately this was caught in time for me to re-route the Adopt a Book Pet swap I was to send to my flaky partner, however, so I was able to scramble and make something different for Moineau in France with a few days' notice.

Her profile talks about how much she likes books featuring animals as heroes (!), so I wanted to make her something featuring one of my favorite books, Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit. My favorite version of this book features illustrations by David Jorgensen, so I did a little embroidered wall hanging based on one of the drawings.  I used thin corduroy and wool blend felt for the body and sewed it onto grey cotton cloth (which used to be one of my husband's nice dress shirts). I used masking tape to tape down the embroidery to cardboard backing and slid everything into a thrifted frame, and it's on its way to France now along with official adoption papers.  This isn't the first time I've made rabbits into wall hangings, but I think it's my favorite.

If you've never seen the beautiful film version of this book, by the way, you really should check it out. It uses the Jorgensen illustrations, is perfectly narrated by Meryl Streep, and also includes gorgeous music by George Winston. You can watch the first part of the movie here...but the film is so wonderful, it's really worth adding to your collection or perhaps even tucking into an Easter basket. I just love that it was done by Rabbit Ears Productions! At the 5 minute, 30 second mark in the clip, there is a brief flash of the drawing upon which this embroidery was based.

no gingerbread for me

Well, I attempted to go the Pomona Library's Gingerbread Sociable for Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday. Again. But apparently you really need to get there when it first begins in order to see anyone dressed in calico dresses...oh, well.

I still poked around and looked at the Little House exhibit, however, though I'm a little late in posting this. As I've previously mentioned, Pomona holds a number of Laura's precious original manuscripts and letters since she corresponded with the children's librarian. It's interesting to see the tablet with the Little Town on the Prairie draft and compare it to the final published version. It's amazing to look upon it and know that a woman I admired so much used that very paper to write about literaries and birthday parties with oranges and fashionable autograph albums.

The letters, newspaper clippings, and programs from various events over the years are specific to Pomona Library, and it is the photocopies that are on display. One of the letters contains a copy of her famous gingerbread recipe and was clearly written when she was in her late 80s after her husband died. I know she lived a long and happy life, but it still made me rather sad to read:

I'm living alone and it is very lonely without Almanzo, but it would be lonely anywhere and I would rather stay in my own, old home.

I do hope the original letters are locked away somewhere for safe-keeping, as it's a little worrisome that the photocopies and books on display are so faded and worn. I also wish there were more explanations for the artifacts...are those a family member's shoes? Where did the dolls come from? One of these days I'll have to go back and hunt down a librarian to answer some questions. In the meantime, it was really nice to see evidence of her legacy, however. And it's always nice to be amongst other Laura-lovers.

beloved books

My husband's family is really good at saving everything. His great-grandparents, who lived through the Great Depression, were very thrifty and took good care of the things they had. Years ago when they cleaned out the family home, they found its original bill of sale from the 1920s, as well as the Sears Roebuck Catalog out of which his great-grandparents had ordered their ready-to-assemble "catalog house." His great-grandfather built the house himself in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with the help of some Amish people who lived in the area. My mother-in-law still has all the paperwork for the house, which is astonishing to me since I sometimes can't even find my receipts from last week!

We've inherited a number of great things from his family, including a 1970s air popper that came in its original box and works perfectly, as well as those vintage valentines. She's also been sending along some amazing cameras for my husband (with original instruction manuals, still in their boxes, etc, etc), and yesterday I also received some well-worn, well-loved copies of Alice in Wonderland and Little Women. Both are inscribed to June O'Brien, my mother-in-law's mother, in beautiful script dated 1934.

The Lewis Carroll book is illustrated, of course, and the endpapers feature the Tenniel drawings printed in red ink. I especially like that Little Women appears to be the movie tie-in edition, since it comes with black and white photographs from the 1933 film. So funny! I enjoy leafing through them, and it will be a pleasure to read the books again with the knowledge that my husband's grandmother (and likely great-grandmother) clearly once loved and valued the same books.

bookish valentines

When you were little, did you decorate shoeboxes and paper bags for Valentine's Day? I fondly remember how much fun it was to make them with construction paper and glue and to watch the pile of thin white envelopes and little candies accumulate.

That was the idea behind the Sweets to the Sweet: a box of bookish valentines swap that I hosted. I thought it'd be fun to decorate and fill a box with cards signed by children's book characters, so everyone was asked to pick cards and write short messages that might've been chosen by characters they liked.

I wrapped and glued a cracker box in pretty red and white wrapping paper and then put on a few graphics so it looked sort of candy box-ish. I then printed out vintage cards or images that I found online, and embellished some of them with bits of glitter and ribbon.

I found a penny valentine with a worm on it that was perfect for Ramona Quimby to send to Henry Huggins, since of course she proposed to him with a worm wrapped around her finger; I printed out a Nancy Drew silhouette and pasted it to a doily for a card from Ned; and more penny valentines from Joe Willard to Betsy Ray, from Sheila Tubman to Peter Hatcher, and from Jules to Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family. The only two that weren't real "cards" were the one from Harriet the Spy to Sport and the card to Emily Byrd Starr from Teddy Kent, because he would of course send her something he'd painted himself. I always loved that Teddy had "the trick of putting [Emily] into every portrait that he painted," so I took the liberty of attributing A Meadow Flower to him. (Apologies, Mr. John White Alexander!)

I also used a few cards I scanned and printed from the box of 100-year-old valentines my mother-in-law sent me, including ones from Gilbert Blythe to Anne Shirley, from Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth Bennet, and from Peter Pan to Wendy Darling. It actually made me really sad to re-read the end of Peter Pan again; it'd been years since I read it, so it brought tears to my eyes when Wendy tells him she doesn't remember how to fly. Such a bittersweet ending.

Anyway...I put everything in the box with some candy, and I hope my partner will enjoy opening it. I'm looking forward to getting some bookish valentines of my own to read, too!

happy pooh day!

Today is A.A. Milne's birthday, so it's also Winnie the Pooh Day. Pooh Bear is a long-time favorite of mine, and I've been lucky enough to see both the dear animals that belonged to Christopher Milne last year and the original book manuscripts at Trinity College at Cambridge University. Someday I'd love to go to Ashdown Forest and play Pooh Sticks, too.

In honor of Edward Bear, I hosted a little Pooh candygram swap using this idea from Inchmark. I just lined the bottom of a stationery box with E.H. Shepard illustrations and filled it with candy, gift tags made from vintage book paper backed with card stock, and wee Pooh picks that should be perfect for tea sandwiches.  All wrapped up in blue ribbons and good cheer.

There are more photos of the original Pooh animals on the honeybee Facebook page if you've a hankering to see them. And if you need some Pooh urgently, don't forget you can also download the Pooh bookmark I made last year, too! Happy Pooh Day--and may your day be filled with lots of honey...

mockingjay pin

I finally read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games last year and was blown away by how spectacular it is. It's the story of a post-apocalyptic world in which teens are chosen to outwit each other in a vicious survival game, and where winning the televised competition literally means the difference between life and death.

Each contestant is allowed to bring one memento from home, and 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen chooses to wear a mockingjay pin. The bird is evolved from a crossbreed between a mockingbird and a jabberjay, a bird created by the pitiless Capitol to spy upon its citizens. As such, it is something that should not exist--and it eventually becomes a powerful symbol for the revolution.

I loved the first book in the trilogy, which is incredibly bleak and violent and sad. As soon as I finished it I had to look for a mockingjay pin, and sure enough, there are licensed pins, necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. (There should be more merchandise to come, since the book is also in the development stage for a film.) I ended up buying a pin from an Etsy seller, though, because I liked how the metal looked and the idea of supporting an independent artisan. I usually link the sellers I buy from, but in this particular case I won't, since the pin actually arrived separated from its pinback and it was a bit of a hassle to get a partial refund. After consulting a lot of different people on the best adhesive for this sort of thing, I was able to mend it (I think) with E-6000 glue.

I love it though, so in spite of the annoying buying experience I'm glad I got one. If you're interested in seeking a similar pin for yourself, there are a number of other mockingjay interpretations on Etsy as well. And if you haven't read The Hunger Games, do. It's unforgettable.

kindled

Since last Wednesday, I've pretty much shut off all communications with the outside world. I've rarely left the house, I've lost interest in meals, and I haven't done anything creative at all. It's all because that was the day I finally received a Kindle. Since then, I've been holed up in the house, speaking to almost no one and reading so greedily you'd think that I hadn't had access to books in months!

I will forever be devoted to the printed page, but this device has changed everything about the way I read. For children's books, I'll certainly still be buying hard copies, and I'll never stop haunting secondhand bookshops...but for newer books and YA books where the tactile and visual pleasure isn't nearly as important, the Kindle is the absolute perfect reading experience. A few of the things I love best about it are:

Trim Ergonomic Design
You never quite realize how heavy and cumbersome books are until you start reading on a Kindle. The tablet is amazingly thin and lightweight, and it holds up to 3500 books. I also like that it's not backlit, because it doesn't strain your eyes when you're reading for long periods of time. The e-ink technology really does make it seem as if you're reading a printed page, so it's much easier on the eyes. (Plus the size and shape make me think of Captain Picard sitting behind his desk with his silver tablet...but that's neither here nor there.) I also really appreciate that they've designed this in such a way that it doesn't feel like an electronic device, in that the fonts are friendly and the screen savers feature lovely scientific illustrations or author portraits. The wizards at Amazon did a great job of creating a really pleasurable reading experience.

Free Book Samples
I never read a book without skimming the first few pages, so having the ability to sample chapters and to order books so quickly and easily is astounding. I read 13 books in the first 5 days and sampled so many more...the whole process of researching, acquiring, and reading that many books would normally have taken weeks, if not months. And now I have new authors I love!

Instant Gratification
The Kindle is incredibly fast and responsive. Unlike every other electronic device I've ever used, including computers, Blackberries, iPods, fax and copy machines, etc, this device responds so quickly, you don't even have time to process your next thought before what you want is already there. This applies to page turns, turning it on and off, and even charging it. Downloading a book on the 3G-WiFi model takes literally less than a minute, which is just mind-blowing to me.

The very few quibbles I have with it are minor. I wish sorting books were a little easier, and it's a little too easy to mis-type on the rather widely-spaced QWERTY keyboard. But they really don't affect my enjoyment of the Kindle at all. This is a wonderful, wonderful device that I really think will be in many more homes in the future.

I'm so glad my husband got me one for Christmas--it's changed a huge portion of my life, and is literally one of the best presents I've ever gotten.

christmas tea parcel

Last week, I sent my gentlemen friends a Christmas package to help them get through all those cold winter nights. They're both tea drinkers, but they've never owned a proper tea pot, so I thought it was time to get them one.

I sent them a pretty white china tea pot and creamer, as well as our new favorite blend of tea from American Tea Room. This company, which is located in Beverly Hills, used to be known as the Palais du Thé and I'm a big fan of their lapsang souchong, which is a dark tea that tastes exactly like smoke. For this gift, we decided to go with the beautifully addictive new tea Nirvana, which is made up of Japanese sencha, figs, berries, rose petals and kiwi. I'm not usually a fruity tea person, but I love this particular drink--it's a subtle, sophisticated blend of florals and green tea that is mellow and smooth and absolutely unforgettable. If you'd like to order some for yourself or for a friend, the company does offer free shipping for orders over $50, and they have lots of great gift packages available as well.

It's not Christmas without books, of course, so I also sent them a copy of Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. I don't think either one of them have read it, and it's a nice cozy mystery to curl up with during the winter holiday. I really enjoy the challenge of finding children's books for my friends to read--I worked in book stores for many years, and my favorite question from parents was always "My son doesn't like to read. What would you suggest?" so I'm culling from that mental list as I send them books. So far, so good!

I packaged the tea things up in huge amounts of bubble wrap in a sturdy box, then prettied it up with paper adorned with birds, sequined ribbon, and a brass jingle bell. The book was a humble secondhand copy, but it's still befitting of holly tissue and vintage red velveteen ribbon. At the last moment, I also slid in a decorative pine cone that I glittered, and I quite like the overall festivity of the package. The presents are both simple and fancy...just like the boys they're going to.

holiday handicraft + free downloads

A few months ago, I picked up an amazing out-of-print book called Holiday Handicraft at a flea market here in Los Angeles. It's written by a woman named Nina R. Jordan, who seems to have written numerous craft books for children. I love the warm, comfortable way speaks to her audience, and how true these ideas still are today:

Ready-made cards for the holidays are printed so thousands are just alike. But when you make a card for somebody, you know that no one can ever make one exactly like it, no matter how hard he tries. The same applies for any gift you make.

I also enjoy the charming advice she gives about special crayon colors:

Probably everyone who reads this page has a set of crayons or water colors, or both. But did you know that crayons are also made in the colors of silver, gold, and copper? And that there are 10¢ pans of watercolors in silver and gold? The gold, silver, and copper crayons are not commonly sold in stores but they may be bought for 5¢ each by writing to the American Crayon Company, Sandusky, Ohio.

I wonder what the author would have thought of the vast array of materials and options available to modern crafters now. But the thing that is most fun, of course, is that many of these crafts are just as great now as they were then. I thought it would be nice to share some of the pages, which would be great little holiday projects to make at home, especially with kids. The author's illustrations are really sweet and most of the projects are self-explanatory due to her drawings. (I think I'm safe copyright-wise on this since the book was published in 1928, which means it should be in the public domain. Nevertheless, please copy these images for your own personal use only.)

I'll post more images for the holidays when I get the chance. Enjoy!

the snowman: ornament kit

One of my favorite holiday books is Raymond Briggs' The Snowman...it's such a lovely and sad book, all the more powerful because it's wordless. So I was very excited when my friend Holly posted a swap in which participants were to create an ornament kit for their partner based on this book.

I considered making a few different things, including a sewing kit or a needle-felting kit, but thought those might be a little too complicated to get the look just right--and so much of what is beautiful about the book is the artwork. Since I'd had such fun rediscovering Shrinky Dinks recently, I decided to make instructions for making shrink film ornaments for my partner.

I made a test ornament with a miniature snowy pompom, a silver bell, and tinsel pipe cleaner. It turned out looking very sweet, especially after I added a subtle bit of glitter glue to the snow. I included 5 different images for my partner to make, along with the appropriate materials and instructions--I hope she enjoys putting everything together!

The book is wonderful...but so is the cartoon adaptation, which has lovely music and soft, muted colors. If you've never seen the film, The Snowman is available to view here and continues here. I would normally quibble over adding an introduction for a book like this, but when the speaker is David Bowie--and he casually throws a snowman scarf around his neck--all is forgiven. Please do watch the film (and read the book!) when you have a moment...it will transport you to a snowy, gentle place you won't easily forget.

cross-stitched jane

One of the nice things about swapping is that occasionally you'll receive something made in a craft that you don't do. I haven't cross-stitched since I was a child, so it was a pleasure to receive this pretty cross-stitched bookmark from my partner booklover for the Jane Austen swap, quite painstakingly done with neat stitches and lace.

Chris didn't actually make the bookmark herself, so I rather wonder about the lady who did. I wish every handmade thing came with its own little story attached do you'd always know how it came to be.

I've been working on a few sewing projects that I can't share quite yet, but they've been keeping me pretty busy! Lots of photographs to take in the days to come.

jane bookmarks + download

If you can stand looking at a second set of bookmarks in one week, I have another download to share with you! I'm very fond of Jane Austen of course, so I made a set of these for a Jane bookmark swap during last week's paper crafting.

I decided to keep them pretty simple, since the quotes themselves are already so lovely.  The images are of a Jane silhouette, the covers to a couple of her books, and the picturesque logo for Houghton Cottage in Hampshire, England. If you'd like a set for yourself, you are welcome to download a copy here. Just print them onto cardstock, laminate and cut...and once again, these are for personal, not commercial use, please.

For a slightly different take on Jane, I bought a set of hilarious Pride and Prejudice and Zombies postcards a few months ago and used quite a few of them during the witching season. I never really finished the book itself, but these pictures are fantastic, and the postcards themselves are really well-designed and of great quality. Quirk did a really great job with these, and I hope they'll branch out with more interesting book projects in the future.