So Where's the Chair, Raphael?

'Madonna of the Chair' was painted in 1514 in Rome by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, aka Raphael. 

Try not to confuse it with the painting 'Madogga of the Chair' from Australia.

We know Raphael is a famous artist because we refer to him by one name.  Like Madonna on her chair.
 

'Madonna' is an old Italian word for 'lady', which I doubt Madonna ever was (see gross photo).  The Madonna in the Raphael painting is supposedly not just a lady, but a virgin.  The kid with the chubby legs is her baby, Jesus.  The depraved looking person on the right is supposed to be John the Baptist.  Maybe he's just sleep deprived.  Maybe from having nightmares about being beheaded.

 

So where is the chair?  Maybe the thingie in the foreground that I thought was a wine bottle is a part of the chair.

The legend of the painting is the best part.  Raphael was supposedly taking a walk and saw a young mother sitting in a doorway with her baby.  He thought it would make a great Madonna and child, but he didn't have any paper with him. He found a cask head and sketched the idea on it.  He kept the round shape when he painted the painting which is probably why we can't see the chair.

I would just love to see that chair.

The Marvelous Mittens Mystery or Fabulous Faux Finally Fails

Has anyone besides me noticed how well modern chemistry is duplicating natural materials now?

I have a couple of faux fur coats that people think are real when I wear them  I have red pleather short shorts that … never mind.  Just kidding.

My recent faux vs. real experience I will call the Marvelous Mittens Mystery.

I acquired a pair of vintage fur and leather marvelous mittens lined with fleece.  They were in great condition.  There was no brand label, just a very worn size label.

A couple of months later I decided to list them in my TangoPony shop and began the listing.  The title was 'Fur, Leather and Fleece-Lined Mittens.'

I photographed the marvelous mittens, edited the fifteen shots down to five, resized them and uploaded them to my in-progress Etsy listing.

As I began to write the description, it occurred to me that the lining might not be real fleece from a sheep.  It felt woolly, but something wasn't quite right.

I discovered the fleece was on a woven background.  Thinking it still could at least be wool, I pulled a few fuzzies off and took them to the Fire Test Laboratory … one of my dad's old glass ashtrays from the 1940's and a box of Rosebud stick matches.

The fleece flunked the Fire Test.

Of course that made me wonder about the leather.  It really looked real.  It felt real.  Even after an examination under magnification I wasn't sure.  I saw what could have been pore marks. 

This time I took the Marvelous Mitten to the Smell Lab along with a couple pairs of kid gloves and an old leather backpack.

The 'leather' on the mittens flunked the Smell Test.

Of course I had to subject the fur to testing and went back to the Fire Laboratory already described in the fleece episode.

And of course the fur flunked the Fire Test.

Now the mitten listing reads, "Wookiee Paws, Mittens, Faux Fur, Faux Leather, Faux Fleece". 

So what are these tests?

♣ The Fire Test for Fibers:  When lit, natural fibers smell like burned hair or paper and turn to ash. Silk threads will actually glow like the filament in a light bulb.  Synthetic fibers smell like chemicals and will melt and disappear when lit.

♣ The Smell Test for Leather:  Leather will always smell like leather.  Synthetic pleathers or vinyls never will. 

And that, boys and girls, is the Science Lesson for today.

Since I am not familiar with the test for wookieeness, I'll go out on a limb and say the mittens are definitely Genuine Wookiee. 

 

 

 

Jonathan Swift, The Mark Twain of the Late, Great 18th Century

Vintage Majolica wall pocket features a gentleman perched in a rose tree playing a golden flute or fife.  He is wearing breeches and stockings, the manly dress of the 18th Century. 

I'm a big fan of the 18th Century, the Age of Enlightenment.  At one point in my life I planned to pursue a postgraduate degree in 18th Century English Literature.  I got over it.

The century is most notable for the American and French Revolutions.  The French went a little overboard popularizing public beheadings as entertainment in my opinion, but at least they gave us the baguette.

Of course you remember that Mt. Fuji erupted in this century.  George Friederich Handel wrote his first opera. His fellow composers, those I call 'My Favorite Dead Guys', were Bach,

Beethoven,

                                                                                                       Mozart

and Haydn. 

Antonio Stradivari made violins.

James Audubon painted his birds,

Gainsborough painted his creepy people,

and Goya painted violence.

The city of New Orleans was founded.  Slavery was abolished in Russia.  Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccine.  Bartolomeo Cristofori built the first piano. 

Rubber was discovered.  Modern steel was developed.  Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals.

The 18th Century gave us Voltaire, Jane Austin,

 

Robert Burns, Walter Scott and my all time favorite, Jonathan Swift, author of 'Gulliver's Travels'. 

 

Swift stands as the most prolific satirist of the English language.  His works comprise 14 volumes of prose, over 900 pages of poetry and at least three volumes of correspondence. 

Swift was the Mark Twain of his day.  His thoughts are as witty, fresh and stinging as they were 250 years ago......................

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign:  that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

May you live all the days of your life.

 

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.

 

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse.  Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room. 

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake. 

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster. 

Books, the children of the brain.

 

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

 

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery.  If you flatter all the company you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest. 

There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Bo Peep and the Lost Porridge

Easter is not complete without an Easter basket.  I think the 'bead and pin' basket fits the bill quite nicely.

 

The basket pictured above is a fabulous foot tall and made in the 1950's.  Called a Victorian Bride Basket or Little Bo Peep basket, the bottom is open, so it can be slipped over a narrow bud vase.

 

I think Little Bo Peep would have loved it, but would not have been able to figure out why her flowers kept falling out of the bottom.  She was quite the dim bulb.

Pay attention:

'Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them.'

What? They're big fat puffs of wooly animal! It's not like she dropped her contact in the grass. Sheep are not exactly known for sprinting.  They stand around eating all day and maybe saunter a bit.  How far could they go?  Did she even try to find them? Did she look in the next meadow?  Did she look behind her?

What a lazy pill.  I hope she got a punishment.  Like no porridge for supper.

That would have meant English porridge made by boiling barley flour and water.  ICK.

It's not much of a punishment to miss that tasty treat, but not so with Norwegian porridge. 

Norwegian porridge, called Rømmegrøt, is a thick, warming, filling supper dish that, like many traditional ethnic dishes, is a 'love it' or 'hate it' menu item.

I wholeheartedly vote YUM!  It's perfect for evenings when you are completely snowed in.  Pretend you are in a cozy Norwegian mountain cabin and enjoy your supper.

 

              

Good grief!  How do you pronounce Rømmegrøt?

ROOM uh groot (Roll your R's, ignore the funky Norwegian O's and you're pretty close)

 

 

What's in it?

1/2 Liter (2 C + 2 T) Full Fat Sour Cream 

1/2 Liter (2 C + 2 T) Whole Milk

2 Deciliters (1/2 C) All-purpose White Flour   

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

Cinnamon

Butter

 

Now What?

Heat the sour cream to a boil and boil for about 3 minutes.

Lower the heat and stir in half of the flour.

Stir until there are no lumps.  Try not to lose interest.

Stir in the rest of the flour and milk little by little until the porridge is thick and silky and “hangs” on the spoon.

Bring to a boil.

 

And then?

Serve with sugar, cinnamon and butter.  Makes enough for four people or go ahead and just be a pig.

 

Donkeys and Elephants

I think the Republican Elephant and Democrat Donkey have outlived their usefulness.

 

The cute mascots, originally sketched by Thomas Nast in the 1800's seem worn out and not particularly descriptive of either party.

 

 

 

Let's pick something new, like the Republican Rottweilers and the Democrat Dalmations. 
 

Both run around making a lot of noise and neither is very good at getting things done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The World's Worst Recipe

Autumn is on its way.  It's time to start looking for that other glove.  It's also time to start thinking about tummy-warming comfort food. 

In the 1960's, our family had a favorite.  Fondue

 

We were active and frequent participants in the craze.  We dipped color-coded long forks into chunks of lean beef and plunged them into boiling peanut oil.  We tried ... not always successfully ... to avoid burning ourselves and each other. Dangerous food is always fun.

 

We also regularly treated ourselves to cheese fondue, made in a crockery fondue pot. We loved this in the sixties. Of course we also ate Spam.

Make this if you dare.

BROCCOLI-CHEESE FONDUE

• 1 pound Velveeta cheese.  Don't be frightened.  It will appear to be made of rubber.
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup.  Don't be frightened.  It is beige and gelatinous goop. 

• Pinch of garlic salt
• 1 box frozen chopped broccoli, thawed.  Cheap generic is preferable.
• Small package of slivered almonds
• White wine that has been in the refrigerator a month

Cook and drain broccoli.
Melt cheese and mushroom goop over low heat.  
Add broccoli, slivered almonds, garlic salt and a shot of the wine.  
Serve in a crockery fondue pot with bite-sized chunks of stale french bread.

It's a great way to eat your weekly limit of sodium and fat in one meal.

 

If there is any left over, you can always heat it up and pour it over slices of fried Spam.

 

 

 

 

Hey Quaker! These Cookies are Nothing to Smile About.

My kid taste buds kicked in when I saw the ad on TV for my favorite treat, the baked perfection known as the oatmeal raisin cookie.  Even better, they were made by none other than Quaker Oats, Emperor of Oatdom.

My mother used to bake my favorite cookie using the recipe inside the lid of the familiar cylindrical paperboard box with the smiley Quaker man on the front.

The cookies were chewy and moist and yum yum yummy.  No nuts.  No chocolate chips.  Just raisins.  I am an oatmeal raisin cookie purist.

In the grocery store, I hunted in the cookie maze until I spotted the smiley Quaker himself.  Oh joy!

Then gloom.  The package said banana nut.  A travesty. 

It's neighbor said chocolate almond.  Heresy.

Next to chocolate almond was cranberry and yogurt. 

Was I sleepwalking in a bad cookie nightmare?

Not wanting to cry in the store, I frantically pushed packages around until I finally found one on the very back of the shelf that said Raisins.

Oh joy!

Of course I couldn't wait until I got home to try one.  I tore open the box on my way to the car, then tore open the individual wrapper. 

The first bite!

Then gloom.  The soft baked object from the Quaker package on the cookie shelf in the cookie aisle tasted nothing like my mom's oatmeal raisin cookie.  Not chewy.  Not oaty.  Not even close.  It was soft.  It was dry.  It was gummy.  It had a weird flavor.  It was ick ick icky. 

I threw the rest away.

The box revealed why these faux oatmeal cookies are such a disappointment.  The Quaker changed his own recipe.  His new recipe has more than 50 ingredients.  This is it:

Whole grain oat flour

Enriched flour (Bleached and unbleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron,

      thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)

Raisins

Whole grain rolled oats

Sugar

Whole wheat flour

Palm and high oleic canola oil (with TBHQ preservative)

Fructose

Invert sugar syrup

Mid-oleic sunflower oil

Raisin paste

Inulin

Granola (whole grain rolled oats, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, sugar,

        partially hydrogenated soybean oil, honey, brown sugar, molasses)

Dried eggs

Modified corn starch

Corn syrup

Poly dextrose

Leavening agents (sodium bicarbonate, ammonium bicarbonate)

Oat fiber

Propylene glycol

Mono and di-esters of fat and fatty acids

Mono and digycerides

Soy lecithin

BHT

Citric Acid

Wheat gluten

Molasses

Calcium phosphate

Salt

Natural flavor

Cinnamon

Allspice

Corn starch

Enzymes (1422-RV1)

Here is the original recipe, first printed on the box in 1955.  It has 11 ingredients.  It still makes my perfect favorite cookie:

2 cups flour
½ t salt
½ t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
½ t ground cloves
1 cup vegetable shortening
1 ½ cups brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
2/3 C sour milk (make by adding scant T lemon juice to milk)
1 1/3 cups Quaker oats
1 cup raisins

Sift first five ingredients together.

Cream shortening and sugar. 

Add eggs and beat until smooth.

Add dry ingredients in small amounts alternatively with milk.

Stir in last three ingredients.

Drop by teaspoon onto greased cookie sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees until golden and springy to the touch, usually for 8 minutes.

Cool slightly.

Pour the milk.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.