Author Archives: John Cutrone

Mar 19 2024
13 Comments
Equinox, New in the Shop

Big News!

We have big Convivio Bookworks news to share: This little home-based business that began in 1995 is finally moving out of the house, and since the month began, we’ve been moving into our new Convivio Bookworks shop across the street from the Brightline / Florida East Coast Railroad tracks here in Lake Worth Beach. We’ve moved the Colt’s Armory press, circa 1905, that our friends Gail Gremse & David Rose bestowed upon us many years ago (it’s nice to see it again after having it in storage for 5 years), and we’ve moved type cabinets in, as well. Space to work and space to teach workshops, and a small retail shop, too. And this coming weekend, we’re having an open house and if you are local, we would be so pleased to see you there.

It’s not a grand opening, mind you. That will come later, perhaps in May, I’m thinking. No, this weekend’s open house is more about seeing what works and what doesn’t, and (let’s be honest) a chance to earn some do-re-mi to help pay next month’s rent. So far, I’ve been feeling that same excitement I feel when I set up a pop-up shop, like at Oktoberfest or Christkindlmarkt… except I don’t have to break this shop down once Sunday night comes.

Won’t you come see us? Click on the picture above to see the announcement (larger, full size), but here, essentially, is what it says: We’ll be open at our new location (1110 North G Street, Suite D, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460) for an open house on Friday evening, March 22, from 6 to 9 PM, and on Saturday & Sunday, March 23 & 24, from 11 AM to 7 PM both days. The press won’t be operational yet (we’re waiting for our friend Val Lucas to come down from Maryland to help us get the thing running), but it sure is a beautiful machine all the same. There will be treats, no doubt, and good company. And our new shop will be stocked with lots of lovely items for Easter and Springtime from Germany and Sweden and Ukraine, plus my mom Millie’s hand-embroidered tea towels, our amazing new Síríus chocolates from Iceland and many other fine foods, culinary herbs and herbal teas from the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community in Maine, writing papers and pens from Italy, non-Christmasy pyramids and nutcrackers and incense smokers and cuckoo clocks from Germany (all authentic and all handmade), Swedish cake candles… I don’t even know what else because my mind is full and I am a bit overwhelmed but trust me: lots of good things, many of which you had no idea you would find useful and/or joyful. This is what we do.

To be sure, I’ve missed writing to you, but I’ve just had no time, so please forgive me. Be that as it may, I do hope you had a nice St. Patrick’s Day, and St. Urho’s Day before that, and St. Joseph’s Day has just passed, too. In fact, as I write this for you, the vernal equinox has just occurred, less than an hour ago, at 11:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time. All is balanced, all is light, as our Northern Hemisphere days grow longer and longer still, as they will through the Midsummer Solstice in June. Ah, but that is far from now.

Please come see us: you know we’d love to see you. Here’s the address and simple directions:

Convivio Bookworks
1110 North G Street, Suite D
Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460

From I-95, exit 10th Avenue North, eastbound. At the first traffic light, turn left on North A Street. At the first stop sign, turn right onto 13th Avenue North. Once you cross the railroad tracks, turn right on North G Street. It’s one of Lake Worth’s little warehouse districts, and we are in the second blue-roofed building on your left before you get to 11th Avenue North. Plenty of free street parking and there are eight parking spaces in our parking lot, too.

From Dixie Highway, turn west at the traffic light onto 13th Avenue North, then turn left onto North G Street just before the railroad tracks. You’ll find us on the left side in the second blue-roofed building before you reach 11th Avenue North.

We won’t be open regular hours; not yet, anyway. For now, just special events (like this weekend’s open house) as we announce them, and some occasional weekend hours, most likely. And we’ll gladly open for you, by appointment, too. Just email us to arrange a time. We’d also be happy to receive your cards and letters at the address above, and will send you something in return, promise. Georgia, our mail carrier, is very kind and so far, she hasn’t delivered one bill, but instead, she’s brought us four cards and letters over the past four days. She makes me feel very welcome, and we’d like to extend that good feeling to you, too.

 

SHOP OUR SPRING SALE!
Spring is here and at our online catalog right now, you may use discount code BLOSSOM to save $10 on your $85 purchase, plus get free domestic shipping, too. That’s a total savings of $19.50. Spend less than $85 and our flat rate shipping fee of $9.50 applies. CLICK HERE to shop; you know we appreciate your support immensely.

A STORY FOR WINTER
Spring has arrived but we know that sometimes winter is slow to go. Here is a short bedtime story for a chilly night that I recently read for Stay Awake: Bedtime Stories for Kids & Sleepy Adults, from the Jaffe Center for Book Arts. It’s called “The Magic Porridge Pot,” and you’ll find this story (Episode No. 11) and nine others in the Stay Awake Library at the Jaffe Center’s Vimeo Channel. If you like what we do there at Stay Awake, please consider following the series on Instagram @stayawakebedtimestories … I do love this storytelling project, and it would be awfully nice to see the project get to a hundred followers, at least! Thank you!

Mar 01 2024
Book of Days Calendar, Spring, St. David's Day

Welsh Cakes, & Your March Book of Days

And now it is March, and nearly spring, and since it is very late at night, I will make this short and sweet: Here is your printable Convivio Book of Days Calendar for March. It’s an astonishingly busy month: the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, plus Ramadan and Holi and Easter and all the minor holidays that generally come with March. The first of them comes today: It is St. David’s Day, sacred to Wales. It’s a day for leeks and daffodils, but even better: Welsh Cakes:

W E L S H   C A K E S

It’s not uncommon to find recipes for Welsh Cakes that call for regular granulated sugar, butter, and nutmeg, but the traditional recipe will add lard to the mix, use caster sugar in place of the regular sugar, and will be flavored with the more mysterious flavor of mace. If you want the best Welsh Cakes, stick to the traditional version. If you can’t find caster sugar, make your own: pulse regular granulated sugar in a blender until very fine. Do not use powdered confectioners’ sugar, which has added corn starch.

3 cups all purpose flour
½ cup caster sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground mace
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons lard
6 tablespoons butter
¾ cup dried currants
2 eggs, beaten lightly
3 to 4 tablespoons milk
granulated sugar

Whisk together the flour, caster sugar, baking powder, mace, cinnamon, and salt in a mixing bowl, then work in the butter and lard with your fingers until the mixture has the texture of course crumbs. It’s ok if some larger chunks of butter remain. Mix in the currants. Add the beaten egg, working it into the mixture, adding just enough milk to form a soft dough that is not too sticky. Wrap; chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or until you are ready to make the cakes.

Turn the dough out onto a floured board and roll to a thickness of about ¼”. Using a biscuit cutter (scalloped, if you have one), cut into rounds. Gather up any remnants to roll out again and cut more cakes.

Heat a lightly buttered skillet (cast iron works great) over low to medium heat, cooking the cakes until each side is lightly browned (about 3 to 4 minutes… if they’re cooking quicker than that, lower the heat). Let the cakes cool for a minute or two, then set each in a bowl of granulated sugar, allowing sugar to coat both sides and the edges. Best served warm, split, with butter and jam, or, for a more savory treat, with cheese and leeks, at a table set with a small vase of daffodils.

SHOP OUR SPRING SALE!
Winter is quickly melting into spring and at our online catalog right now, you may use discount code BLOSSOM to save $10 on your $85 purchase, plus get free domestic shipping, too. That’s a total savings of $19.50. Spend less than $85 and our flat rate shipping fee of $9.50 applies. Traditional Easter goods from Germany have been arriving, and new fillable handmade paper eggs should be on our website by Monday.  CLICK HERE to shop; you know we appreciate your support immensely.

A STORY FOR WINTER
Before Winter completely melts away, here is a short bedtime story for a chilly night that I recently read for Stay Awake: Bedtime Stories for Kids & Sleepy Adults, from the Jaffe Center for Book Arts. It’s called “The Magic Porridge Pot,” and you’ll find this story (Episode No. 11) and nine others in the Stay Awake Library at the Jaffe Center’s Vimeo Channel. If you like what we do there at Stay Awake, please consider following the series on Instagram @stayawakebedtimestories … I do love this storytelling project, and it would be awfully nice to see the project get to a hundred followers, at least! Thank you!

Image: Our cover star for this month’s calendar is a painting called “Springtime, Harlem River” by Ernest Lawson. Oil on canvas, circa 1900 – 1910 [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons].

 

Feb 13 2024
2 Comments
Ash Wednesday, Carnevale, Lent, Shrove Tuesday, Valentine's Day

Pancakes, Heart & Soul

The Pancake Bakery

It’s a mid-week in mid-February and here come a couple of multi-faceted, multi-ceremonial days. It’s Tuesday today to begin with, and an extraordinary one at that: It is Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Mobile and Key West, and in Venezia, it is Martedi Grasso, and both the French and the Italian translate to Fat Tuesday. This is a movable celebration based on the timing of Lent, which is based on the timing of Easter, which is based on the timing of the full moon that comes with or after the Vernal Equinox. Tonight, the festivity of Carnival concludes. But for most of us, those of us who are far from the cities that celebrate Mardi Gras, tonight is simply a time to eat pancakes or crepes for supper, for the day is also known as Pancake Tuesday, and Shrove Tuesday.

Shrove Tuesday concludes Shrovetide, which is the time we’ve been in for several weeks now: the time after Christmas ends and before Lent begins, and there are many traditional foodways for Shrove Tuesday, even beyond the delectable pancake. Polish bakeries will have pączki today, a rich filled doughnut, and Germans will be making doughnuts, too, for this night they call Fasnacht: this night (nacht) before the fast. And in Sweden and Finland, you’ll find semlor on the table: buns scented with cardamom and filled with almond paste and cream. Our friends at Johan’s Joe, the Swedish coffeehouse in West Palm Beach where Seth and I have been known to buy a semla or two, tell us that originally semlor were made only for Fat Tuesday, or Fettisdagen, but nowadays Swedes bake semlor for all the Tuesdays of Lent. Traditions are living things; they do evolve.

How celebratory for a Tuesday to have pancakes for supper! But no matter if you are eating pancakes tonight, or doughnuts, or semlor, the idea behind all these things is the same. To clear the larder of the things that, traditionally, were not to be consumed during the Lenten fast, and in years past, this was a fairly extensive list (much more so than it is today): no eggs, no meat, no lard, no milk, no cheese, no sugar… no nothin’. And it was not just on Fridays; it was for the full forty days of Lent. When our ancestors fasted for Lent, they really meant it. Lent was forty days of beans and pulses and vegetables and fish and absolutely nothing fun. The Italians certainly understood this. Their traditional symbol for Carnival was a jolly plump fellow called il Carnevale Pazzo: Crazy Carnival. He’s usually seen dancing and playing a mandolin while a necklace of sausages dangles around his neck. But Lent brings la Quaresima Saggia: Wise Lent. She is thin and gaunt and somber. Head cast down, pensive, she is dressed in rags and carries a rope of garlic and dried cod.

It is il Carnevale Pazzo who tucks us into bed tonight on Shrove Tuesday, and in the morning, la Quaresima Saggia is the one who wakes us up, and when she does, we awaken to Ash Wednesday, the first day of our 40-day Lenten journey. Lent these days, it must be said, is no big sacrifice. Some folks give up sweets for Lent, or give up booze, or give up gossiping. All the Church asks is that we be more prayerful and more penitent and give up meat on Fridays. As a kid, for me this meant a season of fish sticks for supper on Fridays, or lentil soup without the sausage. Which was all fine with me. I was the sort of kid who ate anything that was put on my plate, no questions asked. Lucky for me, though, I was born in an age where fish sticks on Fridays met the obligatory sacrifice for Lent, and no one took away my eggs and cheeses and desserts. That would be a real sacrifice.

And then sometimes, like this year, St. Valentine runs headlong into la Quaresima Saggia, and therein lies a dilemma for young lovers who find themselves seated at fancy restaurants for an amorous Valentine’s Day dinner, debating whether they should have the fish or the lentil soup… or the Boeuf Bourguignon cooked to perfection. We may find ourselves sitting there, wondering WWJD (What Would Julia (Child) Do?).

I am not “old” but I am older, and Seth and I have more sense than to dine out on Valentine’s Day. One of our favorite Valentine’s Day celebrations was take out Thai noodles, picnic-style on a blanket on the floor, while we watched A Room with a View on DVD. This year, our niece is coming to dinner and she doesn’t eat meat, anyway. She won’t even realize it’s a ceremonial night of sacrifice when I put a bowl of Pasta Fagioli in front of her. It is an experiment, mind you: She’s not terribly adventurous when it comes to food, and this will be her first encounter ever, I am told, with the mild yet delectable cannellini bean. My hope is she will love cannellini beans and my version of Pasta Fagioli––cavatappi with those creamy white beans, infused with garlic and drizzled with fresh olive oil, seasoned just right with freshly-ground salt and pepper. Where love takes root, we say, let it grow. Especially on Valentine’s Day (and especially one combined with Ash Wednesday).

 

ONLINE SPECIALS: A COPPERMAN’S DAY SPECIAL, PLUS A VALENTINE SALE!
You’ll find our newest Copperman’s Day print and all our Copperman’s Day prints now at our our online catalog when you CLICK HERE. Order 5 or more of any of our mini prints (Copperman’s Day prints, B Mine Valentines, and our famous Keep Lake Worth Quirky prints) and use the code COPPERMAN when you check out; we’ll take $5 off your order to help balance out our flat rate domestic shipping charge of $9.50. (And if you ordered Copperman’s Day prints last week, when we were first announced them, worry not! Your orders should ship out tomorrow.)

If you’re doing more serious shopping (and we do have lots to offer if you are), you may instead use discount code LOVEHANDMADE to save $10 on your $85 purchase, plus get free domestic shipping, too. That’s a total savings of $19.50. Spend less than $85 and our flat rate shipping fee of $9.50 applies. Newest arrivals: Letterpress printed Valentine cards in the Valentine section, and check our Specialty Foods section for some incredibly delicious chocolate we found from Iceland, including a particularly Icelandic blend of milk chocolate and licorice. If you love both these things, well… Icelanders long ago discovered that covering black licorice in milk chocolate, then dusting the result in licorice powder, is just amazing. (Trust me: we’re on our third bag so far.)  CLICK HERE to shop; you know we appreciate your support immensely.

Image: “The Pancake Bakery” by Peter Aertsen. Oil on Panel, 1560. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

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