Category Archives: Spring

Mar 19 2023
2 Comments
Equinox, Lent, Mothering Sunday, Spring, St. Joseph's Day, Wayzgoose

It’s Laetare Sunday, and Mother’s Day in the UK, Father’s Day in Italy

It’s Midlent: The Fourth Sunday of Lent, and halfway through our Lenten journey we get a Sunday whose color is rose, the color of joy, rather than penitent purple. A little break, a small reprieve, in celebration of being midway through. The day is called Laetare Sunday, a name derived from the first few words of the Mass for this day, in Latin: It is Isaiah 66:10: Laetare Jerusalem (“Rejoice, O Jerusalem”). It’s the day when folks in the United Kingdom honor their mothers: Mothering Sunday, they call it. And this year, Laetare Sunday happens to fall on St. Joseph’s Day. San Giuseppe, sacred to Italy, where today is Father’s Day, in honor of the saint who was foster father to Jesus.

I apologize for not writing more this past week, when we honored St. Patrick, of course, and one day before that, St. Urho, whom the Finns know as the saint who drove the grasshoppers out of Finland. Either St. Urho has not gotten as much publicity as Patrick, or he is completely fictional: we’ll leave that up to you. Of St. Joseph, though, we can be certain, and we can be certain, too, that it is a day to find a good Italian bakery and some zeppole to enjoy with your after-dinner espresso tonight. We Italians consume zeppole in great quantities on this day, and there is nothing quite like being in an Italian bakery on this feast day and witnessing the rolling racks filled with zeppole: delicately light pastries filled with custard and garnished with cherries, or their lesser known cousins, sfinci, the same delicate pastry filled not with custard but with sweet ricotta, like cannoli. These things make us swoon this one day each spring. We are a dramatic, operatic people and the Festa di San Giuseppe is one of our annual highlights (and surprise: it revolves around food).

And by Monday it will be spring by the almanac: Balance comes to this old earth Monday, March 20, at 5:24 PM Eastern. Day and night roughly equal from North Pole to South, for just a short time, and then our Northern Hemisphere days grow longer than our nights as we make our way toward the Midsummer Solstice of June. The constant rearrange, so subtle we barely perceive it until we sit back and ponder it in the blocks of time we call seasons. These things will never cease to amaze me.

It was last summer that we were going to have our annual Wayzgoose at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts –– an online video event featuring the fabulous letterpress printer Jennifer Farrell of Starshaped Press in Chicago with music by singer/songwriter and recording artist Patty Larkin and me as host –– but Patty Larkin suffered a terrible accident before we could film the Wayzgoose last summer. It was obvious to me that we had to wait for Patty to recover. “No Patty Larkin, no Wayzgoose.” She had a long road ahead of her, but she did it. Patty’s been touring again, and earlier this winter, she recorded her Wayzgoose concert for us. In the meantime, I recorded my interview with Jen Farrell, and still these past few weeks I’ve been filming and editing, and the last edits will be coming at a more furious pace these next few days, all so we can have the Wayzgoose ready for its March 25 World Premiere. Won’t you join us? You can watch from anywhere in the world, and if you join us at 7 Eastern on Saturday, you’ll be part of a worldwide wave of viewers celebrating good print and good music. Click here to learn more and to watch on Saturday at 7. (The premiere takes place at the Jaffe Center’s website.)

I have a suggestion for your Saturday viewing party: Fix yourself and for those watching with you a steaming plate of waffles. I’ll explain why at the Wayzgoose. The Wayzgoose traditionally falls on Bartlemas, St. Bartholomew’s Day –– a very quirky day in the Round of the Year if ever there was one. And when it came to rescheduling this Wayzgoose, I chose the 25th of March for similar reasons. Trust me: make the waffles, serve them with maple syrup or with ice cream, then sit down with us at 7 on Saturday evening to watch. You’ll love the work of Jennifer Farrell and Patty Larkin’s concert will have you beaming… and you will appreciate the waffle connexion.

So many good wishes for you this day and this coming week!
John

COME SEE US! Find us on Saturday April 1 at JOHAN’S JOE in Downtown West Palm Beach from 7 AM to 3 PM for a little Springtime Market that Johan’s Joe and Convivio Bookworks are hosting together. We had a Christmas Market last December and it was so much fun and we met so many wonderful people, we’ve decided to collaborate again for Easter. We’ll have all our handcrafted goods for spring and Easter there from Germany, Sweden, and Ukraine.

SAVE ONLINE! At our online catalog, save $10 off your purchase of $85 or more, plus get free domestic shipping, too, when you use discount code BUNNY at checkout. It’s our Zippin’ Into Springtime Sale, good on everything in the shop, now through Easter (and probably a bit beyond, too). CLICK HERE to shop! And don’t forget to use discount code BUNNY at checkout if your order is $85 or more.

 

Zeppole e Sfinci

Images: Zeppole and sfinci, above. The zeppole are more popular; the sfinci at this bakery are identified by green candied cherries. Top: “Stasera Zeppole” translates to “Tonight Zeppole.” The photograph of a baker’s storefront window was taken by Giovanni Dall’Orto in Syracuse, Sicily.

 

 

Mar 01 2023
2 Comments
Book of Days Calendar, Spring, St. David's Day

Zippin’ Into Springtime, or Your March Book of Days

It’s St. David’s Day, and the Welsh will be donning leeks and daffodils on their hats and lapels today, and there will be Welsh Cakes served with butter and jam or with leeks and cheese. I am more the butter and jam sort. St. David, sacred to Wales, brings in March, a month of transition as winter officially gives way to spring. It is a month of many saints’ feast days that are sacred to particular countries: after St. David and the Welsh, we can look forward on the 5th to St. Piran’s Day for the Cornish, St. Patrick’s Day on the 17th for the Irish, St. Joseph’s Day on the 19th for the Italians, and then there’s St. Urho’s Day on the 16th for the Finns. St. Urho, who drove the grasshoppers from Finland: known only in the lands where Finns have settled. It’s a good story if there ever was one.

It’s an interesting month, March is, and here is your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for it. A printable PDF, as usual, and a fine companion to this blog. This month’s cover star is “Early Spring in Åsgårdstrand,” painted by Edvard Munch in 1905. You might admire the painting while enjoying a nice Welsh Cake today. Here’s our recipe:

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.

COME SEE US!
We’ve got two springtime pop-up shops in the works. At each, you’ll find our full selection of handcrafted artisan goods for Easter and Springtime from Germany, Sweden, and Ukraine, plus a few other surprises, too.

Find us first at the DELRAY BEACH ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE & FESTIVAL in Downtown Delray Beach on Saturday March 11. Our Convivio Bookworks tent will be at Old School Square, 51 North Swinton Avenue, from 1 to 7 PM. Next, on Saturday April 1, we’ll be at JOHAN’S JOE in Downtown West Palm Beach from 7 AM to 3 PM for a little Springtime Market that Johan’s Joe and Convivio Bookworks are hosting together. We had a Christmas Market last December and it was so much fun and we met so many wonderful people, we’ve decided to collaborate again for Easter.

Meanwhile, at our online catalog, save $10 off your purchase of $85 or more, plus get free domestic shipping, too, when you use discount code BUNNY at checkout. It’s our Zippin’ Into Springtime Sale, good on everything in the shop, now through Easter (and probably a bit beyond, too). What’s new? Some great new handcrafted artisan goods for Easter from Germany, plus a new supply of real pysanky eggs and wooden crucifixes from our friend Kyrylo Cherniak in Ukraine. It took almost a whole year for him to gather these things from the artisans he works with throughout Ukraine, and it is our deep privilege and honor to bring them to you. Kyrylo, so far, is safe and as well as can be. We have some new paper mache egg containers and splint wood baskets on their way from Germany, too, which should be arriving any day. We’re about to load about two or three dozen new hand embroidered tea towels made by my mom onto the website, too. Millie’s Tea Towels: you love them, and Mom loves making them for you! CLICK HERE to shop! And don’t forget to use discount code BUNNY at checkout if your order is $85 or more.

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus! Happy St. David’s Day!

 

Image: “Early Spring in Åsgårdstrand” by Edvard Munch. Oil on canvas, 1905. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

 

Apr 02 2022
Book of Days Calendar, Spring

Springtime, or Your April Book of Days

And now it is April and here is your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for the new month. By the almanac it is the first full month of spring, and our cover star for April is a 1927 painting by Elliott Daingerfield called, appropriately, “Springtime” and it is one that reminds me of the blossoming trees in Alabama when I lived there. Spring was by far my favorite time of year those years as I learnt to make books at the University, and next Friday, I get to revisit, virtually, for a program there in which I’ll be participating. I doubt they’ll show the blossoms on the trees on the Zoom call, and all the petals drifting down from the sky like snow, but if they did, gosh, it would make me beam to see them again.

Thanks to a chewing squirrel in the alleyway behind the house, we and two neighbors had no Internet service for a long few days last week, so I never got to warn you about All Fools’ Day last Friday and also the rising of the new moon that same night, which began the celebration of Ramadan. The celebration continues for a month, followed with the next new moon by Eid al Fitr, and we have cards for both at our online shop, cards made by our friend Manal Aman of Hello Holy Days! in Canada (click here to shop). Manal also loves our Shaker Rose Water, as it is made without alcohol, and you’ll find that on the same page. (It is a beautifully mysterious and ancient flavor for cakes, cookies, French toast, and more.)

And now, nothing much happens this month ceremony-wise until we enter into the mysteries of Holy Week and Passover. But on this month’s calendar, we also tell you about a springtime excuse to enjoy egg nog, a mysterious night for divination, and the welcome of traditional summer at the month’s close. Intrigued? Print the calendar. It’s our monthly gift to you; a fine companion to this blog.

To help you prepare for Easter and Springtime, we’re running a sale, and, for the locals, we’ll have a pop-up shop at Lake Worth’s inaugural Taco Fiesta next Saturday, April 9, at Bryant Park on the Lake Worth Lagoon. I think it’s going to be amazing… and our friend Jose Mendez, who organizes this and our Dia de Los Muertos celebration each year, tells me there will be a marimba band. This excites me. I love marimba. So first, here’s the deal on the fiesta:

We’ll be there in our pop-up market tent with as much of our collection of Artesanías Mexicanas that we can bring –– handcrafted goods from artisans in Mexico: textiles, Day of the Dead figures for your ofrenda, papel picado (cut paper banners), painted punched tin, and more. We’ll also bring as many of our traditional Easter goods as we can from Germany, Sweden, and Ukraine, and my mom and sister plan to be there with us, so we’ll bring Millie’s Tea Towels and you can meet Millie, too. Lake Worth’s Taco Fiesta is Saturday April 9 from 3 to 10 PM at Bryant Park at Lake Avenue on the west side of the lagoon (100 South Golfview Road is the proper address). For the rest of you who are not nearby or for those of you who can’t make it to the fiesta, we have a sale:

It’s our Springtime Stock-Up Sale on everything in the online shop: Use discount code BUNNY to save $10 when you spend $75, and get free domestic shipping, too. Click here to shop! This year we have our largest selection ever of traditional springtime handicrafts from Germany, Sweden, Poland, and, most especially from Ukraine. From Germany, we have more handmade wooden bunnies than ever, plus a beautiful natural Easter grass for your basket, and none of this plastic stuff, ours is made from dyed wood wool, which in this country is better known as excelsior, and it’s just gorgeous in a basket. We even have some handmade splint wood baskets from Germany, and lots of new paper egg containers that you can fill with Easter candy. From Sweden, the most adorable handmade egg candles in traditional and dyed egg colors; we sell them in cute half dozen egg cartons.

And from our friend Kyrylo in Lviv, Ukraine, we have traditional crafts that he purchases from the women who make them in remote villages of the Carpathian Mountains. Our hope is that their remoteness keeps them somewhat safe from the war there. As for Kyrylo, he lives in Lviv, which is in the western part of the country, and it was relatively safe there until just two weeks ago. But Kyrylo continues to send us the things we buy, and he sends us updates on how he’s doing. He deals in Ukrainian crafts but he also owns a pizzeria and he’s been donating pizza every day to the refugee camps in Lviv, doing his part to feed his fellow citizens that have fled the north, east, and south of Ukraine. We are sending Kyrylo all the profits from the handpainted wooden pysanky eggs we sell this Easter, to help him in his mission. We’ve been selling these pysanky for years, but suddenly this year, these eggs are charged with meaning: renewal, yes, but also support.

Just a couple of days ago we received one more package from Kyrylo containing more items we bought from him: 150 more wooden pysanky eggs, but also two beautiful hand carved wooden crucifixes, and 40 pysanky made from real eggs, made in the traditional way: no paint, just beeswax and a stylus and dye. They are exquisite. You’ll find them at our website… please click here to shop, or just to take a look at how beautiful these pysanky are. Even in the midst of so much suffering and destruction, beauty. This is almost incomprehensible to me, but I guess this is the human spirit in the face of adversity. We just keep putting one foot in front of the other. What other choice do we have?

Top Image: “Springtime” by Elliott Daingerfield. Oil on canvas, 1927 [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons].

 

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