Mar 08 2023
4 Comments
Holi

Holi Hai

It is Holi today, the Hindu Festival of Colors. A festival of spring and a time, like so many other significant days in so many cultures, to make wrongs right and to make amends. In springtime, no less. How appropriate, at this time of new beginnings: We are just a couple of weeks shy of the vernal equinox and the renewal of life and Earth’s abundant green is not far beyond. I am not the sort of person who holds grudges, but if I did, this is the time I would seek to set those things aside and to start fresh.

I had a work meeting last week with Pranoo Kumar, who runs a fantastic book store in West Palm Beach called Rohi’s Readery. Pranoo had read a story for the Stay Awake Bedtime Stories series that I host, and she chose to read a book about a girl who has two dads. But it is a state university I work for, in Florida, and Pranoo’s story made people in the administration building nervous. The governor here likes to throw the word freedom around and that’s all well and good if your views align with his, but mine, most certainly, do not. Nor do Pranoo’s, nor most of the people I know, as we all watch one of our most basic and essential rights –– the freedom of speech –– erode away under restrictive state policies that even a year ago I never thought I’d witness here in the USA. Without getting too far off track and without being too critical of the current government of the State of Florida (for if I am and if a recently proposed piece of legislation passes, I’d have to register my blog with the state for writing critical commentary about the government), I’m writing this admittedly not very positive paragraph just to set the scene, which is this: John, going to Rohi’s Readery last Wednesday, to meet Pranoo for the first time and to break the news to her that we won’t be able to broadcast her reading for our series.

Fast forward ten minutes: Pranoo and I hit it off and I feel like I’ve got a new best friend or sister, and I bought a stack of wonderful books from her shop. And Pranoo invited me to the Holi celebration she had been planning in West Palm Beach, right outside her shop, on Saturday. So on Saturday afternoon, I went.

If you’ve never been to a Holi celebration, all I can say is you need to find one and you need to go. It is so utterly joyful, this celebration of love and spring, especially when the colored chalk dust starts flying. Everyone is absolutely beaming. How could they not be? I watched as a few hundred adults suddenly became kids again, while the kids around them welcomed their parents’ and grandparents’ brief return to childhood with open arms. The music, the dancing, the bursting colors … it was wonderful, all of it. And perhaps this was Pranoo’s way of making the wrongs that are being heaped upon us here in this place right. We met, I broke the bad news to her, we commiserated, and then we began making plans for helping all kinds of kids –– black or white, queer or straight, able bodied or disabled, kids of any sort –– find their voices. What will come of our partnership, I do not know, but I am excited to see what develops. We made amends for things beyond our control. We chose to be light bearers in dark times. And then we celebrated the arrival of spring with exploding colors. Pranoo and the things she does for our local community help me feel encouraged again. Here are some pictures. And as Pranoo told me, “Holi Hai!”

     

Top photo: My new friend, Pranoo Kumar, after the color celebration on Saturday. The three photos at the end of today’s post are also scenes from the celebration in West Palm Beach on Saturday. I met the guy in the blue shirt as I was walking back to my truck. His complete happiness stopped me in my tracks, and I asked him if I could take his picture. He said yes. I’d bet my bottom dollar no one who walks the halls of the State Capitol in Tallahassee is as full of joy as he.

 

COME SEE US!
We’ve got two springtime pop-up shops in the works, and maybe even a third (the Art and Flavor festival at Hatch 1121 here in Lake Worth on Saturday March 18). 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 this Saturday, March 11. The parade, I think, begins at noon, but our Convivio Bookworks tent will be at Old School Square, 51 North Swinton Avenue, from 1 to 7 PM. And 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. And some new paper mache egg containers and splint wood baskets just arrived from Germany, too, and how about a German nutcracker that happens to be a leprechaun for St. Patrick’s 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.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Feb 21 2023
Ash Wednesday, Carnevale, Lent, Shrove Tuesday

Carnevale Pazzo & Quaresima Saggia

 

We are firmly on the approach to spring. The Carnevale of Venice, with all its passion and opera and high baroque fashion and masks, began in earnest over two weeks ago. The celebrations come to a close tonight with Martedi Grasso: Fat Tuesday… Mardi Gras. Stateside, the celebrations culminate tonight in New Orleans and in Key West and in Mobile, Alabama, the places where Mardi Gras is an old friend. For most of us Americans, though, the day doesn’t get a second thought as to its specialness, although many of us will be celebrating by making pancakes for supper. Shrove Tuesday is the proper name for this final day before the start of Lent, and we eat pancakes tonight to use up the last of the eggs, the last of the milk, the last of the butter. In Germany, and for the same reasons, it is Faschnacht, or Fasnacht, a night for homemade doughnuts. 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, 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.

Lent these days 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. As a kid who would eat anything put in front of him, I didn’t mind, and Lent never felt like a sacrifice. In ages past, though, this abstinence from meat was not just on Fridays but for all the forty days of Lent, and it was not just meat but also eggs, cheese, milk, and lard. Lent was forty days of beans and pulses and vegetables and fish.

It’s been said, though, that even without this fast enforced by the Church, Lent would have had to have been invented, out of necessity. It was not all that long ago that food was a much more locally produced commodity, and by late winter, food stores would be at their lowest supply. If the populace was going to make it through the winter to the first fresh foods of spring, some abstinence was going to be necessary –– whether by order of the Church or by the simple fact that by late winter, there’s only so much food to go around.

The contrast between the Carnival season and the Lenten season could not be more pronounced. The season of excess typically began with Christmas and its Twelve Days and resumed again with Carnevale (and in some places, where Carnevale would begin right after Epiphany, just continued on without a break). In Italy, the symbol for Carnevale is a plump and jovial fellow, dancing and having a grand old time, well dressed, plume in cap, and often wearing a ring of sausages around his neck. He is called il Carnevale Pazzo: Crazy Carnival. He rules the roost all through the Carnival season and through this culminating night of celebration on Fat Tuesday. Come Wednesday morning, though, there is a distinct shift and a new figure takes center stage: she is 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. Her reign begins on Ash Wednesday, and she treads barefoot upon the discarded masks of Carnevale. She is known, too, as la Vecchia: the old woman.

Seth and I, we will eat our pancakes tonight with festivity and in good spirit, and in the morning, if we have it in us, we will approach that altar to have ashes smeared on our foreheads with the spoken reminder: Remember man that thou are dust and to dust you shall return. We are made of the stuff of this earth and we shall return to it. But the stuff of this earth is made of the stuff of the stars, too, and that is something to ponder. If nothing else, these forty days that follow tonight’s pancake supper will hopefully remind us that life is short, and we would do well to live the time we have with compassion and kindness for our fellow human beings, and to love each day, and, as we like to say here, to live the ceremony of each day, too.

 

 

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