Quilts Presidential and Patriotic by Sue Reich, Including My John Quincy Adams Contribution!

Sue Reich's book Quilts Presidential and Patriotic is out! In 2015 Sue asked for people to take on making a 24" x 24" quilt for a president to be part of a traveling exhibit of President quilts. I jumped at the chance to do John Quincy Adams, having just read a biography of his wife Catherine Louisa. I proceeded to read books about JQ in preparation, including The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams by Phyllis Lee Levin;  The Stranger and the Statesman by Nina Burleigh about JQ's championing the Smithsonian legacy being used to institute a national museum; and Mr. Adam's Last Crusade by Joseph Wheelan The last was the most exciting, telling of his post-presidential career in congress and his Supreme Court win for the freedom of the Amistad kidnapped Africans. When I read thank you letters to JQ from the Africans I knew I had discovered the 'hook' to make JQ appealing and relevant.

The quilt exhibit has been traveling the country this year and Sue will present a paper at the American Quilt Study Group in September 2016.

John Quincy Adams by N. Bekofske

Quilts Presidential and Patriotic includes the President quilts, information about each president and quilt, including quilt styles of their administration, an artist's statement, and quilts, textiles, and news articles relating to the president's time in office. There is a whopping 330 photographs and illustrations in the 192 page book! I was thrilled when Sue asked to include my original Redwork quilt of the First Ladies, Remember the Ladies. Laura Bush from my quilt is featured on her husband's pages.

Hilary Clinton and Laura Bush from Remember the Ladies by N. Bekofske

Sue is the author of World War I Quilts, World War II Quilts, Quiltings, Frolics, and Bees, and Quilting News of Yesteryear.

The Culinary Lives of John and Abigail Adams: A Cookbook by Rosana Y. Wan

I have been studying John Quincy Adams while I make the president quilt for Sue Reich's President Quilt tour in 2016. The Culinary Lives of John and Abigail Adams is about his parents and consequently the food of his childhood.

I took a Folklore course in college and my paper was on English memories and American realities, the roots of American cooking. I read early cookbooks including the first published in American by Amelia Simmons. The recipes in this book were not 'new' to me. Some I had actually enjoyed back  in the Bicentennial Days at the Philadelphia City Tavern.

I enjoyed the book very much since Rosana Y. Wan's commentary showed a great deal of knowledge gleaned from the letters and diaries of Abigail and John Adams. One learns about the private lives of the Adams family and about material culture and society in Colonial America.

Wan traces the culinary history of foods, discusses cooking methods and early cookbooks, and even covers dinnerware with photographs of dishes and utensils from the John Adams National Park.

A timeline of the Adams family with illustrations is an impressive overview of this remarkable family. One realizes how much of their married life John Adams was hobnobbing in high society abroad while Abigail ran the family farm, put away food, and enjoyed local produce in season.

Wan's chapters include Breakfast, Bread, Meat and Poultry, Sauces, Seafood, Vegetables, soup, pudding and snacks, and drinks. Each chapter includes introductory essays that are informative and interesting, including quotations from the Adams papers.She also provides a chapter on bills of fare for those who want to recreate an 19th c. dinner party. The recipes are updated for today's measurements and readily available ingredients.

Recipes include classic dishes like Buckwheat Cakes, English-Muffin style muffins, Indian Corn and Rye Bread, Roast Leg of Lamb with Mint Sauce, and Peas with Mint.

More unusual are the Garden Sauce for meat made with sorrel, sweet apple, vinegar and sugar and white bread for thickening; Roasted Salmon with nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice; Salad Sauce made of sieved boiled egg yolk and ground mustard, oil and vinegar; and Cucumber Soup. Baked Custard includes sweet tasting coriander along with cinnamon.

Classic Plumb Pudding was a favorite Adams family treat saved for holidays because of the exotic spices required, while Indian Pudding was made of readily available ingredients of corn meal and molasses. Wan notes that John Quincy Adams wrote to his wife Louisa about Indian Pudding being served at his family's New Year's Eve dinner.

New Englanders made Cranberry Tarts. I need to try that! The Whipt Syllabub has never appealed to me. It is made of milk or cream curdled by adding brandy and includes egg whites, sugar and lemon juice.

Drinks of the day included hot Toddy made of rum and molasses in lukewarm water with a dash of nutmeg. Abigail's Punch recipe was made of oranges and lemons, brandy and rum. Grog was dark rum and water with lemon juice to taste. The lemon juice would have been good for sailors at sea to guard against scurvy.

Whether you are interested in the Adams family, early American cooking, the history of cooking in America, or just enjoy reading recipes this is a delightful book.

I have finished the John Quincy Adams quilt! I bound it off yesterday using the method found on You-Tube "Binding the Angel" by Sharon Schamber which I highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Schiffert Press for ebook access.

The Culinary Lives of John and Abigail Adams
Rosana Y. Wan
Schiffert Press
Publication date October 2014
ISBN13: 9780764346699
Illustrated
Softcover, 224 pages

John Quincy Adams Quilting

I have been quilting JQA in a cross hatch. These photos also show the appliquéd motifs with embroidered edges.

Most of the other quiltmakers preparing presidents for Sue Reich's traveling Presidents Quilt show say they are still thinking. That makes me wish that instead of diving in after being inspired I had taken more time to actually do the work. I tend to work in a white heat. 

My biggest concern was that I cut away fabric from under the appliquéd motifs, but forgot to do that for the JQA photo and Mendhi letter. I don't like what is happening with them and may have to stuff that part...which would have been way easier before layering and quilting by inseting a piece of batting. It is a "make it work" moment. Hopefully a "happy accident" one as well. (Clichés homage to Tim Gunn and Bob Ross!)

I also have been reading a upcoming book on the culinary life of John and Abigail Adams, courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. In other words, what JQA ate growing up. Since he left Braintree with his dad for Paris when he was 13 he missed out on a lot of that good old American home cooking. Look for my review in a few days. I may have to try some of those recipes first!

John Quincy Adams Coming Along

I decided on the final layout for the John Quincy Adams Presidential Quilt. Under the portrait I inked the beginning of a thank you letter from one of the captured Mendhi Africans who JQ represented in the Amistad trial.

The eagle, stars and flowers are from a preprinted reproduction panel. The gold fabric circles will help the stars stand out.

I hand basted all the pieces in place. The circle stars were basted around freezer paper circles first.

I will later embroider or pen more detailed information: name, dates, notes of his accomplishments.

I included portraits of presidents he served under: George Washington assigned him Minister to Holland, James Monroe appointed him Secretary of State, and the State of Massachusetts elected him to the House of Representatives when Andrew Jackson was president. And of course I included his father, John Adams.

I started the motifs today. It is so good to finally get back to creative efforts! It is invigorating!