Ofrendas: Celebrating El Dia De Muertos at the DIA

Ofrendas: Celebrating El Dia De Muertos is on exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Art until November 10, 2019. I was unprepared for what I would find when I entered this exhibit. I was immediately moved by the first display and the tears continued to well in my eyes throughout the exhibit.

The first display was in memory of the 43 students who went missing.

 Learn more about this tragedy here and about the missing here.

 

 The Border included a teddy bear in a cage.

 This altar was for the artist Robert Wilbert.

Samples of his art are included.
This tree includes Mexicans who left their mark on the world.

This haunting contribution addresses the unknown migrants who died on their journey.

 This heartbreaking map includes known deaths in the borderlands.

Courage is for the refugees displaced by violence, poverty, and human rights violations.

 Grandparents Know It All

Read about this display, below, for a doctor here.

The dark room made it hard to take good photographs and I only shared some of the 16 displays. This is art at its most powerful. This is art that can move us and educate us and allow us to understand the greater human experience.

Fri, Oct 13, 2017 — Sun, Nov 12, 2017In celebration of Dia de Muertos, the Detroit Institute of Arts, in partnership with Detroit's Mexican Consulate, invite you to explore a community exhibition of ofrenda altars. In Mexico, and other Latin American countries, the Day of the Dead is the time of the year to celebrate the lives of close relatives, friends or community members who have passed away. Objects important to lost loved ones, such as favorites foods, drinks, mementos and pictures, are collected and incorporated into elaborate displays that include pan de muerto (bread of the dead), sugar skulls, candles, flowers, papel picado (paper cutouts) and other decorations. Ofrendas: Celebrating el Día de Muertos will be on view during regular museum hours and are included with general museum admission.

The Little Women Cook Book: Tempting Recipes from the March Sisters and Their Friends and Family

For one hundred and fifty years readers have identified with the March sisters. Louisa May Alcott drew from her family members and life, making Little Women a beloved story with relatable characters.

Set during the Civil War, with Mr. March at war far from home, the March sisters and their mother struggle to obtain their basic needs. Food insecurity impacts their home and the community. The novel begins with the preparation of a Christmas breakfast feast which the girls valiantly donate to an immigrant family. The women content themselves with a meal of bread and milk. The book ends with a meal as well, a picnic supper.

Wini Moranville, "writer, cookbook author, and lover of historic and heirloom recipes," was asked to write The Little Women Cook Book in conjunction with the 2019 Little Women movie.

With charming illustrations and quotations from the novel, it is a delight. I enjoyed revisiting the novel through the lens of communal meals. Well-chosen quotations from Little Women keep our attention on the inspiration source for the recipes.

Wini researched American cookbooks from the mid 19th c. Some foods from the novel, like the pickled limes traded between schoolgirls, would not appeal today, so Wini gives us "Pickled Lime" Sugar Cookies.

Milk-Toast was a simple meal of warm milk poured over buttered toasted bread, perhaps seasoned with salt or sugar and cinnamon. I recall my grandfather, born in 1905, enjoying it as a dessert from his country childhood.

From the passage, "The omelet was scorched, and the biscuits speckled with saleratus",  Wini gives two recipes, omelets and Maple-Cornmeal Drop Biscuits, and a history of baking powder.

Other recipes from the past include:

"Meg was already covering the buckwheats..."~Buckwheat Pancakes

"It was too bad to laugh at the poor little jelly pots."~ Meg's Currant Jelly Sauce

"We'll have lettuce and make a salad."~ Jo's Lettuce Salad

"...and Amy made lemonade..."~Amy's Lemonade

Also appearing are Mr. Bhaer's Chocolate drops; Bonbons and mottoes, candies wrapped in papers printed with riddles and sayings; Jo's Gingerbread; the apple turnovers from the picnic; and Meg's Plum Pudding.

Where the novel is silent on specifics, Wini turns to recipes popular during the time period.

Newlywed Meg uses a popular cookbook, The Young Housekeeper's Friend. Indian meal--cornmeal--was popularly used in many dishes. Wini offers us Indian Meal Griddle Cakes, with a version with blueberries that caught my attention.

Meg also has Mrs. Corneliu's Receipt Book and Wini shares Meg's Macaroni and Cheese from that book. It is very like the recipe I have used all my life.

The recipes are tempting!

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Little Women Cookbook: Tempting Recipes from the March Sisters and Their Friends and Family
by Wini Moranville; Louisa May Alcott
Harvard Common Press
Publication October 1, 2019
Hardback $19.99 / £12.99
ISBN: 9781558329911

Helen Korngold Diary: September 22-28, 1919

Helen quit her first teaching position and is back at home, bored. After all the excitement of her senior year at Washington University and a trip to Colorado, these last months have been dull. Even her birthday does not deserve much attention in her diary.

September
Monday 22
Wash day again.

Tuesday 23
Received pictures & letters from Mae – she’s engaged

Wednesday 24
I was ironing today

Thursday 25
Ironing – party

Friday 26
I was pretty blue. Ida left for Portland.

Saturday 27
This was my birthday.

Sunday 28
Not much doing

Notes:

Sept. 26

Ida Goodman's address appears at the beginning of the diary as in Monument, KS. Helen wrote Ida a letter on April 10. On May 1, Helen wrote, "Ida is here! I drove over to see her. She's darling." On May 2, Helen wrote that Ida came for dinner and they stayed up until midnight talking. On June 29 and July 30, Ida also came to Helen's home.

I have not been able to pinpoint Helen's friend in the records.

Researching in The Jewish Voice on Newspapers.com, I discover an Ida Goodman was a Sabbath School teacher at Montefiore Congregation. There is an Ida Goodman married to the St. Louis Zionist Chapter founder Sam Goodman. There are lots of Ida Goodmans as a married name!

I found an August 1818 wedding of an Ida Goodman to a George Willis of Kansas City. But no Ida Goodman marrying in 1919! 

In the news, there was a national steel strike involving riots and deaths; the ice dealers reported that cooler weather saved St. Louis from an "ice famine," the ice being depleted after a long, hot summer; and there were 2,000 dead from a hurricane striking Texas.

I noted this article in the Sept. 23, 1919, St. Louis Star and Times because Helen was friends with Florence Funston, mentioned in the diary on Jan. 8, 1919. The Funston Brothers were digging a foundation for a new building when a 'prison' was discovered.

Century-Old Cellar, Apparently a Slave Prison. Excavated Here Men Digging for Foundation of New Building at Fourth and Market Streets Find Sub-Cellar With Barred Window and Fire Place.

Excavation of ground at the southeast corner of Fourth and Market streets for the new eight-story building for Funsten Brothers & Company yesterday revealed a prison-like sub-cellar apparently constructed about 100 years ago when Broadway lit the western boundary of St. Louis. 

The odd formation of the cellar, apparently unattached to any of the buildings that had surrounded or covered it lent color to the belief that it might have been a part of the old fort that was in the vicinity In the early days. This belief, however, Is not shared by Walter B. Douglas, vice president of the Missouri Historical Society. 

The cellar was about 25 feet square, and lay about 50 feet east of the Fourth Street line and about 80 feet south of the south line of Market Street. It's walls excepting the south wall have been torn up to make way for the new $700,000 building for the fur exchange. The top part of the wall had been covered and an alleyway built over it. 

About six feet from the eastern wall, apparently, was a flue that led upward from the basement, while five feet west of this was an iron-barred window about three feet square. Because of its prison-like appearance, it gave rise to the belief that it was the burial place of Pontiac, the Indian chief murdered at Cahokia, Ill., in 1769 and brought to St. Louis for burial by Gov. St. Ange de Belle-rive. 

Mr. Douglas examined the excavation yesterday to find out whether there could be any connection between the cell-like basement and the famous Ottawa chief. "I came to the conclusion that the cellar, while very old. was constructed many years after Pontiac's death," said Douglas. "The bars, for instance, are of cast iron, and if they had been put in before Pontiac's death they would have been wrought iron. Apparently, the place was constructed for the slaves of St. Louis families. The fireplace to the left of the barred window shows that it was built with a view to habitation. In addition, the contractor tells me that the flooring was apparently of cobblestones." 

Douglas said the cellar could not have had any connection with Pontiac's burial place, because, so far as he can learn, the spot where the Indian was burled was about seventy-five feet south of the south line of Market street halfway between Fourth Street and Broadway. He called attention to-the tablet to the Indian's memory on the left wall of the Broadway entrance to the Southern Hotel, which he said as placed there merely because it was the nearest available place to the grave. Nor could the building have been any part of the old fortification, which stood north of Elm Street between Broadway and Fourth Street and extended northward for about seventy-five feet north of Walnut street. 

Douglas said that there was an old graveyard north of the old fortification for the burial of those who could not be Interred in the cemetery of the Catholic Church. Pontiac, not being a member of that church, consequently, was buried in the cemetery north of the fort, which would be south of Market Street between Fourth Street and Broadway. 

The date of 1815 was fixed as the date of the building by Judge Douglas from the fact that the structure which originally covered it was of brick. The oldest brick building in St. Louis, according to Judge Douglas, was erected in 1813. He is of the opinion from the character of construction that the cellar was constructed some time afterward. 

CLIPPED FROM

The St. Louis Star and Times

St. Louis, Missouri

23 Sep 1919, Tue  •  Page 3

We Are The Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer

This week Greta Thunberg's impassioned accusation, "you have stolen my dreams and my childhood" by talking about "money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth," brought many to tears...and others to attack the sixteen-year-old activist. We don't want to hear Thunberg because we don't want to accept her vision of the future.

We have heard the reasoned arguments and warnings. Most people accept climate change as scientific fact. In the popular film An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore warned, "We have everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will. But in America, the will to act is a renewable resource." But the political will has not been there and many deny the scientific studies as fable.

The first Earth Day I purchased a "Give Earth a Chance" pinback button at the information table set up in my high school hallway. I took ecology in college, recycled when we had to cart everything to centers, limited the use of our car (when we turned in our lease we had totaled 8,000 miles over three years).

"Most people want to do what's good for the world, when it doesn't come at personal expense."~from We Are The Weather

But we also eat eggs and cheese and use the air conditioner and furnace. Some things are easier to give up, and some things we cling to. I can't tolerate high temperatures and without air conditioning, I am a mess. Michigan has experienced more 95 degree days than ever, and we are told it will get worse. I think about it all the time, how we may need to install a bathroom in the basement when we need to escape to its coolness because the a.c.will be illegal or limited or unaffordable.

In We Are The Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, Jonathan Safran Foer argues that people just don't "feel" the threat of climate change; we think of it as some apocalyptic fantasy set in the future. Like Justice Felix Frankfurter when he learned of the Warsaw Ghetto and concentration camps responded, "I must say I am unable to believe what you told me...My mind, my heart, they are made in such a way that I cannot accept it."  The good justice believed, and he was horrified, but it was too much for him to fathom it was real.

Foer's book is, in essence, a long discussion with us, and himself, on how difficult it is to get to where Thunberg is: a deep commitment based on a sense of personal and existential threat of death.

We are killing ourselves. We are committing suicide. We can change our behavior and it can affect the weather and, perhaps, save our lives, our children's lives.

Foer offers individuals how to change the future through personal action. Walk, bicycle, instead of using cars. (check; my husband walked to work much of his career.) Avoid flying (check; I've only flown a few times my entire life), have one child less (check; we have one). Dry clothes on a clothesline instead of in a dryer. (Done that, had the stiff underwear to prove it. But I do have an energy-efficient dryer.)

And eat a plant-based diet (kinda, sometimes).

Our first year of marriage we bought Diet For a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe. Some of those recipes remain regular favorites in our house, such as Mexican Pan Bread. Later we collected Moosewood Restaurant's cookbooks and added more delicious recipes. We fell into the cooking of our childhood when raising a picky-eater child. But after he left for college, I read Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma and we became strict vegetarians for three years...then, living with our son again fell back into buying more meat.

I am now in a dilemma. We are trying to get animal products back out of our diet, but I am told to increase my protein. I don't like tofu or those awful shakes. I have been buying local eggs from a farm market--is that ok? Then, there is my husband's deep and abiding love for cheese.

Foer informs that agriculture, mostly animal agriculture, accounts for 24% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. And we know those animals require huge amounts of food which takes up lots of land and energy and water, and factories to process animals into meat, and trucks to get the meat to markets. Plus, factory farming of animals creates environmental problems and pollution. Last of all, eating animal products, as my doctor has emphasized, is bad for our individual health.

Where is the 'upside' of eating meat?

It appears to come down to grilled steaks taste so good vs. save our life and humanity.

"We are the flood, and we are the ark," Foer concludes. Our fate is in our own hands.

And so we struggle on to overcome our desires and the ease of tradition as our children accuse our complacency costs their future.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast
by Jonathan Safran Foer
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub Date 17 Sep 2019
ISBN 9780374280000
PRICE $25.00 (USD)

A Downton Abbey High Tea Party - With Quilts!

photo by Theresa Nielson

The Clawson Quilting Sisters include some die-hard Downton Abbey fans. In celebration of the Downton Abbey movie release, they held a high tea at the community center.

Members contributed a block to make the teapot quilt below and they had a chance to win the quilt.

Note the real tea bag labels on some blocks!

Lucy Lesperance organized the quilt making and set the blocks together. Barb Lusk donated her skills and time to machine quilt it. When Esther's name was drawn she broke down in tears of gratitude and told me she felt blessed.

Esther with the Teapot quilt the group made

We shared tea-related quilt projects for show and tell. The quilt below used the Downton Abbey fabric line created some years ago.

Below is my mini quilt, "Tea, Earl Gray, Hot" inspired by Jean Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The ladies did an amazing job decorating the tables! Flower petals and sprays of ferns were the centerpieces. We had cloth napkins and name placards.

 Members contributed teapots. Everyone brought their own teacup and saucer.

photo by Theresa Nielson

The finger sandwiches and desserts were amazing! The display could have graced any article in a glossy magazine story.

photo by Theresa Nielson

Many of the ladies dressed for the occasion.

We had displays of teapots and teacups and tea sets and more!

I wish I knew the stories behind all of these beauties. Below is Barb Lusk's grandmother's teapot with hand-painted gold trim. The green Depression Glass, circa 1920, sugar and creamer were collected by my mother.

The creativity and attention to detail by the team of ladies who organized the event was on full display. 

My husband and I saw the Downton Abbey movie and it was jolly good fun!

Family Record by Patrick Modiano

My childhood was impacted by a move to another state, leaving behind my family, friends, and school. I was not the same child afterward. I did not live in the present for a long time. Memories of the past were held dear; I was awash in nostalgia and longing to restore what I had lost consumed me.

My grandfather wrote about his childhood in the early 1900s and I inherited his family genealogy records. Decades later I became a genealogy researcher. My father wrote his memoirs of growing up in the Depression and WWII years and running a business in the 1950s. Perhaps it was already in my blood to look back and record life. A few years back I wrote about my life on my blog, dipping into my diaries and scrapbooks to rediscover what I had forgotten.

Or misremembered. Somehow, our memories are not truly all fact, there is an element of fiction, rewriting, that happens in our brains. We naturally turn our experience into a novel, a story with meaning, a vehicle used to demonstrate the truth as we would have it.

"Memory itself is corroded by acid, and of all those cries of suffering and horrified faces from the past, only echoes remain, growing fainter and fainter vague outlines." ~from Family Record by Patrick Modiano

French Literature is my weak spot and I had not heard of Pulitzer Prizer winner Patrick Modiano. The cover and book title, Family Record, caught my eye and the blurb cinched my interest in requesting the galley.

Modiano shares his family and personal history through what are essentially short stories, glimpses that skip across time, weaving together a thoughtful consideration of experience.

He tells about returning to the places of his childhood and youth and encountering people who knew his family. He records meetings with strangers with mysterious pasts. And of the beautiful woman who pretended to be the daughter of a once-famous entertainer and who asked him to write his biography, setting Modiano on a career path.

He recreates the romantic meeting of his parents in occupied Paris and recalls the uncle who longed to live in the country in an old mill. He tells the story of losing himself to the present in Switzerland at twenty years old and seeing the man who collaborated with the Nazis to deport thousands from France, deciding to confront him.

"...And in Paris, the survivors of the camps waited in striped pajamas, beneath the chandeliers of the Hotel Lutetia. I remember all of it."~ from Family Record by Patrick Modiano

He begins with the birth of his daughter and the rush to obtain her birth registration and he ends with his daughter in his arms, a being yet without memory.

It is a lovely read, quiet and thoughtful.

The publisher granted me access to a free egalley through NetGalley in exchange for my fair and unbiased review.

from the publisher:
An enthralling reflection on the ways that family history influences identity, from the 2014 Nobel laureate for literature

A mix of autobiography and lucid invention, this highly personal work offers a deeply affecting exploration of the meaning of identity and pedigree. With his signature blend of candor, mystery, and bewitching elusiveness, Patrick Modiano weaves together a series of interlocking stories from his family history: his parents’ courtship in occupied Paris; a sinister hunting trip with his father; a chance friendship with the deposed King Farouk; a wistful affair with the daughter of a nightclub singer; and the author’s life as a new parent.

Modiano’s riveting vignettes, filled with a coterie of dubious characters—Nazi informants, collaborationist refugees, and black-market hustlers—capture the drama that consumed Paris during World War II and its aftermath. Written in tones ranging from tender nostalgia to the blunt cruelty of youth, this is a personal and revealing book that brings the enduring significance of a complicated past to life.

Internationally renowned author Patrick Modiano has been awarded, among many other distinctions, the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in Paris. Mark Polizzotti is the translator of more than fifty books from the French, including nine by Modiano.

Family Record
by Patrick Modiano
Yale University Press
Pub Date 24 Sep 2019
ISBN 9780300238310
PRICE $16.00 (USD)