Dec 23 2023 - Epic Christmas Village

 

I am still in awe of clocks - how was the first water clock created?  Did they do it in the day? How did they "time" it?  Maybe with a sundial.  How did they time the first sundial?  The wikiHow instructions tell us to make a mark every 15 degrees on the circle that has been given a north orientation and the centre is marked where the east-west and north-south lines meet.  And the instructions continue HERE.  It seems complicated to me. Have you wondered what people do to celebrate Christmas and still avoid Christmas chores?  Here's a person who has avoided Christmas activities except one for the entire 2023. The biggest Gingerbread Village. It took the entire year to achieve this Guinness Record.  Visitors to his home says that it smells "amazing". Guinness World Record holder Jon Lovitch created four gingerbread exhibits, which are on display in New York City; Kansas City, Missouri; Houston, Texas; and Philadelphia this year. Lovitch, 47 and the Guinness World Record holder for "largest entirely edible gingerbread village" at 1,251 individual houses.  Lovitch wouldn't eat any of it, so he says. He does give them away and other people do eat them. And what about the display in Texas? Here's one paper's quote on Lovitch's idea of what Texans should do with the gingerbread creations.  "I'm encouraging people, because I know it's a big part of the culture down there, to take it out in a field and blow it away," he said. "If it's a nice safe area and nobody's around, and you're doing it safely and legally, take your firearm, take the gingerbread house, take it out in the field somewhere behind grandma's barn or whatever, and blow it to smithereens and let the birds and squirrels have a good ol' time with it afterward. Blow it away. I'd love to see a video." A Texas-style Christmas.

Another past Christmas card. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 19 2021 - Hansel and Gretel and Gingerbread Houses

 

Is Hansel and Gretel a bedtime story?  Famine in the land. A mother replaced by a stepmother, children not allowed to eat until everyone else finished, hard chores.  Abandoned in the woods to die. They find a candy house with a gingerbread roof. A wicked witch fattening up Hansel to eat him.  Pushing the witch alive into an oven and shutting the door. Escaping with her money.  Returning home, the stepmother has already died. Their father rejoices with their return. Somehow "For many years to come, Hansel and Gretel lived very happily with their father in the hut in the woods." It is said that Gingerbread houses became popular because of this original fairy tale in 1812.  Far earlier in the Middle Ages, Europeans had their own version of gingerbread and it was complicated. Nuremberg was recognized as the "Gingerbread Capital of the World" when in the 1600s the guild started to employ master bakers and skilled workers to create complicated works of art from gingerbread. The first documented instance of figure-shaped gingerbread biscuits is from the court of Elizabeth I of England: she had gingerbread figures made in the likeness of some of her important guests.  There were traditions of gingerbreads being given out at weddings, and so on. Medieval fairs known as Gingerbread Fairs were frequent in Europe throughout the year, not just at Christmas.  Gold leaves were involved in decorating the cookies and the tradition continued with gilding gingerbread houses - which came into their own with the publication of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales.   Here is an example of the complex art of shaping and decorating.    Here's a gingerbread-looking fireplace at the Centennial Gardens Christmas mosaic culture display a few years ago.  And then my favourite Christmas card with Lilies from Lilycrest Gardens.

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Dec 18 2021 - Gingerbread Time

 

Being a member of the older generation that is compliant and willing in the pandemic to do what's needed, I was irritated yesterday to hear this during a CBC interview on pandemic mental health.   The person said the Omicron travel restrictions were difficult for someone whose mental health needed a boost and had booked a Caribbean vacation to a Jamaican Beach.  I was astonished that this might be within the scope of uplifting mental health issues.   Perhaps because I am a member of the older generation, this seemed pathetically self-indulgent.  There must be an expression for this sort of thing. So what would be an example of what we should be doing in these times of constraint?  This article from CTVNews is a story about what I was thinking we should do for mental health and well-being: "A group of Toronto residents have reimagined a section of the city’s Bloordale Village neighbourhood as a sweet treat just in time for the holidays. Created by Lori Steuart, Olivia Jewer, and Lenny Olin, the 15-pound gingerbread sculpture features a number of buildings along the Bloor Street strip between Landsdowne and St. Clarens avenues, all of which are bedazzled with a healthy amount of candy. “We thought, ‘wouldn’t it would be fun to do a whimsical cityscape where everybody knows and loves all of these businesses that are on the north side?’” Steuart said. A detailed Hasty Market, Penny’s Bar, Wine Rack, and Carribean Queen Patties can all be seen in the festive display. In keeping with the Toronto brand, racoons are also featured heavily throughout. “It started last year, we made [a gingerbread house] and it was mainly because we were all in lockdown, everybody’s bored, let's find something to do,” Jewer said over the phone on Wednesday." You can read about the project HERE.  It was 6 weeks, 150 combined hours, 15 pounds of gingerbread, 10 pounds of candy, 5 pounds of icing.   I haven't taken any pictures along that stretch of Bloor Street as it isn't particularly attractive to me.  The gingerbread display is at Penny's Bar, if you are out on Bloor Street West for your pandemic walk. A little bit of nostalgia in our picture today - Longwood Garden's Christmas display a few years ago.

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Catch the Gingerbread Man

Do we eat gingerbread cookies all year round?  Not at all.  It is special to Christmas.  The ancient Greeks and Egyptians considered it special too - they used it for ceremonies. Being a tropical plant, it came to Europe in the 11th century with the crusaders.  But it wasn't applied to desserts until the 15th century.  Elizabeth 1 is credited with the idea of decorating cookies - she had them made to resemble the dignitaries visiting her court.  They became  the highlight of Gingerbread Fairs.  The role of gingerbread cookies as a love token is shown in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost:  "An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread" Somehow gingerbread men and gingerbread houses became a major tradition of Christmas - the gingerbread house is linked to the Hansel and Gretel story in 1812.  Gingerbread men were made exclusively by gingerbread masters who kept their recipes secret and the cookies eventually became a staple of Christmas fairs. Those times are past, and we happily all can make our own houses and gingerbread cookies.  Get cracking! There are dozens of gingerbread jokes: When should you take a ginger bread cookie to the doctor? When it feels crummy. What does the ginger bread man put on his bed? A cookie sheet. Why do basketball players love gingerbread cookies? Because they can dunk them!  Today's picture is a close-up of a Gerbera flower.

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