Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I purchased these two photos on Instagram in a wave of ones from the same period and probably place. While I suspect I purchased them at the same time and from the same vendor, I do not remember for sure. Both are snapshots printed on thin, early paper and bear the black paper stuck to the back that is evidence that they came from a photo album. They were sold to me by someone in the Midwest and I think that is the area they depict as well.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection
I can only say there was a time last summer when images, mostly of women, from the turn of the century were attracting my attention and I purchased a pile. They are mostly in outdoor settings of the beach (see the one above), garden or yard and notably they show a persistent passion for being presented in a line – not just these photos, but many I didn’t or wasn’t able to purchase of women sitting on the ground in a line, or even finding ways to do a vertical with a ladder. (Some of my posts of these photos can be found here and here.)
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
In the smaller grouping, which is also the smaller photo, the women pose in what appears to be the lush side-yard garden. They peer at us above and through these leafy vines on this bright sunny day. You can almost feel the heat of the midday sun looking at the short shadows. I might hazard a guess that it is mother and four daughters. It is hard to see, but I think the daughters are in white cotton dresses; mom appears to be wearing a dark skirt. Their hair is piled up on their heads, although one has it wound in tight braids. The shadow of a ladder is in evidence in the doorway.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
The larger photo is the one I favor a bit. There is something just wonderful about this group of young women in white, lined up behind this somewhat ramshackle fencing, covered in overgrowth – is it hay in front of and behind them? Hard to say how they managed to get back there without getting stuck by the barbed wire of the fence, but the photographer had a good eye and got them between the posts. Their long, white dresses are partially visible behind a layer of the plants. The white, cloudless sky is a tribute to the inability of early film to capture clouds at the time, however curiously it works to the favor of the picture. (The soiling and bend of the early paper creates an illusion of sky that is not really of the image.) The photo is very much of a specific time and place, but also has a timeless quality.
If you look carefully, they are all smiling and laughing. At first I thought it was a group of young, female friends but one or two women look older – second and third from the left. I wonder if it is a coincidence that my reading this year, young plucky girl stories such as Ruth Fielding and the Camp Fire Girls, (some of those posts here and here) take place in the same period during the halcyon days of the early and mid-teens of the last century.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Those of us in the New York City area we were treated to an early and unexpected few days with temperatures in the high sixties and seventies. Windows were thrown open and thoughts of ice cream started to dance in my otherwise strictly diet-minded brain. Suddenly the idea of eating outside appeals rather than making us reach glumly for the long johns and down. I am rethinking my running attire which has been a many layered affair until now, knowing that soon it will be a question of stripping down rather than staying warm.
It is the end of March and we are sincerely hoping to hold onto the out-like-a-lamb part of the saying, but experience tells us that even early April can have some nasty weather surprises so I am trying not to get too attached. Nonetheless, we are like insects delayed too long in our larvae stage, now finally thrust into a metamorphosis. We were in a sense deprived of spring last year as it was the beginning still of our pandemic year – I know that the weather must have turned with the same appeal come hither temps, but the other aspects of last April have wiped spring from my memory. Only a long hot summer remains when I look back.
Spring beds coming to life in the park.
This year we emerge both tentative and with the power of pent-up desire. Discussions about how to build the bridge back to normal fill my work days now, although the terminus of this marathon is not yet really quite in sight. My brain struggles to work on a duel track of finishing the next leg of this quarantine period and setting an agenda and plan for moving forward. Part of me just wants to loll like a kitty in the sun by an open window, the other part is all business.
I don’t switch gears quickly so I am trying to allot time for this process and to imagine what that post-Covid life looks like. Twinkling reminders of the before time and the joys of it bounce into memory and then out. My brain gets swamped immediately though as I try to sort through and I can’t quite get a purchase.
Trees starting to bloom on an otherwise gray day in the park this week.
I gently remind my office colleagues that being out in the world is a muscle, somewhat atrophied, that we must start to exercise, encouraging them to meet me outside but close to them, to begin the process. It is hard for me and it appears to be difficult for them too. So far I have very few takers. I understand their reluctance.
The upcoming advent of Easter and Passover are harbingers of the season and turn my mind habitually to thoughts of renewal rebirth as they do in any year – just as fall will eternally remain the turning over of another back-to-school type leaf.
This year though we relive the launch of the pandemic as the wheel of the year turns to our second one, meanwhile straining to see the end of it. Is everyone experiencing the same simultaneous desire and reluctance to cast off our cocoons? I feel like everyone wants me to go faster than I can and I admire the people who seem to be better at it. However, I admit I struggle with the mental exercise of being in two places at once and of two minds. And of course it isn’t going back to the before time that we are weighing now, but thoughtfully attempting to create an entirely new world after and what we want it to look like.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I bought this little fellow on a whim with a small haul of things from @curiositiesantique on Instagram a few months back. Much like I collect a certain number of dogs to balance my cat collection (and keep the stuffed cats on their toes), I likewise have a smattering of birds and mice (to entertain them) as well. This rooster is made by the high-end toy manufacturer Steiff and he is a tiny fellow as I have indicated in this photo.
He is smaller than the Schuco wind-up bird I featured back in 2016 in my post Tweet, Tweet, Tweet (that post can be found here) and sadly he does not hop around, except maybe in my imagination. He is missing his beady little eye on one side. However, he is nicely constructed and I am especially fond of his wire feet for some reason. He has been living on a shelf right near where I work so I see him out of the corner of my eye there most days. As yesterday was the first day of Spring and Easter is around the corner, I thought we would give him the spotlight today.
Steiff Hen, not in Pam-Pictorama.com Collection.
A quick internet search turns up a matching hen and a lot of conflicting information about what period of Steiff this fellow is from. Most of their chicken line has felt covered legs rather than these nice wire ones, and he can likely be dated from that if I knew a bit more. (One site says the wire leg chickens are the earliest; another says they are from the 1950’s and ’60’s.) He has lost his tag (which would have been annoyingly large and hanging from his tail from what I can see), but he is quickly identifiable as a Steiff product. Roosters seem to have remained in their catalogue for decades and there are some wild variations on the theme, especially in the more contemporary category.
Fancy Steiff Rooster, not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
I have never known a chicken personally, hen nor rooster, although I stopped eating them a few decades back. Unlike Kim though I still consume the occasional egg, but in deference to his preference I do not bake with them and generally swap out with buttermilk as a binding agent which works surprisingly well. (One of those recipes can be found in a baking post here.)
I purchased some plant-based egg substitute the other day, called Just Eggs, which ironically would appear to be anything except egg. (Unless they mean just in the sense of sense of justice and are referring to the injustice of eggs?) I think they would be a good substitute for eggs in baking, but I am unable to find a conversion for them. (Readers, please share any information you might have about that. While a raw egg is about three tablespoons somehow this substitute looks like you would need a tad more than that.)
Egg substitute I recently purchased and haven’t quite figured out.
My mother, a lover of pretty much all of our feathered friends, admits that she had a dislike for chickens growing up. I gather from her that if not housed they will roost in trees and go quite wild. They would squawk and cause a ruckus as she walked to and from school and scared her as a kid.
Nevertheless, as an adult and a rescuer of waterfowl (and a vegan) mom has friends and acquaintances who have kept chickens as house pets and evidently they are smart and companionable. Mom once shared a video about a pet chicken (I want to say a hen) who lived in the house with the family, making its home in an enclosed porch at the front of the house. They live to a greater age as pets, almost three times the average span of a barn chicken, but still top out at around ten or twelve years. (Google states flatly that keeping a chicken inside is a bad idea.)
While my ambitions in life occasionally travel in the direction of home ownership and a longing for yard space for at least a small herb and vegetable garden, it has not extended to chickens necessarily. There are some mighty fine fancy chickens out there and admittedly they do tempt me a bit. For now here at Deitch Studio we will stick with a clock radio and cats to wake us up early in the morning.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Thorough Pictorama readers may remember back in March of 2018 (March 24, almost exactly three years ago!) when I posted about the photo below in the post It’s Clint Flynn – on Spark Plug (which can be found here).
At that time I confessed my rather specific interest in this mini-genre of photos which depict people on various homemade versions of Spark Plug, the horse character of the Barney Google comic strip fame, which made its debut in 1919. (In my mind these are like an addendum to people posing with Felix – collecting those photos being part of my life’s work.) In 1925, the year today’s photo was snapped, Barney Google and Spark Plug would have been hitting their stride fame-wise.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection
When I say mini-genre of photos I do not exaggerate as I have only seen three in my life (although I am convinced that there are many more to be found which I plan to uncover and of course acquire.) I was able to purchase two of the three known to me. It was the first one, at a Hake’s auction I believe, that got away which started me on my hunt for further ones. (Strangely, like some of my Felix photos, I believe that first one hailed from Australia. Australia in the 1920’s must have been a crazy, great place.)
All three photos I have encountered sold for a significant price. The card I share today started at a price even I wouldn’t pay for it and eventually came down as I had expressed interest and gather I was the only taker. In part, I think this card suffered a bit because it was hard to be certain at first that it is an original photo postcard, not a reproduction, which it is.
Back of card. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Unlike most outstandingly great photo postcards I have encountered, this one was mailed. Luckily it didn’t suffer noticibly on its journey. I show the back below and you will note the postmark, March 23, 1925! (I am loving all the coinciding of March dates today. March must be Spark Plug photo month, right down through the decades.) It was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Chalfont, Muncie Ind. 720 W. Ponders Street. (The street address is added like an afterthought which I don’t believe I have ever seen.) The sender, unnamed, writes (somewhat cryptically), Golden Banders. Come and see our 1 ring circus it is free Thurs. We. is the date. Please come early don’t be late. March 26. 7.30.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
On the front of the card 1 Ring Circus and a $ have been painted neatly onto the neg and printed. I’m not sure what the $ is referring to, tucked as it is between these two splendidly attired and painted clowns, adorned with pointy caps, each of them accessorized with a feather duster.
The woman, less sporty in her dress, but fully in the spirit of the thing, seems to be an assistant of sorts; she is holding Spark Plug’s head a bit possessively, although maybe she is also keeping him steady. (I really like her shoes – I own a pair like those that I am quite partial to.) The tot fortunate enough to be perch atop him is in a Buster Brown suit, with bow tie, and looks pretty smug and pleased with himself – who can blame him? Hotsy totsy!
Unlike the sturdy fellow in my earlier photo, this Spark Plug is a wonder of casual construction. I think he may have real plungers for feet and lower extremities and something mysterious above that connecting it all. (Interestingly plungers are frequently used to depict Spark Plug’s feet, he is not drawn that way in the strip where he just has enormous, clunky hooves.) His body appears to be an ambitious combination of wood and cardboard if I had to guess.
An interesting question is whether or not Spark Plug has back legs here – I do not see them. (Do you?) It seems like maybe white hat clown is holding him up? Not sure how that works – perhaps the clown jiggles you up and down? The solution behind this mystery is hidden now. Whoa! Steady there fellow I say!
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This morning I dug into pile of photos next to my desk and came across this one which I have absolutely no memory of purchasing – none whatsoever. It does happen, although rarely and more frequently with unframed snapshots where I might purchase a lot of several. It must have come from an IG sale as I can’t imagine how I would have stumbled across it on eBay. The photo is framed with the back sealed so no idea if there is information on the back. Strangely, there is no way to hang it on the back, nor a way to prop it up.
Clearly the antique toy car appealed to me and these two kids seem to agree as they look mighty pleased with themselves. Really, what kid, boy or girl, wouldn’t feel like they were at the top of the world with such an item? This car is a bit battle scarred, but that does not diminish how wonderful it must have been to be driving it. These kids are clearly sister and brother; they could even be fraternal twins.
Without seeing much of the yard I suspect that they had plenty of room to take her around in as well. (I saw a kid with an impressive motorized car in a high rise driveway on 86th Street recently and thought that it must be frustrating to have such limited opportunity to drive such a great item. Also, it really is the ability to be independent and to get away from adults – right?)
The paint on this car is faded and streaked, but the steering wheel sits up proudly and there is some sort of a windshield as well. We can only see the back of them but there are headlights on the front, a grill along the side (as sporty cars would have had at the time), these nice wheels and we can see the pedal mechanism underneath. The boy is sitting on the back and looking carefully it appears that there was some sort of area without a seat which might have enabled hauling small loads or perhaps a second rider.
These kids are in what appears to be a backyard, wooden frame house and a bushy bit of garden are behind them. Further back a wooden fence and more bushy grasses behind some cinderblock edging or in planters, hard to tell, but the yard looks like a good one to ride such a car in.
Locomotion is a prized thing for a kid. I was the proud owner of a pink and white two-wheeler with a chipper basket, but was somewhat hampered by living near busy streets my folks didn’t want me on. Our neighbors have a little boy, Eliot, who currently sports a scooter with wheels that light up as it goes. He and his dad were taking it for a spin in the hall on their way to the laundry room the other day and Kim and I paused to share our real admiration of it. Scooters abound in New York City right now – those you push with your foot and a motorized variety that I think was largely nixed for safety, but you still see them. Kids and adults alike use them, sometimes together.
This appears to be pretty close to Eliot’s scooter.
The pandemic more or less coincided with the rise of the motorized bike here in New York City. These are largely employed by food delivery people and I read an article recently that there is a problem with them being stolen. Kim and I agree that they are pretty great and I think we’d both like a try at one, although since our bike years are far behind us and neither of us really drives perhaps better if it doesn’t happen.
As kids though, from tricycles, to two-wheelers, wagons, skateboards, scooters and all the rest we are fascinated with those things that allow us to go, fast or slow, to haul or coast. And if you were lucky enough to have a fine ride such as this you are mighty lucky and you knew it.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I bought this photo from an IG sale, probably several months back. Apologies to the vendor, but I have forgotten who exactly I purchased it from. It doesn’t look like a photo postcard, however it is. It was never mailed, but on the back, in pen, Julia Severson, is written in a clear hand. I assume one of these women is Julia. Perhaps she is the one holding a box camera – was there another photo taken that day of the woman and the dog?
Most of these photo purchases hail from sellers in the Midwest, but I have no idea where this was taken. The outfits are from the teens I think, a period of clothing I am especially fond of as both attractive and yet comfortable looking. These women wear hats for the sun (and also probably because women, like men at the time, generally did wear hats) and they have this lovely, fluffly canine companion who seems to be enjoying himself immensely. The edges of the image are a bit diffuse (an effect I am also enamored of) as is often the case with photos from these early simple cameras.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
This photo looks like a glorious spring day and we are hungry for those right now and that was why I plucked it from the pile today. In this year, which has the unusual distinction of having been a very strange one for pretty much everyone, the promise of spring seems more alluring than ever. As we start to contemplate, quite literally, coming back out of our homes as the weather turns warm and vaccines are on the move throughout the country and the world, we are like larvae that has been crystallizing for a year too long now.
This past Thursday marked the one-year mark for many of us to have started working from home here in New York City, as the pandemic began to rage, quietly at first and then quickly rising to a roar. Our assumption that this would be an inconvenience of a few weeks at most – I had envisioned myself running back to the office as needed and really didn’t pack up very much – gave way to the reality of a city that rapidly emptied out creating an enduring silence, broken it seemed only by the litany of ambulance sirens day and night.
As it turns out I have only been to my office four times in the past year and one visit was just this week. And of course it was a year filled with myriad loss and fear for everyone.
This appears to have been taken on early on the morning of the day we shut our offices. I must have been on my way to an early morning workout.
As it happens this past Thursday was one of those rare March days with temperatures rising into the 70’s and it delivered a walloping dose of spring fever, which in my case came in the window as I did not have a chance to leave the apartment. It had an intoxicating effect nonetheless.
I sat on the couch by the window on the phone most of the day and while conducting business part of my brain was also roaming over memories of spring visits to the beach growing up – especially as a teenager, the first few warm days, no matter when they came, planted the seeds of allure for upcoming beach weather and that bell rang in my head. I have not thought about stretching out on a beach in a very long time indeed, but my brain was on a loop toying with the thought. Suddenly a former world of wearing spring dresses and shoes that are not sneakers seemed real again. A haircut (I had one last summer) seems like a good idea and a coffee outside with colleagues or friends is a real possibility – let’s make dates and kick up our heels and frolic!
Of course, as it is only March, snow and cold rain are on the way for the coming week, the temperature has already dropped back into the 40’s. The reality of managing the return to our hall and offices along with rules and process to keep everyone safe is daunting and the next bit of slog ahead is still very real.
However, the glimpse gave me hope for resilience, like spring itself. The season of renewal is almost upon us. Easter and Passover are on the horizon and chocolate bunnies and matzohs dot the stores – the food harbingers of early spring. An idea for a vegan matzoh ball soup is playing around in my head and memories of homemade matzoh brie make my mouth water.
This week I was at the hall for the very first time in exactly a year.
Like many people I think, I learned a lot over the past year and I am still mulling over what lessons are likely to stick going forward. (I hit my four year anniversary at Jazz at Lincoln Center this week as well – remarkable!) I have recently seen several colleagues opt for dramatic changes in their lives, impacted by this year at home.
I know I was weary from travel and late nights at work when I plunked down on my couch with a laptop a year ago. I do know I don’t want to be that tired again – maybe the only thing I know for sure. I may not make it home to make dinner every night, but I want it to be more the rule than the exception. I want time to run in the morning before work. I want to go spend a week in New Jersey with my mom. Somehow I need to figure out how not to work during all my waking hours.
Taken while stretching after a run in the park this week.
Meanwhile, I know I am better at my job and find I am flexible in ways I had not imagined before which gives me some confidence that there is a path to be found. My reluctance to leave the house is likely to return with the bad weather (sometimes March can’t get its lamb and lion thing straight it seems), and a daily subway commute and days in an office in a mask remains a hurdle. But like the daffodils and crocuses in the park which are starting to poke up, it seems like the urge to do it will return on schedule if I look for the signs and go with it.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I prefer to eschew political posts, especially at a time when I think we are all quite exhausted by the news, but one aspect I have embraced is the importance of voting. Back in November I posted about Kim and I waiting in line to vote and my general nerdiness on the subject (that post can be found here), and the right to vote for all and in particular woman’s suffrage, has long been of interest to me. The long, painful and often bloody fight for the vote means it was acquired at great cost by our forebearers. At the very least we should exercise the right, even when we feel disenfranchised or like our choices are poor ones.
Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
One of my long-standing favorite posts was devoted to Sylvia Pankhurst (a fascinating woman – a recent new biography was just published on her) who I first I stumbled across because she started an East London factory to employ indigent woman and what do you think they produced? Felix the cat toys! (That post can be found here.)
Meanwhile, this black cat was listed in a Hake’s auction. In addition to toys, Hake’s always has absolutely fascinating political items in their larger sales which are fascinating to look through. The arrival of the Hake’s catalogue is always a cause for some joy in this house and I like to curl up with it in bed, showing Kim the highlights as I work my way through. (There is an earlier post where I sing the praises of the Hake’s catalogue and it can be found here.) My kitty has a small chip on the back, some paint wear like on his ears, and the e! has either worn or was never fully painted.
Suffrage items are popular and generally sell for a premium, but this little guy must have slipped through most folks notice and I managed to acquire him, barely contested. The listing had almost no information and I took this for a piece from the American suffrage movement, although research now shows that it was likely marketed in Great Britain. It has an opening at the back, quite small, and has been listed as a vase as a result. If you want one and aren’t as lucky as I was, it would seem you can acquire one, but at a significant price.
A collection of suffrage items from the AAAWT website.
This kitty is a German made item, from a company called Schafer & Vater (1890-1962), although unmarked. It is unquestionably in the style and identified as such by many sources. Schafer & Vater specialized in comical hard ceramic and ceramic paste items and made a few variations on these suffrage items.
Another Schafer & Vater item, a match holder.
Of course some of my curiosity was around why a cat or black cat to represent the cause. One site explains that there were anti-suffrage advertisements promoting the idea that if women got the vote their husbands would be stuck doing housework and with the family cat. Or that women were too delicate – kittenish. In response the women’s movement adopted the black cat as a symbol. (Incidentally, the British don’t seem to have this wonkiness about black cats being unlucky – in fact they seem to embrace them as being good luck!)
In this country, Nell Richardson and Alice Burke undertook a five-month drive across the country with their black kitten Saxon to promote the vote for women. Shown below, Saxon sadly not in view.
Posters proliferated with cat images. I especially like one very much in the style of Louis Wain below, by an artist named Ellam Down. He seemed to have a line of anthropomorphic animal postcards, but may be best known for this one today. I may have to research him a bit more – perhaps a future post?
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This little object came across my path on eBay and I snatched it up. Corkscrews have become a popular collectible and I was afraid I might face some stiff competition. I was lucky that it didn’t appeal to the collectors and I acquired him unchallenged.
There’s something perfectly appealing about this kitty and his corkscrew tail, sticking up in the air. This little fellow (or gal) sports a big bow, an arched back and a slightly wide-eyed expression. He (or she – despite the big bow I’m feeling he I think though), has nice heft and stands well on his own. He is easier to hold and better designed (and to pull on) than you might think, although I find this kind of minimal opener requires a sort of brute strength I don’t have and ultimately leads to bits of cork floating in my wine. Therefore, despite being quite sturdy, this fellow is officially retired from the work of cork removal as far as I am concerned. I am eyeing a cabinet which I think he will be quite at home in.
Pams-Pictoram.com
As someone who both waitressed and cooked professionally I became committed early on to a very specific device to removing corks from wine bottles. One of the most useful life skills (aside from extraordinary patience) that waitressing provided me with was the most fail safe methods of opening wine and champagne.
One summer during college I worked in a high end French restaurant (which despite being called Harry’s Lobster House, had quite a reputation for its French seafood cuisine), and this was where I believe I was introduced to this style opener. (I was also given instruction in the careful opening of champagne table side – slowly and wrapped in a towel – so that it would of course pop! but with no spillage.)
Pretty close to what Harry’s looked like back in the day when I waitressed there, but this appears to have been taken a bit later than that. They added outdoor dining in an ajoining area after my days of waitressing there.
For the most part I was a pretty lousy waitress. Friendliness was the best skill I brought to it (in addition to the aforementioned patience), which bought me a fair amount of forgiveness with the customers. Frankly though this made me better suited for working behind a counter, making sandwiches and serving coffee as I had the summer before,
I can still remember how befuddled I was by the specific names of the liquors when people ordered drinks – this was a high-end restaurant and Sea Bright in summer was a drinking beach town. I wasn’t familiar with top shelf alcohol brands and was decidedly unsophisticated in this regard. (Mom and Dad certainly had liquor in the house, but they were fairly mundane in their imbibing.) I did my best to write the order exactly, phonetically when needed, on my pad and report them faithfully to the bartender who, although nice enough really, in retrospect must have thought I was an idiot. Mom tells stories of working her way through college waitressing and it doesn’t seem to be a gene I inherited. (Incidentally Mom was also a record breaking long jumper in high school and a runner – these days while learning to run I often reflect on not having those genes either.)
To be clear, a superior corkscrew to me is a bit like the better mousetrap – you can try to make one, but the bar is high. It is a perfection of a certain kind of ingenuity and design. One should not tamper lightly with success.
These generally have a small knife, at top, to help peel off the cover on the cork and can also be used effectively for opening beer bottles, using the hook on the end.
Anyway, I have been using the same corkscrew since cooking school, mine came with an assigned kit of knives and implements. It has a red nail polish dot that I assigned to all my stuff so I could easily identify them quickly in a crowded kitchen. If you’ve never used one, you quite simply screw it in and then use the other, short, protrusion for leverage at the lip of the bottle and pull the handle – and voila! Bottle opened. Neat and tidy.
Growing up, the largely preferred bottle opener was the one below. I have a fairly good success rate with these as well, although clearly you can’t carry them around and use them as a waitress or cook. (The other folds nicely and lived in my pocket daily, handy for when needed.) This model has a bit less control than my preferred model (I’ve had more corks fall apart with these than the others), but I think one of these still also rattles around in my kitchen drawer. (Because of my former life as a cook, long ago though now that it is, there are some amazing things in that drawer that are rarely if ever used – things to make melon balls, pie crimpers to name a few. My zester recently came back into favor and my olive/cherry pitter lives there and is a much beloved item.)
Given all of this knowledge, opinion and lore, you would think that I would have successfully imparted this bottle opener knowledge successfully to my family at large. However, for some reason, my father became enamored of every possible variation of bottle opener to be found. He bought them in stores, at garage sales and they represented every conceivable variation on this theme. Some were quite absurd. Many were heavy and complex. Despite my protestations he would deliver them cheerfully to me as well. The fact is they almost never worked as well as my simple device – although in general I will grant you that they were more colorful and interesting, at least in theory.
Dad broke another rule of bottle opening and one evening opened a bottle of champagne which exploded in his hand, top breaking off, and cutting him badly enough that he had to trek to the emergency room for stitches. He did adopt my wrapped bottle technique after that.
Cafe d’Alsace earlier this week for a belated birthday dinner with a friend – they kept us pretty cozy despite the early March outdoor temps.
For all of this, you would think we are popping a whole lot of corks over here at Deitch Studio, but mostly we do not. Kim doesn’t drink and I am currently on a diet. Until earlier this week at a belated birthday dinner (which as my IG followers know was eaten outside under a heater and was actually quite lovely, pulling at the memory strings of what eating out used to be) when I broke down and had a glass of wine; I had not had a drink since December, maybe November. (The alcohol calories don’t make sense for me when I am counting them carefully. I always like to say that being on a diet is not so much fun that I want it to go on any longer than necessary so I try to be extremely focused and swift!)
I do cook with wine (or vermouth – although that’s a screw top) and there’s usually a bottle of something around for that. Pre-diet I enjoyed an occasional glass of wine or Prosecco with dinner – I like an occasional ice cold vodka tonic with lots of lime in summer. However, I am not and will never be knowledgeable about wine beyond what I like and what I don’t. Red wine triggers migraines which eliminates me largely from the erudite pursuit of wine. Nevertheless, when needed I know exactly how I am going to open that bottle.
Pam's Pictorama 