Just made this for a crowd and it's about to go in the cooler for its requisite overnight stay.
Hope it tastes good. We'll know tomorrow.
Friday, 14 June 2013
After the mess...
... comes the Tiramisu.
Just made this for a crowd and it's about to go in the cooler for its requisite overnight stay.
Hope it tastes good. We'll know tomorrow.
Just made this for a crowd and it's about to go in the cooler for its requisite overnight stay.
Hope it tastes good. We'll know tomorrow.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Robertson Bird Baths
Feeling a bit blah, maybe coming down with a cold ... looking out the office window and there's a queue for the bird bath!
Next stop, make some green juice (or a hot lemonade...)
A sight for sore eyes!
Next stop, make some green juice (or a hot lemonade...)
A sight for sore eyes!
Wednesday, 5 June 2013
June Weddings - A brief (northern hemisphere) history
The Romans celebrated a festival in honor of the deity Juno, wife of Jupiter and goddess of marriage and childbirth, on June first. June also followed May, the month of the “unhappy dead” for the Romans, so not an auspicious month to marry!
During the 15th and 16th centuries AD, June was considered the time when people came outdoors after a long winter and bathed communally. I guess to marry when one is clean seemed to them to be a good beginning… It is quite possible that the use of flowers at weddings was also, initially, a way of masking body odor…
June weddings also come from the Celtic calendar. Even the term “honeymoon” has an historical origin, referring to the first moon after the summer solstice – June 21 – which was called the “honey moon.”
Getting married in June, in those pre-Pill times, meant that children conceived from these unions would be born the following spring, increasing their chances of survival after the long – and often very lean – winter months. Also, Springtime births would not interfere with the fall harvest, which was the busiest time of the year for most people earning their living off the land.
Let us not forget that, until quite recently, there was nothing romantic about weddings. These were business contracts between the bride’s father and the family of the groom, with bride and groom having very little to say about them! Women were considered the property of their father, and, as such, they would be ‘given away’ by their father to the groom’s family during the wedding ceremony. In most cultures, the father also had to pay a dowry to the groom’s family. In a minority of cultures, it was the groom who had to pay a ‘bridewealth’ (the male counterpart of the dowry) to the bride’s family in order to be able to marry her.
Weddings could also be dangerous events, as a wealthy bride could be kidnapped, in order to get a handsome dowry, on her way to the ceremony, or during the ceremony itself. Bridesmaids were dressed just like the bride to confuse possible captors, and the groom’s place was on the right of the bride in order to provide him with easy access to his sword, if the situation required it…
All these examples indicate how traditions get established by a mixture of pragmatic reasons and emotional ones. On these, new traditions are superimposed, reflecting specific times and beliefs. So, today, the father often is no longer the only one who walks the bride down the isle. It is more likely that both parents walk with the bride, or the bride walks by herself. The say, “something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue” attests to the human tendency to value continuity and new beginnings, unity and separation.
During the 15th and 16th centuries AD, June was considered the time when people came outdoors after a long winter and bathed communally. I guess to marry when one is clean seemed to them to be a good beginning… It is quite possible that the use of flowers at weddings was also, initially, a way of masking body odor…
June weddings also come from the Celtic calendar. Even the term “honeymoon” has an historical origin, referring to the first moon after the summer solstice – June 21 – which was called the “honey moon.”
Getting married in June, in those pre-Pill times, meant that children conceived from these unions would be born the following spring, increasing their chances of survival after the long – and often very lean – winter months. Also, Springtime births would not interfere with the fall harvest, which was the busiest time of the year for most people earning their living off the land.
Let us not forget that, until quite recently, there was nothing romantic about weddings. These were business contracts between the bride’s father and the family of the groom, with bride and groom having very little to say about them! Women were considered the property of their father, and, as such, they would be ‘given away’ by their father to the groom’s family during the wedding ceremony. In most cultures, the father also had to pay a dowry to the groom’s family. In a minority of cultures, it was the groom who had to pay a ‘bridewealth’ (the male counterpart of the dowry) to the bride’s family in order to be able to marry her.
Weddings could also be dangerous events, as a wealthy bride could be kidnapped, in order to get a handsome dowry, on her way to the ceremony, or during the ceremony itself. Bridesmaids were dressed just like the bride to confuse possible captors, and the groom’s place was on the right of the bride in order to provide him with easy access to his sword, if the situation required it…
All these examples indicate how traditions get established by a mixture of pragmatic reasons and emotional ones. On these, new traditions are superimposed, reflecting specific times and beliefs. So, today, the father often is no longer the only one who walks the bride down the isle. It is more likely that both parents walk with the bride, or the bride walks by herself. The say, “something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue” attests to the human tendency to value continuity and new beginnings, unity and separation.
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