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5. A Slice of Paradic/se

A Victorian cookbook, charmingly titled ‘Little Dinners: How to Serve Them with Elegance and Economy’ (1877), by Mary Hooper, claims to show ‘how the best use can be made of cheap material, and helps to revive what threatens to become a lost art in the home.’ Indeed, 150 years ago there were grumblings about the dying art of economy and self-sufficiency. Writers were moaning about this in earlier times, and continue to do so today. History does tend to repeat itself. Continue reading 5. A Slice of Paradic/se

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The Hazel Frame Pack

I didn’t expect to start work on a frame pack that day, though I’d been researching Ötzi the Iceman and his fabulous collection of possessions just the previous day, so the idea didn’t come out of nowhere. What happened was, I saw the hazel: Warm brown and with an unmistakable sheen, it was peeking between field maples and hawthorn. Continue reading The Hazel Frame Pack

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1. Pudding à la Rachel: or how to cash in on the power of celebrity

The oldest reference to Pudding à la Rachel I have been able to find is an 1855 reference in the journal The Musical World. It was named after a French actress known professionally as Madamoiselle Rachel, following a tour that took her to New York. Such was her fame that her name started cropping up everywhere. You could have your hair done ‘à la Rachel’ in the first, but definitely not the last, moment of celebrity-driven fashion associated with that name. Continue reading 1. Pudding à la Rachel: or how to cash in on the power of celebrity

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‘All it needs is momentum’: Turning the wheel on handspinning

The girl in the polkadot coat peeked into the case. I observed her eyes roam over brittle rods, wooden discs, dusty clouds of wool. ‘Mummy, are they toys?‘ she sang, fogging the glass. Her mother, attention elsewhere, said she thought they might be before drifting onwards through the gallery.  Imagine a museum cabinet of the … Continue reading ‘All it needs is momentum’: Turning the wheel on handspinning