#Book of Household Management

[cynthiabertelsen]

Ladies of the Pen and the Cookpot: Isabella Beeton (Part II)

(Continued from August 23, 2010): Brillat-Savarin’s comments about the English being the worst cooks in the world drew a sniff from the proper Isabella, sure that her book would right that situation. In spite of the moralizing tone, and the plagiarism, BOHM became a runaway bestseller. Readers and critics considered the soup, fish, sauce chapters the best. Quantities of food served at dinner now…

[lotus-pear]

i think you guys are onto smth..

i unironically got invested in this HELP

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Hey! Thanks for all the work you do for us!

Thought this might interest you. This cooking channel on YouTube has tried to make some of the recipes from Mrs. Beeton's Cookery and Household Management!

In some ways, I can kind of see why Gabriel picked it up....

Oh thank you! :) The only fun fact I remember about the book is this: :D

[branwendaughterofllyr]

I think all Sansa antis need a primer on soft power and how women wielded power in the actual Middle Ages and Renaissance.

[bindingwhore]

Another of my Nanna's books; Mrs. Beeton's is a Victorian recipe book my Nanna used throughout her life. It's possible that her mother or grandmother had a copy; I never asked. Her copy was printed in the 1960s, and my mom and uncle grew up with it. I have not inherited this book; my uncle asked that I rebind it for him.

The book has an interesting history; first published as a segment in Isabella Beeton's husband Samuel Beeton's publication, it wasn't published as a book until 1861. It was an instant best-seller.

Mrs Beeton died in 1865, and a year later the copyright was sold to publishers Ward, Lock, and Tyler after Samuel Beeton fell into debt. The book has been revised steadily into the modern day.

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

from Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton (orig. published 1861; above from the 1888 edition)

[lulousims]

It's been officially longer than a year since I last posted gameplay pics...

For the most part of 2022, I couldn't play The Sims because I shared a computer and we couldn't agree on it. Then I played it for like, 2 months (in 2023!) on my bf's computer, but I couldn't take any screenshots 😭 And now, since October of 2023, I've been in England working as a volunteer, with no access to a personal computer. My friend was kind enough to lend me his laptop a few weeks ago so that I could finally play a bit, but it's not ideal because, well, it's his, and he needs it for work outside of the volunteering. I might be able to get my hands on a new laptop soon though (!!!!!!), and I'm really excited about finally being able to remove the "hiatus" from my bio! Or at least replace it with "semi hiatus", you know lol

I obviously won't be able to even remember what's gone on in my households, but at least I'll be back to playing once every few weeks and documenting my stuff. If everything works out, I should be here in one or two weeks, posting unedited screenshots of my game, like I used to, and getting 2 to 5 likes on each post <3 Just how I like it!

[aroclan]

i read Find Your Unicorn Space by Eve Rodsky, which mentions her previous book Fair Play several times, so… I read that too. Nobody can stop me now!

Find Your Unicorn Space seems pretty straightforward. It's about how to carve time out of caring for a household in order to pursue what makes you alive. Anything creative that can be shared counts. "But first," tasks have to be divided between members of the household so that "having Unicorn Space" doesn't bring the whole house into chaos. (Ironically, it's Fair Play that contains the anecdotes about how "I quit my creative job to become wife-and-mother, then he ultimately fell out of love with me and divorced.")

Fair Play is about dividing those household chores, all the "invisible work" that usually falls on women in a hetero relationship, by representing each of those tasks as cards in a deck. cards that don't apply, or which don't match the partners' values, are removed from the deck, and the participants choose the remaining task cards. then, whoever has the card is 100% responsible for performing the task. no reminders, no "when are you going to do the thing?" it's completely removed from everyone else's radar. the cardholder has all the authority, autonomy, and responsibility for it.

the main thing that the book falls short on is that the language is extremely heteronormative. despite being tested in multiple households with a diverse group of members, the language used is always about "women doing too much" and "men not being useful." i'm sure it's partly because the author is drawing on her own experience, where her husband stepped back once they had children (as is common), but it's also wearying to notice this constantly throughout the book.

on the flip side of this, the main thing i could not stop thinking about while reading is that “this would work so well for bigger homes. with a third person, everyone could divide all the cards without overloading anyone.” in comparison, for a couple, Rodsky recommends trying to keep the household under 80 cards in play (out of 100, although some are "wild cards" like job loss or moving—they're not meant to be in play all the time.)

the book is focused on struggling women improving their own lives immediately, so it doesn't mention any scenario with more adults in a household, whether that's a multi-generational household, polyamory, or queerplatonic partnerships.

beyond all that, it seems like the Fair Play system is customizable. "lawn & plants" might be split into 3 cards: lawn, landscaping, garden. maybe there's an entirely different card to be put in. but again, the book ends up being very focused on the "getting started" level, so this doesn't get a mention in the text.

ultimately, i didn't personally get a lot out of this book—because of past encounters with Dana White's How to Manage your Household and Gemma Hartley's Fed Up, my partner and i already had a decent balance of domestic work. on the other hand, someone who feels like they are drowning in keeping everything running behind-the-scenes should read Fair Play.

[alessia-photography]

Caravaggio's Rome is My Rome the book I've been writing for the past 20 years

When I first moved to Italy in 2003 I began researching, writing, taking photographs, collecting recipes, stories, experiences; I began gathering together the material that would become The Book, My Book

The book, my book began its life as "Under a Fig Tree in Rome", my love letter to the five years I lived on the streets, named after my first home, a fig tree on the Tiber Island.

In first-person narrative I told the tales that weaved together those five years. A way of apologising, forgiving, celebrating, remembering those faces & places. An exorcism of ghosts of sorts as most of the characters i wrote about are dead now. My book is a memorial. A glorification of the inglorious. But it was no Kerouac. I printed and bound "Fig Tree" and placed it in my bookcase.

My obsession with Rome remained a roaring fire in my heart after i left the city in the summer of 2007. By 2009 I enrolled in the history of art program at Birkbeck, University of London, graduating with a Masters degree in 2017, the majority of my credits being Roman/ Renaissance modules. I had learnt a great deal which made me aware that I knew absolutely nothing.

In 2016 I began writing about Rome again, but from a different angle. My boyfriend had a rickshaw which he used to transport tourists around the city. I realised the rione of Rome I had lived in & written about in The Book, My Book was also the backdrop of Michael Merisi da Caravaggio's twelve years in Rome at the turn of the seventeenth century.

I began to draw different lines on the same map, joining dots, making connections. I wrote another book, based on a series of walks in which you saw the paintings of Caravaggio as well as where he lived, where he drank, where he worked overlayed with where I lived, where I drank, where (and what) I wrote. Caravaggio's Rome is My Rome.

The lockdowns of 2020-21 changed everything for Francesco & I. No tourists, no work. Required by law to stay at home, 25 km east of Piazza Navona, I began to explore my patch the city, Giardinetti, just off exit 18 of the Grande Raccordo Anullare, the ring road around Rome. My geography had changed. & then our circumstances changed too.

In December 2022 Francesco had a car accident that left him semi-paralysed. From the moment he was discharged from hospital in February of this year I became a cook, cleaner & carer. My Rome work became a Mrs Beaton-like grimoire of recipes, household management tips, hedgewitchery and notes on a nightmare commute - with a wheelchair - across the city relying on (extremely unreliable) public transport.

My role changed, so my Rome changed and the book, my book gets re-written, again. More like a Cy Twombley painting than ever - scribble, scribble, scribble, WORD IN CAPITAL LETTERS, whitened, sanded back, text comes through the titanium white.

[kurv4]

binghe and mbj entering a psychic war over who is more of a trophy wife

[lightthewaybackhome]

One of my Christmas presents! Excited to dive into this next year!

[cynthiabertelsen]

To the Queen’s Taste: A Brief Meditation on Written Recipes, Part III

Carrying on our examination of the written recipe and its significance in what usually was an oral culture (in more ways than one) — the kitchen and cooking — it’s time to turn to a nineteenth-century English chef named Charles Elmé Francatelli, who briefly cooked French food for Queen Victoria.*   But before we get to the man of the moment, the meat of the matter, let’s pause for a moment and…

[raspberry-gloaming]

When you really want to talk about your fix it au for a series, but not only is there no fandom for it, but the only person active on tumblr even related to it and a nonexistant fandom is the author herself.

[glossahistorica]

THINGS IN SEASON FOR AUGUST.

AUGUST.  FISH.—Brill, carp, chub, crayfish, crabs, dory, eels, flounders, grigs, herrings, lobsters, mullet, pike, prawns, salmon, shrimps, skate, soles, sturgeon, thornback, trout, turbot.  MEAT.—Beef, lamb, mutton, veal, buck venison.  POULTRY.—Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, pigeons, plovers, pullets, rabbits, turkey poults, wheatears, wild ducks.  GAME.—Leverets, grouse, blackcock.  VEGETABLES.—Artichokes, asparagus, beans, cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, celery, cresses, endive, lettuces, mushrooms, onions, pease, potatoes, radishes, sea-kale, small salading, sprouts, turnips, various kitchen herbs, vegetable marrows.  FRUIT.—Currants, figs, filberts, gooseberries, grapes, melons, mulberries, nectarines, peaches, pears, pineapples, plums, raspberries, walnuts.

The Book of Household Management, Isabella Beeton, S.O. Beeton, 1861, pp.35-36 [x]

A grig is an immature eel. A green goose is a goose slaughtered under 4 months old. A pullet is a hen slaughtered before egg-laying age, or under a year of age. A turkey poult is an immature turkey. A leveret is a hare under a year of age. Salading is mix of leafy vegetables appropriate for salads.

Please note that many of the game and fish species are now threatened in the wild.

[the-goblin-queen]

It is well known that some persons like cheese in a state of decay, and even 'alive'. There is no accounting for tastes, and it may be hard to show why mould, which is vegetation, should not be eaten as well as salad, or maggots as well as eels. But, generally speaking, decomposing bodies are not wholesome eating, and the line must be drawn somewhere.

-- Page 95, Isabella Beeton, "The Campaign for Domestic Happiness"

[ltpolari]

doesn't surprise me considering this: louisshomesharry/732996598339108864

oh