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themousefromfantasyland · 4 years ago

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The Yule Man (1/7)

As told by ME

This was meant to be a short story, but it became too big, so I separated it in seven parts. I want to turn my blog in a space where I can share my writting every once and a while.

This is the first time I post one of my stories on a public space. This is the first time anyone besides my sister will be able to read, so I'm pretty exciting and anxious. I want honest criticism. I hope you all enjoy it.

"It's he who brings the Yule ice and snow to Arnsberg." The little girl said.

Everything seemed somehow brighter and warmer on that peaceful afternoon.

The lines of holly hanged above the walls and windows gave an otherworld feel to the street. The jingle of the bells of the market down the avenue helped to remind how happiness sounded like. Silver bells adorned the rooftops. The traditional statues of silver stood on the churches’ terrains.

They promised that the Silver God would once again bless his holy season. The store windows promised an affable and cozy night. That was not what that beggar boy received.

The confectionery attendant shoved him away with all scorn and disdain possible in a man. Why did he should show him kindness? The boy couldn't pay, and he was so filthy dressed he would drive customers away. And as he said beneath his breath while coming back to the store:

"Magic only brings trouble."

Mia Hayek and her baby sister were stepping in their carriage when they saw the scene. The poor young man looked at the sweets in the windows of the confectionery with so much craving. He looked as if he hadn't eaten anything in a long time.

She took out her long wide hat and her cotton scarf and asked her sister if she knew that boy. The little girl, with all sincerity that a child is capable off, responded.

He had a slender and thin body, but the enormous, hooded fur coat worn swallowed it completely. He carried a huge bag of shabby cloth against his back. The fur hood and the cloth around his lower face made it hard to give him an age. Mia was sure he couldn't be older than twenty.

Everyone in Arnsberg knew the boy. Always seen wandering without destination in the Solstice Eve carrying that stained bag. He arrives in town no sooner than the first snow. He stays for the twelve days of the Yule Festival, then he disappears. And no one can find him before the next one.

Mia saw him in the last year. He lived near the park in front of the bakery. The baker shoved him away as if he was a stray dog. He has not changed a thing from then.

"He never changes." Sophia mindlessly added. "Even mother remembers him from her time. He never changes."

Mia stared at the boy. Ragged and disheveled. Time had devoured those clothes, tattered and grimy as they looked.

"Is he magical?" Mia asked.

"Yeah!" Her little sister nodded. "But he can only bring the snow, he can't control it. He's harmless."

"Stay here!" She told her.

Mia stepped out of the carriage and walked in the direction of the boy as fast as her boots allowed. Noticing being followed, he turned. She stopped in the spot.

The hood obscured his face. He maintained his back bended, and he avoided looking into her eyes. By the way he stayed quiet, she knew he was nervous. People dressed like her usually didn't had nice things to say to people dressed like him.

"You're beautiful!" He whispered to himself, hoping only he listened.

She smiled back.

"Thank you!"

She heard and he could only blush in response.

"Sorry, but I always see you around here during this time." She began saying while messing with her curly hair. "The town can get pretty cold. Do you have where to pass the night."

The boy chuckled, and she could see a vague spark in his eyes.

"The cold never bothered me anyway, madam."

"What do you carry with you?" She came forward and touched his long bag. It felt so freezing that she immediately withdrew as by sheer impulse.

He lowered the cloth that covered his face and looked up to her, allowing Mia to take a deep look.

"I... I should already release this thing, but... I got distracted. I wanted to find something to eat first, so..." He sounded so nervous, trying so hard to justify himself, as if fearing punishment.

His face was pale and soft, still with signs of boyhood. His eyes were big and innocent, in bright green. His beard was as red as a fox, and it was shaggy and full of pieces of ice.

"...and now I don't know where to release this stuff."

"Do you have where to spend the holidays?" She interrupted him.

"No." He answered embarrassed.

The question really pierced through him. She saw how it affected him in the wrong way. A second question slipped through her mouth before she could have time to re-evaluate it.

"Do you found somewhere to eat?"

He didn't respond.

She drew his hands, letting his bag land on the ground. It surprised her how soft and warm they were.

"Stay the Yule with us."

Mia could just have brought him food and then forget anything about him in the next day. Any normal person would do that. Maybe she felt a genuine urge to help him. Maybe her pity for him spoke louder. Perhaps she found him too adorable to let go. Whatever the real reason may be, something drew her to him.

"My father is wealthy, but generous. I'm sure he'll allowed it."

He smiled to her by a second, as if he loved the idea, but then he frowned, as if he remembered something.

"I'm sorry. You have been very kind, but I can't."

"Please!" She insisted, her voice cracking a little. "You can't spend the Yule in the streets and in the cold."

""I already used to it."

He forced a sly grin, as if trying to tranquilize her. He continued. "I'm sure you mean well, but it's better that I stay here."

"Our mansion is always open to those who need it, and you'll be well treated there."

"A mansion?" He frowned.

"My father is Mr. Hayek. My name is Mia Angela Hayek. Ravi de vous rencontrer." She greeted him with the dress.

"Never heard of him." He joked.

"Please, stay with us. We...

"Is it comfy..."

"What?" She asked surprised.

He spoke in a tone that made her think of a timid small boy.

"Your mansion. Is it comfy and cozy? That's how I always picture these places to be." He didn't want her to see he smiled.

"Of course." She nodded.

"Does it have a fireplace?"

"Yes. You can drink hot cocoa by it and eat some gingerbread cookies if you want."

"I never eat a gingerbread cookie."

"You can eat all sweets you wish. The kitchen has smelled wonderful since morning. My father is giving a big ball tonight. It will be so full of cakes and sweets. It will make even the most illustrious confectioneries envious."

Mia saw how much the idea pleased him, how much it tempted him to say yes. Yet, something held him back.

Against his better judgment, he said:

"Okay."

The air grew colder on that moment. The winter breeze brought chills down her spine. Whatever it was, the boy felt it too.

"But just for one night." He soon added.

"What's your name?"

"I don't have one." He said while pulling back his bag.

She tilted her head.

"How come you have no name?"

"Never needed one."

James Hayek had all the reasons to be jolly during the holidays. This son of immigrants became the most important merchant in all the North Kingdom. The Hayeks were the wealthiest mixed family in Arnsberg. This filled him with pride, but also a deep sentiment of duty. As a child of Arnsberg by heart he felt as his duty to retribute all his good luck back to the community.

The Hayek Mansion was a charming building located near the road down to Arnsberg, far close to the forest. Mr. Hayek certified himself that its doors would be forever open to the town that welcomed him.

It was the Solstice Eve. Tomorrow the Yule Festival would begin, twelve days of tradition and merriment. A gigantic fir-tree of nine meters was brought to the mansion's courtyard. The servants of the Hayek family surrounded its needles with all sorts of ornaments. They garnished the Yule Tree with silver, gold, and all kinds of jewelry. On its top, the Solstice Sun ornament promised to shine brighter than the real one. Not even Queen Ava's tree in the Royal Palace was as beautiful as the one who stood now in the Hayek Mansion.

Dozens of statues of goats surrounded the tree, all carefully made of pure straw. A somewhat forgotten tradition that Mr. Hayek couldn't let go in any capacity.

Two full tables had been already set. Roast turkeys and ducks, steamed hams and caramelized cods covered the first table.

The second table looked like a small child's fever dream. Colorful palaces of gelatin and chocolate sprinkled with sugar. Snowy towns and castles of gingerbread covered with white marzipan. Fountains and rivers flowing with chocolate. Towers of cakes and pies. Mountain chains of pudding with nuts and chestnuts boulders. It had enough to maddening the youth.

When Mia and Sophia arrived at the Hayek residence, the Yule Log had been already tossed into the fire. Both her and her sister helped the fur-cladded boy stepped out of the carriage. No sooner they crossed the golden gates, the servants already whispered between themselves. They couldn't help but gaze at the peculiar young man with awe and curiosity.

As soon as the girls walked upon the carpet in the living room, their parents rushed to speak to them. When Mr. Hayek first heard the news, he had to come to see it by himself.

"You brought the Yule Man?" He gave a strong laughter that came straight from the bottom of his belly.

The boy didn't know how to react, so he stepped behind the sisters and gave him an awkward smile.

Mr. Hayek was a cheerful and youthful old man. Mrs. Hayek could be the proudest woman the world has ever seen. She fitted the role of the women who dressed to show the world her social status. Her blue eyes had troubles showing affection. Her corn-like hair was stylized in the same way as the fashion magazines. Meticulously armed.

She approached Mia to talk in particular.

"You should be getting dressed." She spoke with veiled bitterness.

Mia tried her best to argue back.

"Sorry mother, I was doing shopping when..."

Her mother definitely didn't want to know. She twisted her eyebrows and said:

"Why are you so irresponsible. I'm tired of sorries. And what are you wearing for the gods' sake" She started yelling.

Mia swallowed her mother's sermons with her best poker face. Since she was a child, she knew how harsh Mrs. Hayek's criticism could be. Nothing different from the woman that searched for defects in everything.

"You know how this night is important. It's your first ball. My daughter shouldn't look like a hag." She took a pause to breath. "Go get dressed!"

Sophia came forward.

"Can the Yule Man spend the Yule with us?" She asked with manipulative eyes.

"You can't bring him here." She whispered while offering a false smile to greet the newcomer boy.

Fritz and Thomas, Sophia's elder brothers, looked at him with intense curiosity.

"Magic always leads to trouble." She put.

"Mother, he needs us." Mia shot back. "Besides not aging, there's not that much he can do. He is harmless."

"Mia, can you stop arguing..." Her mother tried to shut her down as she always did.

Mia had other plans.

"Father..." She turned to Mr. Hayek. "This is the true Yule Man. You can show him to the town's children tonight.

"I like children." His tiny voiced ricocheted off the living room walls. They turned to face him.

"They are nice to me." He said in a small tone behind them.

They almost had forgot he was still there.

"My dear, I don't know..." Mr. Hayek gazed at his unhappy wife.

"Remember when you were young and poor, and they chased you off that department store." She pointed to the boy. “They shoved him out of the confectionery as if he were nothing. He doesn't have where to spend the Yule days. He never had."

Mr. Hayek grew quiet. Not everyone had been nice to him. The way he looked had closed a lot of doors before. He promised to never take part in any judgment by appearances.

"You win." He winked at her. "Okay. Welcome to our Yule party Mr. Yule Man.

The boy looked at Mrs. Hayek. He saw her eyes steaming.

The guest started appearing around the evening. The parties in the Hayek Mansion always yielded weeks of conversation and gossip. They were more accessible than official public events. Open to everyone who wanted to participate. Thanks to that Mr. Hayek received the charming nickname of the "Father of the Poor." from his enemies. He liked it.

In her bedchamber, Mia wore a ballgown that had the color of the winter night sky. A low busted and short sleeved gown that drew attention to her silhouette. It was richly embroidered with snowflake patterns that surrounded her skirt. A delicate bow tied her curly brown hair back, drawing attention to her delicate face. Her strong red lipstick contrasted quite well with her light-brown skin tone.

When she went down the staircase. She gasped at how beautiful her house looked. Decks of holly, ivy and winter roses scattered everywhere. When the Yule Man saw her, he gasped at how beautiful she looked. He raced to her, still with his bag.

"Why are you still wearing this thing?" She pressed her lips together. She sounded just as her mother.

"Sorry If I was too rude. Do you like it?"

"No. No. I don't like this thing at all." He chuckled while eating a huge piece of marzipan with his free hand.

"So, why do you wear it?"

"As if I had a choice." He smirked.

He had finished his attack on the table of sweets. His mouth still was stained with sugar and chocolate. She noticed he had pockets in his suit, because they were full of gingerbread cookies and pieces of cake. The corners of her mouth lifted a smile as soon as she realized it.

When they arrived at the courtyard, the guests already crowded the place. The music had begun. The youthful couples already waltzed together amid the chatter of their families. That scene never failed to fill Mia's eyes, and now she could be officially a part of it. Her first ball as a woman.

She saw her mother approaching.

"What are you wearing." She yelled in her lowest tone.

Mia stood in her defensive position.

"Mother, you promised I could pick my own dress."

Mrs. Hayek exhaled.

"Yeah, I did. You look beautiful."

Mia smiled in relief.

"You too mother."

"You look perfect, and it's Yule, but don't exaggerate on the food." She laughed. "You know how the woman in our family have problems with weight."

Mia forced a yellow smile as a good daughter. As soon as her mother departed, the boy tried to cheer her.

"That was close. You survived the attack of the amazing shrew. Good job."

Mia laughed out loud. He felt proud with himself.

The children on the place couldn't stop looking at him with amazement. She turned to him.

"You don't really have a name?"

His smile disappeared.

"No."

He tried to physically walk out of that social interaction. She followed him.

"Do you at least have parents or relatives?"

He spent a couple seconds thinking.

"I don't know. I believe that I don't."

"Where you go when you aren't in Arnsberg? Do you visit other cities?"

"I prefer not to think about that." He said as politely as he could.

"Can I ask about the bag?" She joked.

He handled the bag over to the other hand.

"Nope!"

He really didn't like the direction of that conversation.

"Can I least ask you about the beard? Do you like it?"

He stopped. He looked at her.

"Not even a little." He laughed. "It's shaggy, it scratches, and it annoys me so much."

"Why you don't shave it?"

"As if I had a choice."

That was getting on her nerves.

"Why wouldn't you have a choice?"

He looked deep into her eyes.

"Because only real people have a choice."

On that same moment, a man wearing a red fur cloak and carrying a sack full of toys and stepped out of the servant’s door. The children gasped and cheered his presence and rushed in his direction. The adults were left amazed. Santa Claus had arrived. By his side, a very tall man came closer, wearing a wooden goat mask and wearing a very thick coat. On his hand he carried birch branches. The children surrounded them in seconds. The Goat-masked man asked in his spookiest voice if they had been nice or naughty that year. Santa had already start delivering the presents to all the children.

Mia nudged him.

"It's my father. He lives by the Yule Festival." She boasted. "He loves to dress like Santa. He's the only black St. Nick in the town."

"I find funny how you always seem to agree that he's an old fat man in red."

He left her confused.

"Excuse me."

"St. Nicholas is way younger than that. And he drinks." He chuckled. "A lot."

She tilted her head and frowned.

"How can you tell? No one can see him."

He stayed quiet.

"Do you know the real Santa?"

He broke the silence.

"He's a good man. He's nice to me. The Yule Goat is bad. He's very bad. He beats children."

He nodded to the goat masked man. Mia saw that it unsettled him a bit.

"Calm down. It's just Edgar, our butler. He likes to scare kids, so every year he dresses like the Yule Goat."

All the kids after receiving their presents ran to his side. Mr. Hayek as the jolly saint came closer to Mia at said in direction of the young man:

"This man..." He certified himself to be heard by everyone. "...is the Yule Man. Today he will show us the magic of the Yuletide season."

The crowd turned and stared at him in intensity. The typical hypocrisy of mortals: They fear magic but can't lose a chance to see it close. The boy himself stayed quiet as a mouse in his spot.

Mia asked in his ear:

"Crowds make you nervous"

"Yep" He almost couldn't be heard.

"I realized."

He walked to the center of the courtyard without saying no more words. Near the fir-tree he tossed his bag on the ground. Mia attended all that closely.

He pulled the knot that tighten the bag closed and opened it. A single snowflake came out first. It flew like a white butterfly in the direction of the wind. Calm, gentle, beautiful. It shimmered like nothing else. Some of the children ran after it and tried to catch. A second came out, and third, and a fourth. The snowflakes then burst out of the bag, billions of them. Small bright crystals that looked more like pixie dust.

He opened his arms and allowed the endless wave of light blast off and fill the skies. The crowd clapped and cheered in a mad frenzy. Mr. Hayek couldn't believe his eyes.

Mia stood there, speechless. The sight took all her ability to think properly.

The Yule Man closed his eyes. He shook both hands together as quick as he could. The bright outburst ceased. The bag dissolved in icicles. As if the world's largest swarm, they dashed up, up into the sky, while the snow started to fall.

He turned back to them.

"And this...This is how the Yule snow comes to Arnsberg."

The crowd clapped in pure ecstasy. He exhaled relieved.

The kids chased him. The adults had troubles understanding what happened. Mia stayed quiet in her thoughts processing everything.

The north wind blew over them all. The boy felt the message sent to him down to his bones. A dark figure appeared in the corner. He knew there were consequences to be dealt with.

Mia searched for him when he appeared and shook her hand.

"I'm grateful for everything..." He started. "... but St. Nicholas saw me. I already violated too many rules."

And he ran away.

"What!"

She stayed behind, left speechless again.

Mia marched to her parents close to the mansion's entrance.

"Father, what did you said to him?"

She took Mr. Hayek by surprise.

"Nothing, I..."

Sophia stopped playing with the other girls and their new toys and walked to them.

"It was not him. It was the real Santa.

"Hey!" His heart broke. He said visibly offended. "How long do you know I am not..."

Mia interrupted him.

"Sophia, why are you talking about?"

"St. Nicholas came here to talk to him."

"How I didn't see him?"

She responded with such innocence that terrified Mia.

"He's invisible to you."

Mia rushed back inside and searched for him everywhere. She found him when he was getting nearer the front gate.

"Why did you leave?" She approached him behind pulled him by the arm. You said you would spend the night here."

"I can't. I simply can't. St. Nicholas talked to me...

"Santa? Santa threatened you?"

"No. St. Nicholas is nice to me." He argued. "Only a few like him are. The North Wind brought him here. He told him how I was breaking the rules. Different from him, I can be seen by mortals. He thinks it's not wise for me to get too close to them, to you."

He paused as soon as he realized how that sentence could be interpreted.

"To you guys, the mortals, your family." The awkwardness possessed his body.

Her forehead furrowed while pressing her lips together.

"What are the rules?"

He scratched his head and lowered it down.

"I arrive to Arnsberg by the first light of the Solstice Eve. I must leave before the first light after the Yule days are over."

Her expression lightened.

"So, you can spend the festival with us."

"Do you even listen to me?" He cried out loud.

She placed her hands over his shoulder.

"Listen, you will not violate any rules. As long as you left..." She gesticulated for him to continue it.

"Before the first light after the Yule days are over." He added.

"I know you liked here. So, what do you say.”?

"Mia, I can't."

She raised her voice.

"So, they want you to spend the holidays in the street?"

"I don't have a choice." His jaw clenched and he shut his eyes.

She drew him closer.

"Yeah, you do."

That simple phrase teared down his walls. He no longer felt the ground under his feet. His eyes teared up.

"Do you really believe that." He said in a cry voice.

She struggled to look him in the eyes now.

"I do." She smiled to him.

He closed his eyes.

"Okay, I will spend the Yule Festival with you."

He heard the wind blowing outside. A very bad omen indeed. For some Mia sensed butterflies on her stomach. She felt a sweet taste in her mouth. Something sweet and warm inside her chest.

"Okay, I will ask Edgar to lead you to the Guest room."

He shook his head.

"It isn't necessary. I hate giving people trouble. I can sleep anywhere."

She raised her eyebrows.

"But you need a name. Can I call you Christopher? I always found a beautiful name."

"Yeah, you can." His eyes twinkled while the corners of his mouth quickly turned up.

She stepped closer.

"Happy Yuletide, Chris!"

#christmas #holiday season #yuletide #my writting #writters on tumblr #my story #winter solstice #The Yule Man

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repost-this-image · 6 years ago

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Important historical references for Castlevania fics

Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse and the Netflix series based on it are both set in the late 15th century in Wallachia (now the southern part of Romania). For those of you who don’t specialize in history from this period, there are a LOT of things that were dramatically different back then that you probably never heard about.

So here’s a list of things that the average person might not know about food and clothing, that are relevant to Castlevania fics and other stories written in that time period:

(and it’s a LONG ONE, so I’m putting it behind a cut.)

First, fabrics. Cotton was rare and expensive, and is actually harder to dye than the other fibers available at the time. Cotton only became cost-effective for the average person to buy a few centuries later, when slavery--and later, mechanical separation of the seeds and other debris from the boll--drove the cost of production down. (Well, the financial cost, anyway. Ethically, this was obviously Not Good.) Commoners were as unlikely to wear cotton as silk or ermine.

So what did most people wear? Linen, wool, and leather.

Let’s start with linen. Linen is made from flax, which has very strong fibers. It is first soaked in water for a few months to soften up the fibers (yes, this means that flax has to rot before you can use it to make cloth). The fibers are then spun and woven into linen fabric. Linen is lightweight and cool in the summer, and because it’s soft, sturdy, and easy to wash, most undergarments and nightclothes were made of linen.

Wool, as most people know, comes from sheep. Just like in the game Minecraft, you get wool by carefully clipping it off a sheep with shears. (Modern shears are electric and look like the clippers used by a barber to cut human hair.) An experienced shepherd is very good at shearing a sheep without cutting the skin, getting most or all the wool off. Wool takes most natural dyes very easily, requiring only the dye itself and some kind of acid to use as a mordant. (A mordant is basically the chemical that makes the dye “stick” to the fabric.) I have literally dyed wool yarn with Kool-Aid and boiling water; the unsweetened packets contain food-safe dyes and citric acid. Wool is basically AWESOME to use for your outer garments. It’s warm, relatively water-resistant when felted, it wicks away sweat from your skin and undergarments, and it STAYS WARM EVEN WHEN WET, which is a good thing when modern waterproof fabrics don’t yet exist. Equally importantly, knitted wool was the one natural material that could stretch, so socks and hosiery could be made skin-tight. Spandex and elastic were a good 400 years in the future. One reason black sheep were less common and less desirable is because black wool is too dark to dye, and thus makes fewer clothing colors than white or brown wool. (This is also where the phrase “black sheep of the family” comes from.)

Leather is animal skin that’s been specially prepared to not rot off and stink. It’s a bit more water-resistant than felt, though it can still get ruined if you let it get soaked through. Most leather today is made from cows or pigs, but deer and goat leather make a softer leather and would also have been used. “To handle with kid gloves” comes from the fact that the softest, thinnest gloves were made from kids (baby goats). Kid-leather is banned today for ethical reasons. A prepared sheepskin with the wool still on would have made for a super-warm blanket or rug, but wasn’t all that cheap.

Most women spent half the year spinning wool and linen into threads; it was simple enough (although VERY time-consuming) that you could spin while doing other things, and common women definitely did. During the winter months, when you were stuck inside most of the time anyway, the weaving and sewing would take place. Most spinning would have still been done with the drop spindle; spinning wheels existed, but they were still very uncommon.

So what color were clothes? Well, a natural undyed cream color was more likely than pure white--bleaching fabric still involved urine and was a major hassle. As for dyes, most of them came from plants or insects, and you could get just about any color except royal purple, a deep scarlet, or royal blue (because the sources of these shades were rare and difficult to harvest). Sypha’s robes would probably have been dyed with woad, which produces the same pigment as the indigo plant (the same indigo that’s used to dye blue jeans). For more information on dyes from this time period, or how it was done, I’d recommend you click here or here. (This section is long-winded enough already.)

For the actual fashions of the time, check out the “Central Europe” section of this article, the late-15th-century part of this article, and if you don’t mind fudging it (since heaven knows Alucard’s tight leather pants aren’t period), the early 16th century works too.

Undergarments of the time include: the chemise (full-length for women, waist-length for men), the codpiece, early corsets, hose, and petticoats. Underpants as we know them probably didn’t exist yet.

FOOD

Most of us know that people used to eat very differently than they do now, but aside from “well, there wasn’t a McDonald’s or anything,” that’s about it. So here’s what you need to know about food. (For a more in-depth look, this reddit post is pretty good.)

Dairy would have been milk, cream, and butter near a dairy farm, and mainly cheese elsewhere. Cheese not only keeps for a very long time, but sharp cheeses actually get stronger and better with age. There were dozens of varieties, and they would have made up a fair bit of your protein unless you were wealthy enough to eat meat every day. (Commoners weren’t.)

Beans and nuts were your primary source of protein if you were a commoner. They were cheap, shelf-stable, and easy to cook. Just leave some beans and barley in a pot of boiling water for a few hours with your other ingredients, and you’ve got a filling meal. Not all beans or nuts are European, but you’re pretty safe if you stick to: lentils, hazelnuts, chestnuts, peas, broadbeans, flax, almonds, walnuts, chickpeas (garbanzos),

Grains were the staple food, and as such, you had them in stews, beer, and bread every day. You know how the KJV of the Bible says things like “man shall not live by bread alone” and “give us this day our daily bread?” That’s because bread was the ONE FOOD you were guaranteed to have at every meal, so the word “bread” was often used to refer to food in general. If you had celiac in the Middle Ages, your life was pretty much guaranteed to suck. Maize existed in parts of the Old World, but was only used as animal feed; “corn” was instead a general term for ALL grains, instead of the name of the yellow stuff that grows on a cob. Bread was made of rye, wheat, millet, or barley, all of which were and still are quite common in Europe. And yes, oatmeal was also A Thing.

Other vegetables you’d find in Europe in the 15th century included cucumbers, radishes, carrots, lots of varieties of onions, dandelions (yes, they’re edible), celery, broccoli, asparagus, spinach, beets, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, garlic, parsnips, and cauliflower. Since spices were expensive, most people seasoned their food with herbs like basil, thyme, parsley, rosemary, oregano, chives, cloves, bay (laurel), wormwood, and dill. Eggplants are not originally native to Europe, but they were brought over from Asia during the Middle Ages, so people definitely knew about them and cooked with them. And of course, edible mushrooms have been eaten pretty much everywhere in the world you can find them, including damn-near all of Eurasia.

Note what is not on the list. There were no potatoes in Europe. It is a New World vegetable. Potatoes weren’t imported into England and Spain until the 16th century, and didn’t reach the rest of Europe until the early 17th century. They quickly became popular because they’re cheap, easy to grow, and calorie-dense, which is why a lot of traditional Irish food from the last 4 centuries has potatoes in it. Do not write potatoes into a story set in the 15th century. DON’T DO IT. History buffs get very angry when you get potatoes wrong. A lot of people are mad at the Witcher series for having potatoes in Poland at about the same time period, 100 years before they would have made it there. Tomatoes are also a New World crop, as are pumpkins, peanuts, cranberries, maple syrup, chocolate and quinoa. Don’t include any of them in your story either.

Fruits in the part of Eastern Europe we’re looking at would not have included bananas or citrus; the time it took to transport non-native fruits would have made it impossible to get either one. Here’s what fruits you were likely to actually find: Blackcurrant, pears, quinces, raspberries, apples, plums. You might find the following Mediterranean imports when they were in season, but they’d be less common since the plants themselves can’t survive cold winters: black mulberry, dates, figs, olives, grapes, jujubes, pomegranates. How common each of these would be depends on how long it can go without spoiling; when in doubt, check. Dried grapes, of course, are shelf-stable and could well have been imported under the names raisins, currants, or sultana.

Meats were most often eaten by the wealthy, unless you count fish and shellfish, which were mainly seen as food for the poor. (The idea that fish and lobster and delicacies for the rich would seem completely absurd to people before the 20th century.) Chicken was uncommon; your hens were more useful as egg-layers than as meat. Beef, pork, venison, rabbit/hare, mutton (sheep), lamb, goose, and duck were relatively common. Turkey and salmon are both New World animals and would have been unknown in Europe. Fish were very common and easy to catch compared to modern times (bodies of water hadn’t been overfished like they are today) and came in lots of varieties. Oysters, mussels and the like were also harvested and eaten by the common folk.

#castlevania #15th century #historical reference #15th century food #15th century clothing

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044-eu · 5 years ago

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Recipe homemade Tuscan bread

Today I want to teach you how I make bread. To do things perfectly would take a wood oven, but I instead have a very common electric kitchen oven, as well as most people, but I guarantee you that it comes good equally.

Recipe

To make a small loaf that is enough for a day at 2/3 fiper you need the following ingredients: 375 grams of flour type 0; Grams. 250 of warm water; 12.5 grams of fresh yeast (it is easily found in every supermarket in 25 grams packet); half a teaspoon of salt; half a teaspoon of sugar. Knead the flour with the water in which you have dissolved the yeast, add the salt and sugar and knead the dough until it is firm. At this point put the dough in a high bowl cover it with cling film and a kitchen dryer on top so that the dough remains in the dark. Leave to rise for about an hour until the dough is doubled. At this point resume working the dough with your hands, adding a little flour if necessary, until you get a fairly firm ball. Now you give it the shape that we like the most, (generally round) and on top of a sheet of baking paper you place in the container that we will then put in the oven, making over the loaf a couple of incisions with a knife. We cover everything with a kitchen dryer and let the loaf still rise for another 30 minutes or so. In the meantime we bring the temperature of the oven to 200 degrees and after the loaf has risen once more we bake in a hot static oven for about 25/30 minutes depending on the degree of cooking you want to reach. It is worth it after about twenty minutes to hear the loaf has already formed a rather hard crust. If you leave another 5 minutes and then remove the bread of the oven. I recommend cooking it just before dinner or lunch, eaten hot freshly overturned is truly a delight.

To complete

At this point increasing a little the doses i gave you before, indeed doubling them quietly, you can think of doing even the Tuscan dunk. The dough is the usual and the leavening process is the same, only at the end, half of the dough you have to roll it out with a rolling pin until it forms a pastry pastry about one centimeter high. Put it in a 28/30cm wide low bowl and spread it with your hands until you reach the edges. With fingerfingertips make many small footprints all over the surface. Add olive oil possibly spreading with a brush or even with your hands until you grease the entire surface, after which a light dusting of coarse salt. At this point, in the oven for about 15 minutes always at 200 degrees. Here, too, we have to check the cooking so as not to make our crush too cooked. This as well as bread comes very good in our kitchen oven and lends itself to be eaten with meats and cheeses, but also on its own. With the same yeasted dough you can also make fried dough. Spread the dough with a rolling pin until we have a sheet of about half a centimeter in height. Divide it into many squares of about 6/7 cm and let them cook in boiling oil until they acquire a nice golden color. This paste once cooled a little is great to stuff with cheeses and cured meats.

A tip

If you have been satisfied with your bread or crush and plan to make them often, I recommend a very useful purchase and that will save you quite a bit of time. A small planetary kneather. There are several prices but they are not very expensive, especially since it does not take you very large, and they have many other uses in the kitchen. For example, in addition to bread and crush, I also make a base for sweets and dumplings and with this we speed up our recipes a lot and get much less dirty the kitchen. Although great freshly baked, this bread retains well a few days and although no more crispy remains soft. I recommend wrapping it in aluminum foil or cling film.

A bit of legend, a bit of history

We are in Tuscany, which together with Umbria is the home of silly bread, that is, without salt, although in Tuscany some cities also make it slightly salty. But the classic Tuscan bread is salt-free. It has a crispy crust while the crumb is compact and soft. But where does this custom of making bread without salt come from? There are several theories about it and a definitely right one is not there and I think there will never be, because there are many interpretations and answers to this question. Who goes back to the fact of not putting salt to compensate for the strong flavors of the main Tuscan dishes. Just think of the ribollita, the tripe to the Florentine, the various soups, the gruel with tomato, the panzanella and especially the cured meats. Very appreciated at the time and even now, it was the classic salted ham. This theory is refuted, however, by the fact that other regions, especially those in the south, also have a tradition of strong flavors and yet their bread is salty. Then there is the theory of war between Pisa and Florence. The most supported theory is that it began to make bread without salt around the 12th century, when Pisa that was a powerful maritime republic and in whose port came the loads of salt, to create an economic damage to Florence with which it was at war , blocked the loads of salt destined for the city. So this and the fact that Florence and Tuscany in general had no salt deposits of their own, was therefore forced to import salt in another way, raising its price that was already very high at the time. So preferring to leave what little that came for the cured meats and meats to be preserved, you start to make bread without salt Another theory is based on the fact that according to some the custom of making bread without salt stems from the fact that the city of Florence imposed duties and gabelle, that is, indirect taxes that were paid for certain activities carried out and especially for the gabelle sits at the entrances (I think that all remember the film with Benigni and Troisi, we just have to cry where every step back and forth you pay a florin). But above all Florence financed itself with the tax on salt and from here make of necessity virtue and remove salt from everything you could remove, including bread. However, there are many types of bread in Tuscany. Just think that not all Tuscan provinces eat bread without salt. Pisa, Lucca and Massa, which were cities that were not part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, eat strictly salty bread. One of the best Tuscan loaves is produced in the town of Altopascio, which is located in the Lucca plain. It is a special bread that is produced without yeast and without salt. Altopascio benche near Lucca was part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and therefore its inhabitants were also subject to the salt tax. Then there is the Pratese draft that is produced in Prato in the Bisenzio valley and which is known as early as the sixteenth century. Very renowned for the inhabitants of Prato and has an elongated shape and a sour taste. Not always in the Tuscan countryside the wheat was enough for the bread of the whole year, so the peasants engaged using other components, such as corn flours, chestnuts and even potatoes. And then there is the birth of different loaves with the Morocco bread of Montignoso. It was called Morocco because it was as dark as a moroccan.It is a specialty as old as it is tasty. Corn flour was used, which was much cheaper and widespread. Wheat flour was at that time very rare and precious and therefore bread made of wheat flour was only used in the holidays. Along with corn flour, black olives, chilli, sage, garlic and rosemary were also kneaded. Unfortunately, this delicious bread is only found in the area where it was created, in the province of Massa and Carrara up to Garfagnana. It was once produced only in winter, when olives were found, but now with pickled olives, it is produced all year round. It can also be prepared at home, but it loses much of its original fragrance and texture it takes in a wood oven. Garfagnana is home to very special extraordinary loaves, the bread "Neccio", that is, chestnuts, potato bread, spelt bread.

Chestnut flour bread

Chestnut, is used for the production of a flour obtained by drying in special cases with under the fire, chestnuts. Once dried they were then ground in water mills. The bread at this point was prepared using chestnut flour together with wheat flour, or in the absence of the latter, of boiled potatoes. Among the most famous loaves of Tuscan cuisine are the Marocca di Casola, the Necci of Garfagnana. The Marocca di Casola is a loaf of about twenty centimeters in diameter, which was kneaded with chestnut flour, little Turkish wheat flour, crushed boiled potatoes, sourdough and a little olive oil. Although this bread is not known only of an oven that produces it in Casola, a village in Lunigiana in the province of Massa Carrara. The bread of St. Martin, was traditionally prepared in the summer of St. Martin (hence the name) on the eleventh of November. It is made with chestnut and wheat flour, brewer's yeast, warm water and chopped nuts. This type of bread is not only Tuscan however, it is also prepared in many other mountainous areas of Italy. The necci of Garfagnana, are thin scones, made only of chestnut flour and water and a pinch of salt. Cooked on the texts, which are stone or cast-iron plates that are red-hot on the flame of the fireplace or wood-burning stoves. They are great when accompanied by ricotta, which is traditionally its use, but they also lend themselves to be stuffed with jams or melted chocolates.

Testarolo and other Tuscan breads

The headtest is produced in the Pontremoli area and slightly different in the Lunigiana area. Pontremoli's is a unleavened bread, that is, that has no yeast, cooked in traditional texts and that consists only of flour, water and a pinch of salt. The ciaccino, which is a dark brown focaccia that has a curious history. It is said that this species of focaccia was used by bakers to test the temperature of the oven. Then this crush was baked and if it was properly risen, the oven was ready for the second oven that of the bread. And since nothing was thrown away in those days, this focaccia was used by bakers for a snack with meats and cheeses. Aulla's flatbreads. There are several variations with white flour or yellow corn dough. They are cooked in terracotta texts and are yummy with cheeses and cured meats in the area. However, they are only found at summer festivals in the Areas of Aulla. Copper bread, is a typical Florentine sweet sandwich that in ancient times was made on the holy Thursday of Easter and blessed in the church. Today it is also found at other times of the year in Tuscany. Ramerino is an ancient Tuscan word that indicates the rosemary plant, a plant that grows spontaneously in many areas of Tuscany and together with sultanas are the basic ingredients for this sweet sandwich. The yellow aretina pan and the grouted pan, vegnono prepared in the Easter period in the aretino (Arezzo). The yellow bread is a bread enriched with raisins and saffron, which is consumed with the well-boiled egg blessed on Easter morning. In the grating pan, on the other hand, lard and pork stripe are added and it goes well with meats especially salami. Enjoy your meal. Read the full article

#bread #cook #English #italy #kitchen #recipes #tuscany

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painterlegendx · 5 years ago

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9 Ugly Truth About Acrylic Landscape Painting Tips - Acrylic Landscape Painting Tips

When Brenda Sharkey, a active hospital executive, began assuming up for assignment happier and calmer — her bang-up capital to know: What in the angel had acquired the shift?

9 Quick Acrylic Landscape Demos You Need to Try - Artists .. | acrylic landscape painting tips “It’s this chic I’m in!” Sharkey, 58, told the boss. Chic was a Sunday afternoon advance accomplished by Pete Barth. A apprentice in one of Barth’s weekday workshops, 13-year-old Mercedes Zobrist, additionally declared a blessed transformation. “It’s afflicted my life! I’ve never been able to do annihilation like this before,” said Mercedes, a apprentice at Voyager Middle Academy in Everett.These aren’t courses in amenity and close peace. They’re cartoon and painting classes at the Schack Art Centermost in Everett. Barth, an artisan in his own right, has been teaching art classes at the centermost for seven years. Barth teaches added than a half-dozen courses throughout the year, including painting, watercolors and cartoon with pastels and atramentous pencils. During the summer, he helps advise week-long camps for kids that awning cartoon and painting wildlife, sea creatures, and science fiction and fantasy characters. “People acquisition out about the classes through the Schack archive or they get them as a allowance for the holidays or a birthday,” said Barth, who additionally teaches at Seattle Central Academy and South Seattle College. Every quarter, the Schack offers added than 90 courses, said Shannon Tipple-Leen, the center’s art chic coordinator. Most classes accommodate supplies, said Maren Oates, the Schack’s business and advice manager. “It removes addition barrier — you aloof accept to appearance up,” Oates said. “There’s a chic for every person,” added Tipple-Leen.

Summer Daisies Country Acrylic Landscape Painting Demo .. | acrylic landscape painting tips Students of all ages commonly call eureka moments afterwards acquirements art techniques such as how to mix backwoods green, or use an eraser to accomplish a cat’s bristles attending more, well, whiskery.“I never knew a pencil could actualize so abounding altered shades,” Mercedes said. Sharkey active up for Barth’s cartoon chic to “loosen up,” and begin she could draw and adumbration a circle. “That was actual encouraging!” she said. A few months later, she followed up and took Barth’s acrylic painting class. There, she abstruse how to mix colors to accomplish her palette and paintings added lifelike. “It’s adamantine to get colors to attending absolutely natural. I’m accepting better!” said Sharkey, afresh arch nursing administrator at EvergreenHealth-Monroe. She has back taken a breather to “be with ancestors and rejuvenate with painting.” Barth, 46, landed the Everett gig in 2012 back he chock-full by the Schack and showed them his portfolio. His own assignment is joyful: A account of an orange and amber accumulate captures its alert contentment as it savors a nut in the cheat of a mossy tree. And in a small, aboveboard landscape, an upwelling of chestnut cliffs ability into a aureate sky and columnist adjoin the bend of the canvas. In a sci-fi themed painting, a leash of amplitude ships captain through a atramentous and red sky as an acknowledging orange moon looks on. Barth’s teaching appearance has him cartoon and painting forth with students, abounding of whom — Sharkey included — say they haven’t corrective back first-grade feel painting. “Pete is actual step-by-step … a lot of bodies absolutely like that,” Tipple-Leen said. “People appear abroad with air-conditioned stuff, and they accept the accoutrement to accomplish it again.”Barth, a Florida transplant, has been abstraction back he could adhere assimilate a crayon. Though as a kid, abundant of that adroitness was unleashed at home.

Acrylic landscape painting techniques – Lessons for an .. | acrylic landscape painting tips “There was actual little in the way of art apprenticeship at the accessible schools I attended,” said Barth, whose parents ran a bagel boutique and cafeteria in Tallahassee. He drew animals, from iguanas at the bounded pet abundance to his own assembly of pets: gerbils, cockatiels and Molly, a Samoyed that “looked like a little white husky.” “I was absorbed in animals afore I was absorbed in art,” Barth said. As a apprentice at Florida State University in Tallahassee, he breach his focus amid belief animals and cartoon them, admission with degrees in analysis and art. One of his aboriginal jobs afterwards academy was as a esplanade forester at Sequoia and Kings Canyon civic parks in California. But it wasn’t absolutely a fit. “I admired the outdoors. I admired that I could analyze the breadth and booty hikes, but I bare the artistic outlet. I absitively I capital to do the art thing,” he said. Barth confused to the Northwest 10 years ago for the adventitious to advise abounding time, clearing in Edmonds. “Pete consistently says he would accept admired to booty the classes that he teaches back he was a kid,” Tipple-Leen said. At first, Barth accomplished at chief centers, area he abstruse to “go boring and be patient,” and at drink-and-draw events, area acceptance sip wine and complete a painting in an evening. Those adventures accomplished him the amount of accouterment acceptance with a toolbox of basal abilities so they could abide on their own. Not anybody is absorbed in art academy methodologies that appeal you acrylic an angel over and over afresh for months on end. “Maybe you appetite to do a account of your dog or a backyard bunny,” Barth said with a chuckle. It is accurate — the Old Masters ability absorb always on a canvas. Scholars conjecture that it took Johannes Vermeer months to complete “Girl with the Pearl Earring,” one of his best acclaimed paintings. Leonardo Da Vinci is believed to accept agitated over the Mona Lisa for four years — who has that affectionate of time? If they’d taken Barth’s class, they could accept alleged it a blanket in four or bristles weeks.

Acrylic landscape painting techniques | acrylic landscape painting tips Drawing acceptance are alien appropriate abroad to the furnishings of ablaze and adumbration on an object. Budding painters apprentice to mix colors in the aboriginal few classes.“It gives them the accoutrement to jump appropriate in,” Barth said. Acrylic paints are abnormally forgiving, and inexpensive. ”If you don’t like the result, you can acrylic over it,” he said. At the end of six sessions, acceptance booty home a accomplished painting — and the aplomb to continue. “Artistic authorization — that’s the amount you acquire at the end of my classes,” Barth said. “You can go and draw or acrylic annihilation you like.” If you go The Schack Art Center, 2921 Hoyt Ave., Everett, is accessible 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and apex to 5 p.m. Sunday. Call 425-259-5050 or go to schack.org for added information. You may additionally email [email protected] about art classes that absorption you. Washington North Coast Annual This commodity is featured in the winter affair of Washington North Coast Magazine, a supplement of The Daily Herald. Analyze Snohomish and Island counties with anniversary annual magazine. Anniversary affair is $3.99. Subscribe to accept all four editions for $14 per year. Call 425-339-3200 or go to www.washingtonnorthcoast.com for added information. Brenda Sharkey works on a painting during Pete Barth’s chic at the Schack Art Centermost in Everett. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

How to Paint: Acrylic Painting Techniques for Landscape Art - acrylic landscape painting tips | acrylic landscape painting tips Pete Barth teaches about a half-dozen courses throughout the year, including painting, watercolors and cartoon with pastels and atramentous pencils. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald) Pete Barth teaches his acceptance basal art techniques so they accept the accoutrement to actualize on their own. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald) 9 Ugly Truth About Acrylic Landscape Painting Tips - Acrylic Landscape Painting Tips - acrylic landscape painting tips | Encouraged to help my blog site, on this moment I'll show you about keyword. Now, this is actually the first picture:

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Acrylic landscape painting techniques – Lessons for an .. | acrylic landscape painting tips

Acrylic landscape painting techniques | acrylic landscape painting tips Read the full article

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years ago

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The Meaning of Chuseok During a Pandemic Year

James Park/Eater

During the pandemic, the whole world has been considering what the Korean holiday means — whether they realize it or not

“Ajumma said she dropped something off,” my mother texts from work. “Check outside.” I do and soon hold a box heavy with gotgam, dried persimmons, before the sun has fully risen. Throughout the spring and summer this year, we’ve received deliveries from my mother’s friends’ (my ajummas) gardens, allowing us to stretch our grocery shopping to monthly runs while we enjoyed squash, green onions, chile peppers, tomatoes, a legion of kkaennip, and chives, tangled together in their wild length. These persimmons, though, are store-bought. I take one gotgam, the fruit condensed and caught in a honeyed state, and eat it in small and slow bites. I’m enjoying it too much to realize my mother’s and my resolve for a small Chuseok meal have been compromised.

Chuseok, often described as the Korean Thanksgiving, was on October 1 this year; celebrations usually last three days, depending on when the holiday falls on the lunar calendar. There’s a great showing and sharing of traditional dishes, and it’s a major government holiday where families gather at home to celebrate together. But charye, memorial rites for ancestors, is intrinsic to Chuseok, and it’s what makes this celebration of harvest distinct from the American holiday. Graves and other memorial sites are cleaned. Incense is lit. The names of the dead are written on white hanji that’s burned, and then the dead are presented with a table set with food and drink, and their descendants bow to them. The ancestors eat the food first and then share the offering back, so that it can be enjoyed and finished by their family.

Charye is an acknowledgement that the dead exist, and that they deserve care and recognition for how they influence our current life. I think of it as a process of inventory. What we continue to hold and what we’ve gained is closely tied to the work of those who came before us, who first provided the means of our lives. Charye honors a debt of gratitude for all that we have. It’s a reckoning to the security that comes with our abundance — who do we owe and how shall we pay them?

This year, framed by the havoc of 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, “abundance” has taken on a different meaning.

But this year, framed by the havoc of 200,000 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., certainly undercounted, and a likely surge of deaths to return this winter, “abundance” has taken on a different meaning. I find an abundance of caution the most grating term in our 2020 lexicon: It’s a phrase rooted in the good of bounty and its possibilities, and is now used to refer to the violent scales of economy of those affected by the pandemic. Behind “abundance” is the posture of those who can wield the word in its power: I have resources. I have options. I can afford to wait or act when it’s convenient for me.

Like many Koreans, my mother and I accepted that Chuseok would have to be different this year. We live together, and enforce our quarantine rigorously. In our usual celebration of the holiday, we would have family over at the house, and the ajummas would visit to drop off gifts (of more food) and join our meal, which we would cook and eat from all day. This year, we thought about making a variety of jeon and delivering them to the ajummas and our nearby family, but the idea of cold jeon was just a sad reminder of how we couldn’t celebrate and eat well together. We decided on restraint, with the hope for a Chuseok feast in the future, and settled on cooking just two kinds of favorite jeon: gamjajeon, made from grated potato that’s held together by its natural starch, and dongguerangtaeng, a meatball my mother likes with squid and ground pork and beef. It seemed like a reasonable amount of food for the two of us while also feeling festive enough.

But when we received the gift of gotgam, we decided to also make sujeonggwa, a chilled punch of preserved fruit, boiled ginger, and cinnamon; it would be easy to share and deliver. When my mother was growing up in Busan, sujeonggwa was something rich families drank year round, but she would have it only on Chuseok, and only a small teacup of it. She still prefers to serve it as a small single serving because anything more ruins the indulgence. This year we reveled at the prospect of everyone receiving our gift of punch in large deli containers as if it were as common and necessary as broth.

That’s the plan, we said. Good, we both said. Agreed. Then we went to the Korean grocery store. I didn’t bring in a shopping cart because we only needed young ginger for sujeonggwa, but then my mother saw four perfect Napa cabbages. She carried them in a hug against her stomach. “We have to get these,” she said, handing me two to carry. And then chestnuts, ginkgo nuts, and pearled barley. And then a surprise: live female blue crabs. I went to get a cart. When I returned, my mother had the crabs ready in a brown paper bag and a can of Spam — the lynchpin to a full Chuseok spread. “Oh my god,” I said, taking the Spam gently into my hands. “So we’re just doing it?” My mother gave me a little “Mm” before racing over to examine the store’s selection of potatoes.

This is what we made for Chuseok, ultimately deciding to prepare food to share like we always did: cod saengseonjeon, each pan-fried with a neat, decorative snip of minari; gogijeon, thin slices of rib-eye in a heavy egg dip and covered in a confetti of spicy chiles; dongguerantaeng topped with rounds of zucchini or stuffed into jalapenos or cooked simply as meatballs; baechujeon, the prettiest leaves of the Napa cabbages lightly fried to retain some of the cabbage’s core crunch; galbijiim, beef short ribs with radish, ginkgo nuts, chestnuts, carrots, and potatoes, all generously dusted with gochugaru before a thoughtful braise; eomuk, fishcake on skewers with each roll stuffed with a slice of chile or an elegant cube of Spam; gamjajeon; sanjeok, a rainbow skewer of imitation crab, green onions, danmuji, and more Spam; kkotgetang, a crab stew green with floating chrysanthemum; and finally, the sujeonggwa. My mother toasted walnuts and pine nuts to stuff each gotgam, slicing the fruit on a bias to reveal an aromatic center, and letting them sink to the bottom of a large stainless-steel bowl we usually use for making kimchi. Every dish was driven by an impulse to reap and share the store’s best offerings, and the anticipation of sharing everything created an appetite we hadn’t felt in months.

When I was a kid, watching the bowl of sujeonggwa disappear into individual cups felt as ceremonious as bowing before our ancestors and elders, intentioned as taking communion in church. Chuseok is a celebration of genealogy as much as it is a celebration of harvest; the two are compatible if not nearly identical under the holiday’s traditional lens.

The anticipation of sharing everything created an appetite we hadn’t felt in months.

The merging of these two concepts reminds me of an approach to narrative-based medicine, which, as doctor and literary scholar Dr. Rita Charon writes, calls “the body the portal to the self.” Like Chusoek, that thinking considers our bodies part of a larger legacy; we’re all linked to each other through our ability to recognize what we share and live through together. Our quarantines, hyper visible in our Zoom rooms, in our social media posts, in our entertainment and news, have only heightened that connection. (In Charon’s narrative-based medicine practice, literary analysis and creative writing become training tools for clinicians, so they can better give their patients “the assurance that one is... still recognizable as a self despite a dramatic shift in the body.” It’s an effective, assistive approach that can also be used to treat those who have been affected by COVID-19.)

But I think about this often in relation to this season: how Chuseok acknowledges that we are bodies that come from bodies, and that the connection demands both attentive regard and maintenance. The act of charye is not religious, and while many faiths do their version of the ceremony, I’ve always been taken with how simply it serves as a reminder that we are who we are by the way we treat the people in our lives.

Under normal circumstances, my family’s Chuseok celebrations are mostly focused on the food and gathering aspects — but still, we’re hit with the realization that those we love could one day be a name before an altar of food we set. But now, with COVID-19, the entire world has been doing this thinking for almost a year, or tragically living through it. We are in a demented Chuseok-like season where we think of famine and hunger under our claims of harvest, where we think of sickness and death for the vitality of our health and lives. With coronavirus, the bodies, their stories, are abundant.

In March, my mother was one of many hourly wage workers suddenly recognized as essential. As a woman in her early 60s with diabetes and a history of stress-induced asthma, the early months of the pandemic were peaks of panic and exhaustion for every 12-hour shift my mother put on the clock. By May, we were blunted into the monotony of our anxieties. I stopped having panic attacks every time my mother left for work. We stopped asking ourselves how we could continue living like this because the answer was always in some mileage of what else?

As a nation, we haven’t begun to set the charye table, and I doubt whatever offering we could possibly give at this point to show what we owe. When my mother and I returned home with our groceries, we accepted the reality that we’d be delivering a less-than-perfect cold jeon; we did it anyway, even though it didn’t feel like it was enough.

On Chuseok, as my mother and I cooked happily and divided all the food into containers (and then Ziploc bags when we ran out of containers), we’d make the same joke. “We’re rich,” my mother said every time she poured more oil into the pan. “We’re rich,” I said when I cracked more eggs. “We’re rich,” we said in unison as we looked at all the food we packed to give away. After months of pandemic living, we still find it hard to enjoy our meals without feeling guilty, especially when faced with an excess of our own making. But this felt like relief, like a long exhale for a breath we didn’t know we were holding. It felt right. Chuseok, too, is a kind of new year for my mother and her emigration from Korea. I think for many Korean Americans, the tenor of Chuseok’s guide to remembrance expands to their or their family’s immigrant experiences. To account for the struggles it takes to make a life here, to account for what it means to survive here, is to remember a kind of body.

Before I left to deliver the food — face mask on the entire time — my mother poured us each a small serving of sujeonggwa. We toasted. After I drank mine, I studied the emptiness of my teacup and felt grateful.

Nina Yun is a writer based in Kansas City, Missouri.

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During the pandemic, the whole world has been considering what the Korean holiday means — whether they realize it or not

“Ajumma said she dropped something off,�� my mother texts from work. “Check outside.” I do and soon hold a box heavy with gotgam, dried persimmons, before the sun has fully risen. Throughout the spring and summer this year, we’ve received deliveries from my mother’s friends’ (my ajummas) gardens, allowing us to stretch our grocery shopping to monthly runs while we enjoyed squash, green onions, chile peppers, tomatoes, a legion of kkaennip, and chives, tangled together in their wild length. These persimmons, though, are store-bought. I take one gotgam, the fruit condensed and caught in a honeyed state, and eat it in small and slow bites. I’m enjoying it too much to realize my mother’s and my resolve for a small Chuseok meal have been compromised.

This year, framed by the havoc of 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, “abundance” has taken on a different meaning.

The anticipation of sharing everything created an appetite we hadn’t felt in months.

Nina Yun is a writer based in Kansas City, Missouri.

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painterlegendx · 5 years ago

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The Cheapest Way To Earn Your Free Ticket To Painting A Tree In Acrylic - Painting A Tree In Acrylic

When Brenda Sharkey, a active hospital executive, began assuming up for assignment happier and calmer — her bang-up capital to know: What in the angel had acquired the shift?

Painting Trees With A Fan Brush - Step By Step Acrylic Painting - painting a tree in acrylic | painting a tree in acrylic “It’s this chic I’m in!” Sharkey, 58, told the boss. Chic was a Sunday afternoon advance accomplished by Pete Barth. A apprentice in one of Barth’s weekday workshops, 13-year-old Mercedes Zobrist, additionally declared a blessed transformation. “It’s afflicted my life! I’ve never been able to do annihilation like this before,” said Mercedes, a apprentice at Voyager Middle Academy in Everett.These aren’t courses in amenity and close peace. They’re cartoon and painting classes at the Schack Art Centermost in Everett. Barth, an artisan in his own right, has been teaching art classes at the centermost for seven years. Barth teaches added than a half-dozen courses throughout the year, including painting, watercolors and cartoon with pastels and atramentous pencils. During the summer, he helps advise week-long camps for kids that awning cartoon and painting wildlife, sea creatures, and science fiction and fantasy characters. “People acquisition out about the classes through the Schack archive or they get them as a allowance for the holidays or a birthday,” said Barth, who additionally teaches at Seattle Central Academy and South Seattle College. Every quarter, the Schack offers added than 90 courses, said Shannon Tipple-Leen, the center’s art chic coordinator. Most classes accommodate supplies, said Maren Oates, the Schack’s business and advice manager. “It removes addition barrier — you aloof accept to appearance up,” Oates said. “There’s a chic for every person,” added Tipple-Leen.

Painting Trees in Acrylic: A Step-by-Step Tutorial - painting a tree in acrylic | painting a tree in acrylic Students of all ages commonly call eureka moments afterwards acquirements art techniques such as how to mix backwoods green, or use an eraser to accomplish a cat’s bristles attending more, well, whiskery.“I never knew a pencil could actualize so abounding altered shades,” Mercedes said. Sharkey active up for Barth’s cartoon chic to “loosen up,” and begin she could draw and adumbration a circle. “That was actual encouraging!” she said. A few months later, she followed up and took Barth’s acrylic painting class. There, she abstruse how to mix colors to accomplish her palette and paintings added lifelike. “It’s adamantine to get colors to attending absolutely natural. I’m accepting better!” said Sharkey, afresh arch nursing administrator at EvergreenHealth-Monroe. She has back taken a breather to “be with ancestors and rejuvenate with painting.” Barth, 46, landed the Everett gig in 2012 back he chock-full by the Schack and showed them his portfolio. His own assignment is joyful: A account of an orange and amber accumulate captures its alert contentment as it savors a nut in the cheat of a mossy tree. And in a small, aboveboard landscape, an upwelling of chestnut cliffs ability into a aureate sky and columnist adjoin the bend of the canvas. In a sci-fi themed painting, a leash of amplitude ships captain through a atramentous and red sky as an acknowledging orange moon looks on. Barth’s teaching appearance has him cartoon and painting forth with students, abounding of whom — Sharkey included — say they haven’t corrective back first-grade feel painting. “Pete is actual step-by-step … a lot of bodies absolutely like that,” Tipple-Leen said. “People appear abroad with air-conditioned stuff, and they accept the accoutrement to accomplish it again.”Barth, a Florida transplant, has been abstraction back he could adhere assimilate a crayon. Though as a kid, abundant of that adroitness was unleashed at home.

How to paint a tree in Acrylics by Painting techniques for .. | painting a tree in acrylic “There was actual little in the way of art apprenticeship at the accessible schools I attended,” said Barth, whose parents ran a bagel boutique and cafeteria in Tallahassee. He drew animals, from iguanas at the bounded pet abundance to his own assembly of pets: gerbils, cockatiels and Molly, a Samoyed that “looked like a little white husky.” “I was absorbed in animals afore I was absorbed in art,” Barth said. As a apprentice at Florida State University in Tallahassee, he breach his focus amid belief animals and cartoon them, admission with degrees in analysis and art. One of his aboriginal jobs afterwards academy was as a esplanade forester at Sequoia and Kings Canyon civic parks in California. But it wasn’t absolutely a fit. “I admired the outdoors. I admired that I could analyze the breadth and booty hikes, but I bare the artistic outlet. I absitively I capital to do the art thing,” he said. Barth confused to the Northwest 10 years ago for the adventitious to advise abounding time, clearing in Edmonds. “Pete consistently says he would accept admired to booty the classes that he teaches back he was a kid,” Tipple-Leen said. At first, Barth accomplished at chief centers, area he abstruse to “go boring and be patient,” and at drink-and-draw events, area acceptance sip wine and complete a painting in an evening. Those adventures accomplished him the amount of accouterment acceptance with a toolbox of basal abilities so they could abide on their own. Not anybody is absorbed in art academy methodologies that appeal you acrylic an angel over and over afresh for months on end. “Maybe you appetite to do a account of your dog or a backyard bunny,” Barth said with a chuckle. It is accurate — the Old Masters ability absorb always on a canvas. Scholars conjecture that it took Johannes Vermeer months to complete “Girl with the Pearl Earring,” one of his best acclaimed paintings. Leonardo Da Vinci is believed to accept agitated over the Mona Lisa for four years — who has that affectionate of time? If they’d taken Barth’s class, they could accept alleged it a blanket in four or bristles weeks.

How to Paint a Tree with Acrylic Lesson6 - painting a tree in acrylic | painting a tree in acrylic Drawing acceptance are alien appropriate abroad to the furnishings of ablaze and adumbration on an object. Budding painters apprentice to mix colors in the aboriginal few classes.“It gives them the accoutrement to jump appropriate in,” Barth said. Acrylic paints are abnormally forgiving, and inexpensive. ”If you don’t like the result, you can acrylic over it,” he said. At the end of six sessions, acceptance booty home a accomplished painting — and the aplomb to continue. “Artistic authorization — that’s the amount you acquire at the end of my classes,” Barth said. “You can go and draw or acrylic annihilation you like.” If you go The Schack Art Center, 2921 Hoyt Ave., Everett, is accessible 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and apex to 5 p.m. Sunday. Call 425-259-5050 or go to schack.org for added information. You may additionally email [email protected] about art classes that absorption you. Washington North Coast Annual This commodity is featured in the winter affair of Washington North Coast Magazine, a supplement of The Daily Herald. Analyze Snohomish and Island counties with anniversary annual magazine. Anniversary affair is $3.99. Subscribe to accept all four editions for $14 per year. Call 425-339-3200 or go to www.washingtonnorthcoast.com for added information. Brenda Sharkey works on a painting during Pete Barth’s chic at the Schack Art Centermost in Everett. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

How to Paint a Tree in Acrylics lesson 6 - painting a tree in acrylic | painting a tree in acrylic Pete Barth teaches about a half-dozen courses throughout the year, including painting, watercolors and cartoon with pastels and atramentous pencils. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald) Pete Barth teaches his acceptance basal art techniques so they accept the accoutrement to actualize on their own. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald) The Cheapest Way To Earn Your Free Ticket To Painting A Tree In Acrylic - Painting A Tree In Acrylic - painting a tree in acrylic | Pleasant to be able to my own weblog, in this particular occasion I will provide you with in relation to keyword. And from now on, this can be the very first image:

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