newsletter

Welcome to Our January Newsletter

The newsletter this month is a real honey. January is the birth month of one of our favorite authors, A. A. Milne. If you don't know his name I'm sure you know his creation, Winnie the Pooh. (and Ted's favorite, Piglet) So our newsletter is dedicated to Milne, honey (plain and fermented), stuffed bears, and a delightfully thin little discovery. Enjoy.

The WOWs and WOEs of Partying : Part 1

Be the charming host

No gathering can be a success without the host being in party-mode.

Make sure you are well rested and well prepared and that may mean asking your guests to help out with the food stuffs and preparations.

Make your home as welcoming as possible with mood candles and low soft music.

Be a gracious host. Greet your guests at the door and make introductions that are necessary.

Even if it is an hors d'oeuvres affaire, make sure there is suitable seating for those who want, but you as host should MINGLE, MINGLE, MINGLE.

Make yourself available to say goodnight to each guest and make sure that they were responsible with their alcohol consumption.

And wait until the guests have departed before clean-up! No guest wants their host as housekeeper and cook all party long!

Quite a Story and Quite a Wafer

Clare and I attended the January Gift Show at the America's Mart in Atlanta. Our favorite section is always the gourmet foods. We are always on the look out for some tasty treat, something unique or unusual.

We came across a booth advertising the Original Wine Wafer. We love wine and we love wafers, so this was a no-brainer. There we met Jiri Knedlik who instructed us to sample a wafer, and then take a sip of wine. We chose the white wine combo of chardonnay and lemon vanilla wafer. It was incredible. The pairing was made in heaven. The wafer are unbelievably thin but with so much flavor that you can't imagine how they squeezed it that flat.

I want to include the Original Wine Wafer in this month's newsletter for several reasons. One, their wafer is delectable - go to their site and buy some now! (www.wafercookie.com). Second, he has a remarkable story to tell about bravery, survival and how often we forget just how lucky we are.

Thank you, Jiri

Honey Peanut Butter

Simple to make!

Ingredients:
1 cup Honey
3/4 cup butter
1 1/4 cups peanut butter

Beat together ingredients until smooth and creamy. Use as a spread on anything and have it with a cup of mead!

And other honey recipes www.suebee.com

Here's Some Stuff About the Stuffed

Since the discovery of ancient tombs and the paintings on their walls, it has been known that stuffed animals and dolls existed in ancient civilization and societies for religious purposes, as well as, playful entertainment. The toys and deities were fabricated from cloth and fur and stuffed with straw, beans, cotton and the like. In medieval times, the stuffed animals were center stage for the Mystery Plays representing the Biblical menagerie.

As time progressed, we had, of course, the invention of the sewing machine, synthetic materials, assembly lines with the ability to crank out thousands of lovable plush characters in all shapes, sizes and colors.

I personally can not talk about stuffed creatures without babbling on about the unconditional love one gets from a favorite Teddy Bear. The creation of the Teddy Bear seems to have had its beginning in two different countries. In America, President Theodore Roosevelt went on a hunting trip in Mississippi and refused to shoot a captive bear. This incident was monumentalized in a Washington Post editorial cartoon by Clifford Barryman. A shopkeeper in New York, inspired by the President's kind gesture, made a friendly stuffed bear and placed it in his shopwindow. It was an instant success and VOILA!...Teddy's bear! While in Germany, the Steiff Company, whose first stuffed animal was a pincushion elephant in 1880, designed their first mohair plush, jointed bear in 1902, the same year as the popular Teddy's Bear. A year later, this Steiff bear was introduced at a toy fair. An American buyer ordered 3,000 of them to fulfill the enormous American appetite for Teddy Bears. And the appetite grew and grew…

In conclusion:

My daughter, Jillian, has had Sammy, her Teddy Bear, since her second Christmas. Now a young woman in her twenties, she still needs, every once in awhile, a big bear hug from her much loved Sammy.

And in a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution lost and found classified ad…Beloved stuffed bluebird missing…7 inches, lost at the airport wearing a blue soccer uniform…he's really like a member of the family…$200.00 reward for the safe return of my beloved stuffed toy…

Honey and Milk Facial Cleanser

Honey tastes great and it is good for your body inside and out. Start the New Year off with this great facial cleanser.

This natural, non-irritating cleanser will leave your skin feeling silky smooth and clean.

* 1/3 cup honey
* 1/2 cup buttermilk
* 4 teaspoons rosewater

Directions: Place the ingredients in a closed container and shake well. Apply a small amount to your face and neck with your fingers. Rinse with warm water. Store remainder in refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before next use.

For other interesting honey concoctions, click here.

Winnie-the-Pooh and A. A. Milne, too!

If the sight of Winnie-the-Pooh doesn't bring a smile to your face, you're one of the rare few in this world. Winnie the Pooh is beloved all over the world, and Pooh's tales have been translated into thirty-two languages. Though Pooh and his friends are well-known by many, most know far less about Pooh's creator, A. A. Milne and how the Pooh stories came to be one of the most beloved symbols of childhood to this day.

Born on January 18, 1882, Alan Alexander Milne grew up in an upper class London family and went to Trinity Colllege, Cambridge in 1900 to study mathematics. Milne's real interest was not mathematics, however, but writing light verse and stories. As Milne pursued his mathematics degree he also published in the undergraduate literary magazine, Granta. He was published many times in Granta and later edited the magazine during his last year at Trinity College. Milne graduated in 1903 with a mathematics degree but continued to write and publish, most notably in Punch magazine. Milne married Dorothy de Selincourt in 1913 and served in World War II from 1914-1918. After being discharged from the army due to fever, the Milne's only child, Christopher Robin, was born on August 21, 1920.

Christopher Robin was given a stuffed bear for his first birthday. This bear was a favorite toy of Christopher Robin and was named Winnie after a black bear at the London Zoo. For his second Christmas, Christopher Robin received a downtrodden donkey, and a tiny stuffed pig was given to Christopher shortly thereafter. A mother kangaroo and her baby kangaroo were gifts in 1925. Though typical gifts for a child, they had an unforeseen affect on Milne, who began writing children's stories, using these stuffed toys as inspiration for his characters. But, Milne needed a home for his characters, so he looked to nearby Ashdown Forest as inspiration for the Hundred Acre Woods.

Milne published two Pooh books: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Milne also published poems about Winnie and his friends in When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.

While Milne's stories are undoubtedly sweet and funny, the illustrations by Ernest Shepard must also be recognized as playing a large part in the success of the Pooh stories. Shepard's illustrations were perfectly matched to the stories' sentiments. In fact, for many of us, it is the illustrations, and not the stories themselves, that remind us of our childhoods. We need only see a child holding a Pooh Bear, a Piglet, or an Eeyore to be instantly transported back to our own childhoods. We don't have to recall the stories perfectly to know that Winnie and his friends represent all that is sweet and innocent in the world, where friendship and a true heart are all one needs to be happy.

Milne died at age 74, in 1956, and Ernest Shepard died twenty years later. But the stories of Pooh and his friends did not end with the deaths of Milne or Shepard. Milne's wife Dorothy sold the rights to Pooh and his friends to Disney in 1961. Because of that, we continue to see new Pooh stories and movies to this day.

To purchase the Library Original four volume set, click here.

Mead - the other white wine

We've mentioned it many times but it bears repeating, fermentation is a completely natural phenomenon. Long before humans roamed the earth, Mother Nature, herself, enjoyed a nip or two. We humans merely refined the processes, and soon began to reap the pleasures of ethyl alcohol.

Although there is no way of knowing what was the first fermented beverage that cast its intoxicating spell over our ancestors, but honey wine, or "mead" may be right up there amongst the oldest. Simply stated, mead is fermented honey, whose taste may be amplified with the addition of fruit or spices. It is known that mead was being produced on the island of Crete almost 3000 years ago, and it was THE beverage of choice during the Golden Age of Greece. In fact in ancient Greece if you were drunk you were referred to as honey-intoxicated.

During the Middle Ages (roughly 800 through 1300 C.E.) Northern Europe took to mead production in a big way. Alcoholic treats were in short supply, what with a climate not conducive to growing grapes. The Slavs were especially partial to honey wine. But once it became economically profitable, wine importation soon knocked mead off its perch. Some, however, like the Russians, remained loyal mead drinkers into the 18th and 19th Centuries. Mead even found its way into the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Quite a lofty literary circle.

But it was the Scandinavians who perhaps gave mead its highest attributes. According to Norse Mythology, a feud between rival gods was ended when they made a truce by spitting in a bowl. They used their powers to create a new god from the potent spittle. This was Kvasir, the God of Knowledge. His most important duty was to act as the diplomat of the gods to prevent further fighting. But his reign was short as he was slaughtered by dwarves who drained his blood, mixed it with honey and fermented it. Their brew became known as Kvas, the Mead of Inspiration. The liquid was the color of beetroot, and drinking it gave the taster true enlightenment.

Today, mead is often quite difficult to obtain. Beware of substitutes sporting the name "meade". This is most probably a sickly sweet mixture of white wine and honey. Real, quality mead should not taste like honey any more than quality wine not tasting of grapes. It comes in a variety of brands and mixture. For a complete list of the types, with tasting notes included check out meadmadecomplicated.org by clicking here.