Video Gallery
Index:
Books and reading:
Our Chetzemoka Friends
Why Everyone Should Be Reading More Books
Where to read (Victorian transforming sofa)
A few basic tips for beginning writers
Chetzemoka / Port Townsend, WA
Commonplace Books
A Rose Garden is a Lovely Place to Write
Books That Inspire Me
Victorian Foods:
Coasting Cookies: Victorian Spice Cookies, 1875 Recipe
How Coasting Cookies Got Their Name
Meringued Coffee Victorian recipe
Victorian soda maker: Gasogene video
Victorian Rose Cake
Eggs on foam
Corn Meal Mush
Sago Soup / Jenny Lind's Favorite Soup
Refrigeration in the Victorian Era
Curried Mushrooms (Victorian Recipe)
Cycling:
Victorian high wheel tricycle from "Three Women Awheel", Book 6 in the Tales of Chetzemoka
Victorian High Wheel Bicycle
1880's-style Hard-Tire Safety Bike
Philosophies
Museums as temples to the Muses, homes as museums, how it all connects to my life as a writer
Victorian Etiquette Between Husbands and Wives
Poetry:
Victorian Love Poetry
Victorian Christmas Poetry
A Bouquet of Victorian Roses
Animals:
Athena the Owl
Barred Owl (Strix varia)
Accessories
Chatelaines
Gabriel Making My Chatelaine Belt
Chatelaine bags and chatelaine belts
Holidays:
Victorian Christmas Poetry
Miscellaneous:
Florence Nightingale's influence on nursing and the origins of Nurse McCoy
Victorian Circuses
Long Distance Shopping in the Victorian Era
1880's-style Hard-Tire Safety Bike
Victorian Rose Cake
Chetzemoka / Port Townsend, WA
Victorian High Wheel Bicycle
Victorian Love Poetry
Gabriel Making My Chatelaine Belt
Museums as temples to the Muses, homes as museums, how it all connects to my life as a writer
Chatelaines
A few basic tips for beginning writers
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka which you can find on Amazon, and today I'm going to tell you a little about the research that goes into my books. I'm going to explain what primary sources are and why they're so crucial to getting a really good understanding of history; I'll give you some tips for finding primary sources, and then I'll show you just a few examples of the sort of books and other things that I read that go into all my books. I hope that this gives you some good ideas —well, in the first place I hope it helps you understand what a writer does all day, because there's a lot of confusion about that, and for some reason people get mixed up about that and everybody wants to know. Also, I hope it helps you with research projects of your own, whether you're writing a novel of your own, or doing a research paper for school, or whether you just want to get some good knowledge of the world and not just let people spoon-feed you stuff. It's a lot to cover, so let's get started!
[Opening montage]
Every book starts with an idea, and in most cases a book starts with a great many ideas. So, next to my desk I keep a basket of notebooks where I write down ideas. A lot of my ideas come from my husband and I discussing things together and coming up with ideas together, so when I have a good idea that I think will work well in a story I'll take the notebook for the appropriate story that I think it will fit into and I'll jot down whatever the idea is in the back of the notebook. I draft all my manuscripts by hand and when I actually get down to writing the manuscript I'll start from front to back, but for my notes I always go back to front because that way I've always got the notes handy when I'm writing the story and they're right there. I don't have to go digging for them. And in terms of writing everything by hand whether it's the manuscript itself or the notes, there have been a lot of really good research studies that show that the human brain actually engages differently with things when it's mechanically doing things by hand as opposed to reading things on a screen or just typing things. Now, I know that typing is a mechanical action as well, but it works a little differently. And again, it's engaging with a different part of the brain.
I find that I come up with ideas better when I'm writing things by hand, and also that I remember things better when I'm writing things by hand. But to come back to these notebooks: in the back I not only jot down ideas, things I think might be cool, but I also make myself a reading list of interesting information sources that I think will be useful when I go to write that story. This particular one is a story about Sophie, if you're familiar with the Tales of Chetzemoka, so I've got a whole list of books that have helped build Sophie's character that I'm going to be reviewing before I sit down to write that particular book. And in addition to my list of books that I want to read, I've also got my list of various quotes that I've come across in primary sources that I think will help, that I can crib from ninenteenth-century sources so that the book seems a little more authentic when I sit down to write it.
So, what is a primary source? An example of a primary source from the 19th-century is something that was written in the 19th-century and it was written by someone who has first-hand knowledge of what is being described. So for example, on that shelf over there I've got Jennie Churchill's memoir. That is a primary source about Jennie Churchill, because she herself wrote the book.
A secondary source is what you get when someone reads a primary source and then extrapolates their own ideas from it. These can be useful, but always be sure you know how to distinguish facts from opinions. To do that, it's important to read as much as you can. Remember: the more you read, the more you know.
One of my favorite ways to use secondary sources is to mine their bibliographies for primary sources. I'll look and see what primary sources an author used to make their case, and I'll add these books to my own reading lists. After I've read the primary sources that the secondary source is based on, then I can form my own opinion about whether or not I agree with what the secondary source said and go from there.
Anyone who's listening in America is probably familiar with a game that we here call "Telephone". It's got different names in different countries; a lot of different countries have this game, and you've probably got your own name for it if you're listening somewhere else. It's a game where everyone sits in a circle and one person whispers something into someone's ear, then that person whisper's —hopefully— the same thing in the next ear and it goes around the circle. Now, usually by the time it gets to the last person the story has been changed significantly. And a lot of things that get written wind up having something similar happen to them. Stories get changed with each person that tells them. And that's not just true of historical stuff that's true of modern media as well: this is why you want to be careful about your sources.
In the case of historical research it's generally best to get the most first-hand material you can.
When you're ready to go beyond printed materials, antique diaries and letters can be a pretty amazing way to get primary source information that's not available anywhere else. Your best bet for these is a public archive or an academic archive.
And while you're on your treasure hunt for information, by all means don't forget popular sources of news and information from the time you're studying.
In here I've got my magazines. And so these are the sorts of magazines that were actually being read by people in the time in which I'm writing, which helps me to get a really good understanding of what they were experiencing and what they were thinking about at the time. And that's very useful for a writer.
And then I've got other books for all the different subjects that I study or write about or just want to know about.
So, how can you find primary sources? You can buy them, whether that means buying an antique copy or a reprint and there are advantages to both - I'll go into those. You can borrow them - and again, it could be antique, it could be a reprint. Or, you can get them for free -and that's usually going to be a reprint. And that requires a little bit of work on your part. But let's go into all three of those options a little bit.
I could do a whole video on the pros and cons of antique sources versus reprints, and I probably will at some point. For now, though, let's just touch really briefly on a few basics. With an antique source you know in a really bone-deep and tangible way that you're getting exactly the same information that someone else did in the period you're studying. Also, antique sources will often contain notes or marginalia that tell you things about their former owners, which is really fun.
On the downside, antique books are often quite fragile. You shouldn't take them into the bath tub with you or haul them around just anywhere, like you can do with a reprint. Also, with a reprint you can write notes right on the pages, which has its advantages.
The big question, of course, is how to get hold of any source, whether it's antique or a reprint.
The most straightforward way to acquire a book or magazine is to buy it. The materials available in used book stores and antiques stores are usually drawn from the surrounding area, so if you're studying a specific place then these sources of used books might be a good option for you. I've been fortunate on several occasions while hunting through the book room of the antiques store near my home, and I was lucky to find some delightful school books that had actually been used in the local school.
If you're looking for a particular rare book or a specific author, chances are you might have to go online to find it. Websites like Amazon and abebooks (that's abebooks.com) —these are basically to modern commerce what the Sears & Roebuck catalog and the Montgomery Ward catalog were to commerce in the late 19th-century. Technology is a good servant but a bad master: I don't recommend getting too dependent on it, but it does have its uses.
The best way to borrow a source, primary or secondary, is through a library. To give you an explanation of some of the more advanced services offered by libraries, I followed my favorite librarian to work.
Gabriel: We can get books here that aren't just in this library system; we can actually borrow books from other libraries as well. Interlibrary loan is, pretty much almost all libraries in the U.S. do it, academic and public libraries, and we can switch materials around. And that way we can get books that aren't even in our normal collection. We've done it a lot for historic books and for older books that our library system might not have but that academic libraries still do.
Sarah: To give you some tips on getting sources for free, we retreated to the library's back room.
Gabriel: There's sort of a hidden thing from Google Books: that's the Advanced Search, and it actually does function pretty differently than the standard Google Books search. It allows you to specify a lot more and it allows you to find things, especially historical things, a lot more easily. So: I've just typed "Google Books Advanced Search" into the usual Google search page, and gotten the link to Advanced Book Search Google Books. So if we click on that we can search for a bunch of keywords. So, let's think of something that we want to find. Say I want to find something involving bicycles. So let's try "bicycle lock". And I'm going to search —there's a date range here, "Publication Date" and I'm looking between say, January of 1880 and December of 1899, for instance, if I'm looking within the time range that we typically study. And I can just hit "Google Search". And we're going to find "U.S. Patent Office - Annual Report"; we're going to find "Hardware", which is a magazine devoted to the American hardware trade; "The Iron Age", a similar magazine there, "The Gazette of the U.S. Patent Office", "Chicago Journal of Commerce and Metal Industries", and a bunch of other ones. "Digest of Cycles or Velocipedes with Attachments" - that sounds promising. So this is the sort of things we're going to find - there we are, "Locks and locking attachments." So this is basically a bunch of different inventions from the period and there are specific ones here to do with bicycle locks. So that's a good example of the sorts of things you can find in terms of real primary sources by using Google Books Advanced Search.
Sarah: Once you've downloaded your free pdf of a work in the public domain, you can print it out and bind it as nicely as you like, or as quickly as you like, depending on your particular needs and circumstances. Here are some leather-bound books I made for Gabriel as gifts for birthdays, anniversaries and other holidays, and here are some cloth-bound books I made for myself for my own research. And… here's the bookshelf in our guest room made of cardboard fruit boxes. This is where I keep the public domain books and magazines that I printed out so that I could read them for research, pleasure or both, but in which I didn't want to invest the resources to bind them in a really fancy way. If you want some tips on how to hand-bind a book, you can find instructions for the process on our website, ThisVictorianLife.com You can go straight to the bookbinding instructions by typing in the URL you see on your screen right now. http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/recipe-for-reading-how-to-make-a-hand-bound-book.html
There are a number of advantages to working with a physical copy of a book as opposed to only dealing with materials on a screen. Technology is a good servant but a bad master. Online databases can be very useful for accessing things, but you might be cheating yourself if you don't take the extra few minutes to print out your materials.
In the first place, just because a file is in a database today is no guarantee that it will be there five years from now, or even tomorrow. Databases clean house occasionally, and it's not terribly realistic to assume that your personal needs match up exactly with their collection maintenance protocols. Even after you've downloaded a file, if you really care about the information in it it's still best to print it out. The human brain evolved to move and learn with a physical space. A physical book has a front, a back, a top and a bottom, and while we read a physical book there's a part of our brain that's actually mapping where in the book we accessed important pieces of information. This is part of why so many people find it easier to recall information learned from physical books than information seen on a screen. Beyond that, it's far easier to take notes on physical books, and the action of your hand while writing aids in memory as well. Various software companies have been trying for years to come up with programs that allow notes to be taken on on-screen texts, but statistically very few people take advantage of them - they're just too cumbersome. For more on the subject of screens versus paper, here are some books to add to your own reading list.
Bringing it all together.
I get the information I use to write my own books from sources I've gotten hold of through all of these methods: buying what I could afford, and borrowing or finding free copies of things that otherwise wouldn't be available to me. The book that I'm working on right now, Book VII in my series, takes place mostly from the perspective of Felix here. It concentrates on him. And because he is a journalist -he's a writer- a lot of the books that I've been reading lately are about journalists. So I've got a memoir of a 19th-century journalist, and he published this in the early 20th-century but it's about his experiences in the Victorian era. This has been a great resource. And I've also got some other books about writers from the 19th-century written by writers. I've got How to Write for the Press, from 1884; I've got The Great Scoop, which is a nice novel about journalism in the 19th-century; and The Making of a Journalist, that's another memoir. Along with The Trade of Authorship, which is a book that was written by a writer, for writers, about how to write and make a living at it. And for any of you who are writers or want to be writers, I highly, highly recommend this book. It's out of print, but you can get a free digital copy off of Google Books Advanced Search, and it's well worth it. This is one that I downloaded off of Google Books, and then I bound myself.
This has all been just a very brief overview, but I hope it's given you some ideas. The main takeaways from today are:
—The more you read, the more you know.
—Read as many original primary sources as you can.
—You can get primary sources by buying them, borrowing them, or accessing free copies.
—Technology is a good servant but a bad master. It can help you get hold of books, but you're still going to have to engage with them and read them if you want benefit from them.
And finally,
—Our brains evolved in a three dimensional world. Most people engage more deeply with things they read in three dimensional books.
We'll go into more details about a writer's world some other time, but we had to start somewhere!
I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please give it a nice "thumbs up", and don't forget to tell your friends about my books! Happy reading!
[Opening montage]
Every book starts with an idea, and in most cases a book starts with a great many ideas. So, next to my desk I keep a basket of notebooks where I write down ideas. A lot of my ideas come from my husband and I discussing things together and coming up with ideas together, so when I have a good idea that I think will work well in a story I'll take the notebook for the appropriate story that I think it will fit into and I'll jot down whatever the idea is in the back of the notebook. I draft all my manuscripts by hand and when I actually get down to writing the manuscript I'll start from front to back, but for my notes I always go back to front because that way I've always got the notes handy when I'm writing the story and they're right there. I don't have to go digging for them. And in terms of writing everything by hand whether it's the manuscript itself or the notes, there have been a lot of really good research studies that show that the human brain actually engages differently with things when it's mechanically doing things by hand as opposed to reading things on a screen or just typing things. Now, I know that typing is a mechanical action as well, but it works a little differently. And again, it's engaging with a different part of the brain.
I find that I come up with ideas better when I'm writing things by hand, and also that I remember things better when I'm writing things by hand. But to come back to these notebooks: in the back I not only jot down ideas, things I think might be cool, but I also make myself a reading list of interesting information sources that I think will be useful when I go to write that story. This particular one is a story about Sophie, if you're familiar with the Tales of Chetzemoka, so I've got a whole list of books that have helped build Sophie's character that I'm going to be reviewing before I sit down to write that particular book. And in addition to my list of books that I want to read, I've also got my list of various quotes that I've come across in primary sources that I think will help, that I can crib from ninenteenth-century sources so that the book seems a little more authentic when I sit down to write it.
So, what is a primary source? An example of a primary source from the 19th-century is something that was written in the 19th-century and it was written by someone who has first-hand knowledge of what is being described. So for example, on that shelf over there I've got Jennie Churchill's memoir. That is a primary source about Jennie Churchill, because she herself wrote the book.
A secondary source is what you get when someone reads a primary source and then extrapolates their own ideas from it. These can be useful, but always be sure you know how to distinguish facts from opinions. To do that, it's important to read as much as you can. Remember: the more you read, the more you know.
One of my favorite ways to use secondary sources is to mine their bibliographies for primary sources. I'll look and see what primary sources an author used to make their case, and I'll add these books to my own reading lists. After I've read the primary sources that the secondary source is based on, then I can form my own opinion about whether or not I agree with what the secondary source said and go from there.
Anyone who's listening in America is probably familiar with a game that we here call "Telephone". It's got different names in different countries; a lot of different countries have this game, and you've probably got your own name for it if you're listening somewhere else. It's a game where everyone sits in a circle and one person whispers something into someone's ear, then that person whisper's —hopefully— the same thing in the next ear and it goes around the circle. Now, usually by the time it gets to the last person the story has been changed significantly. And a lot of things that get written wind up having something similar happen to them. Stories get changed with each person that tells them. And that's not just true of historical stuff that's true of modern media as well: this is why you want to be careful about your sources.
In the case of historical research it's generally best to get the most first-hand material you can.
When you're ready to go beyond printed materials, antique diaries and letters can be a pretty amazing way to get primary source information that's not available anywhere else. Your best bet for these is a public archive or an academic archive.
And while you're on your treasure hunt for information, by all means don't forget popular sources of news and information from the time you're studying.
In here I've got my magazines. And so these are the sorts of magazines that were actually being read by people in the time in which I'm writing, which helps me to get a really good understanding of what they were experiencing and what they were thinking about at the time. And that's very useful for a writer.
And then I've got other books for all the different subjects that I study or write about or just want to know about.
So, how can you find primary sources? You can buy them, whether that means buying an antique copy or a reprint and there are advantages to both - I'll go into those. You can borrow them - and again, it could be antique, it could be a reprint. Or, you can get them for free -and that's usually going to be a reprint. And that requires a little bit of work on your part. But let's go into all three of those options a little bit.
I could do a whole video on the pros and cons of antique sources versus reprints, and I probably will at some point. For now, though, let's just touch really briefly on a few basics. With an antique source you know in a really bone-deep and tangible way that you're getting exactly the same information that someone else did in the period you're studying. Also, antique sources will often contain notes or marginalia that tell you things about their former owners, which is really fun.
On the downside, antique books are often quite fragile. You shouldn't take them into the bath tub with you or haul them around just anywhere, like you can do with a reprint. Also, with a reprint you can write notes right on the pages, which has its advantages.
The big question, of course, is how to get hold of any source, whether it's antique or a reprint.
The most straightforward way to acquire a book or magazine is to buy it. The materials available in used book stores and antiques stores are usually drawn from the surrounding area, so if you're studying a specific place then these sources of used books might be a good option for you. I've been fortunate on several occasions while hunting through the book room of the antiques store near my home, and I was lucky to find some delightful school books that had actually been used in the local school.
If you're looking for a particular rare book or a specific author, chances are you might have to go online to find it. Websites like Amazon and abebooks (that's abebooks.com) —these are basically to modern commerce what the Sears & Roebuck catalog and the Montgomery Ward catalog were to commerce in the late 19th-century. Technology is a good servant but a bad master: I don't recommend getting too dependent on it, but it does have its uses.
The best way to borrow a source, primary or secondary, is through a library. To give you an explanation of some of the more advanced services offered by libraries, I followed my favorite librarian to work.
Gabriel: We can get books here that aren't just in this library system; we can actually borrow books from other libraries as well. Interlibrary loan is, pretty much almost all libraries in the U.S. do it, academic and public libraries, and we can switch materials around. And that way we can get books that aren't even in our normal collection. We've done it a lot for historic books and for older books that our library system might not have but that academic libraries still do.
Sarah: To give you some tips on getting sources for free, we retreated to the library's back room.
Gabriel: There's sort of a hidden thing from Google Books: that's the Advanced Search, and it actually does function pretty differently than the standard Google Books search. It allows you to specify a lot more and it allows you to find things, especially historical things, a lot more easily. So: I've just typed "Google Books Advanced Search" into the usual Google search page, and gotten the link to Advanced Book Search Google Books. So if we click on that we can search for a bunch of keywords. So, let's think of something that we want to find. Say I want to find something involving bicycles. So let's try "bicycle lock". And I'm going to search —there's a date range here, "Publication Date" and I'm looking between say, January of 1880 and December of 1899, for instance, if I'm looking within the time range that we typically study. And I can just hit "Google Search". And we're going to find "U.S. Patent Office - Annual Report"; we're going to find "Hardware", which is a magazine devoted to the American hardware trade; "The Iron Age", a similar magazine there, "The Gazette of the U.S. Patent Office", "Chicago Journal of Commerce and Metal Industries", and a bunch of other ones. "Digest of Cycles or Velocipedes with Attachments" - that sounds promising. So this is the sort of things we're going to find - there we are, "Locks and locking attachments." So this is basically a bunch of different inventions from the period and there are specific ones here to do with bicycle locks. So that's a good example of the sorts of things you can find in terms of real primary sources by using Google Books Advanced Search.
Sarah: Once you've downloaded your free pdf of a work in the public domain, you can print it out and bind it as nicely as you like, or as quickly as you like, depending on your particular needs and circumstances. Here are some leather-bound books I made for Gabriel as gifts for birthdays, anniversaries and other holidays, and here are some cloth-bound books I made for myself for my own research. And… here's the bookshelf in our guest room made of cardboard fruit boxes. This is where I keep the public domain books and magazines that I printed out so that I could read them for research, pleasure or both, but in which I didn't want to invest the resources to bind them in a really fancy way. If you want some tips on how to hand-bind a book, you can find instructions for the process on our website, ThisVictorianLife.com You can go straight to the bookbinding instructions by typing in the URL you see on your screen right now. http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/recipe-for-reading-how-to-make-a-hand-bound-book.html
There are a number of advantages to working with a physical copy of a book as opposed to only dealing with materials on a screen. Technology is a good servant but a bad master. Online databases can be very useful for accessing things, but you might be cheating yourself if you don't take the extra few minutes to print out your materials.
In the first place, just because a file is in a database today is no guarantee that it will be there five years from now, or even tomorrow. Databases clean house occasionally, and it's not terribly realistic to assume that your personal needs match up exactly with their collection maintenance protocols. Even after you've downloaded a file, if you really care about the information in it it's still best to print it out. The human brain evolved to move and learn with a physical space. A physical book has a front, a back, a top and a bottom, and while we read a physical book there's a part of our brain that's actually mapping where in the book we accessed important pieces of information. This is part of why so many people find it easier to recall information learned from physical books than information seen on a screen. Beyond that, it's far easier to take notes on physical books, and the action of your hand while writing aids in memory as well. Various software companies have been trying for years to come up with programs that allow notes to be taken on on-screen texts, but statistically very few people take advantage of them - they're just too cumbersome. For more on the subject of screens versus paper, here are some books to add to your own reading list.
Bringing it all together.
I get the information I use to write my own books from sources I've gotten hold of through all of these methods: buying what I could afford, and borrowing or finding free copies of things that otherwise wouldn't be available to me. The book that I'm working on right now, Book VII in my series, takes place mostly from the perspective of Felix here. It concentrates on him. And because he is a journalist -he's a writer- a lot of the books that I've been reading lately are about journalists. So I've got a memoir of a 19th-century journalist, and he published this in the early 20th-century but it's about his experiences in the Victorian era. This has been a great resource. And I've also got some other books about writers from the 19th-century written by writers. I've got How to Write for the Press, from 1884; I've got The Great Scoop, which is a nice novel about journalism in the 19th-century; and The Making of a Journalist, that's another memoir. Along with The Trade of Authorship, which is a book that was written by a writer, for writers, about how to write and make a living at it. And for any of you who are writers or want to be writers, I highly, highly recommend this book. It's out of print, but you can get a free digital copy off of Google Books Advanced Search, and it's well worth it. This is one that I downloaded off of Google Books, and then I bound myself.
This has all been just a very brief overview, but I hope it's given you some ideas. The main takeaways from today are:
—The more you read, the more you know.
—Read as many original primary sources as you can.
—You can get primary sources by buying them, borrowing them, or accessing free copies.
—Technology is a good servant but a bad master. It can help you get hold of books, but you're still going to have to engage with them and read them if you want benefit from them.
And finally,
—Our brains evolved in a three dimensional world. Most people engage more deeply with things they read in three dimensional books.
We'll go into more details about a writer's world some other time, but we had to start somewhere!
I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please give it a nice "thumbs up", and don't forget to tell your friends about my books! Happy reading!
Victorian Christmas Poetry
Sarah A. Chrisman reads from her anthology of 19th-century poetry, "A Christmas Wish: Victorian Winter Poetry for Christmas and New Year's." Get the book on Amazon:
A Christmas Wish
Victorian Winter Poetry for Christmas and New Year's
A Winter Morning
The keen, clear air —the splendid sight--
We waken to a world of ice;
Where all things are enshrined in light,
As by some genie's quaint device.
'Tis Winter's jubilee —this day
His stores their countless treasures yield;
See how the diamond glances play,
In ceaseless blaze, from tree and field.
The cold, bare spot where late we ranged,
The naked woods, are seen no more;
This earth to fairy land is changed,
With glittering silver sheeted o'er.
A shower of gems is strewed around;
The flowers of winter, rich and rare;
Rubies and sapphires deck the ground,
The topaz, emerald, all are there.
The morning Sun, with cloudless rays,
His powerless splendour round us streams;
From crusted boughs, and twinkling sprays,
Fly back unloosed the rainbow beams.
With more than summer beauty fair,
The trees in winter's garb are shown;
What a rich halo melts in air,
Around their crystal branches thrown!
And yesterday! —How changed the view
From what then charmed us; when the sky
Hung, with its dim and watery hue,
O'er all the soft, still prospect nigh.
The distant groves, arrayed in white,
Might then like things unreal seem,
Just shown a while in silvery light,
The fictions of a poet's dream;
Like shadowy groves upon that shore
O'er which Elysium's twilight lay,
By bards and sages feigned of yore,
Ere broke on earth heaven's brighter day.
O God of Nature! With what might
Of beauty, showered on all below,
Thy guiding power would lead aright
Earth's wanderer all Thy love to know!
A Christmas Song
Heap the holly! Wreath the pine!
Train the dainty Christmas vine--
Let the breath of fir and bay
Mingle on this festal day--
Let the cedar fill the air
With its spicy sweetness rare.
Wake the carol —sound the chime--
Welcome! Merry Christmas time.
Bring the fronds of hardy fern--
Let the Christmas berries burn
Mid the sprays of richest green;
Weave the ivy's polished screen;
And the radiant Christmas rose
In gray mistletoe enclose.
Snowy fleece and sparkling rime
Welcome! Merry Christmas time.
From some sunny forest knoll
Bring the Yule log's mighty bole;
Where the pine's weird music make
There the storied Yule tree take.
Spread the board with rare good cheer--
Hail the fête day of the year.
Wake the carol —sound the chime--
Welcome Merry Christmas time.
The Mistletoe
With Christmas cheer the hall is bright,
At friendly feud with winter's cold;
There's many a merry game to-night
For maids and men, the young and old;
And winter sends for their delight
The holly with its crimson glow,
And paler than the glistening snow
The mistletoe, the mistletoe.
The mistletoe! The mistletoe!
The wan and wanton mistletoe!
Chance comer to our festal eyes,
Dear crimson-breasted holly-sprite!
Thee, Robin, too, the hall receives,
Unbidden, whom our hearts invite.
And perched among the crumply leaves,
He cocks his head and sings, Hullo!
The mistletoe, the mistletoe
Hangs up above, but what's below?
Oh! What's below the mistletoe?
The mistletoe, the mistletoe!
A kindly custom sanctions bliss
That's ta'en beneath the wanton bough.
Who laughs so low? Why, here it is!
Look, Jenny, where I have you now!
Dear bashful eyes! Sweet lips —a kiss!
Ah! Cheeks can mock the holly's glow!
For what's below the mistletoe?
Ah! Ha! Why, it is Cupid O!
Ah! Ha! Below the mistletoe
'Tis Cupid O! 'Tis Cupid O!
A Christmas Wish
Had I power to give to you
Many a rich and costly gem,
Fit, in brilliancy of hue,
To adorn a diadem,
I'd bestow the jewels rare
On some other friend less dear,
While for you I'd breathe a prayer,
Such as I do offer here.
Many a merry Christmas, friend,
Health, contentment, joy and bliss;
More delights in thought I send
Than I can convey in this.
With the now departing year
May your cares and sorrows cease;
May the new one, drawing near,
Bring you happiness and peace.
The keen, clear air —the splendid sight--
We waken to a world of ice;
Where all things are enshrined in light,
As by some genie's quaint device.
'Tis Winter's jubilee —this day
His stores their countless treasures yield;
See how the diamond glances play,
In ceaseless blaze, from tree and field.
The cold, bare spot where late we ranged,
The naked woods, are seen no more;
This earth to fairy land is changed,
With glittering silver sheeted o'er.
A shower of gems is strewed around;
The flowers of winter, rich and rare;
Rubies and sapphires deck the ground,
The topaz, emerald, all are there.
The morning Sun, with cloudless rays,
His powerless splendour round us streams;
From crusted boughs, and twinkling sprays,
Fly back unloosed the rainbow beams.
With more than summer beauty fair,
The trees in winter's garb are shown;
What a rich halo melts in air,
Around their crystal branches thrown!
And yesterday! —How changed the view
From what then charmed us; when the sky
Hung, with its dim and watery hue,
O'er all the soft, still prospect nigh.
The distant groves, arrayed in white,
Might then like things unreal seem,
Just shown a while in silvery light,
The fictions of a poet's dream;
Like shadowy groves upon that shore
O'er which Elysium's twilight lay,
By bards and sages feigned of yore,
Ere broke on earth heaven's brighter day.
O God of Nature! With what might
Of beauty, showered on all below,
Thy guiding power would lead aright
Earth's wanderer all Thy love to know!
A Christmas Song
Heap the holly! Wreath the pine!
Train the dainty Christmas vine--
Let the breath of fir and bay
Mingle on this festal day--
Let the cedar fill the air
With its spicy sweetness rare.
Wake the carol —sound the chime--
Welcome! Merry Christmas time.
Bring the fronds of hardy fern--
Let the Christmas berries burn
Mid the sprays of richest green;
Weave the ivy's polished screen;
And the radiant Christmas rose
In gray mistletoe enclose.
Snowy fleece and sparkling rime
Welcome! Merry Christmas time.
From some sunny forest knoll
Bring the Yule log's mighty bole;
Where the pine's weird music make
There the storied Yule tree take.
Spread the board with rare good cheer--
Hail the fête day of the year.
Wake the carol —sound the chime--
Welcome Merry Christmas time.
The Mistletoe
With Christmas cheer the hall is bright,
At friendly feud with winter's cold;
There's many a merry game to-night
For maids and men, the young and old;
And winter sends for their delight
The holly with its crimson glow,
And paler than the glistening snow
The mistletoe, the mistletoe.
The mistletoe! The mistletoe!
The wan and wanton mistletoe!
Chance comer to our festal eyes,
Dear crimson-breasted holly-sprite!
Thee, Robin, too, the hall receives,
Unbidden, whom our hearts invite.
And perched among the crumply leaves,
He cocks his head and sings, Hullo!
The mistletoe, the mistletoe
Hangs up above, but what's below?
Oh! What's below the mistletoe?
The mistletoe, the mistletoe!
A kindly custom sanctions bliss
That's ta'en beneath the wanton bough.
Who laughs so low? Why, here it is!
Look, Jenny, where I have you now!
Dear bashful eyes! Sweet lips —a kiss!
Ah! Cheeks can mock the holly's glow!
For what's below the mistletoe?
Ah! Ha! Why, it is Cupid O!
Ah! Ha! Below the mistletoe
'Tis Cupid O! 'Tis Cupid O!
A Christmas Wish
Had I power to give to you
Many a rich and costly gem,
Fit, in brilliancy of hue,
To adorn a diadem,
I'd bestow the jewels rare
On some other friend less dear,
While for you I'd breathe a prayer,
Such as I do offer here.
Many a merry Christmas, friend,
Health, contentment, joy and bliss;
More delights in thought I send
Than I can convey in this.
With the now departing year
May your cares and sorrows cease;
May the new one, drawing near,
Bring you happiness and peace.
Barred Owl (Strix varia)
My novel Three Women Awheel includes a character who has a pet owl in the late 19th-century. While I was writing the book, a pair of wild barred owls took up residence at the state park near my home. Here's one of those wonderful wild owls preening, fluffing, cleaning his feet, yawning, and generally hanging out waiting for sundown.
Victorian soda maker
Gasogene video
Victorian era experts Sarah and Gabriel Chrisman explain a 19th-century soda making device called a gasogene, and give a very brief overview of the role of carbonated beverages in history.
Transcription of audio from the video:
Sarah: Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and this is my husband Gabriel.
Gabriel: Hello, everyone!
Sarah: And today we're going to tell you a bit about soda culture in history that comes up at the end of my book, A Trip and A Tumble.
[Montage]
Sarah: At the end of Book V in my Tales of Chetzemoka series, A Trip and A Tumble, there's a scene involving a pretty nifty piece of Victorian technology that was reasonably common at the end of the nineteenth-century but has largely been forgotten and isn't very well known any more. It's called a gasogene, and it's a device for making carbonated water at home, to use in sodas.
Sarah: A lot of people might not necessarily realize that humans have been drinking carbonated beverages for pretty much as long as we've been around on this planet. The first soda waters were naturally occurring mineral waters which were carbonated by the earth's chemical and geological activities. Since Ancient times and throughout human history, natural springs have often been considered sacred spaces. The waters of these springs were thought to have special healing properties, and the seemingly magical waters which emerged at certain places and contained sparkling bubbles were considered especially helpful for improving or maintaining health. Besides their religious and medical importance, mineral springs also served important social functions as well. The Ancient Romans built elaborate infrastructures around their baths, some of which still exist today. Throughout the centuries, people have made pilgrimages to mineral springs for a variety of reasons: some religious, some health-related, some social. For many people it's often been a combination of all of these. Spa culture has been important for a long time, and it's big business for the locations blessed enough to have a natural source of pure, sparkling water. Not every town is lucky enough to have such a spring, though, and not every individual can make a pilgrimage to places that do. Many famous spas worked out that they could help far-flung humanity, and coincidentally increase their profits) by bottling their special waters and selling them abroad. It was only a matter of time before human ingenuity worked out ways to create sparkling water from waters which were naturally still. The earliest machines for carbonating water and making seltzer were large and elaborate, but smaller versions were eventually produced, and by the end of the nineteenth-century equipment was available for families to make their own seltzer water at home. And this brings us back to the gasogene.
Gabriel: Okay! So, we're going to use one tablespoon of acid. And the most common type was tartaric acid here, because it doesn't add much flavor.
Sarah: Tartaric acid is made from grapes, and is a non-alcoholic by-product of the wine industry. After grapes are mashed up and the grape juice poured off, a thin white crystal accumulates around the edges of the vats from the acidity of the grapes. And this white crystalline substance is tartaric acid.
Gabriel: And then, baking soda.
Sarah: And as anyone who has ever combined baking soda and vinegar can tell you: when you combine an acid and a base, they produce gas! Since the tartaric acid and the baking soda were both dry powders when we mixed them together, they won't start reacting until we get them wet. And that will happen when we turn over the gasogene.
Gabriel: So this is what we're using as a seal, right on here. The connector goes right through here.
Sarah: So this is the coupler that links the top and the bottom of the gasogene. And it's got string with beeswax as the seal; and then here are the holes for the gas to come in, and here are the holes for the gas to go out.
Gabriel: And this threads down over the top. Now the reason we have this adapter piece is because the threads on the original gasogene are very worn out, and this adapter piece is matched to the worn threads on both sides and allows us to get a better seal.
Sarah: The top of the apparatus at this point is filled up with ordinary, non-sparkling, still water, which very soon, through the magic of the gasogene, will become selzter!
Gabriel: The next step is to thread these together upside down. Are you ready?
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Gabriel: Okay.
Sarah: When he turns the gasogene right-side up again, the water will dribble down through the lower holes in the coupler. As soon as the dry tartaric acid and baking soda get wet, a chemical reaction will start that will force gas into the water in the top chamber under pressure.
Gabriel: Okay: now we've got everything together upside down. The next step here is to flip it over, which causes water to go in— oops! Let's shut that all the way off first… Yup, gettin' our first few bubbles here.
Sarah: This antique gasogene was made in the 1880's. It leaks a little by now, but it's only fair to point out that by the time I'm over 130 years old, I'll probably leak, too!
Sarah: Back to a bit of history. The earliest artificial seltzers tried to recreate the chemical compositions of soda waters from famous spas. Recipe books written for apothecaries and druggists who'd gotten into the soda water trade gave instructions for imitating Vichy water or Saratoga water by adding very exact proportions of minerals like magnesium sulphate or sodium bicarbonate. From here it was a small step to adding other medicines to seltzer, and druggists started adding tincture of valerian, or potassium phosphate which was recommended to settle an upset stomach. Sweeteners were added to make bitter medicines more palatable, and druggists played around with different formulas to optimize the attractiveness of those drinks to the public. They were so effective that people started considering sodas a fun treat and not just a medicine. This wasn't as revolutionary of a concept as one might think, since after all it ties back into the ages-old connection between sparkling beverages and social activities. In the late nineteenth-century, Temperance advocates were especially strong proponents of soda culture, because they wanted to steer people away from saloons and encourage them to do their socializing in healthier, more innocent environments. Cyclists tended to be big fans of soda as well, for the obvious reason that alcohol and cycling don't mix very well, but also because many of the sodas involving high-energy sugar and nutrient-rich milk or cream were the perfect energy drinks for active cyclists. There have been various ways of producing homemade carbonated beverages over the centuries; bottled soda water and gasogene soda water were considered especially healthy because there was no fermentation involved with them. Specially formulated soda flavorings like those available at soda counters, though, could be very complicated and tricky to produce at home. So companies and druggists offered concentrated syrups for popular beverages. People then added these to bottled seltzer, or to their own homemade gasogene selzter. Then of course, one could add other tasty ingredients as well. The first cream sodas were just that: cream sodas. And milk and soda was considered a particularly good drink for cyclists. And then there are all the little accoutrements that go with sodas and make them extra fun. When sodas became really popular in the 1890's, special soda straws were definitely a thing. This one has got some nice filigree on it, I'll show you a close up soon, and very, very recently these have made a comeback as fancy "maté straws" or "tea straws", but people were using these in sodas in the nineteenth-century in a lot of different places. Also in the late nineteenth-century was the invention of the paper drinking straw, which was cheaper than these to say the least, and more disposeable. These are also making a comeback in certain cities.
Sarah: Traditions of sodas being little luxuries and an innocent way to socialize persisted into the twentieth-century, and of course are still with us in the twenty-first. The next time you indulge in a bubbly beverage, remember: you're tasting history!
Soda resources:
Acid Phosphate (for adding to sodas): Extinct Chemical Company http://www.artofdrink.com/shop
Tonic (for adding to sodas): Bradley's Tonic Co. http://kinatonic.com/about-us/
Free digital copy of an 1888 book for people who ran soda counters: A Treatise on Beverages by Charles Herman Sulz http://tinyurl.com/y7m8ezqg
Free digital copy of an 1888 recipe book for soda syrups and flavorings: Sulz's Compendium of Flavoings, Containing Complete Directions for Making, Clarifying, and Judiciously Applying Every Known Variety of Flavoring Extracts and Essences; also for Preparing, Purifying and Testing Plain and Compound Syrups of Every Grade http://tinyurl.com/y7j4eaaf
Sarah: Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and this is my husband Gabriel.
Gabriel: Hello, everyone!
Sarah: And today we're going to tell you a bit about soda culture in history that comes up at the end of my book, A Trip and A Tumble.
[Montage]
Sarah: At the end of Book V in my Tales of Chetzemoka series, A Trip and A Tumble, there's a scene involving a pretty nifty piece of Victorian technology that was reasonably common at the end of the nineteenth-century but has largely been forgotten and isn't very well known any more. It's called a gasogene, and it's a device for making carbonated water at home, to use in sodas.
Sarah: A lot of people might not necessarily realize that humans have been drinking carbonated beverages for pretty much as long as we've been around on this planet. The first soda waters were naturally occurring mineral waters which were carbonated by the earth's chemical and geological activities. Since Ancient times and throughout human history, natural springs have often been considered sacred spaces. The waters of these springs were thought to have special healing properties, and the seemingly magical waters which emerged at certain places and contained sparkling bubbles were considered especially helpful for improving or maintaining health. Besides their religious and medical importance, mineral springs also served important social functions as well. The Ancient Romans built elaborate infrastructures around their baths, some of which still exist today. Throughout the centuries, people have made pilgrimages to mineral springs for a variety of reasons: some religious, some health-related, some social. For many people it's often been a combination of all of these. Spa culture has been important for a long time, and it's big business for the locations blessed enough to have a natural source of pure, sparkling water. Not every town is lucky enough to have such a spring, though, and not every individual can make a pilgrimage to places that do. Many famous spas worked out that they could help far-flung humanity, and coincidentally increase their profits) by bottling their special waters and selling them abroad. It was only a matter of time before human ingenuity worked out ways to create sparkling water from waters which were naturally still. The earliest machines for carbonating water and making seltzer were large and elaborate, but smaller versions were eventually produced, and by the end of the nineteenth-century equipment was available for families to make their own seltzer water at home. And this brings us back to the gasogene.
Gabriel: Okay! So, we're going to use one tablespoon of acid. And the most common type was tartaric acid here, because it doesn't add much flavor.
Sarah: Tartaric acid is made from grapes, and is a non-alcoholic by-product of the wine industry. After grapes are mashed up and the grape juice poured off, a thin white crystal accumulates around the edges of the vats from the acidity of the grapes. And this white crystalline substance is tartaric acid.
Gabriel: And then, baking soda.
Sarah: And as anyone who has ever combined baking soda and vinegar can tell you: when you combine an acid and a base, they produce gas! Since the tartaric acid and the baking soda were both dry powders when we mixed them together, they won't start reacting until we get them wet. And that will happen when we turn over the gasogene.
Gabriel: So this is what we're using as a seal, right on here. The connector goes right through here.
Sarah: So this is the coupler that links the top and the bottom of the gasogene. And it's got string with beeswax as the seal; and then here are the holes for the gas to come in, and here are the holes for the gas to go out.
Gabriel: And this threads down over the top. Now the reason we have this adapter piece is because the threads on the original gasogene are very worn out, and this adapter piece is matched to the worn threads on both sides and allows us to get a better seal.
Sarah: The top of the apparatus at this point is filled up with ordinary, non-sparkling, still water, which very soon, through the magic of the gasogene, will become selzter!
Gabriel: The next step is to thread these together upside down. Are you ready?
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Gabriel: Okay.
Sarah: When he turns the gasogene right-side up again, the water will dribble down through the lower holes in the coupler. As soon as the dry tartaric acid and baking soda get wet, a chemical reaction will start that will force gas into the water in the top chamber under pressure.
Gabriel: Okay: now we've got everything together upside down. The next step here is to flip it over, which causes water to go in— oops! Let's shut that all the way off first… Yup, gettin' our first few bubbles here.
Sarah: This antique gasogene was made in the 1880's. It leaks a little by now, but it's only fair to point out that by the time I'm over 130 years old, I'll probably leak, too!
Sarah: Back to a bit of history. The earliest artificial seltzers tried to recreate the chemical compositions of soda waters from famous spas. Recipe books written for apothecaries and druggists who'd gotten into the soda water trade gave instructions for imitating Vichy water or Saratoga water by adding very exact proportions of minerals like magnesium sulphate or sodium bicarbonate. From here it was a small step to adding other medicines to seltzer, and druggists started adding tincture of valerian, or potassium phosphate which was recommended to settle an upset stomach. Sweeteners were added to make bitter medicines more palatable, and druggists played around with different formulas to optimize the attractiveness of those drinks to the public. They were so effective that people started considering sodas a fun treat and not just a medicine. This wasn't as revolutionary of a concept as one might think, since after all it ties back into the ages-old connection between sparkling beverages and social activities. In the late nineteenth-century, Temperance advocates were especially strong proponents of soda culture, because they wanted to steer people away from saloons and encourage them to do their socializing in healthier, more innocent environments. Cyclists tended to be big fans of soda as well, for the obvious reason that alcohol and cycling don't mix very well, but also because many of the sodas involving high-energy sugar and nutrient-rich milk or cream were the perfect energy drinks for active cyclists. There have been various ways of producing homemade carbonated beverages over the centuries; bottled soda water and gasogene soda water were considered especially healthy because there was no fermentation involved with them. Specially formulated soda flavorings like those available at soda counters, though, could be very complicated and tricky to produce at home. So companies and druggists offered concentrated syrups for popular beverages. People then added these to bottled seltzer, or to their own homemade gasogene selzter. Then of course, one could add other tasty ingredients as well. The first cream sodas were just that: cream sodas. And milk and soda was considered a particularly good drink for cyclists. And then there are all the little accoutrements that go with sodas and make them extra fun. When sodas became really popular in the 1890's, special soda straws were definitely a thing. This one has got some nice filigree on it, I'll show you a close up soon, and very, very recently these have made a comeback as fancy "maté straws" or "tea straws", but people were using these in sodas in the nineteenth-century in a lot of different places. Also in the late nineteenth-century was the invention of the paper drinking straw, which was cheaper than these to say the least, and more disposeable. These are also making a comeback in certain cities.
Sarah: Traditions of sodas being little luxuries and an innocent way to socialize persisted into the twentieth-century, and of course are still with us in the twenty-first. The next time you indulge in a bubbly beverage, remember: you're tasting history!
Soda resources:
Acid Phosphate (for adding to sodas): Extinct Chemical Company http://www.artofdrink.com/shop
Tonic (for adding to sodas): Bradley's Tonic Co. http://kinatonic.com/about-us/
Free digital copy of an 1888 book for people who ran soda counters: A Treatise on Beverages by Charles Herman Sulz http://tinyurl.com/y7m8ezqg
Free digital copy of an 1888 recipe book for soda syrups and flavorings: Sulz's Compendium of Flavoings, Containing Complete Directions for Making, Clarifying, and Judiciously Applying Every Known Variety of Flavoring Extracts and Essences; also for Preparing, Purifying and Testing Plain and Compound Syrups of Every Grade http://tinyurl.com/y7j4eaaf
19th-century soda articles:
The American Drink (1897)
Evils of Encouraging the Ice Cream Soda Trade (1897)
How to Draw A Glass of Ice Cream Soda (1893)
Origin of Ice-Cream Soda Water (1892)
Serving Ice Cream Soda (1901)
Soda Water (1896)
The American Drink (1897)
Evils of Encouraging the Ice Cream Soda Trade (1897)
How to Draw A Glass of Ice Cream Soda (1893)
Origin of Ice-Cream Soda Water (1892)
Serving Ice Cream Soda (1901)
Soda Water (1896)
Coasting Cookies: Victorian Spice Cookies, 1875 Recipe
Transcription of audio from the video:
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to show you how to make coasting cookies, which is a recipe that originally appeared in an 1875 cookbook, and is very popular with the members of the cycling club in my series. Kitty's always making them, and they're the ones she brings to Ken when he dislocates his elbow in A Rapping At The Door, they're also the ones that Ken and Felix are fighting over in Love Will Find A Wheel, and they pop up in Delivery Delayed, too, so you'll find the recipe in the backs of all these books. They're very tasty.
[Montage]
The recipe for coasting cookies, which originally appeared in an 1875 cookbook and is reprinted in a number of my stories, runs:
"One pound of flour
Eight ounces of butter
Half a pint of molasses
One tablespoonful of soda, beaten very hard in the molasses
One tablespoonful of coriander seed and of caraway, pounded in a mortar
Ginger to taste
Soften the butter, stir in the molasses, ginger, seeds and flour, roll thin, cut and bake in a quick oven
The first step of any baking project is getting the oven warmed up, and in my particular case that means lighting the stove. Our stove is a Charm Crawford size 7. This was a little smaller than the most popular models of stoves in the late nineteenth-century, but it is the biggest stove that would fit in our kitchen. There's a patent plate on one side which tells us the company started making this model on July 15, 1879, then updated their model a number of times. Our particular stove was manufactured in 1901, and later refurbished by a Rhode Island company called the Antique Stove Hospital.
My stove has three different dampers to control the air flow. You can see two of them here, and the other is controlled by a knob at the back of the range. Adjusting these dampers controls how much oxygen is getting to the fire, and how much heat is being directed towards the stove rather than up the chimney. When I light the stove, all the dampers are fully open to give the kindling enough oxygen to get going, then once the main log's caught I slide the range damper to the "bake" setting.
Now to mix up the cookies!
In America, butter is generally sold as quarter-pound sticks, so the eight ounces called for in this recipe translates easily as two sticks. Most historical recipes, this one included, were written assuming that the cook would use salted butter, because salt has historically been an important preservative. One of the really handy things about using a woodstove is that the warming shelf makes it really easy to soften the butter when I make cookies.
As soon as the baking soda gets added to the molasses it's going to start a chemical reaction, so it's best to grind up the coriander and caraway and have them ready before we do that. Bringing out the spices is a good reminder that everything in the world has its own endless layers of backstories, and there's always more to discover about even the simplest of things. Archaelogists have found coriander seeds from over two thousand years ago in the old middens left behind by Roman legionaries. The Ancient Romans also enjoyed flavoring things with caraway. By medieval times, not only was caraway still being used as a seasoning throughout Europe, but it was also recommended for alleviating dyspepsia. Maybe Nurse McCoy should see to it that Silas gets some of these cookies!
When the recipe calls for "ginger to taste" it means just that: you can add however much you like according to your particular taste. Personally, I add one tablespoonful of ginger, so it matches the coriander and the caraway. It makes it nice and well-rounded that way.
Half a pint of molasses is one cup, so that's nice and easy. And then when you add in the baking soda, you really do want to beat it good and hard, because baking soda is going to react with the molasses and that chemical reaction is actually what's going to make your cookies rise. You'll know the reaction is happening when the molasses starts to turn a really pretty caramel color —that shows you you've beaten it enough. And then, you just add the butter, and the spices, and the flour. And, by the way: one pound of flour is about 3 1/3 cups. Mix it all up together, and your cookies are almost ready. I usually start stirring with a spoon, and then when it gets too stiff to to do any more stirring with a spoon I switch to my clean hands.
Now, the original recipe for these tells you to roll them out: that will give you a nice crisp cookies. Personally, I prefer soft cookies; and since this is my own private kitchen and not a sound set somewhere and I'm going to be the one to eat these, and not some faculty members, because I don't have any faculty backing me up [laughs] I'm going to make them soft like I like my cookies. And to do that, instead of rolling them out, I'm going to roll them into little balls. You can make them either way, crisp or soft. Wonderful thing about making your own cookies is you get to make them the way you like them!
I usually roll them into little balls about —a little bit bigger than— the average walnut.
A quick oven is around 375 degrees, or as close as you can get your oven; and the bake times in historical recipes are usually pretty vague because it's hard to keep a wood-burning stove at exactly one temperature for a specified period of time so there's going to be a lot of variation. Usually I find that these are done in about 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees. And in a woodstove of course, or a stove that has its heat more on one side than another, you want to remember to turn it halfway through.
Those look done to me!
So there I have my coasting cookies, just like my friend Kitty's always making. I hope she approves of them. I hope you liked this video. If you did, please give it a nice thumbs up, and remember to tell your friends about my books so they can enjoy the recipes, too. Happy reading!
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to show you how to make coasting cookies, which is a recipe that originally appeared in an 1875 cookbook, and is very popular with the members of the cycling club in my series. Kitty's always making them, and they're the ones she brings to Ken when he dislocates his elbow in A Rapping At The Door, they're also the ones that Ken and Felix are fighting over in Love Will Find A Wheel, and they pop up in Delivery Delayed, too, so you'll find the recipe in the backs of all these books. They're very tasty.
[Montage]
The recipe for coasting cookies, which originally appeared in an 1875 cookbook and is reprinted in a number of my stories, runs:
"One pound of flour
Eight ounces of butter
Half a pint of molasses
One tablespoonful of soda, beaten very hard in the molasses
One tablespoonful of coriander seed and of caraway, pounded in a mortar
Ginger to taste
Soften the butter, stir in the molasses, ginger, seeds and flour, roll thin, cut and bake in a quick oven
The first step of any baking project is getting the oven warmed up, and in my particular case that means lighting the stove. Our stove is a Charm Crawford size 7. This was a little smaller than the most popular models of stoves in the late nineteenth-century, but it is the biggest stove that would fit in our kitchen. There's a patent plate on one side which tells us the company started making this model on July 15, 1879, then updated their model a number of times. Our particular stove was manufactured in 1901, and later refurbished by a Rhode Island company called the Antique Stove Hospital.
My stove has three different dampers to control the air flow. You can see two of them here, and the other is controlled by a knob at the back of the range. Adjusting these dampers controls how much oxygen is getting to the fire, and how much heat is being directed towards the stove rather than up the chimney. When I light the stove, all the dampers are fully open to give the kindling enough oxygen to get going, then once the main log's caught I slide the range damper to the "bake" setting.
Now to mix up the cookies!
In America, butter is generally sold as quarter-pound sticks, so the eight ounces called for in this recipe translates easily as two sticks. Most historical recipes, this one included, were written assuming that the cook would use salted butter, because salt has historically been an important preservative. One of the really handy things about using a woodstove is that the warming shelf makes it really easy to soften the butter when I make cookies.
As soon as the baking soda gets added to the molasses it's going to start a chemical reaction, so it's best to grind up the coriander and caraway and have them ready before we do that. Bringing out the spices is a good reminder that everything in the world has its own endless layers of backstories, and there's always more to discover about even the simplest of things. Archaelogists have found coriander seeds from over two thousand years ago in the old middens left behind by Roman legionaries. The Ancient Romans also enjoyed flavoring things with caraway. By medieval times, not only was caraway still being used as a seasoning throughout Europe, but it was also recommended for alleviating dyspepsia. Maybe Nurse McCoy should see to it that Silas gets some of these cookies!
When the recipe calls for "ginger to taste" it means just that: you can add however much you like according to your particular taste. Personally, I add one tablespoonful of ginger, so it matches the coriander and the caraway. It makes it nice and well-rounded that way.
Half a pint of molasses is one cup, so that's nice and easy. And then when you add in the baking soda, you really do want to beat it good and hard, because baking soda is going to react with the molasses and that chemical reaction is actually what's going to make your cookies rise. You'll know the reaction is happening when the molasses starts to turn a really pretty caramel color —that shows you you've beaten it enough. And then, you just add the butter, and the spices, and the flour. And, by the way: one pound of flour is about 3 1/3 cups. Mix it all up together, and your cookies are almost ready. I usually start stirring with a spoon, and then when it gets too stiff to to do any more stirring with a spoon I switch to my clean hands.
Now, the original recipe for these tells you to roll them out: that will give you a nice crisp cookies. Personally, I prefer soft cookies; and since this is my own private kitchen and not a sound set somewhere and I'm going to be the one to eat these, and not some faculty members, because I don't have any faculty backing me up [laughs] I'm going to make them soft like I like my cookies. And to do that, instead of rolling them out, I'm going to roll them into little balls. You can make them either way, crisp or soft. Wonderful thing about making your own cookies is you get to make them the way you like them!
I usually roll them into little balls about —a little bit bigger than— the average walnut.
A quick oven is around 375 degrees, or as close as you can get your oven; and the bake times in historical recipes are usually pretty vague because it's hard to keep a wood-burning stove at exactly one temperature for a specified period of time so there's going to be a lot of variation. Usually I find that these are done in about 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees. And in a woodstove of course, or a stove that has its heat more on one side than another, you want to remember to turn it halfway through.
Those look done to me!
So there I have my coasting cookies, just like my friend Kitty's always making. I hope she approves of them. I hope you liked this video. If you did, please give it a nice thumbs up, and remember to tell your friends about my books so they can enjoy the recipes, too. Happy reading!
How Coasting Cookies Got Their Name
Transcription of audio from the video:
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to answer a question someone had last week about why the Victorian spice cookies that are so popular in my series are called coasting cookies.
[Montage]
Last week I posted a video about how to make coasting cookies, a type of Victorian spice cookie which is much enjoyed by the characters in my Tales of Chetzemoka historical fiction series, and the recipe for which appears at the end of several of my books.
It always seemed natural to me to put period recipes at the end of my books for the foods that the characters are eating in the stories. For me, books have always been jumping off points from which to explore life to its fullest, and what better way to do that than by giving people the tools to really experience what they've been reading about?
There are a wide variety of foods and recipes in my Tales of Chetzemoka series, but just as real people tend to have a few absolute favorites, so do the characters in my series.
When I was choosing the recipe for the cookie that would be the particular favorite for the Chetzemoka Wheelmen, I spent considerable time poring over our antique cookbooks to choose just the right recipe. It had to be a cookie that was special enough for Ken and Felix to always be fighting over, but easy enough for Kitty to make all the time. I'd already tried out an 1875 recipe for coasting cookies from a book called In the Kitchen, and when I revisited it in writing my series it seemed to really fit the bill. Not only are these cookies delicious and easy to make, but the coriander and caraway give them a flavor that's just exotic enough to intrigue modern audiences.
The word "coasting" has a number of different meanings, and taken all together they make these particularly appropriate cookies for my Chetzemoka friends.
My husband Gabriel has over twenty years of experience in the bicycle industry, and around our house when we hear the word "coasting" we automatically think of zipping downhill on a bicycle or tricycle without the need to pedal because gravity's doing our work for us. The first time we saw the recipe for coasting cookies, Gabriel's automatic reaction was that they must have come about during one of the cycling booms of the late nineteenth-century. However, this theory lost its legs when we checked the publication date at the start of the cookbook where we'd found the recipe. Our copy of In the Kitchen was published in 1875, which puts it just a handful of years too early for the high wheel boom of the 1880's, and about twenty years too early for the safety bike boom of the mid-1890's. So, if the timeline ruled out the cycling connection, what else might account for the name?
Besides its cycling connotations, the word "coasting" can also refer to ships that travel up and down a coastline. This seemed a fairly reasonable explanation since the ingredients in these cookies would have often been transported by sea. This theory held sway for a little while, but then someone pointed out the real answer to the mystery.
In parts of America which get more snow every winter than my rainy hometown south of Seattle, coasting is synonymous for sledding, flying downhill over snowy hillsides while the wind kisses your cheeks. This spirited fun works up an appetite and a desire for warmth, so molasses-sweetened, spicy cookies are the perfect thing when you come out of the cold.
The word "coasting" as synonymous for sledding led to its adoption by cyclists to mean easy riding, as I learned when I read the 1884 novel, Wheels and Whims, a story of a group of ladies on a tricycle trip together. There's a scene in the book where one of the ladies puts up her feet and zooms down a hill, then declares proudly, "It is coasting, you know, without winter frost and snow."
So we've come full circle, right back to cycling again. And don't forget that Chetzemoka is a coastal city and a lot of our friends there have connections in the coasting trade. I hope you can see why these cookies seemed so perfect!
I hope you enjoyed hearing about how coasting cookies got their name, and why that name particularly appealed to me, and also that it gave you some insights into how writers choose things for our stories. Don't forget to tell your friends about my books, and happy reading!
Incidentally, if you like the picture of little Victorian girls going coasting, you can get it and other nineteenth-century images from our collection reprinted on various merchandise at our Zazzle store: www.zazzle.com/store/this_victorian_life
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to answer a question someone had last week about why the Victorian spice cookies that are so popular in my series are called coasting cookies.
[Montage]
Last week I posted a video about how to make coasting cookies, a type of Victorian spice cookie which is much enjoyed by the characters in my Tales of Chetzemoka historical fiction series, and the recipe for which appears at the end of several of my books.
It always seemed natural to me to put period recipes at the end of my books for the foods that the characters are eating in the stories. For me, books have always been jumping off points from which to explore life to its fullest, and what better way to do that than by giving people the tools to really experience what they've been reading about?
There are a wide variety of foods and recipes in my Tales of Chetzemoka series, but just as real people tend to have a few absolute favorites, so do the characters in my series.
When I was choosing the recipe for the cookie that would be the particular favorite for the Chetzemoka Wheelmen, I spent considerable time poring over our antique cookbooks to choose just the right recipe. It had to be a cookie that was special enough for Ken and Felix to always be fighting over, but easy enough for Kitty to make all the time. I'd already tried out an 1875 recipe for coasting cookies from a book called In the Kitchen, and when I revisited it in writing my series it seemed to really fit the bill. Not only are these cookies delicious and easy to make, but the coriander and caraway give them a flavor that's just exotic enough to intrigue modern audiences.
The word "coasting" has a number of different meanings, and taken all together they make these particularly appropriate cookies for my Chetzemoka friends.
My husband Gabriel has over twenty years of experience in the bicycle industry, and around our house when we hear the word "coasting" we automatically think of zipping downhill on a bicycle or tricycle without the need to pedal because gravity's doing our work for us. The first time we saw the recipe for coasting cookies, Gabriel's automatic reaction was that they must have come about during one of the cycling booms of the late nineteenth-century. However, this theory lost its legs when we checked the publication date at the start of the cookbook where we'd found the recipe. Our copy of In the Kitchen was published in 1875, which puts it just a handful of years too early for the high wheel boom of the 1880's, and about twenty years too early for the safety bike boom of the mid-1890's. So, if the timeline ruled out the cycling connection, what else might account for the name?
Besides its cycling connotations, the word "coasting" can also refer to ships that travel up and down a coastline. This seemed a fairly reasonable explanation since the ingredients in these cookies would have often been transported by sea. This theory held sway for a little while, but then someone pointed out the real answer to the mystery.
In parts of America which get more snow every winter than my rainy hometown south of Seattle, coasting is synonymous for sledding, flying downhill over snowy hillsides while the wind kisses your cheeks. This spirited fun works up an appetite and a desire for warmth, so molasses-sweetened, spicy cookies are the perfect thing when you come out of the cold.
The word "coasting" as synonymous for sledding led to its adoption by cyclists to mean easy riding, as I learned when I read the 1884 novel, Wheels and Whims, a story of a group of ladies on a tricycle trip together. There's a scene in the book where one of the ladies puts up her feet and zooms down a hill, then declares proudly, "It is coasting, you know, without winter frost and snow."
So we've come full circle, right back to cycling again. And don't forget that Chetzemoka is a coastal city and a lot of our friends there have connections in the coasting trade. I hope you can see why these cookies seemed so perfect!
I hope you enjoyed hearing about how coasting cookies got their name, and why that name particularly appealed to me, and also that it gave you some insights into how writers choose things for our stories. Don't forget to tell your friends about my books, and happy reading!
Incidentally, if you like the picture of little Victorian girls going coasting, you can get it and other nineteenth-century images from our collection reprinted on various merchandise at our Zazzle store: www.zazzle.com/store/this_victorian_life
Transcription of audio from the video:
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to talk to you about why everyone should be reading more books.
[Montage]
Books are the best way I know to travel through time and space. Books will take you vast distances and expand your worldview.
Film and video are limited to showing you the world as a flat picture, but the descriptions in books engage all your senses and put you right in the middle of the action.
Not only do books take you on adventures, but they make you think and consider important things and engage deeply with information in ways that hyperbolic internet articles never can. The internet world is all about snappy headlines and superlatives, and black and white thinking that promotes short attention spans. There have been a lot of really interesting studies in neuroscience and information acquisition that have shown that the human brain actually engages differently with information seen online than it does with information in physical books. Not only do these two different behaviors actually engage different parts of the brain, but studies have also shown that when someone reads something on a screen the tendency is to just scan the material and grab out key words, whereas with a physical book people are more likely to read the material carefully and actually consider it in-depth.
At the same time, another thing to consider is that we are a social species, and nothing is as contagious as example. Every time someone sees someone else reading a physical book, that very act is an advertisement for that particular book and therefore a way to help the author of that book earn a living in a field where that can be really challenging. On the other hand, when someone sees someone else spending their free time on a digital device, it's an advertisement for the corporation that made that device.
Books lead to other books. At the end of each of my Tales of Chetzemoka, I include appendices that list sources of information that led to that particular book. The reason I take the trouble to include these is that I always hope that my readers will use them as reading lists go off and learn more about the topics covered in the story. You can use the bibliographies of non-fiction books in a similar way, and in fact that's how I find a lot of my sources. Even if a book doesn't spoon-feed you a reading list in this way, you can still open doors of new research through it. Just keep a list of names, dates, and events that the book introduced you to, and you'll be all set to go exploring.
I keep an ever-growing set of notebooks where I write down things I've gleaned from my antique books: things the books have taught me, concepts they've brought up, ideas I want to research more fully, and good quotes that have spoken to me in some way. When I read re-printed or new books, I'll often jot down my notes right on the pages, and this marginalia sort of becomes a private conversation with the author.
It's useful to keep your personal library organized in such a way that you can always find a given book when you want to refer to it. This will make things a lot easier on you when you want to cross-check or refer back to something you've already read, and when it's easier you'll do it more and more often until it becomes second nature. Your organization scheme doesn't have to make sense to anyone else; as long it makes sense to you and you can find what you need when you need them, that's what matters. Personally, I arrange my books by subject because that's what's most convenient for me.
When I was young there was a poster on the wall of our local library that had a poem I'll never forget. It went: "The more you read, the more you know/ The more you know, the smarter you grow/ The smarter you grow, the louder your voice/ When speaking your mind or making your choice."
Reading helps all of us comprehend the world around us better and engage really deeply with the decisions we make every day, and that's how we all truly change the world.
So go out there and engage deeply with your reading! And don't forget to tell your friends about my books while you're at it. Happy reading!
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to talk to you about why everyone should be reading more books.
[Montage]
Books are the best way I know to travel through time and space. Books will take you vast distances and expand your worldview.
Film and video are limited to showing you the world as a flat picture, but the descriptions in books engage all your senses and put you right in the middle of the action.
Not only do books take you on adventures, but they make you think and consider important things and engage deeply with information in ways that hyperbolic internet articles never can. The internet world is all about snappy headlines and superlatives, and black and white thinking that promotes short attention spans. There have been a lot of really interesting studies in neuroscience and information acquisition that have shown that the human brain actually engages differently with information seen online than it does with information in physical books. Not only do these two different behaviors actually engage different parts of the brain, but studies have also shown that when someone reads something on a screen the tendency is to just scan the material and grab out key words, whereas with a physical book people are more likely to read the material carefully and actually consider it in-depth.
At the same time, another thing to consider is that we are a social species, and nothing is as contagious as example. Every time someone sees someone else reading a physical book, that very act is an advertisement for that particular book and therefore a way to help the author of that book earn a living in a field where that can be really challenging. On the other hand, when someone sees someone else spending their free time on a digital device, it's an advertisement for the corporation that made that device.
Books lead to other books. At the end of each of my Tales of Chetzemoka, I include appendices that list sources of information that led to that particular book. The reason I take the trouble to include these is that I always hope that my readers will use them as reading lists go off and learn more about the topics covered in the story. You can use the bibliographies of non-fiction books in a similar way, and in fact that's how I find a lot of my sources. Even if a book doesn't spoon-feed you a reading list in this way, you can still open doors of new research through it. Just keep a list of names, dates, and events that the book introduced you to, and you'll be all set to go exploring.
I keep an ever-growing set of notebooks where I write down things I've gleaned from my antique books: things the books have taught me, concepts they've brought up, ideas I want to research more fully, and good quotes that have spoken to me in some way. When I read re-printed or new books, I'll often jot down my notes right on the pages, and this marginalia sort of becomes a private conversation with the author.
It's useful to keep your personal library organized in such a way that you can always find a given book when you want to refer to it. This will make things a lot easier on you when you want to cross-check or refer back to something you've already read, and when it's easier you'll do it more and more often until it becomes second nature. Your organization scheme doesn't have to make sense to anyone else; as long it makes sense to you and you can find what you need when you need them, that's what matters. Personally, I arrange my books by subject because that's what's most convenient for me.
When I was young there was a poster on the wall of our local library that had a poem I'll never forget. It went: "The more you read, the more you know/ The more you know, the smarter you grow/ The smarter you grow, the louder your voice/ When speaking your mind or making your choice."
Reading helps all of us comprehend the world around us better and engage really deeply with the decisions we make every day, and that's how we all truly change the world.
So go out there and engage deeply with your reading! And don't forget to tell your friends about my books while you're at it. Happy reading!
Where to read (Victorian transforming sofa)
[Music]
Meringued Coffee Victorian recipe
Transcription of audio from the video:
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to show you how to make the meringued coffee recipe from 1899 that appears at the back of Three Women Awheel.
[Montage]
As fans of my books, I'm sure you've noticed that at the end of each one there are appendixes that give you further information. These mostly serve the same function that a bibliography would in a non-fiction book, and they also have recipes as well for the foods that the characters are eating in the stories. These recipes all come from our 19th-century cookbooks. Today I'm going to show you one that appears at the end of Three Women Awheel, and that originally appeared in the 1899 cookbook, The Queen of the Household. It's for meringued coffee, otherwise known as coffee with whipped cream. One of my favorites, and Addie's favorites, too.
A useful trick for any hot beverages that I learned when I lived in Japan is to heat up the cup before pouring in the hot drink. All you have to do is pour hot water in your cup and set it aside while you prepare the main attraction. This keeps the cup from chilling your coffee, tea or cocoa, so things stay warm longer.
The recipe for meringued coffee is pretty simple:
For 6 cups of coffee of fair size, take 1 cup sweet cream whipped light with a little sugar. Put into each cup the desired amount of sugar and about 1 tablespoon boiling milk; pour the coffee over these and lay upon the surface of the hot liquid a large spoon of the frothed cream, giving a gentle stir to each cup before serving.
I don't think I've ever met any two people who could reach a consensus on the right way to make coffee, and it's a topic on which there have always been a lot of very strong opinions. In the appendixes of the Tales of Chetzemoka you'll see a lot of different coffee recipes from the 19th-century. I put them in there to show you that people were just as opinionated on the subject in the Victorian era as they are now. Personally, the way I make my coffee in the morning is to grind 2 heaping tablespoonfuls of coffee beans, add a little less than a pint of cold water, heat it until it makes a really quiet little "shhh…" noise, then turn the heat off and let the grounds settle for two or three minutes before I pour it out.
When the recipe calls for boiling milk, it doesn't mean a full rolling boil like you would bring water to to boil pasta or something, it just means warm. You want it warm enough that you can kind of tap the bottom of the pan with your hand but you don't want to just stick your whole hand on there. It's gonna taste burned if you outright boil it: you just want to warm it.
There are a few different options for whipping the cream. Personally, I'm really fond of my rotary egg beater. It's a nifty little machine; it's very simple, it's very quick. Not everyone has one of these —although if you don't, you should 'cause they're really cool and useful. Nearly everyone has a wire whisk, although not everyone knows how to whip cream with one. If you do, great! You can skip this part. But just in case you haven't seen how, I'm going to show you this. Because if you've got one of these [rotary beater] I can pretty much guarantee you know how to use it.
With a wire whisk we're not going to do this motion. It's going to be this motion. It's a lot quicker this way. You can do it this way, but you will grow old and gray whipping your cream. Also, the type of cream really makes a difference. In America, cream is usually sold as either light cream or heavy cream. Light cream is really for soups. The heavy cream is the one you want to use for whipping for desserts. You can use either one for custards: I find the heavy cream works better. And even amongst heavy creams, not all heavy creams are created equal because the most expensive part of the cream is the butterfat and so some of the cheaper brands will skim off more butterfat so they can sell that as butter because they make more money that way. Even if the numbers are the same on the different brands, the companies that produce them play around with their numbers a little. So if you try different brands of heavy cream you'll notice a difference in how they whip up, and it's because of how much butterfat they have. You want a higher butterfat content for a nice, heavy whipping cream. And it has to be really cold. It's best if you chill the bowl as well: I put mine in my ice box before this.
Absolutely requisite part of this operation: when you're done beating the cream, lick the beater. That's not optional, you have to do that.
When you've got everything ready, toss the hot water out of your cup, which should be good and warm by now.
For sugar, you've got two different options. You can use granulated sugar or sugar cubes. When I've got company I use sugar cubes so they won't dribble sugar all over my table. When it's just me I use granulated sugar because I'm careful with it.
And then it's just a matter of adding your coffee, milk and whipped cream.
So there I have my meringued coffee, just like Addie's. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, give it a nice thumbs up, please, and remember to tell your friends about my books! Happy reading!
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to show you how to make the meringued coffee recipe from 1899 that appears at the back of Three Women Awheel.
[Montage]
As fans of my books, I'm sure you've noticed that at the end of each one there are appendixes that give you further information. These mostly serve the same function that a bibliography would in a non-fiction book, and they also have recipes as well for the foods that the characters are eating in the stories. These recipes all come from our 19th-century cookbooks. Today I'm going to show you one that appears at the end of Three Women Awheel, and that originally appeared in the 1899 cookbook, The Queen of the Household. It's for meringued coffee, otherwise known as coffee with whipped cream. One of my favorites, and Addie's favorites, too.
A useful trick for any hot beverages that I learned when I lived in Japan is to heat up the cup before pouring in the hot drink. All you have to do is pour hot water in your cup and set it aside while you prepare the main attraction. This keeps the cup from chilling your coffee, tea or cocoa, so things stay warm longer.
The recipe for meringued coffee is pretty simple:
For 6 cups of coffee of fair size, take 1 cup sweet cream whipped light with a little sugar. Put into each cup the desired amount of sugar and about 1 tablespoon boiling milk; pour the coffee over these and lay upon the surface of the hot liquid a large spoon of the frothed cream, giving a gentle stir to each cup before serving.
I don't think I've ever met any two people who could reach a consensus on the right way to make coffee, and it's a topic on which there have always been a lot of very strong opinions. In the appendixes of the Tales of Chetzemoka you'll see a lot of different coffee recipes from the 19th-century. I put them in there to show you that people were just as opinionated on the subject in the Victorian era as they are now. Personally, the way I make my coffee in the morning is to grind 2 heaping tablespoonfuls of coffee beans, add a little less than a pint of cold water, heat it until it makes a really quiet little "shhh…" noise, then turn the heat off and let the grounds settle for two or three minutes before I pour it out.
When the recipe calls for boiling milk, it doesn't mean a full rolling boil like you would bring water to to boil pasta or something, it just means warm. You want it warm enough that you can kind of tap the bottom of the pan with your hand but you don't want to just stick your whole hand on there. It's gonna taste burned if you outright boil it: you just want to warm it.
There are a few different options for whipping the cream. Personally, I'm really fond of my rotary egg beater. It's a nifty little machine; it's very simple, it's very quick. Not everyone has one of these —although if you don't, you should 'cause they're really cool and useful. Nearly everyone has a wire whisk, although not everyone knows how to whip cream with one. If you do, great! You can skip this part. But just in case you haven't seen how, I'm going to show you this. Because if you've got one of these [rotary beater] I can pretty much guarantee you know how to use it.
With a wire whisk we're not going to do this motion. It's going to be this motion. It's a lot quicker this way. You can do it this way, but you will grow old and gray whipping your cream. Also, the type of cream really makes a difference. In America, cream is usually sold as either light cream or heavy cream. Light cream is really for soups. The heavy cream is the one you want to use for whipping for desserts. You can use either one for custards: I find the heavy cream works better. And even amongst heavy creams, not all heavy creams are created equal because the most expensive part of the cream is the butterfat and so some of the cheaper brands will skim off more butterfat so they can sell that as butter because they make more money that way. Even if the numbers are the same on the different brands, the companies that produce them play around with their numbers a little. So if you try different brands of heavy cream you'll notice a difference in how they whip up, and it's because of how much butterfat they have. You want a higher butterfat content for a nice, heavy whipping cream. And it has to be really cold. It's best if you chill the bowl as well: I put mine in my ice box before this.
Absolutely requisite part of this operation: when you're done beating the cream, lick the beater. That's not optional, you have to do that.
When you've got everything ready, toss the hot water out of your cup, which should be good and warm by now.
For sugar, you've got two different options. You can use granulated sugar or sugar cubes. When I've got company I use sugar cubes so they won't dribble sugar all over my table. When it's just me I use granulated sugar because I'm careful with it.
And then it's just a matter of adding your coffee, milk and whipped cream.
So there I have my meringued coffee, just like Addie's. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, give it a nice thumbs up, please, and remember to tell your friends about my books! Happy reading!
Chetzemoka Friends
Transcription of audio from the video:
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to tell you about my Chetzemoka friends and where they come from.
The characters in my stories are very special to me and I work really hard to get them just right. I generally start with a rough idea of a character type that suits a particular story. For example, for First Wheel in Town, I knew I wanted a character who was a doctor because doctors deal with a wide range of very different people within a community, so it would give the readers a chance to get a broad overview of the culture. And I knew I wanted a dressmaker because that was important to the story I wanted to tell.
Some general types of characters get dictated by the nature of the place or by the overall story arc of the series. The town of Chetzemoka is essentially Port Townsend in the late 19th-century, and the fact that it's a port town is a crucial aspect of the sense of place here, so it was essential that a number of the characters be involved with shipping in some way or other. They're either ship's captains like Isaac, and like Ken and Addie's pa Captain Kellam, or they're otherwise involved in the maritime trade, like Ken who works in a shipping office, and David Goldstein who's a marine engineer.
Once I have a general idea of the type of character I want someone to be, then I'll look through hundreds and sometimes thousands of antique photographs until I find the one that just feels right for that character. It's always a somewhat magical instant when, after looking through pictures for hours or days, I finally find one that just stops me in my tracks and makes me say, "Oh, that's Felix!" or "Oh, that's Silas, alright."
Most of these photos are anonymous, but a really interesting exception is the one of Jacob and Addie. That one was really unusual in that I already had the photo before I even started roughing out the characters. I'd originally gotten hold of it for a different project, and when I started drafting the manuscript for Love Will Find A Wheel I remembered this picture that we already had in our archive that seemed like it would really suit the couple I was writing. I needed names for them, and it just so happened that one of our antique advice manuals has a whole list of common first names for men and women. From the women's name list I picked out the name Adora, which struck me as a pretty appropriate name for the sort of romantic heroine that I wanted Addie to be. After I'd already made that decision, I took the photo that I'd had in mind for the chracters out of the scrapbook where I'd been keeping it so that I could put it in a picture frame in my den and look at it while I wrote. I'd completely forgotten that there were any names on the picture, but when I turned it over I saw some —and it was really cool to see the name "Addie" belonging to a character I'd independently decided to name Adora. Just one of those magical moments that emerge.
—And sometimes they introduce plot elements as well. In the fifth Tale of Chetzemoka, A Trip and a Tumble, the character of Theresa Delaroux was particularly difficult to find a picture for. The two major inspirations for Theresa were a description in a 19th-century travel journal of an extremely posh woman of aboriginal descent, and Jennie Churchill, who was rumored to be part Cherokee. [CORRECTION: Jennie Churchill was rumored to be part Iroquois.] Theresa gets her vivacious, over-the-top personality from Jennie, who's one of my personal heroes, and some of her lines and the way people describe her are cribbed directly from Jennie's memoirs, so I needed to find a picture who didn't necessarily look just like Jennie, but who did remind me of her in some way. And, because the whole story was inspired by an account of a classy aboriginal woman, I needed someone who looked that part as well. When I finally found her, she turned out to be wearing a very large silver brooch. It was such a prominent element of the picture that I felt I really had to work it into the story, and when I was writing the character of Theresa's sweetheart Peter Swift, who's a circus performer, I saw descriptions time and time again about how common it was at that period for circus performers to have good luck charms. To find out how and why Peter gave his good luck charm to Theresa, you'll have to read the book!
I'm not above cribbing from my own diaries as well. I've been keeping a personal diary on and off since I first learned to write as a child, and for a number of years now it's been very consistently every day. That gives me a lot of material to work with, and also the changing perspective of a young girl, a maiden, and a mature woman —so I can look back on my old diary entries and get different perspectives for different characters at different ages. There are two things all my friends and family know about me by now: you can't stop a writer from writing, and for a writer everything is material.
So now you've met all the folks in Chetzemoka! I hope you liked this video: if you did, give a nice "thumbs up", and don't forget to tell your friends about all my books. Happy reading!
Victorian high wheel tricycle from "Three Women Awheel", Book 6 in the Tales of Chetzemoka
Transcription of audio from the video:
Welcome, readers. I'm Sarah Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka series which you can find on Amazon, and I've been interviewed by a lot of reporters who will promise one thing to get me to do an interview and then they'll completely twist everything I said to them or otherwise misrepresent things in order to suit their own agendas or sell whatever they happen to be selling, and I'm really tired of it. So I decided to put together this series of videos in order to get some truths out there and to share some things with you that I really want to share with you. And one of the really important things to know about me is that I'm a writer. It's what I've always wanted to do since I was a very little girl, and so a lot of these videos are going to be delving into my stories and all the work that goes into my stories, and all the fun history. So I hope that you'll enjoy these videos and that you'll share them with your friends. And let's all have some fun together!
[Montage]
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to be showing you my tricycle, which is the same model of tricycle that Ethel has in Three Women Awheel, my latest book.
This is a Coventry rotary roadster tricycle, which those of you who have been reading the books will know is the company that Jacob represents in the stories. It's a two track tricycle, which is different from the ones that Addie and Lizzie have: theirs are three track. On a three track [trike] you have to keep track of three different places in the road, and if you hit a bump on any one of them or a hole on any one of them, which frequently happened because the roads were terrible back then, then you're in trouble. On a two track tricycle you only have two lines to worry about, so it's a little simpler. Also, because it only has one big driving wheel it saves a lot of weight versus the three track ones.
I've taken you out here to a place where I was watching wild owls back when I was writing the story. I think they're asleep right now so we can't expect to see them, but they're there somewhere. Just know they're sleeping.
The steering on the rotary roadster is done by this little handle here, and it controls these two small wheels. Those are the steering wheels. This big wheel is just for driving the machine. It is a fixed gear, so any time this big wheel is in motion, the pedals are in motion. And then this right here is the brake. It levers against a leather band that goes around the hub of the wheel, and that brakes when you go down a hill or get going too fast. And then, already in the 1880s they were using a chain drive technology on this tricycle. The bicycles didn't have it yet, but the ladies' trikes did. And these right here are the coasting pegs: for when you get going fast, you can just put your feet up, and sit back and relax. But not relax too much, or it will get away with you!
[Music]
So there you have it! My Coventry rotary roadster, just like Ethel's in the book. I hope you'll enjoy the story. I hope you liked this video: if you did, give it a nice thumbs up, please, and be sure and tell your friends about my books! Happy reading!
Welcome, readers. I'm Sarah Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka series which you can find on Amazon, and I've been interviewed by a lot of reporters who will promise one thing to get me to do an interview and then they'll completely twist everything I said to them or otherwise misrepresent things in order to suit their own agendas or sell whatever they happen to be selling, and I'm really tired of it. So I decided to put together this series of videos in order to get some truths out there and to share some things with you that I really want to share with you. And one of the really important things to know about me is that I'm a writer. It's what I've always wanted to do since I was a very little girl, and so a lot of these videos are going to be delving into my stories and all the work that goes into my stories, and all the fun history. So I hope that you'll enjoy these videos and that you'll share them with your friends. And let's all have some fun together!
[Montage]
Hey, there! I'm Sarah A. Chrisman, the author of the Tales of Chetzemoka, and today I'm going to be showing you my tricycle, which is the same model of tricycle that Ethel has in Three Women Awheel, my latest book.
This is a Coventry rotary roadster tricycle, which those of you who have been reading the books will know is the company that Jacob represents in the stories. It's a two track tricycle, which is different from the ones that Addie and Lizzie have: theirs are three track. On a three track [trike] you have to keep track of three different places in the road, and if you hit a bump on any one of them or a hole on any one of them, which frequently happened because the roads were terrible back then, then you're in trouble. On a two track tricycle you only have two lines to worry about, so it's a little simpler. Also, because it only has one big driving wheel it saves a lot of weight versus the three track ones.
I've taken you out here to a place where I was watching wild owls back when I was writing the story. I think they're asleep right now so we can't expect to see them, but they're there somewhere. Just know they're sleeping.
The steering on the rotary roadster is done by this little handle here, and it controls these two small wheels. Those are the steering wheels. This big wheel is just for driving the machine. It is a fixed gear, so any time this big wheel is in motion, the pedals are in motion. And then this right here is the brake. It levers against a leather band that goes around the hub of the wheel, and that brakes when you go down a hill or get going too fast. And then, already in the 1880s they were using a chain drive technology on this tricycle. The bicycles didn't have it yet, but the ladies' trikes did. And these right here are the coasting pegs: for when you get going fast, you can just put your feet up, and sit back and relax. But not relax too much, or it will get away with you!
[Music]
So there you have it! My Coventry rotary roadster, just like Ethel's in the book. I hope you'll enjoy the story. I hope you liked this video: if you did, give it a nice thumbs up, please, and be sure and tell your friends about my books! Happy reading!
***