You must watch this (Story Town performance)

Waking Beauty Performance at Story Town 2008

Some more of the best of libraries!

I just watched this video of PCPL staff dramatizing the picture book Waking Beauty by Leah Wilcox from last weekend's Story Town, and I'm still chuckling!

The Waking Beauty Players:
Sleeping Beauty: Deanna (South Tucson Library)
Prince Charming: Aaron (El Pueblo Library)
Fairies: Thania (Valencia Library), Maya (Santa Rosa Library), and Fabiana
Narrator: Lupita (Mission Library)
Filmed by Steve Shull

Please do yourself a favor and watch this. You will have a good feeling inside all day.

P.S. The wind noise dies down fairly quickly.

Reed and Ruby on YouTube!

Okay, so this isn't library-related, but my nephew Reed starred in a movie on YouTube! His dad Brick and his sister Ruby also have roles. I love how perfect his timing is when he says "I'm the boss." Oh, and there's a funny outtake after the credits.

Great job, dooood!

Smells like Christmas

My house finally smells like Christmas. Really smells of Christmas. Am I baking cookies? Not yet. I am making an elk weinbraten with my grandmother's recipe. Actually, my Aunt Norma's recipe. Norma had the foresight to shadow grandmother as she cooked and note the measurements and tricks grandma used; otherwise her cookery would be lost, because she used neither recipes nor measuring cups.

Weinbraten is essentially a piece of meat that you braise in an aromatic bath of wine, onions, bacon, pickling spices (cinnamon, cloves, mustard, bay leaf, etc.), brown sugar and wine vinegar. For hours. Did I tell you how wonderful my house smells?

Grandma learned to cook from her mother who had worked as a cook for some nobleman before she was married, so her recipes are also a true piece of German history. Here is how to make your own house smell like a German Christmas:

Auntie Norma's Weinbraten

1 silvertip beef (sirloin tip roast) or rump roast, washed & patted dry and then larded with hickory-smoked bacon
2 onions, sliced
2 Tbsp. dark brown sugar

1. Pour some oil in a pot and cut 3 slices of bacon into parts and fry.

2. Put in the meat and brown on all sides.

3. Slice in two onions and cook over med. high heat.

4. Make sure meat is browned on all sides and remove from pot.

5. Lower heat to med. and add brown sugar and stir with the onions till the sugar caramelizes.

Add:
½ bottle of dry white wine
1 c. wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. whole juniper berries
salt to taste
1 Tbsp. Pickling spices, making sure it includes bayleaf
Browned silvertip beef

1. Cook SLOWLY -- 3 hours on low heat on top of stove.

2. Taste and add 1 beef bouillon cube.

3. Keep adding wine as you go and before the roast is finished you should have used the whole bottle (not in you -- but in the pot).

4. Refrigerate for 2 days.

5. On the day of serving, put the braten in the oven -- covered -- at 275° or lower and cook slowly for 2 hours. If liquid is lost, add more wine.

6. Take the meat out and thicken the gravy with flour or cornstarch. Add 2 Tbsp. currant jelly for flavor.

Serve with potato dumplings, and red cabbage or weinkraut. Use the same wine as was used in the cooking.

Bake some Christmas cookies today!

I just got a note from one of my sister's old school friends who had stumbled upon the website I created 4 years ago to collect our family's recipes. She said it made her "go back in time to your wonderfully cozy, wonderful-smelling, family kitchen." Cool.

So, in case you need a tried and true recipe for a yummy Christmas cookie, here is one of my family's favorites...

Cinnamon Nut Diamonds

Sift and reserve:
2 c. sifted all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon

Blend in a large bowl 'til light and fluffy:
½ lb. softened butter (2 sticks or 1 c.)
1 c. light brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. ground walnuts or pecans
1 egg yolk

1) Add the butter to the flour mixture and mix well.
2) Spread onto greased 15x10x1" pan.
3) Brush with 1 egg, slightly beaten (just egg white is OK too).
4) Sprinkle with nuts and push into the dough.
5) Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes (30-35 min. at sea level) until deep brown; do not undercook.
6) Cut into 2" diamonds, cool.

NOTE: A pizza wheel makes a handy cutter. These cookies are very brittle, but they hold together better the longer you bake them.

Google launches new search engine for Patents

Google has created their own search for patents and it is much easier to use than the USPTO version.

Have you ever looked at a patent? I find the diagrams on the old ones to be quite beautiful. I went looking for patents from my grandfather Honorino Pereira but no luck. On the other hand, my great-great grandfather Samuel L. Rockfellow witnessed 2 of them. Here is one.

Happy birthday, Allan!

My little bro turns 40 today! Happy birthday Allan!

Delightful new photo in family gallery

My aunt Margie sent me a delightful photo of my great-grandfather that I had never seen before. He is dressed up and equipped just as he was in 1879 for his prospecting surveys across Arizona! His comments, written to my uncle on the back, are quite droll:
"Three old prospectors in the Tombstone celebration of October 1929.

At left, Mr. Reeves, Center your grandfather, whiskers and all.

The burros are packed just as he traveled on a four hundred (400) mile trip fifty years ago. The rifle he carries is a Sharps 45-70" purchased in 1879 and a splendid shooter yet it has been used on nearly everything that walks in Arizona except human beings. Come out sometime and try it."

If you want to view the photo in more detail it is on my flickr account. Click on "all sizes."

Cochise County weekend

We just got back from a long weekend in Cochise County. Sunday we made sort of a pilgrimage to places my grandmother's family frequented when they lived in the Stronghold and Tombstone: Cochise Hotel, NY Ranch, and Dragoon. We also visited great grandpa's grave in Willcox. We stayed at the Triangle T Guest Ranch, a mixed success because the new owners are still ironing the bugs out.

The Cochise Hotel was a lovely surprise because it is in such good shape. They still take guests and serve dinner. Their website shows the interiors and we have vowed to stay there. I was impressed that unlike other "frontier" hotels there doesn't seem to be a speck of pretension or polyester lace.

Then today we decided to see someplace new so we went to the Muleshoe Wilderness area in the Galiuros (north of Willcox). It was beautiful place with strong contrasts: moonscapes with just volcanic rocks and yucca to the lush, verdant canyon floor. In a few minutes we went from bosque was so thick you couldn't see into it in places -- to endless grasslands. Six springs run year-round at the Muleshoe so it is a miracle of a microclimate in the middle of the desert. We saw whitetail and mule deer and countless birds. The caretaker at the Nature Conservancy center told me that there were no non-native animals: 4 types of unique fish, leopard frogs, bear, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, coatimundi, foxes, and birds, birds, birds.

Trip photos!

Jackpot

Well, we found a typewritten manuscript today for Log of an Arizona Trail Blazer with John Rockfellow's own editing marks on it, so we're in business! We also found a map that he made marking all the places that were important to him, and folder after folder of typewritten anecdotes. Most of them are in the book, but some are new! I will start scanning and indexing the book tonight.

And I found a small quail nest with 5 eggs this morning in one of my rose pots. Keep them safe, Mrs. Quail!

"Brainstorm Trust"

I uploaded a lot more family photos and ephemera today, including some political doggerel (c. 1934) I found when we were going through papers at my grandparents' house in 1976. Grandpa was a staunch Republican so most of it is devoted to skewering F.D.R. There are also some really sweet pictures of my dad as a kid.

Log of an Arizona Trailblazer

I have my great grandfather's book, Log of an Arizona Trailblazer, on my mind a lot lately. A year ago we discovered that the original homestead for his NY Ranch was still standing.

We recently got permission from the land owners to try to protect the building, so now the fundraising starts.

This week Jonetta and I will start our research for a critical edition of the book. We plan to meet at the Arizona Historical Society's library to see if we can find the original manuscript. Its a treasure hunt with white gloves on!

Website for the Rockfellow family and the NY Ranch