beatrix potter

happy birthday beatrix, or, cornelius learns a lesson

~ jama ~ 24 Comments

 

Today is Beatrix Potter’s 143rd birthday!!

I’m a huge fan and sucker for anything Beatrix related — books, china and pottery, apparel, figurines, stuffed animals, stickers, stationery, you name it. I’m so obsessed that I even named our dining room after one of my fave BP books. While other normal people decorate their dining rooms with sophisticated window treatments and/or floral centerpieces, ours boasts “Roly Poly Pudding” in blue and green stand up letters.

I can’t help it, really. Just seeing those three words makes me deeply happy. They’re adorable, delicious, so very British. And if any of our dinner guests misbehave, we can always roll them up in a pudding (mmwwwaahahahahaha)!


The Roly-Poly Pudding was the original name for this tale, first published in 1908. It’s all about the time Tom Kitten finds himself confronted under the attic floorboards by two very large rats, Samuel Whiskers and his wife, Anna Maria. They decide to butter him up and roll him in dough to make a delicious pudding. Roly poly, roly poly! The character of Samuel was based on Beatrix’s own fancy rat, Sammy, whom she describes as “the intelligent pink-eyed representative of a persecuted (but irrepressible) race and affectionate little friend, and most accomplished thief.” Irrepressible indeed, as he somehow got the book renamed in 1926. Typical rat.


Cornelius (licking his chops) convinces Kitty to re-enact the famous rolling scene.

Have you ever eaten a roly-poly pudding? It’s commonly known as Jam Roly-Poly, a simple dessert consisting of jam spread over dough, which is rolled up and baked. Celebrate Miss Potter’s birthday by making your own Jam Roly-Poly (recipe here). 


 photo by Chico68.

For the full effect, drown it in warm custard.


photo by Sandy49.

The animated version of The Tale of Samuel Whiskers can be found in three parts on YouTube (adorable, adorable). I’ve embedded the best part, where Tom gets rolled in the dough. If you prefer to watch it from the beginning, click here.

Happy Birthday, Beatrix!


Mosaic by lillipops.

Uh-oh.


Kitty gets the last roll!

 

                                      ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

of bonnets and bunnies, carrots and cake

~ jama ~ 32 Comments

Warning: The following post contains photos of unbearably adorable rabbits capable of blatant emotional manipulation.

Emma, Madeline, Nancy Jane, Nettie, Eloise, and Sylvia don their bonnets and bows for Easter tea.

Well, it’s happening again.

My ears are growing, and my nose is twitching. That can only mean one thing.

Continue reading →

thought for the week

~ jama ~ 8 Comments
from THE TAILOR OF GLOUCESTER by Beatrix Potter (Frederick Warne & Co., Inc., 1903)


“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”

~  Beatrix Potter (July 28, 1866 – December 22, 1943)

**BONUS RECIPE in honor of Miss Potter’s birthday:

FIERCE BAD RABBIT’S CARROT-RAISIN SALAD
(serves 4)

2 carrots
2 apples
1 rib of celery
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup mayonnaise, sour cream, or yogurt
1/4 cup chopped nuts, optional
lettuce leaves

Wash the carrots and scrape with a vegetable peeler. Place a metal grater on a piece of wax paper and grate the carrots, using the large ice-cream-cone-shaped openings of the grater. Put the grated carrots in the mixing bowl.

Wash the apples, but do not peel them. Cut them in half and then in quarters. Cut out the core, and cut the apples into small pieces.

Wash the celery and chop it. Add the celery, apples, and raisins to the carrots. Sprinkle with salt and lemon juice. Stir in mayonnaise, sour cream, or yogurt.

Serve the salad on lettuce leaves and sprinkle with nuts if you like them.

~adapted from Peter Rabbit’s Natural Foods Cookbook by Arnold Dobrin (Frederick Warne & Co., 1977).


tea with miss potter

~ jama ~ 16 Comments

“I do not remember a time when I did not try to invent pictures and make for myself a fairyland amongst the wild flowers, the animals, fungi, mosses, woods and streams, all the thousand objects of the countryside.” ~ Beatrix Potter

Good morning!

Here’s a bracing cup of English Breakfast tea and a warm blueberry muffin to start your day!

The light, misty rain we’ve been getting recently reminds me of England. While sipping my tea, I remembered visiting Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top Farm located in Near Sawrey, in the Lake District. To get there, we drove through rolling farmland and wooded hillsides, everything so green, with stone houses nestled around every turn.

Potter at Hill Top (1913)

I might have read Peter Rabbit as a child, but only came to know the rest of Potter’s work as an adult. Making the pilgrimmage to Hill Top, which Potter purchased with money earned from her first few books, was my inner child’s dream come true. This was where Jemima Puddleduck, Tom Kitten, and Samuel Whiskers were born, and where Potter began to reclaim her life after her fiance, Norman Warne, died suddenly of leukemia.

More Beatrix, with poems, references and a recipe!