Pteridomania

I guess people do have in common at least a slight inclination towards collecting different artifacts. Then I am among the ones who have stronger tendency for collecting. Which makes me happy is not the possession of different items, but the ways they can be arranged in logical categories. From that point of view I could  find ferns interesting items.But I was still surprised to hear about pteridomania, a fern collecting craze in Victorian England. People got crazy collecting different ferns to that extent that some of the ferns got almost extinct! Honestly, I can’t blame them, arranging those photos I’ve almost started collecting ferns!

Pteridomania, meaning Fern Madness or Fern Craze, a compound of Pteridophytes andmania, was coined in 1855 by Charles Kingsley in his book Glaucus, or the Wonders of the Shore:  Your daughters, perhaps, have been seized with the prevailing ‘Pteridomania’…and wrangling over unpronounceable names of species (which seem different in each new Fern-book that they buy)…and yet you cannot deny that they find enjoyment in it, and are more active, more cheerful, more self-forgetful over it, than they would have been over novels and gossip, crochet and Berlin-wool.^[1]                           

 ^{from:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pteridomania}

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.Henri Matisse

photography: Tamara Jare

I bought this little broken porcelain plate at the flea market some time ago. It was not an act of conquering a treasure, it was more a feeling that this small piece has to be saved and protected. I still keep it. For  each time I look at it I ask myself, is it so dear to me because of pretty hand painted flowers , or for the fact that someone glued it together so carefully to overcome destiny. But in fact it reminds me, each time again, that it is worth it. It is worth to plant a flower,  it is worth to make a bouquet, it is worth to paint a plate, it is worth to glue broken pieces together. Because you newer know when someone would come by and say: look at these pretty flowers, they are worth it!

P.s.: to see flowers in my painting, please visit my site 🙂

Flower Shop in Bologna

photo: Tamara Jare

When traveling I always try to find flower shops and flower stands to take a photo. It is wonderful to see how people from different countries put flowers on display, the places where you can buy flowers, what do the bouquets look like, how much do they cost? In Oslo a bunch of us,colleagues bought together a tulip bouquet for our friend that invited us home,it was so expensive. In Napoli I remember a young boy proudly delivering a huge bouquet from the flower shop somewhere in the neighborhood, he was happy just holding it. In Trieste you can find cyclamen in each flower shop and Salzburg has wonderful flower stalls at its Grunmarkt. Wandering Milan at night a gypsy boy would came by to sell you some roses, red as love. In Valencia I saw the most colorful bouquets .But wherever it is , it is always the same, flowers bring joy, sometimes looks like even the seller himself is happy offering such an abundance of colors. And I always try to capture at least a bit of this joy to bring home with me and it was just the same with this flower shop in Bologna,  pictured above. Wouldn’t you be happy to have one of those bouquets, at least in the photo?

Theophrastus named Dianthus as divine (dios) flower (anthos)

Dianthus, photography by Tamara Jare

Roses from my writing table

Roses from my writing table, photo : Tamara Jare

Pine cones jam

A dear friend from Ukraine has gifted me a glass of pine cones jam. I’ve never before thought pine cones actually are edible! To my big surprise the cones in jam have exquisite taste, a combination of caramel and pine tar aroma. And not to mention the small pines, they are actually soft and tasty!

The recipe is not very complicated, either.

Pine cones have to be harvested in may, by the time they are still small, green and soft.

Wash the cones carefully. For 0.5 kilo of cones use 0.5 kilo of sugar, put them both in pan and boil. When jam boils reduce the temperature to cool down. Repeat three to four times, by the time color of cones changes from light green to dark caramel or crimson color and the consistency of syrup resembles honey. Put in sterile jars and close still hot. Adding some vanilla, cinnamon or honey will change the taste. A kind advice: do use the stainless pan, as cones are rich of tar and might ruin enamel pans 😉

Now you can enjoy in wonderful taste of pine needles and tar in caramel like syrup! Even more as the treat is said to be quiet healthy, good against cold, flu, asthma and more.

Bon appetit!

P.s.:

I’ve painted a small pine tree bonsai, have a look here

Oranges in winter morning

Oranges at the food market, photo: Tamara Jare

Gros Noir d’Hiver and Young Woman At A Window Pealing Radishes

Gros Noir d’Hiver  is another name for winter radish. Can you imagine that  among the hobbies of nobleman at the French court was breeding ? And even more weird, the plant they were interested in was a simple winter radish they named many aristocratic names? French revolution of course didn’t have inclination for such frivolities and so  we can eat only simple winter radish now. Which relates us  to the Egiptian workmen  on pyramids, in a sense, as radishes were their food, too. Herodotus wrote about it ,leaving the question how similar to the slaves are we today up to us……

Citation: Many noblemen in the French court bred different varieties, so many types of radishes had aristocratic names. In the fallout of the French Revolution these names were dropped, causing even more confusion when trying to trace how certain modern radishes are related to the older ones. from: http://academics.hamilton.edu/foodforthought/Our_Research_files/radishes.pdf

On the pyramid it is declared in Egyptian writing how much was spent on radishes and onions and leeks for the workmen, and if I rightly remember that which the interpreter said in reading to me this inscription, a sum of one thousand six hundred talents of silver was spent; and if this is so, how much besides is likely to have been expended upon the iron with which they worked, and upon bread and clothing for the workmen, seeing that they were building the works for the time which has been mentioned and were occupied for no small time besides, as I suppose, in the cutting and bringing of the stones and in working at the excavation under the ground?
Read more: http://www.touregypt.net/herodotuskhufu.htm#ixzz2srfzyWaZ

Young Woman At A Window Pealing Radishes, by:   Jacobus Johannes Lauwers , from: http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_377064/Jacobus-Johannes-Lauwers/page-1

Patio at Museo Archeologico Nationale, Naples

Patio at Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy, photography Tamara Jare

Happy 2020

Wishing you a happy 2020!!!!

Happy 2020 Winter forest Tamara Jare oil painting