Tea at Trianon: "Gingerbread NYC" at the Museum of the City

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, December 17, 2022

"Gingerbread NYC" at the Museum of the City

From Artnet:

No matter what holiday traditions you keep, the Museum of the City of New York in East Harlem has assembled a show of crowd-sourced gingerbread houses to unite Big Apple residents around sweet treats, a baking competition, and the five boroughs themselves.
“Gingerbread NYC” opened November 11 and remains on view through January 8, 2023, presenting seven winners of a citywide “Winter in New York” themed bake-off. The idea took shape this summer and kicked off in the fall, when the museum launched its open call. Professional and amateur bakers across New York applied for a chance to compete. Six judges, including Magnolia Bakery CEO Bobbie Lloyd and restaurateur Melba Wilson, awarded two competitors from each borough $500 to recreate sites in their neighborhoods in gingerbread.
From there, the judges picked winners in seven categories: Best Overall, Good Enough to Eat, Best Borough (Most Representative), Most Intricate, Sweetest, Grandest, Only in New York, and Most Resilient. All decorations had to be edible, and 75 percent of all structures had to be gingerbread.

John Kuehn, an architect who transitioned into food blogging during the pandemic, drafted blueprints for his first-ever gingerbread house using AutoCAD software. He rigorously tested dough samples to determine the strongest structural recipe, which skips butter for molasses and spices to enhance both sturdiness and smell. Kuehn spent 160 hours assembling Madison Square Park, the Flatiron building, and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower from individual gingerbread bricks. His efforts won Grandest in the competition. (Read more.)