Tudor Games and Pastimes at the Mary Rose Museum

Mary Rose Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Portsmouth

Run by: Mary Rose Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

On the corner of East Canon Perdido and Santa Barbara Street, community members and passersby were transported back two centuries to an era of Spanish colonialism during the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation’s first ever Presidio Pastimes by Candlelightevent.

Through living history scenes and live performances, over a hundred attendees on Thursday learned about the everyday lifestyles and experiences of Spanish colonists living in and around the Santa Barbara Presidio, a military fortress that also served as government headquarters and cultural center during itsheyday.

As event volunteers strolled along the Presidio in military and traditional colonial garb, participants could ask them questions about who they were, what they did, and how they lived. Frequent tours of the grounds and historical presentations were also made throughout the night as candles flickered and illuminated the living historyreenactments.

“We got a lot of great feedback and responses about it being an evening event,” said Christa Clark Jones, development assistant at SBTHP. “And we got a lot of people because it was a first Thursday eventtoo.”

Meredith Brockriede, an education assistant with SBTHP, thought everything went really well considering it was the first time SBTHP hosted such an event. “Once the site was lit, the event was quite beautiful,” Brockriedeadded.

Beginning and ending with a drill by Soldados de Real Presidio de Santa Barbara, event performances included reenactments of conversations between comandante Felipe de Goicoechea, played by SBTHP’s own Dr. Jarell Jackman, Governor Felipe DeNeve portrayed by local historian Michael Hardwick, and Lieutenant Jose Francisco Ortega played by descendant JonMartinez.

“When my grandchildren saw me in my uniform their jaws dropped,” chuckled Jackman. “This event has been something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and we’ll definitely do it again in 2013 during our 50th anniversarycelebration.”

Those dressed as soldiers reenacted traditional evening recreational activities like playing cards, strumming the guitar, and cleaning their weapons. Early California music was performed by Luis Moreno and Mike Mullins, while the Las Fiestras Dance troupe performed early Californiadances.

“For a lot of guests it was their first time at the Presidio, and they thought it was a really unique experience seeing it lit by candlelight like the old times,” Brockriede added. “People were really impressed by the dancing and music performances by LuisMoreno.”

According to Jackman, lots of people told him how they have walked past the Presidio all the time and had never been inside the rooms, which the event had populated with performers reenacting women’s handicrafts and cooking albondigas soup in the cocina throughout the night. There were also people working with harvested Sonora wheat, a strolling padre played by Ray Ogella, and guitar player Ben Valenzuela wandering throughout thePresidio.

“Lots of people were asking me detailed questions about Spanish colonial lifestyle, some of which I couldn’t even answer,” said Jackman. “Lots of children were present and engaged. It was a lot offun.”

Before we left Delaware to spend winter in our RV in Key West, my intention was that this column would feature recipes that you could use to celebrate National Coconut Day on Tuesday, March 13.I even made French Coconut Pie, (a recipe that I found on www.allrecipes.com) and when we pulled out of Dover we had slices of this pie tucked into our refrigerator so that we could enjoy it as we traveled along.

At this point, we have been parked next to/under a coconut palm for the past three-plus weeks, but this isnt the time of year when coconuts are ripe so none have fallen upon us.

One of our favorite pastimes here in Key West has been reading restaurant reviews and deciding where to eat next. Down here restaurants tend to be very informal, are often open-air and most feature fresh seafood. One restaurant that locals and visitors alike tend to favor is called Pepes, a small open-air joint on Caroline Street. After a delicious lunch I still had room for a slice of their very special coconut cream pie. (Spicer raves about their Key Lime Pie, too.) Since they post their most popular recipes on their website, I am able to share the Coconut Cream Pie recipe with you.

Most recipes call for shredded or flaked coconut. This comes in bags or cans (usually found near chocolate chips in the baked goods aisles of supermarkets) or sometimes youll find small bags of frozen, shredded coconut in the freezer section. Bylers has an extensive offering of coconut shreds, including fine shred, which I find most desirable if youre using coconut in a candy recipe.

Our Savannah daughter, Jennifer, helped one of her Girl Scout troops this week make homemade Samoas (those delectable chocolate, coconut and caramel cookies) and she recommends this recipe. Samoas are one of the most popular cookies that Girl Scouts sell and with this recipe, you will be able to enjoy them all year long but please support the Scouts when they come to your door next year! Or just buy a whole case of Girl Scout Samoas to store in your freezer!

French Coconut Pie
2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
6 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
1 prepared, unbaked 9-inch pastry shell

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and flour. In a large bowl, mix the eggs with a wire whisk. Whisk flour mixture into eggs, until smooth. Stir in buttermilk, margarine, coconut and pecans. Pour into unbaked pie crusts. Bake for 1 hour; cool to room temperature before serving. Store covered in the refrigerator.

Figure skating is one of the great valley pastimes, and this coming weekend youll have your opportunity to support the local figure skating club.

On March 11 at 1 pm at the Eddie Mountain Memorial Arena, the Columbia Valley Figure Skating Club will be holding its annual fundraiser, entitled Music Around the World.

Kids from all the different skating programs will be performing special carnival numbers based on a country they will each represent, and there will also be a 50/50 draw, raffle prizes and concessions for those in attendance.

I think skating develops lots of life skills, and can translate to more than one sport, club president Leanne Beddie said. Were in a lake community and we have this amazing Whiteway, and if you cant skate you cant really enjoy it as much.

All proceeds from the event will go to benefit the skating club, to help fund ice time and coaching, among other things. The event is the clubs largest annual fundraiser.

Everyone is welcome to attend, Beddie said. Come on out and support our kids.

One of my favourite pastimes is making a meal with my family. The kitchen is typically a place of warmth and good memories, but what Ive recently learned about kitchens in many countries around the world has moved me to take action.

As the world unites to celebrate International Womens Day this week, I am thinking of the woman who risks her life through the simple act of cooking. In fact, preparing a meal for herself and her family can be one of the most dangerous activities that a woman does.

Alarmingly, nearly 3 billion people still rely on solid fuels to cook their food each day. When burned in open fires and inefficient cookstoves, fuels such as wood, coal, charcoal and animal waste create a toxic smoke that fills homes and communities the world over.

Two million people die annually from pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer and heart disease caused by cookstove smoke, and millions more suffer from these ailments for years, as well as from injuries such as cataracts and burns.

Women are predominantly the household cooks in most countries, and with their children swaddled to their backs or at their side as they cook, the entire family becomes victim to this silent killer.

Before they can even begin cooking, however, women will likely have spent hours searching for wood and other fuel sources. Children often accompany their mother on this journey, which keeps them from attending school or earning an income.

Such a nurturing act as cooking should not put lives at risk. There are effective solutions, which can save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women and combat climate change.

That is precisely why the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves was created. Launched by the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and hosted by the United Nations Foundation, the alliance and its hundreds of partners across the world believe that cooking shouldnt kill.

It is under this remit that the alliance hopes to shape a robust market for clean cookstoves and fuels – a market that begins and ends with the needs of women. Their involvement can include providing input on stove design, owning a cookstove business, and training other women on new stove and fuel technologies.

Clean cookstoves can have a transformative impact on women, as well as on their families, their communities and their environment. The numerous benefits include better health, increased safety, reduced poverty, cleaner air, and a more sustainable environment. Thats why I am helping the alliance promote the adoption of 100 million clean cookstoves by 2020, inspired by the possibilities that lie ahead for women and their families once the smoke clears.

o Julia Roberts serves as the global ambassador of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

There is no activity that you can imaginelegal or illegal, savory or unsavorythat is not occurring on a regular basis behind some closed door somewhere in New York City. Are there regularly occurring, unlicensed, and unregulated full-contact bloody ultimate fighting competitions happening in some underground gym way up in The Bronx, for example? Of course there are. This is a metropolis, after all.

And so there we were on Sunday afternoonmaybe 50 of us in allin a tiny storefront boxing gym way way uptown, watching men fight each other, sometimes well and sometimes not so well. Professional mixed martial arts is not legal in the state of New York for obscure reasons. So all of the fighters at all of the many MMA and jiu jitsu gyms who want to fight without having to trek out to Jersey (and who would want that?) find their way to the Underground Combat League (UCL), New York Citys most prestigious and long-running quasi-legal fight circuit. Theyve been going for years. Four or six or eight or ten shows a year, moving around to wherever they can find space: boxing gyms, martial arts gyms, empty rooms for rent. Anywhere will do, really.

Sometimes they put up a cage, sometimes its in a ring, sometimes just on mats, explained my unofficial tour guide, Jim Genia, who wrote a book about the UCL that you should buy right away. Once they had it in a mosque. They just rented out the space and laid down mats.

The New York law doesnt say anything about amateur MMA fights, so the UCL simply operates on the premise that they are legaleven while keeping fight locations secret, maintaining a carefully managed invitation list, and generally staying faithful to the underground part of its name. This shit is probably legal, or could theoretically be ruled legal should such a case ever go to court, and definitely should be legal, by why take risks? is the overall tenor of the UCLs operations.

Rage, a bald and goateed former fighter who now promotes UCL shows himself, stressed to me that they always try to keep the fights as professionally run and fair as possible. There are same-day weigh-ins to prevent unhealthy weight-cutting; they call the gyms to check out prospective fighters to make sure theyre legit; they send fighters to the health center out in Brownsville where they can get free physicals.

Some of these dudes are having a hard time, Rage explained. Some dont have no money, some are in school. These guys are all doing their best, under the circumstances. They just want to fight. Fight fight fight.

Filming people with a cellphone instead of coming to their aid is one of New York Citys greatest pastimes, but documenting individuals not preoccupied in combat can be risky. Take this intoxicated Greek man on the subway who insists he can fight a younger man. What, you think I dont have the ability? Time to pull out the camera, right? Well when he notices hes being filmed, his attention shifts from the man to the photographer, and strikes the camera with an umbrella.

The incident begins at 1:00, but start from the beginning to get a good taste of middle-aged braggadocio.

After the entire train tells the man to calm down, he begins to wax about his love for America, claims that he fought in the Vietnam War, and professes his hatred for George W. Bush (which is poised to be part of the citizenship test in a few years).

Moral: if you dont ask someone for their permission to film them, be prepared to become part of the show.

Its clear that retirement doesnt quite fit Max and Cinnimon Bandy.

Theyve tried it twice already, and Cinnimon joked about the fact that since they moved to town less than two summers ago, they bought not one, but two businesses.
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Saturday, February 18, 2012

Lets face it, dining al fresco is one of LAs collective pastimes. Lots of restaurants even let you bring your Beverly Hills chihuahua with you. But the W Hotel Los Angeles Westwood is going one step further and now has a pet-friendly Fidos Kitchen menu at The Backyard Restaurant.

Available exclusively at the restaurant, the food is suitably LA fresh and healthy, too. If you saw Organic Chicken, Free Range Eggs and Brown Rice on a menu, you might order it for yourself, no? Well, here the dish is called Stellas Muttza Balls and were assuming its priced a little lower than the human meals (or at least, we hope).

Other menu highlights include Milos Chopped Veggie Chicken Salad and the Knuckles Frozen POP!–organic yogurt, mashed banana and peanut butter.

UNIVERSITY PARK Ive been around strong women all my life, said former President George W. Bush, who introduced his favorite first ladies his wife Laura and mother Barbara Bush at an SMU conference Monday.

Both of these powerful women reflected on their time at the White House, and their personal photographers shared historic moments and favorite pastimes in the event at the George Bush Center on SMUs campus before a crowd of about 300 people.

Barbara Bush said making the 130-room White House mansion feel like home is a cherished memory. The thing I loved most was I could hear Jenna and Barbara and Marshall and Walker giggling and laughing, she said.

First lady Barbara Bush said a visit from her grandchildren was a precious time, and she had to admit to pampering them.

When your own grandchildren come to your house, you work, she said. When they come to the White House, 90-something people take care of them.

The crowd roared with laughter at Barbara Bushs honesty about living the ultimate life of luxury.

Laura Bush talked about taking comfort in living in a place where every president has resided except for George Washington. And while she said she loved re-decorating the Abraham Lincoln bedroom, she conceded there was something surreal about that particular room.

We owned one of the five copies of the Gettysburg Address written in Lincolns hand, and that was in the room, Laura Bush said. Our guests who would come stay in the Lincoln bedroom would look at that … and read it and weep. That was very very moving to see.

Photos from the first Bush administration showed how the first ladys dogs stole the spotlight. Their dog Milly secretly slept in between her and president George H. W. Bush.

She joked that there are not supposed to be any dogs touching the White House furniture, but said Milly had few boundaries.

And maybe that is a good thing, because photos of the presidential pup made a lot of money for charity.

As George said, I had the highest job of the land, and my dog made more money than I did! Barbara Bush joked.

The first ladies also talked about how hard it was at times listening to all the criticism about their husbands. Because you know much more than what the public knows, but the criticism just kind of goes along with the job, Laura Bush said.

Barbara and Laura Bush said they miss the White House chef the most; what they least miss the least are the politics, especially Barbara Bush.

Its been, I think, the worst campaign Ive ever seen in my life; I hate it, the elder Bush said. I hate the fact that people think compromise is a dirty word.

Both former first ladies said they are enjoying their regular lives after the White House experience. But after seeing so many Secret Service personnel at the SMU event, regular is a relative term.

Nonetheless, both said they enjoy giving back to their communities now and feel fortunate to have served the American public.

E-mail ddenmon@wfaa.com