Author: Silvercat

Emerson Safety Bicycle Shoe (scan)

Vintage Advertisement - text below

This is an ad from McClure’s Magazine, from about 1900? I can’t find anything about Emerson bicycle shoes, but the Butler Boys were professional cyclists in 1890-1910. Only Nat has a reasonable sized Wikipedia article (Tom has a stub and Frank has nothing at all). While born in Halifax, Canada, they grew up in Cambridge Massachusetts and raced in America and Europe.

I’m guessing the ‘safety’ part of it meant that the laces weren’t long enough to get caught in the chain. Pratt Fasteners are a way to secure the laces without tying – it looks like they’re kind of like keychain rings? You seem to slide the lace between two metal rings. The best image I can find is at Getty Images (I had to turn off my ad-block to see the image) Pratt Fasteners were apparently popular for a while – a google image search finds a good number of ads mentioning them.

Transcription:

The Butler Boys prefer the Emerson Safety Bicycle Shoe

Elastic Gores.

Pratt Fasteners. No knots to tie or untie – Always Sure.

Fast Color Eyelets and Hooks. Never get brassy.

Best on Earth.

The safest, easiest and best bicycle shoe ever made. Strong, light, best of stock and workmanship. The very flexible shank, elastic gores and Pratt Fasteners are essential elements of ease, comfort and safety.

Sold only in our 27 Emerson Stores ore by mail. Send for “Mail” Catalogue. R.B. Grover & Co., Brockton, Mass.

$3.50 or $3.75 if sent by mail.

Please mention McClure’s when you write to advertisers.

(end of Transcription)

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Her Hand (poem scan)

This is the back of the previous scan. I like the art on the other one better. It appears that every page had the same artwork on the front and back, if the two pages I have are an indication.


scan of a poem - transcription below

Her Hand

It is so very white and small
One cannot understand at all
How it could be so great a prize
As truly it is in my eyes,
Nor how, and with such cunning art,
Relentlessly it holds my heart.

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In The Spot Light (poem scan)

I couldn’t find the author for this. It’s apparently out of a poetry book or magazine. I have a couple of pages from it. Every page has the same art on the front and back. There are the initials “E.L” in the bottom left corner – I’m assuming it’s the artist. My other page is framed and I don’t want to open it up to check.

I suspect this is a specific type of poem, but I’m not a poetry expert, so feel free to tell me what it is.

Read more

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It can finally be revealed – Argent Whiskers is licensing Ursula Vernon art

I’ve made a deal with Ursula Vernon to put her glyph pendant designs on other stuff, like shirts, sweatshirts, journals, and lots more.

I currently have a kingfisher and a chicken design up on apparel! Check them out here

I will still be doing my original designs and making more pridewear.

You can follow Argent Whiskers on Twitter and Instagram

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Updated Meatball recipe

I made meatballs again, but added more veggies and spices, so here it is.

Like before, the easy way is to use a food processor (that’s what I did), but you can chop the veggies up yourself too. You can see above they’re just diced. I upped the amount of red and black pepper and they’re a bit spicy. If you don’t like pepper, reduce it back to 1/4 teaspoon each.

Silver’s Eat Alone Meatballs

1 lb ground turkey
1 lbs ground beef
1 cup-ish bread crumbs (about two slices of bread)
2 eggs
1 small onion, diced
4 or so cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup-ish carrot, diced or shredded
1 green pepper, diced
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp salt
1/3 tsp black pepper
1/3 tsp red pepper
2tsp oregano
2 tsp basil
2 tsp parsley

Mix and form into 2 inch balls. It was a pretty wet mixture and I should’ve squished some of them more than I did, but they all turned out fine.

Cook at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. I lined the pan with foil and just put them straight onto that and there was no problem.

Let cool and freeze.

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Sketch of Maa

Aka, Mya, aka Mya-chama. Her name has changed as I’ve worked on her language, Tynthna

But here she is in some of her native clothing:

I haven’t drawn her as a non-chibi in ages and never in correct clothes (since I just came up with those this year)

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Food is Hard: WAFFLES

These are the best waffles you’ll ever eat*

* your mileage may vary, no guarantee implied. But they are really REALLY good

Cue up Waffle King by Weird Al

I got the original form of the recipe from The Woman’s Companion Cook Book, then one night I didn’t realize we were low on eggs. But I knew you could substitute apple sauce, which we had. And they were AMAZING. So that’s the recipe you’re getting here.

delicious, delicious waffles

Yes, you can also make them into pancakes, but waffles are better.

Makes about 12 waffles or a shit load of pancakes

Ingredients:

Dry:

  • 4 cups all purpose flour
  • 6 tablespoons granulate sugar
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 3 teaspoons cinnamon

Wet:

  • 3 cups milk
  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 of a cup of unsweetened applesauce
  • 1 cup Canola oil (or similar neutral tasting oil)

Mix all the dry ingredients well, then add the wet ingredients. The batter will be a bit lumpy. Make into waffles (or pancakes, if you’re a heathen)

They’re so good you don’t even need to add any topping (I prefer brown sugar)

You can freeze these. Just put a bunch of them into a large ziploc, no paper between them necessary. Heat in the toaster. I have no idea how long they last, because I always eat them within a week.

They’re not super filling, so eat with something else (some juice and a handful of nuts would probably make a pretty good breakfast. I usually have one waffle and then some cereal and berries)

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Food is Hard: My meatball recipe

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Edit: Updating this for the food is hard series

Meatballs are basically meatloaf in ball form, but I don’t like meatloaf and I do like meatballs. *shrug* I dunno. This is a composite of a couple different recipes I’ve seen.

half eaten meatball

Silver’s Eat Alone Meatballs

1.25 lbs ground turkey
1.25 lbs ground beef
1 cup-ish whole wheat bread crumbs (I did two pieces of bread in the food processor. Pretty sure it was more than a cup)
1 egg
1/2 onion, diced (threw it in the food processor too. Onions kill me)
3 or so cloves of garlic, minced (in the food processor.)
1/2 cup-ish shredded carrot (I did a double handful of baby carrots, in the food processor)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp basil
2 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp red pepper

Mix, form into 2 inch balls, cook at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. I put mine on wire racks on foil lined cookie sheets, but they didn’t make as much of a mess as I expected.

meatballs out of the oven and cooling

Mess with these! I’ve used white bread instead or saltine crackers. Pretty sure the bread is a filler so you can leave it out to be gluten-free, or replace with rice.

If you don’t have a food processor, just cut stuff up as small as you can.

I’ve tried putting zucchini in it, but it didn’t turn out well. The zucchini was too wet. You may have ideas on how to fix that (maybe just the peels?)

These freeze really well, last a long time in the freezer, and taste good cold or hot.

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Food is Hard: Books & Tips

If you’re like me and deciding what to eat is HARD and making anything that’s more than two steps is SUPER HARD, then this is for you.

Tips:

Make things you can freeze (I’ll be posting some recipes soon). A lot of things can be frozen if you think you can’t finish all of it before it spoils. Can’t finish that loaf of bread? Divide it into bits you can finish in a week, wrap it up in plastic, and chuck it in the freezer. Defrost in the fridge later.

Convenience foods are your friends. Whether that’s a frozen meal, pre-cut veggies, canned chicken – that’s all stuff that makes getting food into you easier & that’s all that matters.

If you can afford to and you have the space, canned foods are great. Canned chicken or tuna, some frozen veggies, and some bread, rice, or pasta is a good meal.

Make a list of foods you like that are easy and keep it on the fridge so when you can’t think of stuff, you can look at the list. Mine would include miso soup, peanut butter & crackers, bread & cheese, and rice & veggies.

Two books I like:

Cooking is Terrible: This isn’t recipes so much as ideas. But they’re good ideas.

Just Bento: She just came out with a second one, but I haven’t read it yet. It’s full of recipes that are yummy, many of which you can freeze. Browse through the website for lots of recipes too. Most of them are Japanese inspired. Warning: there is some talk of “health” and calories. I ignore all of it because I’m more concerned with getting food into me, but you may not be able to.

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