Hello. I'm writer Antoinette Beard... WOO-HOO-HOO!!! The mid 1800s to the mid 1900s were a sensual, bizarre, slightly wicked time of quaintness and blossoming industry. Keep scrolling after the posts for much weird info and wonky photos. Also, use the "Search Box" for even more quirky fascinations. Outwardly, Victorians were strait-laced, but always there are those who flaunt society's conventions!!!... ADULT CONTENT, --- naturally, Darlings. ;)
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Friday, July 22, 2016
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Monday, July 18, 2016
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Friday, July 8, 2016
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Prince Eddy: The King We Never Had [There is a fascinating story that Prince Eddy secretly married commoner Anne Crook and that they had a daughter, Alice, who would be heir to the British throne and that there was a conspiracy afoot that led to the death of the prostitutes killed by Jack The Ripper. It's a positively titillating story, but I don't think it's true....]
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Traditional English Cooking: Bubble And Squeek...
Take leftover slices of roast beef, carrots, cabbage or brussel sprouts and chop them coarsely. You can use fresh cabbage or brussel sprouts, if you like. Place them in heated butter or margarine in a large skillet. Add leftover mashed potatoes and stir, stir, stir, to keep from burning. When it's heated up thoroughly and the cabbage or brussel sprouts is cooked, spoon it onto a plate. Add black pepper or hot sauce or brown gravy, if you like.
Monday, July 4, 2016
Traditional English Cooking: Old Fashioned Black Raspberry & Currant Cake, - [Easy & So Delicious!]...
3 1/4 cups flour
3/4 pound margarine or butter
1 cup fresh black raspberries
3/4 black currants
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, mixed with 2 tbs. milk
1 tb. brown sugar
Mix margarine or butter into the flour with a fork. Add all dry ingredients. Add eggs mixed with the milk. Fold in black raspberries and currants. Place batter in a cake pan. Sprinkle the top with the brown sugar. Place in the top of the oven at 400 degrees and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 and continue baking for 1 3/4 hours or till done.
3/4 pound margarine or butter
1 cup fresh black raspberries
3/4 black currants
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, mixed with 2 tbs. milk
1 tb. brown sugar
Mix margarine or butter into the flour with a fork. Add all dry ingredients. Add eggs mixed with the milk. Fold in black raspberries and currants. Place batter in a cake pan. Sprinkle the top with the brown sugar. Place in the top of the oven at 400 degrees and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 and continue baking for 1 3/4 hours or till done.
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Saturday, July 2, 2016
The Mysterious and Stunning Irene Adler, - [a sort of lady super-spy from Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels and, now, the movies]...
Irene is an adventuress and femme fatale played by the absolutely gorgeous Rachel Mc Adams in the Sherlock Holmes movies featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, but in the original books she is not a main character, and, sadly, she disappears from sight in the second Sherlock Holmes movie, "Sherlock Holmes: Game Of Shadows'. Too, too BAD, --- the darling and sly Irene was given a swift and terrible case of T.B. by the dastardly and brilliant Professor Moriarty. I certainly hope that Irene will re-appear in the next Sherlock Holmes movies...
Irene is Sherlock's erstwhile love, as Watson says: "Why is the only woman you've ever been interested in a world class criminal?" Of course, it WOULD be that way... Sherlock is a very odd duck... And, to his dismay and secret delight Irene outsmarts and out plays him at every turn. She is obviously a live-in-the-fast-lane sort of girl. Irene is an American, born in New Jersey. In the 1st movie she says she divorced her husband: "He was boring, and he snored!...", but he WAS, ---oh, yes, --- rich! And, she comes to visit Sherlock wearing a fabulous diamond around her neck, - a gift, or, most likely, stolen, from a maharajah. She brings him the delicious nuts that he favors and special olives. She casually cracks some walnuts with her bare hands, like the Godfather, a feat which would take a tremendous, TREMENDOUS amount of strength in the arms and fingers!
As I said, in Arthur Conan Doyle's books, Irene is not a main character. In fact, she was featured in only one of his novels, - "A Scandal In Bohemia". in which he said of her, [quote] : "She has a soul of steel. The face of the most beautiful of women and the mind of the most resolute of men."... But, Irene fired the author's fan's imagination; they LOVED her!... Author Carole Nelson Douglas gave Irene her own set of novels and in them she shows that she is very bit as brilliant and singular as Sherlock; she is a modern woman in Victorian times. The novels are full of color and loaded with detail. The delightful Irene, is positively, POSITIVELY fascinating!...
Friday, July 1, 2016
Amelia Huber Hollister: An Upper Class Victorian Lady Readies Herself For The Evening...
Amelia next spread Lady Pomprey's Flower Facial lotion all over her complexion, which did not just stop at her jawline; she also worked the white stuff which was made of glycerine, rosewater, bergamot, lemon balm, vanilla, lavender oil and zinc oxide, into her neck. Amelia was only twenty five, but she didn't want to end up looking like her Aunt Frances, with all that crepe-like skin! Next, Amelia applied pearl powder to her face with a big wool puff and rouged her cheeks with puff on a wooden stick from a red powder, powdered amaranth, that she kept in a tiny gold compact studded with blue brilliants. She colored her lips with pomegranate juice and picked up her crystal bottle of rosewater to spray herself with it by squeezing the big net covered rubber bulb.
She sighed. She had instructed the cook Bertha May to make her husband Herbert's favorite dinner tonight: Roast beef with candied carrots and new potatoes, plus kidney pie and a dessert that she loved, - plum cake with raisin hard sauce. Herbert would be coming home from his job at the bank soon. Amelia made sure that she had plenty of Napoleon brandy ready for Herbert and also that there were enough of his specially crafted Cuban cigars. Herbert's maroon satin smoking jacket with the black velvet lapels was laid out over the back of the bedroom chair...
It Was A Careful Age Of Manners And Propriety...
The motor car was the newest thing, if it was seen at all on the streets. Most upper class people rode around in carriages. If you had any big money at all you could hire servants, because people would work for very little wages. Most large houses had upstairs and downstairs maids, butlers, drivers for the carriages, a groom for the horses, a whole staff to help the household to run smoothly.
Children were, of course, seen not heard. Once they reached a certain age they often went to boarding school, if their parent could afford it, especially if they were boys. Girls were expected to fill a traditional role, being wives and mothers. [After 1823, a boy could marry as young as fourteen without his parent's consent, a girl as young as twelve, but most people married when they were in their twenties.] Some women became business owners, - few, or teachers, governesses, and were known as "bluestockings", and thought of as rather strange and radical.
It was during this time that some great literature was written, great novels: "Jane Eyre", by Charlotte Bronte, and "Wuthering Heights", by Emily Bronte; Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote her poems; Lewis Carroll wrote "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland", and "Alice Through The Looking Glass"; Charles Dickens wrote his stories...
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