Author Archives: John Cutrone

Mar 25 2026
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Feast of the Annunciation, Lady Day

Waffle Day, Proper

I’m generally not one for proclaimed holidays like National Ice Cream Day (July 19) or National Pizza Day (February 9)––days that trade associations make up to drum up interest in their products. (Insert official disclaimer here: You will indeed find us celebrating Independent Bookstore Day (April 25) with a full weekend-long event at our shop next month. After all, I do own an independent bookstore, of sorts!) There is also a National Waffle Day in the United States, too. It falls on August 24, which is the date, in 1869, when the first U.S. patent was issued for a waffle iron.

And that’s an interesting story, I suppose. But there is a Waffle Day of much older origin and, truth be told, with a backstory that is infinitely more interesting. It originates in Sweden, and it has to do with the fact that today, the 25th of March, is Lady Day: The Feast of the Annunciation. This old celebration of the Church marks the visitation of the archangel Gabriel to Mary. Gabriel came to deliver the startling news to Mary that she was to bear a child, a son, and that that child would be the light of the world, the son of God.

So yes, a bit of startling news not just for Mary but also perhaps for us: it may feel (it does to me, anyway) like the year is still new, and yet here we are now, nine months to the nativity, nine months to Christmas.

But let’s get back to the waffles. A bit of linguistic confusion in Sweden has made this––for centuries now, with no relation to the day an American patent was issued in 1869––a day to enjoy waffles. This is the kind of Waffle Day story I can get behind and so I, of course, heartily endorse this particular culinary tradition.

So, now, let’s get to the Swedish linguistic confusion. The name Lady Day comes out of the tradition of calling Mary “Our Lady” (as in Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Guadalupe, etc). In Sweden, the day is called Vårfrudagen, which follows the same logic, translating essentially to “Our Lady Day.”

Vårfrudagen, in some Swedish dialects, is awfully close in both spelling and pronunciation to Våffeldagen. And while the former translates to “Our Lady Day,” the latter translates to “Waffle Day.” It is this bit of linguistic confusion that has had Swedes, for centuries now, eating waffles on the Feast of the Annunciation. It’s a tradition that has spilled over to wherever Swedes have left their mark, this annual excuse to eat waffles at any time of day on Vårfrudagen––breakfast, lunch, or dinner. We will be joining their ranks today, and we encourage you to do the same. And while we here in the States are partial to butter and maple syrup atop our waffles, the waffles in Sweden today are typically served with whipped cream and lingonberries or cloudberries. There are also savory waffle dishes, and one of our favorites: waffles with ice cream. If you partake today, and I think you should, we encourage you to enjoy yours as you wish. There is no right or wrong way.

 

EASTER & SPRINGTIDE DELIGHTS AWAIT!
Shop with us online for traditional wooden bunnies from Germany’s Erzgebirge woodworkers, beautiful pysanky from Ukraine, German splintwood baskets and wood wool Easter grass (none of the plastic stuff!), German papier mache eggs to fill with treats, and as far as the sweets in your basket, how about sweet and sour Swedish candies, licorice (some chocolate covered) and fruitful gummies from Denmark, and marzipan piglets from Germany? CLICK HERE to shop. Lake Worth and South Florida locals: I’m not sure if we’ll be open again before Easter, but we’ll gladly open for you by appointment, or place your order online and come by for pick up this Saturday (March 28): We won’t be open, exactly, but we’re hosting a letterpress printing birthday party at the shop and you may pick up your order while the party is going on. Interested in having your own gathering at the shop? Let us know. You can have a pasta making party, or a letterpress party, or a bookbinding party. My kind of party!

 

Image: “Het Vertrouwelijk Onderhoud” by Adriaen van Ostade. Oil on panel, 1672 [Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons].

 

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Mar 20 2026
2 Comments
Equinox, Spring

Balance, Vernal

The world feels anything but balanced these days. Hatred, discord, dishonesty, disrespect, war: we’ve been tending the weeds in our world garden for years now, and these are the things we’ve chosen to sow and harvest. But despite the follies of our ways, Spring officially arrives today in the Northern Hemisphere. It comes with our Vernal Equinox: day and night are roughly equal now across this old earth, and in the next few days, the balance shifts and our Northern Hemisphere will begin to receive more daylight hours than night, while the reverse shift occurs in the Southern Hemisphere. The road to summer is more obvious now in the Northern Hemisphere; the road to winter more obvious in the Southern. At least until the June Solstice, when things begin to shift again. No day is ever the same as the wheel of the year turns. Nothing is permanent. And this gives us hope, too, that humanity will not be forever stuck in the collective anxiety of our current days.

Here in Lake Worth, which is currently in Eastern Daylight Time, 10:46 AM is the moment of equinox this time around. You might pause to mark the moment. Or you might neglect it completely. It makes no difference. The change, the balance, will come either way.

COME SEE US at the SHOP
We’re opening the shop this weekend (Saturday & Sunday, March 21 & 22) for the second of our Springtide Markets, where you can stock up on special things for the upcoming Easter season: handmade pysanky from Ukraine, handmade wooden bunnies from Germany and Sweden, paper egg containers from Germany, Swedish sweet and sour candies and licorice for your Easter basket, books and cards and more. 11 AM to 4 PM each day. We’ll be serving Swedish ginger snaps and black currant saft and our own Löfbergs Swedish coffee while you shop! Shop online, too!

Workshops, too! Currently on the calendar: Introduction to Encaustic Painting with instructor Glo Graham Sollecito on Saturday April 11 and Introduction to Pysanky with instructor Lissie Bartlett on Sunday April 12. More pasta making and book arts workshops soon to come!

 

Image: “Atlas Holding Up the Celestial Globe” by Guercino. Oil on canvas, 1646 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Mar 03 2026
3 Comments
Book of Days Calendar, Holi

Purity of Purpose, or Your Convivo Book of Days for March

Piet Mondrian might just be the artist I admire most. This Dutch artist, who worked in the early 1900s mostly, sought to free visual art from the constraints of its past, and in doing so, he was not about to give us paintings of landscapes or portraits or anything depicting the natural world. Pure painting, to Piet Mondrian, was painting that referred to nothing outside itself. His formula was ingeniously simply: Squares, rectangles, grids, in primary colors (red, blue, yellow) plus white and black.

As Mondrian’s art refers to nothing outside itself, using it as the cover star for the Convivio Book of Days Calendar for March feels both exciting and a bit jarring to me. My search for an illustrative painting to use as a synthesis for March was getting me down, to be honest. The First of the month came and went. Air strikes were carried out on Iran. I fell into an all-too-common-these-days feeling of despair over what’s become of the world. It’s been the persistent underlying feeling in my life for these past fourteen months. This month felt suddenly like it needed something new: something pure. In its strange way, Composition II, which Piet Mondrian painted in 1929, when my mother and father both were 3 years old, brings that, at least to me. I don’t know if it’ll bring the same to you, but if it does, so be it. There is intelligence and there are lofty goals in this painting, a feeling, to me, of universal hope. That we can do better.

By the time you read this, the Hindu festival of Holi, the springtime festival of color, will have begun. I don’t know much about Holi but my friend Pranoo invited me to a Holi celebration once and it very well may have been the most joyous thing I’ve seen. Color exploding everywhere, everyone covered in the stuff. I remember asking a man, as I left the celebration, if I might take his picture. He said yes. He was a grown adult, he was bald, he was carrying a shopping bag, and he and his bag and his clothes were covered in red and purple and blue and he stood there beaming. He was so happy. How can you possibly capture that in a painting?

COME SEE US at the SHOP
We’re opening the shop the middle two weekends of March for our Springtide Markets, where you can stock up on special things for the upcoming Easter season: handmade pysanky from Ukraine, handmade wooden bunnies from Germany and Sweden, paper egg containers from Germany, Swedish sweet and sour candies and licorice for your Easter basket, books and cards and more. Saturday & Sunday, March 14 & 15 and March 21 & 22, from 11 AM to 4 PM each day. Plenty of nice things for St. Patrick’s Day, too! Shop online, too!

And come see us at the Taco Fiesta this Saturday, March 7, from 2 to 8 PM! We’ll have a pop-up shop there with lots of our traditional Artesanías Méxicanas. This festival celebrating tortillas and Mexican culture is held annually in nearby Palm Springs, Florida. There will be a marimba band! I’m very excited about that.

 

Image: “Composition II” by Piet Mondrian. Oil on canvas, 1929 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

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