Author Archives: John Cutrone

Sep 22 2025
9 Comments
Autumn, Equinox, Rosh Hashanah

End of Summer Road

We’ve been hinting, since Lammas at the start of August, of summer’s waning and autumn’s slow approach, and today we find ourselves unquestionably there, for autumn arrives today in its official capacity in our Northern Hemisphere. 2:19 in the afternoon is the moment here in Lake Worth. In honor of this milestone, we are releasing our newest letterpress printed broadside, which, to be honest, was printed at the end of 2022. Convivio friend Kathleen Maugeri wrote the poem for the broadside in 2022, and I printed it, together with Lionel Zaccardi, on the midwinter solstice that same year. But it is a poem about the end of summer, the shift to autumn, printed at midwinter… it is a project that bridged many seasons. When Lionel and I printed it, suddenly it was Christmas, and then the new year came, and then I tucked the broadsides away on a shelf (a most logical one: a bookshelf), and then the end of summer came again and I couldn’t recall the logic behind where I’d last set the edition of broadsides, and the logic was not revealed again to me until just a few weeks ago. And here we are: end of summer again, “ambling along toward Autumn,” as the poem goes. You may see the project by clicking here.

Later this evening, once the sun has set, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, will begin. Micah 7:19 reads, “You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea,” and you may find people at the water’s edge during Rosh Hashanah, casting bread into the sea, each bit of bread carrying some of those sins. And with dinner tonight: a round loaf of challah, round to symbolize the circle of the year (as one year ends, another year begins), and, of course, apples dipped in honey… and, with some luck, teiglach, too. L’shanah Tovah.

At the shop, we had our Hallowe’en Boo Bazaar this past weekend. Saturday was busy, but the skies opened up on Sunday morning and it did not stop raining until Sunday evening, just in time for a lovely sunset, but not many folks came out because of the weather. I will try my best to schedule another Boo Bazaar for some evening before Hallowe’en, but it gets a bit tough for us this time of year, as already next weekend we will be in Miami at the German American Social Club preparing for Oktoberfest. Last Sunday I taught a pasta making workshop at the shop and gosh, we had the best time. Check out our workshops page for more opportunities to learn new things. Next up is Gift Basket Making with instructor Deborah Desser on Saturday October 4. If you’re looking for a new side hustle… this might be a great idea for you.

Happy Autumn to you all.

Sep 01 2025
6 Comments
Autumn, Book of Days Calendar

Luminous Goose Berries, or Your September Book of Days

Labor Day comes early this year, as early as it can, and with it comes September, which has a different resonance as it falls from the tongue, different from July or August. It is not a word of summer, September: it is a word of transition, a word tinged with gold and brown, a word of fall. Indeed, autumn arrives this month, by the almanac. The year is waning.

To mark the shift, here is your Convivio Book of Days calendar for September. It’s a printable PDF, as usual, and this month, we’re featuring luminous goose berries. When I was a boy, I’d pick goose berries at one of the neighbor’s houses, the Gruenthallers, where they grew as a sort of hedge between their house and their neighbor next door. I’d never had goose berries before, nor since, but if memory serves well, I’m pretty sure they were delicious.

It is not goose berries but grapes that we’ll celebrate on the 8th of September for the Nativity of Mary, only because she is known at this time of year as Our Lady of the Grape Harvest in the places where vintners now begin their wine making. It’s not unusual to find bunches of grapes placed in the hands of statues of Mary on this day. And it is the apple that will take center stage this month, dipped in honey for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year that begins this year on the same night as the autumnal equinox (September 22). It’s also the birthday of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, on the 26th: another auspicious day for eating apples.

It is the humble blackberry, however, that gets the best story of the month. It is traditional to eat blackberries on Michaelmas, the 29th of September… and also ill-advised to eat them after this day. It was St. Michael the Archangel who battled Satan and in the battle, Satan fell to Earth and landed in a bramble patch. Have you ever been in a bramble patch? I have. A bramble patch would make even the pope curse and swear and this is exactly what Satan did, and legend has it that he returns each year on Michaelmas to curse and spit upon the brambles… which is why some people will not eat a blackberry after Michaelmas. They are taking no chances.

At the shop this month we have the first of our Convivio Cookery workshops, which I am so excited about. For the first one, I’ll be teaching you how to make one of my very favorite things to eat: Mambricoli, a most unusual pasta that is specific to my maternal grandparents’ region of Italy, la provincia di Foggia. You’ve probably never tasted anything like mambricoli, and they are a delight to make. If you’re local, you should come! CLICK HERE for details and registration.

We’re open next on Saturday September 6 from 11 to 4. (That’s this coming Saturday, when we are opening because our friend Hazel is coming in from San Antonio to visit the shop, and if Hazel’s coming, well, you should, too.) After that, you can expect a few Boo Bazaar events where we’ll turn our attention to pumpkins and Hallowe’en, and then, believe it or not… we’ll be setting up our pop-up market at the German American Social Club in Miami for two weekends of Oktoberfest Miami plus the German International Parents’ Association (GIPA) Oktoberfest before that on October 4.

We’ve also got a Gift Basket Making workshop on Saturday October 4 at the shop, and another Convivio Cookery workshop in November where my whole family will teach you how to make Cavatelli, another traditional Italian pasta (one much more well known than mambricoli). By then, even the weather here in this strange green land will be cooler, and our transition from summer to fall will feel more like reality, and less like a fairytale.

Image: “Gooseberries on a Table” by Adriaen Coorte. Oil on paper, mounted on wood, 1701 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Aug 01 2025
2 Comments
Book of Days Calendar, Lammas

Late Summer, or Your August Book of Days

And now it is August. And with its first day comes Lammas, an old agrarian holiday meant to mark the subtle transition as summer begins its inevitable shift toward autumn. It is a cross-quarter day, meaning it marks a halfway point (roughly) betwixt a solstice and an equinox, and there are four of them each year. Lammas is the third. We are well past the halfway point of the year now, and the long days surrounding the Midsummer solstice in June are rapidly heading toward the balance of day and night we’ll achieve in seven weeks’ time, at the next equinox.

The Celtic name for the day is Lughnasadh. But the English name, Lammas, is essentially derived from “Loaf Mass,” for this was the time of the first grain harvest of the year, and it was and is customary to bake a fresh loaf of bread today (preferably with that newly harvested grain).

Here in Lake Worth, it is the height of our summer stormy season, though this year things have been a bit dry for us. Still, we have had several dramatic days where the afternoon sky turns dark and stormy, and this is the theme for your August Book of Days calendar. It is, as usual, a printable PDF and a fine companion to this blog.

Summer lasts long here, so we’ve begun conjuring ideas of cooler days by scheduling our next open shop event: an Autumn Preview on the weekend of August 9 & 10, where we’ll be showing off all the great new items arriving for fall and for the spooky season. (We’ve got new arrivals daily right now, in the shop and at the online shop!)

Two weeks later, towards the end of the month, comes St. Bartholomew’s Day and our Second Annual Bartlemas Wayzgoose! We’ll have a commemorative print on our 1950s Nolan Tabletop Press and you’ll be the printer, and we’ll be serving homemade pizzelle (naturally, as they are made in a press). The Bartlemas Wayzgoose is a big deal for hand papermakers and letterpress printers and bookbinders, too… and I’ll gladly tell you the story of why while you’re enjoying your pizzelle and admiring your handmade Wayzgoose print.

Our two newest workshops at the shop are now posted to the website, too, and they are perhaps a natural extension of this blog: We’ll be teaching you how to make two wonderful traditional pastas. One of them has its origins in my maternal grandparents’ region of Italy. We’re so excited to offer these classes for you. You’ll make your pasta in-house with us and then take the fruits of your labor home to serve for supper that night.

Happy August. Happy Lammas.

Image: “Houses, Clouds, Late Summer” by József Rippl-Rónai. Pastel on paper, circa late nineteenth century to early twentieth century [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

← Older posts
Newer posts →