Category Archives: Book of Days Calendar

Oct 01 2025
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Autumn, Book of Days Calendar, Feast of the Guardian Angels

Pumpkin Possibilities, or Your October Book of Days

Now it is October, and here is your Convivio Book of Days calendar for the month. We’re excited: Even here in this land where Autumn is an exercise in subtlety, I might dare say we’ve seen some hints of change.

Our markets are full of the bounty of the season, trucked in from northern climes. Apples, pears, and my favorites: the pumpkins and winter squashes. I can remember weeding the pumpkin patch when I was a print apprentice under Brother Arnold Hadd at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community in Maine in the late 1990s: the warmth of the sun on my back, my hands in the rich soil, and the very particular scent of pumpkin vines, which, for the life of me at this moment, I cannot remember well enough to describe, but I know that if I ran my hand across a pumpkin leaf, the scent would waft up and I’d know it immediately. Something about that fragrance, and the vines and tendrils, and the fruits themselves, spoke to me of great possibility. Of stories and books that I did not know then and still do not know… though I feel they are close at hand, on the horizon. Pumpkins, for me, are more than just a fruit to carve for Hallowe’en or to make into a pie or soup. The thing is, though, I don’t yet know what this all means. It’s a bit of a fairytale, where there is magic, but I’ve yet to discover it or watch it fully unfurl. The feeling is one I can’t shake. Everlasting, like the pumpkin in the engraving that is our cover star for the month.

If you feel this way about pumpkins, too, I’d love to hear your story or your take on this. And in the meantime, I will keep at my annual pumpkin reverie.

As you read this on this First of October, folks in the Jewish tradition will be preparing for Yom Kippur, which begins with tonight’s setting sun. Tomorrow, the Second of October, brings one of the oldest celebrations in the Church: the Feast of the Guardian Angels. It comes on the heels of Michaelmas a few days ago (September 29), which honored St. Michael the Archangel. It is an angelic week, this week, which might explain why I’ve had Shaker songs about angels playing as the soundtrack inside my head all week. I sing them, too, as I brush my teeth or as I go up and down the stairwells at work.

Pumpkins. Angels. Stories. I can’t help it. This may very well be my favorite time of year. Of course I’m singing in the stairwells.

COME SEE US!
The shop won’t be open much in October, though we are trying to put together one last Boo Bazaar one evening before Hallowe’en. For much of October, though, you can find us with a huge pop-up shop at OKTOBERFEST MIAMI at the German American Social Club in Miami. It’s their 68th Oktoberfest: the oldest Oktoberfest in Florida. We’ll be there the second and third weekends of October (Friday through Sunday, October 10 through 12 and October 17 through 19), plus this Saturday, October 4, is a smaller Oktoberfest there at the German American Social Club for the German International Parents Association, and our Miami pop-up shop will be open for that, too.

At the shop this Saturday, come learn how to make gift baskets. It’s our next creative workshop, and it’s with instructor Deborah Desser, who had a gift basket business in Montreal. You’ll learn all the essentials, plus tricks of the trade, and you’ll even get a discount voucher for the shop as part of the workshop ($10 off a $60 purchase; $20 off a $100 purchase). It’s actually an excellent workshop to take if you’ve ever considered a gift basket business yourself, whether full time or as a little side hustle. You’ll learn a lot!

We’ll also teach you how to make homemade Cavatelli in November.

Happy October. The Childs’ Everlasting Pumpkin image is taken from a 1913 garden seed catalog published by the John Lewis Childs Company [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Sep 01 2025
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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
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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.

 

 

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