The Meta - Gingerbread House

"Shop Around the Corner"
Gingerbread bookstore created a few years ago
by my friend Professor Kathleen O'Gorman
Look closely and you'll see that this Gingerbread House has its own Gingerbread House! When I praised Kathie for the charm of this particular design feature, she said, "Ah, the meta-gingerbread house! The measure of how desperately I didn't want to grade papers that year!"

In practice, that is.

In theory, it's the measure of "interiorty":

"A house within a house, the dollhouse not only presents the house's articulation of the tension between inner and outer spheres of exteriority and interiority -- it also represents the tension between two modes of interiority. Occupying a space within an enclosed space, the dollhouse's aptest analogy is the locket or the secret recesses of the heart: center within center, within within within. The dollhouse is a materialized secret: what we look for is the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority."

from On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic,
the Souvenir, the Collection (p 61)
by Susan Stewart ~ poet, professor, academic folklorist
For a more in - depth look at this and other fascinating examples of "gingerbread house theory," see my latest post:

The House You're Standing In
. . . or Holding in the Palm of Your Hand

on
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A fortnightly [every 14th & 28th]
literary blog of connection & coincidence; custom & ceremony

The Mystery of the Matryoshka: Within Within Within

Little Ben with the Matryoshka Collection, 1997
NEW FORTNIGHTLY BLOG POST TODAY!
The Mystery of the Matryoshka: Within Within Within
on
The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
1. "For one thing, the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds has made me curious about the sun and the stars, for the universe itself must be like a world of great atoms . . . but most important, I suppose ...my experiment has made me feel important--every atom in me, in everybody, has come from the sun--from places beyond our dreams. The atoms of our hands, the atoms of our hearts" (101-02).

from The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man - in - the - Moon Marigolds
by Paul Zindel

2. "Keep in mind, as you pray and meditate, that the God inside of you is more powerful than anything else in the world. The entire cosmos is imprinted on every atom of your being. . . .

"You can think of the universe as a set of wooden Russian matryoshka dolls, with each doll having a smaller one inside of it. The entire visible universe is the outermost doll, and nested inside it are galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets -- right down to the smallest doll, which is you. But inside of you is an even smaller doll that somehow has the biggest doll inside of it. When you figure out this riddle, you will have discovered the key to your ascension!" (318)

from Reincarnation: The Missing Link In Christianity
by Elizabeth Clare Prophet

3. "Transcendence and the interiority of history and narrative are the dominant characteristics of the most consummate of miniatures -- the dollhouse. A house within a house . . . a space within an enclosed space . . . the locket or the secret recesses of the heart: center within center, within within within. The dollhouse is a materialized secret; what we look for is the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority." (61)

from On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature,
the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection.
by Susan Stewart

Stewart's insight on the dollhouse -- "the house within a house" and even more so, "the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority" -- is equally applicable to the nesting Matryoshka / Matreshka dolls, stacked and nested so neatly within one another.

Sam's Display of the Tiniest

Read More:
The Mystery of the Matryoshka: Within Within Within

Fun Fall Food!

STADIUM CAKEFor the Tailgate Party
We found this clever stadium-shaped Nordic Ware Bundt Pan at one of our favorite shopping spots, Kitchen Art, where you can find everything from Le Creuset to tea cosies to novelty potato scrubbers.

My older son bought the stadium pan as a birthday present for my younger son; and, of course, part of the present was actually baking him a chocolate stadium birthday cakes, complete with hand-made goal post candles:Happy Birthday to Sam!
P.S. Also works well as a Jello mold!

HALLOW LOGBuche de l'Automne!
As the holidays approach, you will no doubt see plenty of festive Yule Log Cakes pictured in the holiday magazines and gourmet catalogues. The seasonal cake you see here is my new autumnal variation on the time-honored wintry presentations. I am calling it The Hallow Log (as in All Hallows) and, much better than a hollow log, this one is filled with cream cheese icing. Yum!

Interestingly enough, these miniature cakes are now better known than either the gigantic originals that they represent or the historical tradition of Bringing in the Yule Log. In her fascinating study of the miniature and the gigantic, folklore scholar Susan Stewart has written of the human impulse to transform nature and quaint rural customs into art. The resulting souvenirs and miniatures become the objects of our desire for "an elusive and purer, yet diminished, past."

I can't help thinking of the old - time Yule Logs (meant for burning on the hearth) and the contemporary Yule Log Cake or Buche de Noel (intended for eating) when Stewart says that the antiquarian's "search is primarily an aesthetic one, an attempt to erase the actual past in order to create an imagined past which is available for consumption" (emphasis added, 143; On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, by Susan Stewart).

In this case, not just metaphorical consumption! But actual consumption, as in "Hey, who's ready for a piece of cake?"

If you'd like to make one of these Pumpkin Cake Rolls for yourself, check out the recipe below (in "Comments") from my sister Peg's friend Beth.

If you enjoy food blogs, check out bEATS by my friend Beatrice and see some absolutely luscious photographs.

And, finally, if you'd like to read more about the "Miniature & the Gigantic," see my previous post on this blog: September 9, 2010

and my book: Created in Our Image:
The Miniature Body of the Doll as Subject and Object