In my last post, I talked about the Jane Austen Festival we attended a couple of weeks ago. One of the reasons we decided to go is that Rachel is enrolled in an on-line summer class called “The Novels of Jane Austen.” This is a 6-week long class that covers 6 of her novels:
Pride and Prejudice,
Emma,
Sense and Sensibility,
Mansfied Park,
Northanger Abbey, and
Persuasion. For this class, Rachel was required to put together something called “A Night of Jane Austen” (which a friend dubbed “ANOJA”). Here is how the syllabus describes the project:
Choose from the five topics … and write a paper … Present the paper to your family orally in a brief, 5 – 10 minute presentation (summarizing the main points of the paper) during an evening dedicated to Austen themes. You will be cooking an “Austen meal” and perhaps playing a little whist. Schedule the evening out and present a brief outline of how the evening went.
So, we scheduled ANOJA for this past Saturday night. Rachel decided to write her paper on how the characters in the novels did or did not exhibit two of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). She chose to write about
faithfulness and
patience. She worked very hard on the paper and did a great job!
The Music
We wanted to set the right mood with music, and thanks to the digital age, that was the easiest detail to take care of. We found this MP3 album, which was perfect!
The Meal
We spent some time researching meals and ended up with the following menu:
- Randalls Roast Chicken
- Roasted Potatoes and Carrots
- Fresh Fruit
- Homemade English Muffins
- Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream
- Lavender Shortbread
- Altoids (for after-dinner mints). (Why Altoids? Did you know they were originally manufactured in 1780 in England? The exact same recipe is used today by the Wrigley Company!)
That was the original menu. However, due to the extreme heat and humidity, we decided to move the chicken and potatoes from the hot oven to the charcoal grill – probably more authentic anyway, right? And since the English Muffins need to be pan fried at the last minute, we opted for making wheat bread, so we could get that done ahead of time. The
Lavender Shortbread looked beautiful
but when I finally tracked down edible lavender, I just couldn’t fathom eating something that smelled so much like potpourri. :-P So, we opted for a tried and true recipe:
Almond Glazed Sugar Cookies:
Next we started scouring the antique shops and Goodwills for nice dinnerwear. We were going for elegant and something close to period-looking.
I found most of the dinner plates and glasses at a couple of different antique stores, but there were a couple of elegant-looking dishes I managed to find at Goodwill. I also wanted those fancy little butter knives. We had one, but one image of a Regency-era dinner setting showed one at each place. So
of course we needed to replicate that! And those little knives are like fifty cents at Goodwill. I ended up finding 4 of them. For the homemade ice cream (called “ices” in Austen’s day), I ended up finding just enough ice cream sundae glasses, mostly at Goodwill.
As for flowers, we took our cue from this article on “Setting the Table for an Elegant Dinner Party”
Flowers should never be absent from the dinner table. No matter how homely, they add to the picturesqueness of the feast.
from Ladies Home Journal, 1891.
So…fresh flowers - check:
I found a beautiful peach linen tablecloth at an antique store that barely fits our 8’3” long table, so we found a nice king-sized white sheet at Goodwill to put under it.
Sadly, and it pains me to write this, I did not have the presence of mind to photograph the dinner table in all it’s glory before we sat down to eat. There was too much excitement and we ate soon after our guests arrived.
Thankfully, Mick had the presence of mind to snap a few pictures during dinner.
The ketchup bottle and the sippy cup somehow seem out of place in this picture. :-)
The Clothing
The same friend who makes the Regency-era hats had kindly offered to lend us some of her dresses and hats for a different assignment for the class, so we thought it would be fun if Rachel could dress up in this period clothing, even though it wasn’t required.
Of course, wouldn’t it be fun to dress all the girls in costume, but alas, I knew I couldn’t whip up 5 Regency gowns in a week’s time, and you can’t walk into Wal-Mart and pick up a Spencer jacket! Enter Mrs. Noot (escorted here by her dashing husband, Peter).
Rachel wanted to invite to ANOJA some very dear friends of ours, the Noots, who are major Austen fans, history buffs, and very supportive of pretty much anything kids do, especially if it involves the arts. Mrs. Noot also was my high school swing choir teacher. She taught music for years (32, I think) before retiring a couple of years ago. One of her favorite parts of teaching was collecting costumes and props for the many musical productions her groups performed. She jumped right on the costume idea and began sending me links to great websites with lots of images and videos of Regency-era dress, hairstyles and dining. Some of the sites were filled with images for inspiration and education, some were sites on how to make your own costumes, some had information on how to achieve the look with thrift-store items. I was amazed at all the info out there about the Regency era – it’s really remarkable how popular it continues to be!
As the day rapidly approached, both Mrs. Noot and I began the “Great Goodwill/Antique Shop Conquest”, managing to hit probably a half dozen stores in a couple of days. Mrs. Noot also gathered up some clothing and accessories she had from her teaching days. I am in awe of her ability to take ordinary articles of clothing and turn them into a believable costume! For example, she found this lady’s nightgown at a Goodwill and was able to picture it paired with a sash for an empire waist look. We turned it around backwards, so you couldn’t see the lace and flowers.
Rachel did a masterful job with Sarah’s hairstyle – not an easy feat with all the hair she has! Here is a close-up:
For Claire, this was just a little girl’s dress with a wide ribbon we wrapped around just above her waist. I suppose historical purists would probably frown on the colors of these modern dresses we used, but 1) we pulled this together in a very short period of time, and 2) it was FUN no matter what! :-) And besides, I really think the accessories and hairstyles pulled it all together and made it work. Courtney put the curls in Claire’s hair and when she saw herself in the mirror, her response was “Oh my goodness! Yes!” :-D
Courtney was able to fit in one of the borrowed reproduction dresses, a jacket and bonnet. More close-up pictures of her and Rachel’s beautiful bonnets later.
Erica looked lovely in this purple lady’s dress. The shawl, sash and the brooch helped to make it look more period. One thing we learned is the popular style of shoe looked very much like modern ballet slippers. Thankfully, we’ve got plenty of those!
I didn’t need any arm-twisting to join in the dress-up, especially when I saw this dress Mrs. Noot found … at Goodwill, no less! The gloves were from an antique shop. I’m ready for the Scottish Ball!
We even got the little guys in on the act. Clearly they were a little shy with all the beautiful ladies and dashing gents. Here’s Grant, looking about as shy and self-conscious as I’ve ever seen him. :-) So cute!
and Trent … can a one and a half-year-old feel shy and self-conscious? Yes! :-D Awww … they’re going to
love these pictures when they’re teenagers. :-D
Here’s the whole crew!
After dinner fun
After dinner, we played a game Rachel thought up which is like the modern-day game “Head Bands”. Rachel placed a name card in front of each person’s plate facing away from the person, so that everyone could see the front of the card except that person. On the front of the name card was the name of a Jane Austen character. We took turns trying to guess the right answer by asking yes and no questions. Claire ended up winning by guessing hers (Emma Woodhouse) on her first turn! :-) Sadly, I (aka Mrs. Bennett) came in last! :-D After dinner, Rachel read her paper to us, then played a few songs on the piano. One of the songs is a Clementi piece (Sonatina in B Major) which was written during the period. The evening ended with the Noots being escorted to the car and down the driveway by lots of yelling, waving kids! No pictures of that – it was 10:00 by then!
A few more pictures …
Trent finally warms up to Peter:
A little blurry and dark of Erica walking through the yard in the evening, but I still like it:
Even the dolls were dressed up for the occasion. :-)
After-dinner laughing. It’s moments like this that should make us realize how important mealtime is for friends and families, whether it’s a special occasion like this, or even everyday meals. It's been said that mealtime is “Not just for filling holes, but for nurturing souls.” Very true!
Mrs. Noot, who truly thinks of
everything, bought small gifts to give to us. There were little framed images from the period, and the item below those is a tiny container. Grant even got a pair of drumstick pencils. I told the Noots I predict he’ll do more drumming with them than writing. ;-)
Close-ups of the bonnets:
The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald
