A.M. Offenwanger's Blog, page 11

Marie Curie’s Bunsen Burner and the Parallel Lives Fallacy

Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I must have been around nine or ten, reading an article in the yearly Reader’s Digest Youth Anthology about Marie Curie. You know, the famous scientist? First woman to receive a Nobel Prize? First woman to receive multiple Nobel Prizes, in fact? Only person ever to get a Nobel Prize in two different fields? Yeah, her. So inspiring, such a role model.

There’s one sentence that stuck out to me ...

Three Nuts for Cinderella – The English Dub

News from Fairy Tale Land! Eight years ago, when I was researching my final project for my MA, I wrote a post on my research blog, quill and qwerty, on the iconic film Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella. It’s a German-Czech production from 1973 that has achieved near-cult status in Germany, and has influenced more than one “Cinderella” movie since then (including the 1998 Ever After and the wonderful 2015 live-action version). At the time, I was bemoaning the fact that there didn’t seem to be...

#ThrowbackThursday: Lenten Soup

A post from five years ago. I don’t have any Puy lentils at the moment, but I think I have some brown lentils on hand still. I might have to make this soup again soon.

[image error]

It was so cold and miserable yesterday, I had to have something hot for lunch. There weren’t any leftovers, and I didn’t feel like having anything from a can. So I made some lentil soup, from Puy (French) lentils I’ve had in the cupboard for, oh, probably three or four years. (Me in bulk food store: “Oh, look at those lovel...

#FridayFragment: 11.03.2022

She took the lid off the sugar bowl and absentmindedly reached in for a sugar cube. She’d really have to get herself some sugar tongs.

“Oy!” cried an indignant little voice from the bowl. “Do you mind?”

She gave a startled glance into the sugar bowl. A tiny man stared up at her from under a pointy blue hat, clutching a sugar cube in front of him which was unsuccessful at hiding the fact that he was butt naked.

“I beg your pardon!” she said politely. “I didn’t realize you were using my sugar...

#WordlessWednesday: Haven’t Lost ‘Em After All

#FridayFragment: 04.03.2022

“I’m too tired,” the witch said.
“Aw, c’mon!” the wizard wheedled. “Just once? Just one teeny, tiny time?”
“No.”
“Pleeeeease?” He batted his long, silky eyelashes.
The witch sighed.
“Oh, fine.” She raised her short, stubby black wand. “Bibbety-boppety-booh!”
Sparkles shot out of the end of the wand and rained down on the wizard’s hat.
“Wheee!” he trilled, clapping his fingers together and spinning in the glittering shower.
Reluctantly, the witch gave a smile.

#WordlessWednesday: Ash Wednesday

Dahl’s Chickens, or: Why They Needed Servants in Those Days

In a manner of speaking, this is a #ThrowbackThursday post. Not that it’s been posted before, but I started writing it exactly two years ago, on our last trip out of the country. Somehow, with the lockdown and everything, I never had the heart to finish it, but now, on the second anniversary of the trip, it seemed like a good time to dust it off and put it up. Now that things are opening up again, maybe it’ll be possible to go back there soon?

I was just on another jaunt to the Old Country. A...

#ThrowbackThursday: Borscht

I made a pot of borscht the other day. Because, winter, and beets that needed cooking, and deliciousness. And I was reminded of this blog post from eight years ago, February 6, 2014, written while the Winter Olympics were on in Sochi, Russia. It being the Winter Olympics again, I thought you might like to read it and maybe cook your own borscht.

In honour of the Russian Olympics, I thought I’d cook me a pot of borscht. Well, actually, no, it’s not in honour of the Olympics at all, it’s in...

#WordlessWednesday: The Legend of Briar Rose

“The Legend of Briar Rose”, by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, 1885-1890. Photos from three years ago today, February 16, 2019, at the Tate Britain in London.