jam to-morrow and jam yesterday, but never jam to-day

"Jam to-morrow and jam yesterday, but never jam to-day..."
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There
~The White Queen~ (Lewis Carroll)

When J takes the kids to the library, they always come home with a few cookbooks for me to try. This Outlander Kitchen has been the best so far. I've never read Outlander and I've never watched the series, but this cookbook is *amazing*. I've already made about ten different recipes---so easy, so tasty, and all so interesting in their rustic presentations. I made the jam tarts for a kid-friendly picnic at the park (which got rained out so we ate the tarts in our basement instead).

The tarts reminded me of Alice which then reminded me of Carol Channing's scary/creepy/brilliant song from the 80s television version of Alice in Wonderland. That scene is one of the weirdest, scariest things in all of my childhood memories, and despite its scare-factor, it made me love Carol Channing forever for all of her oddball Broadway theatrics.

On a more intellectual note, one of my favorite literary theory essays is Hélène Cixous' introduction to the French translation of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass. The White Queen, always losing her cape, is also always in danger of de-capitation (see the deconstruction: de-cape)---the opposite of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland who threatens to decapitate (de-cape) her impotent subjects. Cixous' text is a smart, creative, imaginative, deconstructionist read. It forever changed the way I approach the Alice tales, and really, it adds a playful working dimension to my reading habits in general:

"Concerning a reading which plays at working."

John Tenniel, Knave of Hearts