Just when I thought I’d found all the good vintage signs in the St. Louis area, I ran across a picture of this one online, so of course I had to adventuring to see if it actually still exists…and it does! This is an old, shuttered Steak n Shake on Lemay, and if the Internet is correct, it dates to the 40s or 50s! I love the shape, and the “It’s a Meal” tagline was something new and interesting for me!
This year’s summer school was very fun and something close to my heart…we looked at the history of fashion and fashions from around the world!
We had a small list of books and hands-on activity kits that were the basis for our historical knowledge:
From there, we started with the basics…how color, pattern, and texture are the foundations of any fashion, and how fashion and true style are different. This was the part of the summer where I got to share my opinions on the topic, especially emphasizing that “fashion is about fitting in; style is about standing out.” We talked about things like couture vs. fast fashion, how popular fashions have influenced body image, the purpose of uniforms in various settings, and how things like rationing during war times forced styles to change. We even watched some bits from fashion shows, and discussed how the styles at shows do not necessarily reflect what even the designers expect the average person to wear in any given season.
What was really exciting, though, were the field trips we were able to go on, neither of which I was aware of when I chose the topic! First, we went to “Roaring” at the St Louis Art Museum, which focused on art, fashion, and automobiles in France from 1918-1939. We got to see a lot of cool designs (including one by Coco Chanel!), and Chickadee worked on sketching some of her favorites:
They even had a whimsical photo opp, which we both enjoyed:
And on a more serious note, we also toured the “Stitching History from the Holocaust” exhibit at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum. This exhibit gave us beautiful clothes to admire, but also a lot to think about…I’m very grateful that I ran across it!
There were plenty of opportunities for crafting and creativity this summer:
And we even had a guest designer make a beautiful creation…Bunny crafted this gorgeous pink dress!
This year’s summer school was very different because I only had one student, but it was also a lot of fun to talk about fashion throughout time and across the world!
This summer has been a “Pokémon Summer,” which was Turkey’s idea after we started playing the trading card game. We’ve had a really fun time playing, and once a week, we have a “Pokémon Night” which features something of a tournament. We all have at least one deck to play with, but none of them are adequate to defeat Turkey, the house Pokémon champion!
To go along with our game nights, we also made lots of recipes came from the My Pokémon Cookbook and My Pokémon Baking Book! For our first themed dinner, I made a Flygon Pan Pizza. We also had a Musharna Strawberry Taro Slush, which was light and lovely. For dessert I made Morpeko Double-Dipped Viennese Cookies.
Our second Pokémon dinner was nothing short of amazing! We had Charizard Spicy Arrabbiata with Chikorita Cheesy Pesto Brioche Rolls…they were outstanding! Our drink was the Bruxish Slush, which made use of butterfly pea tea to change the color of the blue ice to purple! Finally, for dessert, I made Sylveon Strawberry Shortcake, which was as delicious as it was pretty.
Our third Pokémon dinner started with a fresh and tropical drink, the Alolan Exeggutor Tall Tropical Slushie featuring pineapple and mango. I made Darumaka Tomato Soup with homemade cheddar croutons for the main course, and Bunny made Floette Focaccia to go with it (I enjoyed using the leftovers to make some amazing sandwiches!). For dessert I made the Sandile Butterscotch & Brownie Parfait, which featured a homemade butterscotch crème pátissière and a crispy brownie topped with strawberry whipped cream.
The theme for our fourth Pokémon Night was “beat the heat” by using the oven as little as possible! We started with a Tsareena Roast Beet Salad…It featured a delicious orange shallot vinaigrette, and the combination of beets and goat cheese was outstanding! The main course was Flygon Avocado Toast. The cream cheese spread had dill and lemon, and I will definitely be using it on other sandwiches! For dessert we had Relicanth Chocolate Malts…they were extra chocolatey!
For our fifth Pokémon dinner I made Dragonite Butternut Squash Gnocchi topped with fried sage.The drink was the Seaking Dragon Fruit Agua Fresca. It had a base of dragon fruit, coconut water, and lime juice, and the ice cubes were made with grapefruit, orange, and lime juices…it was really good, and somehow, it tasted a bit like bananas! For dessert, we made Whismur Lemon-Lavender Bars.
We had breakfast-for-dinner for our sixth Pokémon Night. The main course was Gogoat Breakfast Burritos. They had spinach, mushrooms, avocado, and refried beans in addition to eggs and shredded hash browns. Our drink was Shuckle Berry Juice. It was very similar to the smoothies we usually make, with frozen berries and vanilla yogurt, but it also had pomegranate juice, which was a new and delicious addition for us! For dessert we made Drifloon Blackberry Marshmallows. This was our first experience making homemade marshmallows, and was one of my biggest kitchen disasters to date when marshmallow ended up stuck to EVERYTHING, but they were really delicious!!!
Our seventh Pokémon Night dinner was a little different because I started running out of main courses to try from our cookbooks. I mixed things up with recipes a bit, and we started with an appetizer of Pyroar Bruschetta. It had a bit of spice from the addition of Calabrian chili crisp! I made a side dish of Pansear, Pansage, and Panpour Roasted Cauliflower. It was served with a trio of dipping sauces: buffalo (which I have to confess, I did not make from scratch), green chutney, and blue cheese. They were all good, but I liked the cilantro-based green chutney the best! Our drink, Clobbopus Vanilla Punch, was like a second dessert! It had the flavors of vanilla, orange, and ginger, with a few blueberries thrown in! Our actual dessert was Igglybuff Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes. The chocolate spirals were a lot of fun to make!
In between Pokémon Nights, we made a stand-alone dessert…Kricketot Chocolate Strawberry Sandwich Cookies, only we used raspberry jam for the filling because that’s we had on hand. The recipe suggested using a music note-shaped cookie cutter because crickets sing, and it just so happens that I have one of those!
Our eighth Pokémon Dinner was another breakfast-for-dinner featuring Furret Fluffy Pancakes. They were vanilla-cardamom pancakes alternated with chocolate to mimic his stripes, and they were both delicious! Our drink was Ampharos Lemonade. It was light and refreshing, and I especially enjoyed the addition of lemon ice cubes! I decided to really test my baking skills with dessert, the Koraidon Mixed Berry Soufflé. It was made (and topped!) with two different berry purées, and was lighter than air…I wish I had gotten a picture before they started to fall, because they were extremely puffed when they came out of the oven!
Next we had kind of a mini Pokémon Night with a special side dish and dessert. I made the Magby Spicy Cherry Tomato Galette. I’m not going to lie…this is my least favorite thing we’ve tried from these cookbooks. The recipe called for smoked paprika, and that was all I could taste, which was unfortunate, because there was a really good combination of other ingredients here. The dessert however, a Cufant Thai Iced Tea Float, made up for the disappointment of the side dish. It featured a homemade cardamom-vanilla ice cream with chai tea, coconut milk, and boba pearls.
We kept making dessert once I ran out of dinner ideas, including a pair of desserts from the My Pokémon Baking Book, starting with Buizel Apricot Thumbprint Cookies. We also made a Bidoof Peanut Butter Pretzel Tart.
The most iconic dessert from the My Pokémon Cookbook has to be the Pikachu Lemon Tart…it featured a smooth and delicious lemon curd. Making Pikachu’s face with candy melts also made me realize that his ears look like pencils!
The final Pokémon dessert of the summer was Oshawott Blueberry Meringue Tartlets…the were both delicious and adorable!
This has been a really fun and special thing to do this summer, and I’m really glad we took the time to choose and try some new recipes!
Bunny and I went back to St. Charles, MO, yesterday to go on the second “Hit the Bricks” tour, this time on the south end of Main Street to learn about “The Key to the West: Pioneers, Explorers, & Traders…Oh My!”
We got to see a replica of the first Catholic church in St. Charles, the Historic 1791 Borromeo Log Church, which was built upon the foundation of the original:
And we learned the stories behind many of the buildings…we found out that there was a widow’s walk on a home to watch out for Missouri River boat traffic, that a story about a planned rebellion regarding the new Louisiana Purchase is credited to the wrong building (which was built over a decade after the events of the story took place), how to identify a home built in the Federal style, and what buildings served as the frontier versions of the DMV and Jiffy Lube:
I learned that one of my favorite buildings on Main Street was the first to be designated on the National Register of Historic Places:
We learned the history behind the building in front, which was originally a church, and the building behind to its left, which was a school for the children of enslaved and indigenous persons:
And these hotels, which stand across the street from each other, were originally segregated by gender:
I have walked by this building more times than I can count, but I didn’t know until the tour that it was used as a lookout during the Civil War!
Our guide, Mark, was an excellent storyteller (and also a familiar face from Christmas Traditions for those in the know!):
We learned so many other stories, too…about Louis Blanchette and Lewis and Clark; Zebulon Pike and James Wilkinson; soda pop and how the train depot moved from one side of the tracks to the other; how they moved people and goods from the train tracks on one side of the river to the train tracks on the other side prior to a bridge spanning it, and much more, but to hear all the tales you’ll have to go on the full tour yourself…it’s a great time!
I couldn’t let our “Pokémon Summer” go by without coming up with a look appropriate for the theme, so I decided to do a “Pikachu Bound” featuring the cheerful yellow Harriet-Naia dress from Miss Candyfloss.
I had to think about the accessories that best match Pikachu’s energy and color scheme…in the end, I went with a little black (gloves and Splendette beads), a little brown (hat and ankle boots), plus some red accents for Pikachu’s cheeks (Splendette Duchess Bangles), and a heart brooch to mimic the tail on a female Pikachu with a pair of lightning bolt earrings borrowed from Bunny:
I even went with a double stack of bangles, which is not something usually do:
The earrings are probably the best part of the look!
I always love a happy yellow look, but this one was extra fun to wear!
This was an entertaining addition to our summer of Pokémon!
Chickadee has been asking to go on a trip to Ikea this summer, and we finally made it. She really enjoyed their selection of unusual sodas at the fountain…I think she tried them all, and the lingonberry was her favorite!
We had a fun visit to Grant’s Farm on Saturday!
It’s been a while since we’ve been to Grant’s Farm, so yesterday we made the drive across the river for a visit. It was an unbelievably nice day given that it’s July in St. Louis…the sun stayed hidden behind clouds, and while there was a brief drizzle which caused it to be humid, it wasn’t very hot at all…probably one of the nicest summer visits we’ve had there!
And just for a fun, a bonus picture of Das Bevo…we decided to drive the long way through the city so we could see the old halfway point between Grant’s Farm and the Anheuser-Busch brewery. I’m always surprised to see such a building in the middle of St. Louis!
We checked out the Kinetic Park in Dardenne Prairie and then stopped at Bahama Buck’s for shaved ice…it was a great way to spend a summer day!
