Friday, July 29, 2011

What does it take to get a cup of coffee around here?

Every summer, the Johnson & Wales Admissions department hosts a Career Explorations program for high school sophomores and juniors. Essentially, students have the opportunity to spend time at Johnson & Wales immersed in what it would be like to live and go to school here in the field of choice.

Registration for the culinary program is held here at the museum, and it always packs the house! Today we got some great shots from inside the Ever Ready diner.

Hopefully these people aren't waiting to order breakfast, they'll be waiting a while...

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

"What a cowinkidink!" - Bugs Bunny

Some of you may know that we tweeted for the first time today.  Some of you may also know that we constantly field all sorts of requests from people who want to donate to the museum. Our most recent acquisition, a donation from a JWU staff member, is a collection of menus from restaurants in Rhode Island and Colorado. As we were going through the collection this morning, we came across this menu. Now if that isn't a coincidence, I don't know what is!

 

Upon some further research, it seems like Tweet's Balzano's Family Restaurant in Bristol, RI is a place of special significance for those who grew up in the Bristol area.

Follow culinarymuseum on Twitter!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Fruit Cakes: Not just for Christmas anymore (or at least they weren't in 1891)

In this, the season of weddings, what better recipe to share than one for wedding cake?
(And don't forget the Harries' Baking Powder! The advertisement for Harries' was found on the page facing recipe below).




Do any of you bakers out there have any idea how many people a recipe like this would feed?

Wedding Fruit Cake
Six pounds of raisins, six pounds of currants, one pound of chopped fine blanched almonds, three pounds of citron, orange and lemon peel, three pounds of dark-brown sugar, two and a quarter pounds of butter, three pounds of sifted flour, one and a half ounces of mace, three teaspoonfuls of rose water, three wine-glassfuls of brandy, three of wine, and thirty fresh eggs, beaten very light.  Mix these ingredients well together and take the cake to the bakery, making the engagement beforehand to have it baked.

-from Palatable Dishes: A Practical Guide to Good Living, arranged and compiled by Sarah J. Cutter, 1891.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

culinary.org wins again!

As some of you may know, back in March the museum's website was awarded the Best in Class award for museum websites by the Interactive Media Awards. Well, we've done it again (thanks to the design team at (add)ventures, of course)!

Every year, the New England Museum Association hosts a Publication Award Competition for all member museums. Eligible categories include books, invitations, promotional materials and websites, to name a few. This year, our site won the Judges Choice award for museums with an operating budget of under $500,000. This year, there were 206 publications from 64 museums entered in sixteen different categories.

A huge thank you is also due to our staff for the hard work and many hours that were devoted to compiling visual and written content for the web, and for their collaboration with the (add)ventures team throughout the site's development process. We here at the museum look forward to a long partnership with (add)ventures as we continue to add new features and content to our website.

To see the complete list of winners, click here.

Cheers to all winners and competitors!