10e at kaufmann mercantile -concord grapes

A few months ago I did an internership at the William Munroe Special Collections in Concord, MA, "the most comprehensive archive of primary and secondary source material related to Concord history, life, landscape, literature, people, and influence from 1635 to the present day". Long/short it was fascinating and on the last day I noticed a small postcard depicting a monkish looking man under a trellis and it clicked... Concord Grapes.

I took the boys out to Concord recently and prepped an article for Kaufmann Mercantile that they just posted on their site, go take a look. Some bonus feautures info below...

Must add here, if you have the opportunity it is mind-blowing to visit that area (and btw highly recommend the publically accessible William Munroe Special Collections) and just let yourself be transported back to this lightning-rod time of intellectual activity; famously Transcendentalism (Hawthorne, Thoreau, Emerson, the Alcotts) and support of the abolitionist movement. Pretty electrifying. Also, am now on a kick of drinking Concord Grape juice (easily found, Welch's does a pure grape/pear juice w/ no sugar etc added). Darker than blood, kids love it.

Concord grape freezer.
Although Concords are not the dominant grape anymore (link) they may yet enjoy a resurgence as lately Concord juice has been found to be useful in prevention of heart disease, ranked #1 in antioxidant benefit above red wine, chocolate and others generally touted as heart healthy. To get technical, this is because red wine and grapes contain polyphenolic compounds, including antioxidant activity of flavonoids, which can reduce platelet aggregation and have thus been associated with lower rates of cardiovascular disease. The inhibitory effect of the flavonoids in grape juice may also decrease the risk of coronary thrombosis and myocardial infarction [great phrase, means heart attack -ed.].

One more nugget of information... The lowly and steadfast peanut butter and jelly sandwich, made distinct by the use of tart/sweet Concord jelly came about at the turn of the last century due to the confluence of three factors;

(1) Welch’s Grape Juice Company (started by Dr Thomas Welch after creating non-alcoholic “wine from pasteurized Concord juice in 1860s) sold their complete first production run of Grapelade jelly to the US Army in advance of WWI. These GIs demanded it on return to the US, and in 1923 Welch's introduces Concord Grape Jelly.
(2)Pre-sliced bread was not packaged and sold commercially until after 1920 so now (latchkey) children could easily make their own sandwiches and (3) by WWII peanut butter was being touted as a cheap source of protein. These wartime factors led to the creation of the ubiquitous PB&J we enjoy today. It also became a cheap source of nutrition during the depression, cementing its place as a food for the everyman.

10e at kaufmann mercantile -weaving harris tweed II

My Harris Tweed contact Mike Donald has graduated as a certified weaver. Head over to Kaufmann Mercantile to read part two of our quite personal interview, about what this means to him but in a larger sense what is happening with the HT brand and the area.

One slightly off topic thing we talked about was connectivity on the island...

What about internet on the islands, I thought paradoxically you had fantastic broadband connections?
Broadband on the islands is one of the biggest issues I think we face and I hope it gets tackled by the Scottish government properly this year. It's very poor in some places. I'm lucky to have a 3MB connection which is average. Some places near the main town of Stornoway can get 7MB which is probably as good as it gets here but many of the remoter rural villages make do with a pretty lousy mast-to-mast wireless network at anything between 500KB and 2MB. It's very expensive too and really not good enough, especially if we want to keep young people and associated creative industries here.

BTW, have a look at your own Harris Tweed jacket... see those blue stamped numbers on the side, those correspond to the individual weaver that created the cloth. At some point I am hoping The Harris Tweed Authority will create a database or service so for S&G one could look up the numbers.

10e at kaufmann mercantile -why to shine shoes

Had a whiz-bang assignment recently; interview 3 gents about why we shine shoes. Not the how but the physical and chemical, as well as psychological reasons for doing so. I asked a leather guy (Nick Horween), a style guy (Ryan Plett)and a shoe shine guy (local acquaintance Nicolo Timore of the Top Shelf Flea).

Read the result over at Kaufmann Mercantile.

10e at kaufmann mercantile -weaving harris tweed

We all had to do a presentation (high school, late 1980s) and most just muddled through it, probably mumbling. A buddy from Inverness announced that his topic (the Highland Clearances) was far too big to discuss in one evening and he would like to do a two part talk over two evenings. Taking the same approach here.

Over the last year I've communicated a bit with Mike Donald, a guy from Glasgow connected to the Harris Tweed Authority, and writer of The Croft blog. He was the one that organised The Harris Tweed Ride a few months back. Anyhow, he has moved back to the Western Isles off the north-west coast of Scotland to enroll in a training program that is intended to bring young folk back into the trade of weaving Harris Tweed.

I recently interviewed him for Kaufmann Mercantile. Will catch up with Mike again in a few weeks to learn more about the process, but you can read part 1 here.

10engines over at kaufmann mercantile -show card/sign writing

Head over to Kaufman Mercantile to read a small post they published for me on a certain type of sign writing; show cards. If you live in Somerville it might remind you of McKinnion's in Davis Square and their handpainted grocery signs. The pic below from googlestreetview; must be 3 years old now. Went round to discuss the signage with them and realized that about a year ago they switched over to printed signs.



Another sidenote; if you live in the UK you will know these types of signs below from High Street "arcades". Eye-watering. Fugly as hell. Awesome. From theonlyone's flickr.

10engines over at kaufmann mercantile -2

I had fun doing some background reading/writing on canoes, especially aluminum canoes for Kaufmann Mercantile -you can read it here.

10engines over at kaufmann mercantile

I have mentioned Kaufmann Mercantile before, and love the way their posts are so informative, elemental and sort of, unemotional... mean that as a compliment. Posts about stuff like Rope, Wooden Snowshoes, The Nearings, or Meyer Lemons. That doesn't even scratch the surface... get over there.

They started a shop a while back too. Again, simple, well designed and elemental products. I think the Chemex Coffeemaker was the first item?? They love provenance and they deliver value... $100 Adirondack packs? They got you covered.

They have wrangled in some writers for the blog and I have a piece up about Punching Bags. You can read it here.

For reference, a maize bag looks something like this. #recommend.