Cookies Again!

In February, this guest post appeared on my blog, much to everyone's (especially my Mum's and my own) delight.

And guess what - the cookies have made another appearance, and I have another guest post about them for you!

In case you were not yet reading my blog in February, or don't feel like clicking on the link to the old post, here is a brief summary of events:

Last year in April, my Mum wrote this guest post with her recipe for Easter Bunny Cookies. They were a big hit with someone living on a different continent - you could almost say these cookies (or at least their recipe) travelled the world. One very kind lady in Canada, herself a fellow blogger, shared the recipe with a friend, and they both decided to give it a try and made the cookies for two events: First to offer them as welcome nibbles to visitors at their church, and then in the shape of eighth-notes for a fund raising event at a women's music club.

The February post resulted from an email the fellow blogger sent me, and here is what she wrote last week:

- - -
 

Hello Meike and Meike’s Mum,

As promised, here is the report of your cookies’ latest contribution to the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg, held in another of Winnipeg’s historic homes for “Swing Into Spring,” the club’s 16^th annual ‘McCelland Scholarship’ fund-raising event. 
 

755 Wellington Crescent does not have the notable romantic caché of the love story that research into Moss House proposed, but I have garnered a little of its history, nonetheless. Probably designed by its first owner, William Arthur Irish, the home was built in 1929 for his second wife and the couple’s growing family. 

(The first Mrs. Irish passed away nine months after moving from Winnipeg to Victoria, BC, to a home Irish is known to have designed and built there.) Irish later married Mary Edith Fares (then 22), in 1922. Mary Edith was the daughter of William H. Fares, who made his fortune in cattle, livestock, and meat-packing. 

Irish established himself in a contracting business with Mary Edith’s brother-in-law, businessman J. A. Saul; his upward mobility led him to become presidents of four companies in the business of insurance and finance, and to assert himself into the “who’s who” of Winnipeg. 

Being a member of the City’s elite, the Irish name made the society page, and less felicitously, newspaper headlines, for reason of his disputing the will of his friend, the nationally influential and enterprising erstwhile mayor of Winnipeg, Alexander MacDonald. Less notoriously, William Arthur Irish made the papers one final time, 2^nd January, 1942, the headlines comprising only his name and the value of his estate - $229,101.00 - revealing him (if not his house) to have been significant public interest.

I asked the most senior member of the WMC about the house; our lovely Margaret knew the date the house had been built, and went on to say that she had known Irish’s son, Bill. Margaret didn’t have other information about the house (maybe the new owners would know), but she was instrumental acquiring the house for our event. 

Gracious, charming, canny, and compelling, Margaret has found homes for the event for each of the past 16 years, - but she had had no luck this year until she told the story of her disappointing search to a boutique esthetician, a woman who believes in things meant-to-be. Herself a musician, she spontaneously offered “755” for the event that brought about 175 people through her dining room for tea sandwiches, sweets...

 

...and Meike’s Mum’s cookies:

My Mum's cookies are the eighth notes at the top end of the plate. I wouldn't mind having the entire plate to myself :-D

Adjacent to the dining room, a white baby grand piano almost glows in the light-drenched sitting room. Our sparkly hostess - self-described “lily girl” - volunteered the story of peeking through the window to see that white piano, and discovering her house (meant-to-be), before she had even looked inside. Her first impulse was confirmed by the detailed references to fleurs-de-lys in archways at the front entrance and above length of the dining room table. Love stories here are written between the lines, but one came to light when the man of the house sang the praises of a woman with a most beautiful voice: for a few minutes in an erstwhile tea-room hushed to listen to the white baby grand piano (played by a former McClelland scholarship winner), our “lily girl” sang her Ave Maria.

“Swing Into Spring” was a resounding success. Our lovely (and wily) Margaret, who has reached her 90^th year, is stepping aside as event Chair, but will stay on to help again next year. It will be a while until Meike’s Mum’s cookies make another appearance – a winter concert in February, 2017, perhaps - but I am already not only looking forward to finding stories, but to sharing them with you. You will be very much in mind as I make the cookies in the shape of eighth-notes for the next special event. 

Thank-you so much.

- End of guest post -

Isn't that yet another great way to show what blogging can result in? Admittedly, this is neither life-saving nor life-changing, but I love the way my Mum's cookies have formed a link between us and the Women's Musical Club of Winnipeg, and how the stories of life and love in those beautiful houses can appear on my blog thanks to my Mum's original guest post with the cookie recipe.