Daughters of the American Revolution promote Constitution Week

From the Daily Courier: Daughters of the American Revolution promote Constitution Week

The tradition of celebrating the Constitution was started many years ago by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). In 1955, the Daughters petitioned Congress to set aside Sept. 17 through 23 annually to be dedicated for the observance of Constitution Week. The resolution was later adopted by the U.S. Congress and signed into Public Law #915 on Aug. 2, 1956, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The aims of the celebration are to emphasize citizens' responsibilities for protecting and defending the Constitution, preserving it for posterity; inform the people that the Constitution is the basis for America's great heritage and the foundation for the American way of life; and encourage the study of the historical events which led to the framing of the Constitution in September 1787.

DAR has served America for 122 years. In 1928, the Daughters began work on a building as a memorial to the Constitution. John Russell Pope, architect of the Jefferson Memorial, was commissioned to design the performing arts center, known as DAR Constitution Hall. Today, DAR Constitution Hall is the only structure erected in tribute to the Constitution of the United States of America. DAR has over 165,000 members, with approximately 3,000 chapters in all 50 states and 11 foreign countries. For more information about DAR, visit www.dar.org or call 708-9693.
 

Daughters of the American Revolution to honor Uncle Sam

From The Patch: Daughters of the American Revolution to honor Uncle Sam

Each year the José Maria Amador Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), NSDAR, sponsors national contests.   You’re invited to participate in the American History Essay Contest and the Christopher Columbus Essay Contest.  Chapter winners are acknowledged with a $100 monetary prize, a certificate and a medal at the chapter’s Annual Awards Ceremony in February 2013.
Both essay contests are judged for historical accuracy, adherence to topic, organization of materials, interest, originality, spelling, grammar, punctuation and neatness.  The deadline for each contest is Nov. 15, 2012.
The American History Essay Contest is open to students in grades five through eight.  The 2012-2013 topic is “Forgotten Patriots Who Supported the American Struggle for Independence.”  Contestants should write a 300-600 word essay (5^th grade), and a 600-1,000 word essay (6^th-8^th grades) focusing on the often unrecognized people and groups who provided military, patriotic and public service in support of the American Revolution.  Explain why it is especially important to honor the unsung heroes and often forgotten patriots.
The chapter will send one winning essay from each of the four grades for judging at the district level, and those winners will proceed to state level competition.  The state winners are sent to the DAR Southwest Division Chairman who forwards those winners to the National Chairman.  National winners will receive a certificate, gold pin and monetary award presented at DAR 122^nd Continental Congress, June 2013.
Contact DAR chairpersons Phyllis Houghton at pnhoughton@sbcglobal.net or Arlene Farley at aerospacetchr@sbcglobal.net for an information packet and further guidelines.
The Christopher Columbus Essay Contest is open to students in grades 9-12.  The 2012-2013 topic is “To the Memory of Christopher Columbus, Whose High Faith and Indomitable Courage Gave to Mankind a New World.”  Contestants should write a 800-1,200  word essay focusing on how high levels of faith and belief, and determined courage was demonstrated in the life and actions of Columbus, and explain how this gave to mankind a new world.
The chapter will select one winning essay for judging at the district level, and that winner will proceed to state level competition.  The state winner is sent to the DAR Southwest Division Chairman who forwards the winner to the National Chairman.  The national winner will receive $1,200 and paid lodging and transportation to Washington, D.C. to read the prize-winning essay at the Columbus Memorial on Columbus Day Oct. 14, 2013. The second place national winner will receive $500 and the third place national winner will receive $300.
Contact DAR chairperson Carole Vercellino at caroleverc_@hotmail.com for an information packet and further guidelines.

Daughters of the American Revolution to honor Uncle Sam

From the Troy Record:  Daughters of the American Revolution to honor Uncle Sam

TROY — New signs leading the way to Sam Wilson’s gravesite were recently installed at Oakwood Cemetery, courtesy of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).

The cemetery will host a ceremony to not only showcase the new aesthetics, but also honor Uncle Sam for his tireless contributions to the cause on Sunday at 2 p.m. According to DAR New York State Regent Denise Doring Van Buren, the event will coincide with the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.

“This project in Oakwood Cemetery is one of three that our local chapter is sponsoring,” explained Van Buren, the 42nd DAR State Regent and a native of Troy. “We raised money through outright donations and by selling pins and tote bags to our members.”

As DAR State Regent, Van Buren had the privilege of selecting projects for the local chapter to sponsor. A member of DAR for 25 years, she gives her now-deceased father, James Doring of South Troy, credit for instilling within her a love of American history – and that of Troy’s in particular. Van Buren’s three-year term as State Regent ends in July 2013.

The funds raised by the local DAR chapter – approximately $5,000 – not only paid for the creation and erection of 20 new signs to replace existing signage in need of repair but also the removal of a dead tree. The addition of two memorial benches near Wilson’s grave will offer respite to visitors who want to reflect on the life of the patriotic Trojan who provided meat rations to American soldiers stationed in the City of Rensselaer during the war.

DAR’s other locally sponsored projects include restoration of 1,800 state battle flags housed at the New York State Military Museum in Saratoga Springs and marking a Manhattan gravesite in the Trinity Church yard for Horatio Gates, the English-born American general who bested his former British comrades at the Battle of Saratoga. His actual gravesite has never been discovered.

“The event (here at Oakwood Cemetery) is meaningful to me because I value what endeavors people of the past have done that still affect us today,” said Carol Haid, honorary regent of the Van Rensselaer Chapter of the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution in Troy. “Oakwood Cemetery is on the National Register of Historic Places and has brought many visitors to Troy. This is an ideal way of honoring Samuel Wilson and his legacy.”

Haid further noted that 2011 marked the 50th Anniversary of the Congressional Resolution recognizing “Uncle Sam” Wilson of Troy as the progenitor of America’s national symbol of Uncle Sam. She lauded Marty Mahar and several Troy delegates for their hard work in garnering acclaim for Wilson as Uncle Sam.

“Samuel Wilson has such an impact in the City of Troy since he came here in 1789,” Haid said. “The Wilson brothers, Samuel and Ebinezer, had a brick-making business then and in 1793 founded a meat-packing business.”

Haid, who is likewise state chairman of the Historic Preservation Committee, will be in attendance Sunday with Van Buren and Merry Ann Wright, president general of the National Society of DAR, who oversees 3,000 DAR chapters worldwide boasting 175,000 members.

This is very possibly the first time a DAR president general will be coming to Troy,” said Van Buren.

 

MASS: The Farm Table's Heirloom Tomato Burrata Mozzarella Salad

From WLLP:  The Farm Table's Heirloom Tomato Burrata Mozzarella Salad

At Kringle Candle in Bernardston

Updated: Wednesday, 05 Sep 2012, 2:11 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 05 Sep 2012, 2:11 PM EDT

• Michelle Misiaszek

BERNARDSTON, Mass. (Mass Appeal) - Brent Menke , Executive Chef at The Farm Table at Kringle Candle in Bernardston, joined us in the Mass Appeal kitchen to bring us a taste of their delicious menu .

The Farm Table at Kringle Candle
219 South Street
Bernardston, MA
(413) 648 - 5200
www.kringlefarmtable.com

Heirloom Tomato Burrata Mozzarella Salad

Ingredients:

• Arugula
• Basil
• Heirloom tomatoes
• Cape Gooseberry
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Aged balsamic vinegar

Directions:

1. Cut tomatoes and place them on a plate.
2. Serve with Burrata mozzarella and arugula
3. Drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top
4. Add some fresh basil
5. Enjoy!
   
    

About The Farm Table at Kringle Candle:

When this sturdy Bernardston colonial house was built in 1800, the American Revolution was recently-concluded. More than two centuries later, the faithfully- renovated structure surrounding you finds itself at the dawn of a new revolution. In a world grown weary of chemicals, pesticides, genetically-modified plants, fruits and animals, increasingly-educated consumers are turning away from petroleum-fueled factory operations situated a continent away. More and more, the thinking person embraces healthy, ethically- produced local foodstuffs of every kind. As we considered the power of the burgeoning farm-to-table eating movement, we realized we had found not only a method, but a name for this enterprise. To that simple end, The Farm Table offers honest nourishment for the body and elegant respite for the soul.

Look around you. The candlelit spaces, open-hearth oven, and comforting fireplaces speak wordlessly of a quieter, simpler time in New England history. Our menu similarly speaks of a better time in culinary history. Created by executive chef Brent Menke and featuring internationally- nuanced New American cuisine, a meal taken here is truly an experience to remember. Virtually every item we serve is sourced from our very own organic farm as well as growers within a 50-mile radius of The Farm Table.
Our concept is based upon our company motto: “The Way it Used to Be.” A truly good restaurant should be more than a place to feed you; it should nourish the body, educate the mind and entertain the spirit. These are our modest but steadfast goals. This old farmhouse has lived many lives in 200-plus years, but it has always been a home. And now we invite you to come and dine with us in the restaurant that has become our home: The Farm Table.

About Chef Brent Menke:

Brent has cooked professionally for nearly twenty years. Prior to joining The Farm Table, he served as Chef aboard Paraffin, one of the finest luxury motor yachts sailing the planet today.

Here, he provides a glimpse into his philosophies on cooking.
In my opinion, fine cuisine absolutely must be ingredient-driven. Without superior raw materials to work with, the best chef is inevitably doomed to fail. And I don’t like to fail, ever.
Being chef aboard Paraffin provided its own special set of challenges and rewards. Cruising to some of the most wondrous places on Earth yields one a real gastronomic bonus; access to some of the rarest, freshest ingredients of all. This provides exciting opportunities for a chef to expand his knowledge and imagination while creating new and - ideally – truly great food. Aboard Paraffin we served a well-travelled clientele that included celebrities, royalty and presidents. Consequently, we were frequently asked to create dishes. The demands could be monumental and at times, sleep was optional. No matter what, the show always went on – and with a smile. Challenging as it was, this experience gave me an astounding insight into the literal world of food at a relatively young age, and I valued every moment.
What has most shaped my career? Without question, my wife and her family. Her constant support – and time spent at the family farm in France - has taught me the critical importance of ingredients. My wife’s grandmother is a formidable battleship of a woman, strong and weathered with age, and fiercely protective of her family, yet she has such a natural way with food. With eggs from the hen house, a rabbit for the pot, some carrots fresh with garden soil and peaches still warm from the tree, she produces the kind of comfort food only a lifetime of experience can provide. My wife’s father taught me that if you put love both into the garden and your work, it gives you beautiful things in return, just like a family.
My philosophy on food and life comes down to a single word: respect. Respect for the ingredients, respect for those you serve, respect for those who work for you, and respect for yourself. And I do believe if you love your work, you will surely taste it.
Brent Menke
Chef - The Farm Table

 

Forefathers nurtured roots of Route 222

From the Reading Eagle:  Forefathers nurtured roots of Route 222

Q: Did Route 222 play an important role in the American Revolution?
The road from Reading to Easton, now Route 222, was called King's Highway in 1776.

It was a critical artery for the movement of troops and supplies during the American Revolution.

Indeed, there's strong evidence that Gen. George Washington himself traversed the road on his way to upstate New York in 1782, stopping off in the Moravian town of Bethlehem.

Revolution, however, was not on the minds of most colonists when the Reading-to-Easton road was proposed by Conrad Weiser, William Parsons and other leaders in 1753; Indians were.

There had been massacres of settlers pushing north from Philadelphia to settle what was then a frontier region.

Weiser was an Indian agent who had a general store on what is now Penn Square in Reading. Parsons, Pennsylvania's surveyor general, was responsible for much of Reading's layout and is considered the father of Easton.

The two men also were linked by military service.

Parsons, a major, served under Weiser, a lieutenant colonel, in the colony's militia.

Both men were visionaries who saw the need to connect Reading, Bethlehem and Easton to clear the way for settlement. Travel in that area was an arduous task, over winding Indian trails that could take more than a week.

"William Parsons, the whip-tongued proprietary agent at Easton, and Conrad Weiser, Reading's heavy-handed godfather, were not slow to see the need for widening this forest track into a road," Tony Wallace wrote a 1941 article in the Historical Review of Berks County.

Parsons, Weiser and other leaders petitioned authorities, saying the existing route was "often diverted and obstructed and rendered almost impassable."

Considering the modern-day backups at Routes 662 and 73 on Route 222, it might be argued not much has changed in 259 years.

Permission was granted and, in 1754, Parsons and an associate, David Shultze, began surveying the route.

"The various demands of civilized life must be levied on the light trace beaten by the foot of Indian travelers," Wallace wrote. "Or else the frontier between the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers will shrivel under Indian attack and become a line of isolated outposts."

Parsons died in 1757 in Easton, where his house was bought by George Taylor, who would become a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

It is maintained by the George Taylor Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Weiser, one of Berks County's founding fathers, died in 1760.

The Conrad Weiser Homestead near Womelsdorf is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission with help from the Friends of Conrad Weiser Homestead.

Neither man lived to see the role the road they envisioned would play in the formation of the United States of America.

Revolution: The Director's Cut

(The plot, as the reviewer describes below, sounds similar to Mel Gibson's Patriot, doesn't it?)

From the Guardian: Revolution: The Director's Cut

 After the critical and popular success of Chariots of Fire and Greystoke, Hugh Hudson's career suffered a major setback with the failure of Revolution, his big-budget epic about the American war of independence as experienced by a fur trapper (Al Pacino) forced into military service to protect his son, a middle-class rebel throwing herself into the revolutionary cause (Nastassja Kinski) and a sadistic English sergeant major (Donald Sutherland). While expressing my admiration for its ambition, its designers and some individual scenes, my initial review was generally unfavourable. But when the film appeared on TV in the early 1990s I suggested that "the time is ripe for reappraisal". Seeing Hudson's director's cut, which involved some re-editing, a changed final sequence and, most importantly, the addition of a commentary spoken by the Pacino character, I wrote a reassessment that was published in the programme of the 2008 Dinard British film festival, which featured a Hudson retrospective. I described Revolution as "profound, poetic and original… among the great movies about the experience of individual citizens living in times of dramatic social change". This review is included in the booklet accompanying the handsome dual format DVD/Blu-ray version of the film.

Following The Footnotes Of The Revolutionary War

From NPR:  Following The Footnotes Of The Revolutionary War

Hardcover, 259 pages, Farrar Straus & Giroux, List Price: $26 

When we think of the seminal moments in the birth of the United States of America, many people would point to the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. But according to Robert Sullivan, the founding landscape of our nation is not in Massachusetts. It is in and around New York.
In his new book, My American Revolution: Crossing the Delaware and I-78, Sullivan writes that the majority of battles in the Revolutionary War were fought in the middle colonies: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
In the book, he retraces the steps of Washington and his soldiers on a 30-mile trek north from the Delaware River. Sullivan tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz, the journey took him through the Watchung Mountains, a low mountain range in New Jersey, that played a key role in the Revolution. It is where Washington lit fires as warning signals to those in New York, when he saw movement by the British force.
Sullivan wanted to do his own reenactment. He managed to use a mirror and the sun's reflection to send a signal to his daughter 20 miles away in Brooklyn. Through the process, Sullivan discovered something about those signal posts. They have been critical points throughout our history.
He tells Raz, they were used as anti-Soviet missile sites by the American military. "And then at 9/11 each one of these sites had become exactly a place where people went ... to see the towers come down," he says. "These high points mattered to us strategically."

Boston has its Liberty Trail, but Sullivan says, Revolutionary landmarks in and around New York tend to go unnoticed. It could be because the British were often on the winning side of the battles fought there. "We don't champion them naturally. It's hard to champion great losses and defeats and evacuations." Like the Battle of Brooklyn, which wound up being the first big fight and failure of the Revolution.
"It was an evacuation," Sullivan tells Raz. The British "cornered Washington up into what is today Brooklyn Heights." But the Marbleheaders, a brigade from Massachusetts, rowed Washington and his troops to safety across the East River.
Though these sites might seem trivial today, Sullivan wants to champion them as footnotes of history — "and make the footnotes the top part," he tells Raz. "What we stand in is the kind of everyday landscape that seems to be no big deal in history. And so this kind of footnoted history is more about humility and understanding that you can't fight certain things."