Spinach Pie • Rozanne Gold

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Note from Curator Rozanne Gold: I am grateful to Steve North and his mother Bunny North for sending me this wonderful recipe belonging to Grace Cohen.  Steve is one of my oldest friends and an award-winning journalist, and Bunny is one of the best bakers I know.  Grace and Bunny were close friends for years. This poignant story was told to me by Michael Cohen, whose mother Grace was the owner/creator/handwriter of this delicious recipe. Thank you to Steve, Bunny, and Michael Cohen for the heartfelt memories. 

Spinach Pie by Rozanne Gold

Imagine starting your day by breaking bread with both sets of grandparents and eating the same dish for seven consecutive years. Michael Cohen did. Talking (and thinking) about this handwritten recipe for spinach pie brought back memories of these breakfasts and illuminated an immigrant history that connected the Ottoman empire with the New World.

“I was so excited by this,” said Michael to me about receiving my phone call to discuss his mother’s handwritten recipe. “I called my sister, Sarita, immediately.”  

Michael’s mother, Grace Cohen (née Matalon), came from a Sephardic Jewish family whose origins were rooted in Turkey and Greece.  

Grace’s mother, Anna, was born in Istanbul. Anna attended the Alliance Française in her birthplace and spoke six languages: Spanish, Greek, Turkish, French, English and Ladino.  Ladino, also known as Judeo-Spanish, was a Romance language derived from Old Spanish that was once the common language of the Jews who lived in the region of the Adriatic Sea, the Balkans, and the Middle-East. Grace's father, Meyer, was born in Salonika (also known as Thessaloniki) a port city located in Northern Greece.  

Meyer and Anna met on a boat in the early 1900s en voyage to New York. They settled on the Lower East Side where a large Sephardic community gravitated towards each other and supported new immigrants. This was a time of no social welfare, so the community was quite insular and tightly knit. They were not very religious but the Sephardim leaned towards traditions.

Anna and Meyer eventually moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn and had Grace, who was an only child. Grace married Michael's father, Sam Cohen, (who is now ninety-three and lives in Coconut Creek, Florida). Grace was 22 when she married Sam at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.

Grace and Samuel moved to Queens after Michael and his sister was born. Sarita has two children, Matthew and Gayle. Michael Cohen and his wife Marcia have one daughter, named Grace, who is seventeen. 

Michael remembers his mother as a housewife and a very good cook. Grace passed away when he was thirty years old, more than three decades ago. He says that feeling never goes away.  

"Whatever she cooked, we all ate and loved it. But actually, both of my grandmothers, Anna and Sara, made this dish. They called it desayuno and it was eaten for desayuno (which means breakfast.) Every day there was spinach pie, bourekas stuffed with cheeses or eggplant, and watermelon, fruits, figs, olives, feta cheese—every day! The only eggs we had were brown eggs boiled overnight on a low flame.”  

Michael's paternal grandparents were also from Salonika. They all lived near each other for years in a bungalow in the Rockaways where they would share this glorious repast.  

Ladino was spoken all the time. Michael doesn't speak it well but understands it. After all the grandparents died there was no more spinach pie for breakfast. 

Since being reacquainted with this recipe, however, thanks to Michael's friend Steve North and his mother, Bunny North, who is the keeper of Grace's handwritten recipe, Michael is excited to make his mother's spinach pie again (…just maybe not every day). Sarita is the one who still makes it often.

The Sfongato or Fritada is like a pie, solid, and baked in a large tin. It is served warm and cut into large squares.

See the recipe made recently by Allison Radecki. 

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Spinach Pie
Fritada Sfongato

2 packages, 10 oz. frozen chopped spinach
4 eggs
1/2 cup Matzo meal
1/2 cup water
3/4 lb. feta cheese or farmer cheese**
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
About 4 Tablespoons oil

1. Thaw the spinach. Press out water from frozen spinach.

2. Mix all ingredients together.

3. Put about 4 Tablespoons of oil in a baking pan. When oil gets very hot, sprinkle some matzo meal in pan. It should sizzle and get brown.

4. Pour mixture into hot pan and spread evenly.

5. Bake at 375 for about 1 hour or until the top and sides are brown.

**Even though Grace wrote farmer's in the recipe, it is much tastier made with feta. Bunny North said that feta wasn't that readily available 40 years ago, or that "kosher for Passover" feta wasn't available at all back then. And she always makes this recipe during Passover (as well as during the rest of the year).

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Vodka Sauce • Allison Radecki

Note from Curator Rozanne Gold: This touching story focuses on the re-kindling of father-daughter memories through the unexpected discovery of a handwritten recipe. It is testament to the emotional power that “chicken scratches” can hold. Told by Allison Radecki, a food writer and culinary tour guide, the poignant tale is as much character study as it is a love story. Allison’s neighborhood-based walks in Brownstone Brooklyn trace the history of immigration and culinary change, with each footstep an invocation of her dad’s love of food and people. This hastily scribbled handwritten note on a random piece of paper acts as a time machine to past meals. Over the years, other family members have added comments and drawings to the recipe’s edges, serving to preserve a multi-generational bond and all the memories it holds. Thank you, Allison. 

Vodka Sauce By Allison Radecki

I always assume that everyone’s kitchen contains a recipe archive; a repository stuffed with newspaper clippings, ripped pages from notebooks and other treasured bits of chicken scratch. My collection lives in a practically un-openable kitchen drawer — a space stuffed so tightly, papers burst out at you like a canister of spring-loaded plastic snakes.   

Sure, it would make more sense to gather these papers into a book, slip them within plastic sleeves for easier organization. Yet, for me, the rummaging is the process: the touching of old newsprint, the disarray, the bits of spiral edges that flutter to the kitchen floor like New Year’s confetti in Times Square. Each archive excavation unearths an unexpected relic that can awaken a vivid memory. This is what happened when I uncovered my father’s scrawled instructions for vodka sauce while rooting around for something completely different.

My father, Joseph Radecki, did not cook. He relied on a few simple dishes — scrambled eggs, plain pizza by the slice, ‘veal parm.’ He adored a good prime rib. “The man needs instructions to boil water,’ was my mother’s classic line. This was technically, not true. The only thing I remember him cooking at the stovetop were boiled ‘tube steaks,’ or hot dogs, as they are known to the rest of the world.  

A former police detective and taxi driver, he stumbled into a post-retirement business of showing people “his NYC.” To his clients he was ‘Joe the Cop’, storyteller, procurer of hard-to-get tickets, scholar of city history. “I could get you a seat at the Last Supper if it happens again in New York,” was part of his spiel. I believed him.  Many did, for good reason, and sent their friends to find him.

This recipe for vodka sauce, served with penne pasta, comes from a small, Manhattan dining room, Da Tommaso, with no more than 20 seats. There, the Albanian chef, raised in Italy, prepares classic, Italian meals and does it well.

My Dad used this restaurant as his second office (his first, being the fax-strewn passenger seat of his Chevy Suburban).  He’d bring clients in to dine and used it as a pick-up location for purchases from ticket scalpers. And it was the site of countless family meals. Long after the post-theater diners had paid their checks, we’d stay late and gossip with the host and waiters as they loosened their white jackets, hearing the list of stars that were glimpsed in the dining room that week. If you spoke the words, “Joe the Cop sent me,” (or were recognized as one of his daughters), you never needed a reservation to get in the door, regardless of the time of day.

When my sister discovered the magic that occurred when tomato, vodka, and cream came together, she would rarely order anything else. After nudging my Dad to see if the chef would share his recipe, he came home with this rough outline. Fittingly, it is written on the back of a printed fax from a couple from Louisville, Kentucky, asking for transportation to the Plaza Hotel and suggestions for “things to see in the Big Apple."

Over the years, this recipe became a family collaboration. My mother, a gold medalist in the sport of highlighting, couldn’t resist illuminating words in fluorescent yellow. Her comments (“guard w/ your life!”) and queries (“sauce,” “1/4 cup?”) are scattered about the page of vague instructions.  My sister’s doodles are the tell-tale sign of her presence. Perhaps she was imagining the meals to come.

I look at this recipe and I can hear my father’s pen. The short, solid motions he made when jotting down flight numbers from his ever-present Dictaphone.  As a “graduate of the school of Hard Knocks,” but never college, he was self-conscious about his writing. Not once did I see him use cursive.  Often, he would ask me or my sister to write the last names of clients on his airport arrival signs. When he discovered word-processing (and stopped fighting with the computer printer), he never looked back. “No one wants to see my boxy letters,” he would say.

I do. It’s been over two years since he died. I miss him terribly. I even miss his scattered papers. How unexpected it was to reconnect with him through his block print and this recipe.

Vodka Sauce

Virgin olive oil
Let oil get hot
Throw a little shallots
Speck of red pepper
Little vodka (1/2 shot)
Tomato
Touch of Cream

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I Share My Unbeing With You • Rajesh Kumar

Rajesh Kumar is the co-founder of the Twin City Poets Meetup Group in Hyderabad, India, which consists of 380 poets. He is an HR professional, avid blogger, poet, and dabbler of prose. He loves the handwritten word and keeps its grace alive through a big collection of fountain pens

Some People Live a Whole Lifetime, and They Never Learn to Love the Rain • Adrienne Pieroth

BY ADRIENNE PIEROTH

I received this letter towards the end of my freshman year in college. I was away from my hometown of Denver, Colorado, attending Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. It had been a year of adjustments for me — some good, some challenging — like most 18 year-olds spending their first long period of time away from home. My mother had always been the center of my life, the touchstone I would return to over and over again for comfort, love, a hug, a laugh, or a cup of tea and a much-needed chat. My mother was British and had me late in life the at 39 years old.

Perhaps it was her older, wiser years that made her such a solid and grounded figure in my life. If you asked me what defined the word “home” for me, I would say without hesitation, my Mum. While being away from the comforting home and life she had created for me was difficult at first — her care packages and letters she sent each week made all the difference. Most of the letters were about daily stuff — what was happening at home, with my Dad, or how the cats were doing. But towards the end of the year, this letter arrived. I knew it was special from the minute I opened it. I had no way of knowing that less than five years later, I would be sharing the words in this letter as part of the eulogy I gave at her funeral.  

Throughout my high school years my mother battled a rare form of cancer. During those years, I lost track of the number of surgeries, and the radiation and chemotherapy treatments.  But all the while, I never once remember her complaining, or asking “why me?” Perhaps the fact that my mother grew up in England during World War II, where nights spent in bomb shelters, rations and stories of sacrifice and bravery defined her youth. All I knew was that my mother had incredible strength, optimism, and not for one minute did she ever believe she wouldn’t survive her battle with cancer. 

When I first read it, the part of the letter that struck me most was that she was proud of me. My mother always told me she loved me and how proud she was of me, but it was something different to see it in words, written on a page, in her beautiful handwriting — handwriting, by the way, I couldn’t read until I was nearly ten. My mother had been a secretary and knew shorthand, so her writing was a combination of cursive and shorthand in a style all it’s own. 

Years later, at her funeral, it was her last words that spoke to me most, and the ones I shared with family and friends gathered to say goodbye. They were: 

...we have to have some grey days in our lives in order to appreciate the bright sunny ones, and we have to make the best of them. I can’t help thinking how wonderful it is that at your young age you seemed to have learned this. Some people live a whole lifetime, Adrienne, and they never learn to love the rain.

If I learned to love the rain, I learned from my mother’s example. Looking back, I wonder which of her grey days she was remembering as she wrote those words. The day I read those words as part of her eulogy was the greyest day of my life to date, even 26 years later, but the brightness of her love and the memories of my time with her outshine the rain. Whenever I want to remember this, I need only to open the envelope that contains my mother’s beautiful words of love and support to be reminded. 

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April 29th, 1985

My Dear Adrienne,

I am looking forward so much to having you home for the summer. To hear the front door open & to hear you say, “Hi it’s me.” Your dad & I have missed your very much since you went off to college but we know this is the first stage of our daughter’s independence. We love you very much & we are so very proud of you. We know you have worked long & hard in all of your classes & it’s been a struggle, so many times wanting to go out & have fun, or go to a party, but knowing that you have homework to do and that the studies come first.  

You have always been able to appreciate the small things in life, Adrienne – a diamond ring – a new 28oz – a trip around the world! So just kidding, I really mean the small & important things in life.  When we talked on the phone last week I remember your comment on the weather.  It was raining & you said when you were passing a couple of students they were complaining about the rain; how wet & miserable it was. You told me you were smiling inside because it brought back memories of England back to you & the air smelt so sweet & fresh.

Life is a little like that – we have to have some grey days in our lives in order to appreciate the bright sunny ones, & we have to make the best of them. I can’t help thinking how wonderful it is that at your young age you seemed to have learned that. Some people live a whole lifetime Adrienne & they never learn to love the rain.  
 

From your ever loving, 
Mum

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A photo of Adrienne and Mum 

Candied Cranberries • Rozanne Gold

Candied Cranberries by Rozanne Gold

My cousin, Josh Rovner, knew more about food when he was twelve than most of my friends do now — and this was before the age of non-stop TV cooking shows. He was sophisticated in his taste and whenever this gastronaut's family came to New York, Josh had a knowing list of restaurants that had to be visited. He yearned to be a chef, but I believed my ambitious cousin from North Canton, Ohio, should extend his reach beyond the kitchen. So he went to Cornell and wound up being a big deal "revenue management guru" with Hilton Hotels.

So, I was surprised to receive this exceedingly simple recipe from him, but it is one he treasures. It had been handwritten to Josh by his Nana Gold (my Aunt Helen), sometime around 2000. Helen died at the age of 94 in 2006.

Naturally, Josh has upheld the quintessential American family tradition of serving them at Thanksgiving, but he now makes the sweet-and-tart syrupy confection all year long to spoon over a daily helping of yogurt. Josh keeps the recipe on the side of his refrigerator, so it always is in easy reach.  I didn't remember Helen cooking. She was married to my father's brother, Leslie Gold, and they traveled all over the world. They lived in Avon, Massachusetts, not far from my own grandmother, Lottie Gold, who was a fantastic baker.  I think of Helen as a solid New Englander with a hankering for lobster and my grandmother's ethereal blueberry muffins.  

Josh is now married, lives in Texas, has a beautiful young daughter, and cooks dinner almost every night. He is a total foodie and up to date with every chef and kitchen trend.  Aunt Helen's candied cranberries recipe is unusually precise, including altering some ingredient quantities for various batch sizes. Josh always makes the largest amount so he is guaranteed lots of leftovers. Nowadays, he recreates the recipe with a bit of grated orange zest at the end for depth of flavor— “not too much to mask the cranberry, but just enough to enhance and harmonize,” he adds. That said, he quietly confesses that his mother prefers the original recipe. Judging by the photo Josh sent of the finished product, his Nana’s cranberries indeed do  look “candied” and glistening.

This is an effect I’ve always wanted but have failed to achieve! It was lovely to learn more about Helen through her recipe and Josh’s remembrance.  That's the magic of handwritten.

"Wash cranberries. Drain. Pour in pot. Add sugar. Stir thoroughly. Add water. Stir over medium to high heat. Be careful not to burn. Lower heat and boil for about 15 - 20 minutes. Once berries begin to boil DO NOT STIR. Skim carefully once berries boil. Let cool before transferring to container. Once cool, store in refrigerator!"

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2/19 Conceptual Poetry Panel at Pen + Brush, Hosted by Sarah Madges

Conceptual Poetry: Practice, Production, & Reception
Friday, February 19 | 7:30-9:00pm
Pen + Brush gallery, 29 E 22nd St.

We at Handwritten like to look at creative production holistically—featuring a series of drafts and the overall creative process, rather than simply publishing the final work with no evidence of its becoming. In that sense, conceptual poetry is a kindred spirit, a literary movement that focuses more on the initial concept than the final product of the poem, and that often appropriates found materials to create new works. 

Join us at Pen + Brush for a panel session devoted to conceptual poetry's special possibilities, and the ramifications of these possibilities. Sarah Madges, chief curator at Handwritten, has brought together five poets and scholars to discuss issues such as: what strategies or conceits constitute a conceptual gesture,the role of both author and reader when a text isn't quite "authored" or "readable" in the usual sense, conceptual approaches one might adapt to other genres or artforms as well as its hybrid and performative nature, the use of algorithms and coding in poetry production, and interrogating what we mean by the "conceptual" itself—looking especially at female writers of color for alternative understandings and definitions. 

The roster includes: Sarah Madges (moderator), Evie Shockley, LB Thompson, Elizabeth Guthrie, LaTasha Diggs, Buffy Cain, and Holly Melgard. Moderated by Sarah Madges, with a Q&A to follow the presentations. Bios for our panelists to come very soon. 

Did we mention there will be wine?

We hope to see you on Friday, February 19th.

Neat, Cursive, Normal, Lefty • Chelsea Florio

BY CHELSEA FLORIO

For as long as I can remember, I have loved language. Whether it's studying foreign languages (from Arabic to Elvish) or learning the rules of my native tongue (English) and playfully finding new ways to break them, I am completely enthralled with learning about the ways people communicate.

Above and below are journal entries spanning the last several years in which I played around with writing in new ways. Many of them are my attempts to learn how to write left-handed because I've always seen ambidexterity as one of the neatest skills on the planet. Interspersed are my attempts at learning Morse code, which I find to be a delightfully mysterious and pretty much forgotten form of clandestine communication. Neither of the skills I've been trying to acquire when very bored are really that practical, but it's a fun way to pass the time. 

Caramel Custard • Rozanne Gold

Photograph taken by Shayna DePersia

BY ROZANNE GOLD

When I was in my mid-twenties, I penned this recipe as a gift for my beautiful mother Marion on Mother’s Day 1980. I placed it in a Lucite frame and she nailed it to the wall of her apartment kitchen in Fresh Meadows, Queens. My mother loved this custard, in all its simplicity, but could never quite remember how to make it. I thought these words would guide her when I was not around, but she never followed the instructions. Instead of the classic swirl of liquid caramel that coats the custard after baking, my mother skipped this step and dusted grated nutmeg on top. A whiff of memory? And she preferred to eat the custard directly from its little glass cup, instead of flipping it onto a plate so that the caramel would pool all around.  

My mother and I were extraordinarily close. Too close, if that’s possible. She encouraged me to become a chef when women were anathema in professional kitchens. I dropped out of graduate school and became the first chef to New York Mayor Ed Koch when I was twenty-three. Being in the kitchen with my mother was the happiest place in the world for me. She would occasionally visit me in the kitchen of Gracie Mansion, and years later came to my kitchen in Park Slope, and yes, we’d make caramel custard together.  

Our deep connection was expressed by cooking special things for each other. Custard for her, and for me she made cabbage and noodles – a homey Hungarian standard that she, too, ate in her childhood. It was the comfort food that connected us to previous generations of Hungarian women and also to each other. I have learned since that some recipes, even more than photographs, can provide the most intimate transfer of memory from mothers to daughters.  

One grey day in October eight years ago, I removed the recipe now faded and worn, twenty-six years after I wrote it.  And now my daughter makes custard for me. 

Caramel Custard

3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
pinch salt
2 cups milk, scalded
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Heat 1/2 cup sugar slowly in heavy small skillet stirring constantly with wooden spoon until sugar melts and is light caramel in color. Pour spoonful in each five custard cups and let is cool slightly. 
3. Beat eggs with remaining sugar and salt. Add milk slowly, while stirring. Add vanilla. Strain and pour carefully into cups. 
4. Place cups in pan of hot water (level with top of cups). Bake about 40 minutes, or until knife comes out clean. 
5. Chill, and turn out to serve.

This Diary is Worth So Much More than the Paper it is Written On • Melissa Dundas-Paine

BY MELISSA DUNDAS-PAINE

Our mom was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1989. It was a highly emotional time for our family, as Papa (our Dad's Dad) had just passed in a tragic car crash. Our Mom had surgery and underwent treatment shortly after the diagnosis, but being so close to our Papa, I can only imagine she immediately felt faced with her own mortality. I remember her saying that Papa visited her in a dream and told her it wasn't her time to go yet. She decided sometime between then and her death five years later that she needed to write down the story of how she met our dad, Papa's son, as well as when and why they decided to have children. 

But we didn't know this back then. Our dad gave us this handwritten story after her passing. She had also taken the time to type it out, but as you can imagine, the handwritten account tugs so much more at our heartstrings. There is just something special about seeing our mother's penmanship. It evokes so many sweet memories. 

She passed while we were all young, before any of us had started dating. But to have this account written by her of how she met our father and how she felt upon becoming pregnant with each of us and about the days we were born is just priceless. These are her thoughts and feelings written for us by her hand. What she must have been thinking as she penned this is just unfathomable. I'm sure she hoped we would be older and that the journal would have been full of more stories, but tragically, it sits less than a quarter full of her handwriting, as her life was cut short at the age of thirty-nine. 

This diary, or mini memoir, is a treasure to my sisters and myself, and is worth so much more than the paper it is written on.

Chris & I got engaged on June 10th, 1975.  He was so romantic.  We went parking by the lake, he asked me if I would be his wife and then slid the ring on my finger.  (What a love). One time, maybe a year before this, we were at a hockey game (Flyers). Chris asked me “why do you want to marry me?” I said, “because I want you in my life forever.” He said, “well if I marry you it will be forever.

I remember the night Chris said to me, “I’d like to start to try having a baby, what about you?” I was so excited I couldn’t sleep.  It was in March.  It took 3 months it seemed like forever.  Chris enjoyed the pregnancy so much.  We would lay on the couch at night and wait for the baby to kick.  All my babies were very lazy, maybe 10-15 kicks a day.  

The United States Postal Service Squares off with a Squirrel, and Loses Hard.

BY BRETT RAWSON

On January 20th, a mailman tried to deliver a piece of mail to an ordinary home. It was the XFINITY envelope you see above. Urgent, we can only imagine. But when the mailman reached the property, he approached a problem: the house was guarded by squirrels. How many, we'll never know, but there were enough. That much is clear. The mailman left the premises promptly, likely by sprint, and much later, he penned the reason for, and date of, undelivery: Squirrels, 1/20. Days later, the mailman returned, the squirrels were gone, and the bill was delivered.

The story could end there, but thankfully, it doesn't. The envelope was addressed to Glenn Tachiyama, an (ultra marathon) trail runner and (adventure) photographer. Glenn's images combine these passions with symmetry, capturing bodies in motion. But he also takes tons of pictures of squirrels.

It's a hobby of his: snapping photos of these shadow-seeking, nut-lovers. We've liked every single one we've seen on Instagram: those little concrete-colored cuties frolicking through meadows, the quasi-confused fuzzy rats nibbling on round shards of asphalt, and the small puff-balls plumping up before winter. You could be thinking that all of this was just some freak accident: that a mailman who just happened to be afraid of small furry things arrived to a residence with more than a normal amount of them. But plot-twist: January 21st just so happened to be Squirrel Appreciation Day. So now, like The Usual Suspects, your mind is going back through the clues.

It was all there: the day the mail was delivered, hundreds of squirrels darting around the lawn, unable to contain their appreciation for each other, gathered together for the annual celebration around none other than the home of Glenn Tachiyama, famous photographer and lover, or should we say leader, of squirrels. Is it that far-fetched to wonder whether the squirrels were just prepping for the photo-shoot of their lifetime? 

Obviously, we here at Handwritten lost our marbles. We reached out to Glenn. "Glenn, that squirrel picture is hilarious," we wrote. "What if," we said cutting to the chase, "you sent us 4 - 5 of your fave squirrel images, and we put that in the context of this story?" Glenn replied. "As long as I don't have to write much," he wrote. "Not at all," we responded, "it'll be a visual story."

And so, with permission to use Glenn's images, but without his permission to tell a completely fictional tale, we present to you, on this pseudo-gloomy Monday, the untrue story of the mailman and the squirrel, handwritten by us, of course.

THE HANGRY SQUIRREL
handwritten by Handwritten
illustrations by Glenn Tachiyama 

Ch 1: The Snapped Twig Heard Around the World

A lanky, pale man wearing tube socks steps onto a twig, snapping it in half, which would otherwise be no big deal, except, off in the distance, a hangry squirrel spins in his direction. The hangry squirrel acquires visual of the yummy-looking xfinity envelope the mailman is holding onto. "I must have that envelope," the squirrel says, "and his calf."

Ch. 2: Some Call is a Coincidence, Others Call it a Calling

An amazing photographer just happened to be lying on his tummy in the grass, camera in hand, when all of this occurred. And, one snap later, he catches a shot of the hangry squirrel on its hind legs, as it readies to launch toward its lunch. "Target acquired," the hangry squirrel thinks.

Ch 3: The Pursuit of Hangriness

From the point of view of the mailman's calf, which wished it could speak and tell the rest of his body, or brain, that a squirrel was yards away from his skin. If the calf could talk, it would also ask the mailman to stop wearing tube socks. But now is no times for "I wishes," and the calf watches as the furry face of fear gallops over fallen leaves...

Ch 4: Plan B: An Aerial Attack

The hangry squirrel notices it has been spotted by the calf, and even though that doesn't matter, the hangry squirrel, mid-sprint, switches from the grass route to an aerial attack. Hanging by the feet just above the mailman, and next to a caged moldy sponge, the hangry squirrel puts his paws silently together, and thanks the Master of Nuts for bringing him such a rare treat. The hangry squirrel, in dangling yoga pose, realized he hasn't had mailman for over a decade.

Ch 5: Everyone Wins

But just as the hangry squirrel was about to drop himself on the balding head of the mailman, a gust of wind told the mailman to duck immediately! Instead, he looked up, saw the hangry squirrels inches above the bridge of his nose, screams, which scares everyone, drops a bag of cheetos, and runs away, xfinity bill in hand. The hangry squirrel uses a nearby vine to lower himself to the ground, and throws the cheetos in the air...

Ch 5 (con't): Everyone Wins

...like confetti. 

THE END

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87 Reasons Why January is the Best Month of the Year

HANDLED BY HANDWRITTEN

In January, there are eighty-seven reasons to celebrate. Statistically, that means you should be celebrating 2.81 times every day, or, 78.68 times so far this month. You might not have known that you had so many chances to be festive. Don't worry, neither did we. Tens of opportunities passed us by, which we've come to terms with, but some of the knowledge could have come in handy. For example, on January 6th, we woke up to a feeling of looming aloneness. Had we only known it was National Cuddle Up Day, we could have rolled over, grabbed anything nearby, and clutched it closely. Or when, on January 16th, we had nothing to do that night, who knew we were already observing National Nothing Day? It was, in fact, everyone else who weren't being festive. And knowing now that there are 87 national holidays in January, including the celebration of our spirit animal, Squirrel Appreciation Day, we'll have a much better start to 2017 than 2016. 

All this being said, there was one holiday we didn't miss: National Handwriting Day on January 23rd. Here at Handwritten, we hosted an International Handwriting Day, welcoming all the alphabets. We received words, shapes, and characters of all kinds, from invented languages to backwards cursive. But we were one of hundreds celebrating this beautiful day, which is the point of this post: the things others did to celebrate pen, paper, and personalities. And so, here is a list of creative things we came across, but also learned, on this fine day:

CURSIVELOGIC. There is a mother-daughter team in Texas right now that has a patent-pending model for teaching cursive writing. They have, literally and figuratively, reshaped the way we learn cursive writing. We wrote about them before (You Can Stop Cursing at Cursive Now), but on National Handwriting Day, they once again did something great: they paired together with Boy Scouts of America and hosted a day of promise for the pen and paper. Students and families in the Dallas-Fort Worth area joined in on the festivities, where they had the opportunity to learn cursive, examine historical documents written in cursive, and hand-write letters to loved ones. Volunteers at the event included Dallie Clark from Collin College (who is creating an exhibit dedicated to the letter) and the manager of Paradise Pen. You can read more here.

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GREER CHICAGO. In Chicago, Greer hosted their first annual Instagram Write-Off, "honoring the magical intersection of pen, paper, hand and thought." To enter, people had to: write a quote from Isaac Asimov ("Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers") and post to Instagram with the hashtag #greerchicagowriteoff and a hashtag for the category they were entering: #cursive, #print, or #freestyle. Each entrant had the chance to win some pretty sweet swag, all of which was decided by a panelist of prolific people of the pen, one of whom (Kathy Zadrozny) is from Letter Writers Alliance, another beautiful site that serves to give people the resources online to get them offline.

MOLESKINE. One of our favorites, Moleskine, hosted a handwritten tweet-off: anyone that hand-wrote a tweet with the hashtags #moleskin or #handwritingday appeared in their online gallery. And Fun Facts: Debra Messing, Gabrielle Hamilton, and Bruce Willis joined in the ink. But fame aside, one of our favorites from the hand-tweets:

Image from the online gallery for Moleskine's handwritten tweets.

EMMA HEMING-WILLIS. Relatedly, Emma Heming-Willis joined in on the celebration of pen and paper by blogging about the impact of writing by hand in her daily life, but also why she holds onto so many pieces from the past. And for those who haven't ventured into daily episodes of writing by hand, Emma suggests a few of her favorite brands as possible entrance stones for those in need of a little direction. Below, Emma shared with us two images from what her family wrote on National Handwriting Day, including a call to action by Bruce Willis for southpaws to stick together, and a note from Emma about seeing her daughter Mabel write her own name on paper. 

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Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association. While WIMA did not do anything this year, we have them to thank for the holiday, as they were the ones who started it in 1977, says International Business article. Side note: IB also encouraged people to partake in the day in five ways, encouraging people to explore their creativity, using the handwritten word to express feelings sometimes lost in the cloud of our lives. To find out more about WIMA, follow them on Facebook or go to their great domain name (www.pencilsandpens.org), but if you're more curious about history, then go over to History for A Brief History of Penmanship.

From WIMA's post during National Handwriting Day on Facebook

AMERICAN HANDWRITING ANALYSIS FOUNDATION. The AHA's arm-span reached into 16 states and 9 countries this year, culminating in their campaign to bring cursive writing back into the classroom. A short snippet of their announcement: "Members of the Campaign for Cursive (C4C), part of the nonprofit American Handwriting Analysis Foundation, are sponsoring 60 global events, articles and interviews in 16 US states and 9 countries. A growing grassroots effort, C4C has been gathering momentum in its quest to focus attention on the importance of returning cursive handwriting instruction to public schools." You can follow and like them on Facebook, read more about this Campaign for Cursive here, or the Campaign for the Right to Handwrite here.

NATIONAL WWI MUSEUM AND MEMORIAL. The National World War I Museum and Memorial brought out four letters from their archives to celebrate, which you can see here. And this is what they had to say about the day: "Penmanship is a true art form and one very identifiable way of expressing ourselves in the day-to-day. On ‪#‎NationalHandwritingDay‬, enjoy these beautiful examples from the Museum archives. We hope you're inspired to pick up a pen and write a letter!" We agree with a whole heart. 

FOXNEWS. And coming in at Number 10, even though there are only 7 others, is FoxNews. Even they decided to participate by testing their penmanship, which actually surprised us because we hadn't really thought of that news outlet, or any for that matter, as one to engage in the act of self-reflection. But, that they did: three anchors scribbled a sentence onto a chalkboard, which was then analyzed by handwriting expert, Kathi McKnight. One of the takeaways? If you leave little spacing between your written words, you manage your time poorly; whereas, if you have even spacing, you are aware of boundaries. Let's see how far they take this takeaway. 

Jokes and jabs aside, if you are curious about what you can do from now on to prepare for next year's National Handwriting Day, here's one great idea: check out our partners, Sketchbook Project, and either sign up for a sketchbook yourself, or send one to a friend who you know would benefit by the gift of energy and ideas. We received a Sketchbook this past year, which gave us a sense of purpose we didn't see coming. There are a few days left to register: give the gift of inspiration to that creative you know, even if it is yourself, and join the 162,010 others in the world who have participated to the passion.

Whatever you choose to do from here on out, whether it's celebrating an observed or unobserved holiday, keep that beautiful pen busy, planet.

In Review • International Handwriting Day 2016

On January 23rd, 2016, Handwritten celebrated National Handwriting Day by showcases international alphabets. We opened a call to hand-writers around the world, and received characters of all kinds, including invented alphabets, like the one above by writer and artist Tatiana Roumelioti. Halfway through the day, we even received four letters from The Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, which are forthcoming in their new anthology Pen to Paper. Though we celebrate on this scale once a year, the pen party never stops. Enjoy the work we received below, and stay tuned for our celebration in 2017. 

1. Creative Quotables.

2. Letters from The Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

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3. Poems from around the world.

4. Invented, Real, Permanent, No Longer.

5. Messages of Love.

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6. #BICDROP

What does seeing all this make you want to do? Hopefully, pick up a pen. But after such an incredibly fun and wide-reaching celebration of handwriting this past weekend, all we can think about doing is one giant #bicdrop. And thanks to our brilliant graphics design, Megan Sykes, for providing us with a way to express this feeling.

Type Treatment • Hillary Grant

Seven Years After Bopomofo Was Left Behind • Joyce Chen

By Joyce Chen

One of the most common shared experiences of second generation Chinese American kids everywhere is spending three hours every Saturday morning at Chinese school — often held at empty high schools, in community centers, or in rented spaces above storefronts — from the age of 5 to about 18. And one of the very first things said kids were taught is how to write the Chinese alphabet, otherwise known as Zhuyin fuhao (注音符號).

Or, in plainer terms, bopomofo. The form is phonetic, so it's possible to read an entire page of the characters without knowing what exactly you're saying. But, as times have changed, so has language, and the language system is no longer widely taught, if at all. Now, in place of thing phonetic characters, kids are learning the pinyin system — phonetics written in English letters.

What used to be 手寫 and pronounced ㄕㄡ(3) ㄒㄧㄝ (2) is now Shǒuxiě.

After I Am Gone, Open My Diary, Under My Pillow

HANDWRITTEN BY DEEPTI TADALA (THE EKALAVYA)

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Today, I Am Tomorrow • Marrissa Anne Ayala

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2 Composers Separated by 68 Years and 2 Drawings • Graydon Hanson

When 12-year old aspiring composer, Graydon, was tasked with following in the footsteps of a composer, he chose Estonian composer Arvo Part, who happened to draw significantly by hand. Above and below are two images from Graydon's presentation, illustrating his journey through the past and toward the future.