Mother's Day

This salt and pepper shaker set belonged to my mother. I played with it as a child. When my parents house suffered damage in the 1994 Northridge, CA,  earthquake, I was visiting them. During clean up, I found these undamaged and told Mom that I was taking them home with me. I'm happy to have them, they remind me of my Mother.

 The modern holiday of Mother's Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in America. She then began a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday in the United States. Although she was successful in 1914, she was already disappointed with its commercialization by the 1920s. Jarvis' holiday was adopted by other countries and it's now celebrated all over the world. She specifically wanted it spelled as a singular possessive noun so that each family could celebrate their own mother. 

Butter

I got this butter because of Agnes Varda. A couple of years ago, we saw an installation of her work at the Fondation Cartier. A film about her life at Noirmoutier was included. A few days after seeing the exhibit, I had moules (mussels) from Noirmoutier at a cafe near the Cite and across the street there was a sign over an outside stall in front of the grocery store: Moules de Noirmoutier. So, of course, I had to buy this butter. It has crystals of sea salt in it which makes it crunchy.