Wanton Mee and Mango Pudding!

Made dinner again tonight!

I'm really starting to like cooking. The stuff I try is awfully simple, but there's nothing like the sense of satisfaction when the food starts to look like... well what it's supposed to look like. And even better when it tastes decent :)

Wedding Night Advice - from 1894

Before we got married, my Aunt sent me this.

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copyright 1894 The Madison Institute.
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The following is a reprint from The Madison Institute Newsletter,
Fall Issue, 1894:
INSTRUCTION AND ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG BRIDE
on the Conduct and Procedure of the Intimate and Personal Relationships of the Marriage State for the Greater Spiritual Sanctity of this Blessed Sacrament and the Glory of God by Ruth Smythers, beloved wife of The Reverend L.D. Smythers
Pastor of the Arcadian Methodist Church of the Eastern Regional Conference
Published in the year of our Lord 1894
Spiritual Guidance Press
New York City

INSTRUCTION AND ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG BRIDE
To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper
upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and
most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the
wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a
beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing
a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her life. On the
negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride
must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the
terrible experience of sex.

At this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth.Some
young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with
curiosity and pleasure! Beware such an attitude! A selfish and
sensual husband can easily take advantage of such a bride. One
cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: GIVE LITTLE,
GIVE SELDOM, AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. Otherwise what could
have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.

On the other hand, the bride's terror need not be extreme. While sex
it at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be
endured, and has been by women since the beginning of time, and is
compensated for by the monogamous home and by the children produced
through it. It is useless, in most cases, for the bride to prevail upon the
groom to forego the sexual initiation. While the ideal husband would
be one who would approach his bride only at her request and only for
the purpose of begetting offspring, such nobility and unselfishness
cannot be expected from the average man.

Most men, if not denied, would demand sex almost every day. The wise
bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly
during the first months of marriage. As time goes by she should
make every effort to reduce this frequency.

Feigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among the wife's best
friends in this matter. Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering
also prove very effective, if used in the late evening about an hour
before the husband would normally commence his seduction.
Clever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of
denying and discouraging the amorous overtures of the husband. A
good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a
week by the end of the first year of marriage and to once a month by
the end of the fifth year of marriage.

By their tenth anniversary many wives have managed to complete their child
bearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual
contacts with the husband. By this time she can depend upon his love for
the children and social pressures to hold the husband in the home. Just
as she should be ever alert to keep the quantity of sex as low as
possible, the wise bride will pay equal attention to limiting the kind and
degree of sexual contacts. Most men are by nature rather perverted, and
if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most
revolting practices. These practices include among others performing the
normal act in abnormal positions; mouthing the female body; and offering
their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn.

Nudity, talking about sex, reading stories about sex, viewing
photographs and drawings depicting or suggesting sex are the
obnoxious habits the male is likely to acquire if permitted.

A wise bride will make it the goal never to allow her husband to see
her unclothed body, and never allow him to display his unclothed body
to her. Sex, when it cannot be prevented, should be practiced only in
total darkness. Many women have found it useful to have thick cotton
nightgowns for themselves and pajamas for their husbands. These
should be donned in separate rooms. They need not be removed durning
the sex act. Thus, a minimum of flesh is exposed.

Once the bride has donned her gown and turned off all the lights, she
should lie quietly upon the bed and await her groom. When he comes
groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her
direction, lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should
let him grope in the dark. There is always the hope that he will
stumble and incur some slight injury which she can use as an excuse
to deny him sexual access.

When he finds her, the wife should lie as still as possible. Bodily
motion on her part could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the
optimistic husband.

If he attempts to kiss her on the lips she should turn her head
slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek instead. If
he attempts to kiss her hand, she should make a fist. If he lifts her
gown and attempts to kiss her anyplace else she should quickly pull
the gown back in place, spring from the bed, and announce that
nature calls her to the toilet. This will generally dampen his
desire to kiss in the forbidden territory.

If the husband attempts to seduce her with lascivious talk, the wise
wife will suddenly remember some trivial non-sexual question to ask
him. Once he answers she should keep the conversation going, no
matter how frivolous it may seem at the time.

Eventually, the husband will learn that if he insists on having
sexual contact, he must get on with it without amorous embellishment.
The wise wife will allow him to pull the gown up no farther than the
waist, and only permit him to open the front of his pajamas to thus
make connection.

She will be absolutely silent or babble about her housework while his
huffing and puffing away. Above all, she will lie perfectly still and
never under any circumstances grunt or groan while the act is in
progress. As soon as the husband has completed the act, the wise
wife will start nagging him about various minor tasks she wishes him
to perform on the morrow. Many men obtain a major portion of their
sexual satisfaction from the peaceful exhaustion immediately after
the act is over. Thus the wife must insure that there is no peace
in this period for him to enjoy. Otherwise, he might be encouraged
to soon try for more.

One heartening factor for which the wife can be grateful is the fact
that the husband's home, school, church, and social environment have
been working together all through his life to instill in him a deep
sense of guilt in regards to his sexual feelings, so that he comes to
the marriage couch apologetically and filled with shame, already half
cowed and subdued. The wise wife seizes upon this advantage and
relentlessly pursues her goal first to limit, later to annihilate
completely her husband's desire for sexual expression.

copyright 1894 The Madison Institute

If mel can cook...

I recently tried my hand at making Shui Jiao, or Chinese pork, prawn and chive dumplings.

Here's how it turned out...



Ewan said they were great, so I hope it really was!

In other news, here's the beef we bought from our New Zealand trip, together with mashed potatoes, and sauteed onions and mushrooms.


Yum!