I've been sick since I swallowed a super hard chunk of baguette sandwich and scarred my throat a week ago. ( I couldn't chew it without breaking my teeth, so I thought I should just swallow the darn thing, letting the stomach acid take care of the rest. A big mistake!) I couldn't even speak for the next 24 hours, got a minor fever for a couple of days and now I can't stop coughing, for god's sake. Is baguette loaf supposed to be that hard?? I mean, does it have to be like a rock? Tell me, my French friends! Are Americans getting it all wrong!?
Anyway, continuing from the last post on French cookbooks, (The baguette incident just happened to have happened. Mind you.) this is another of the same client's books, Le Cuisinier Imperial, ou L'art De Faire La Cuisine Et La Pâtisserie Pour Toutes Les Fortunes, by A. Viard, published by N. Barba in Paris. (Fifth Edition, 1810) I was asked to preserve everything, and I thought it wasn't a problem at first, until I examined the spine. Sigh,, the spine leather was tightly glued to the spine of the book. Normally, if the spine leather's glued tightly like that, I'd recommend for a brand new facsimile leather spine. But, this book has a set of very unique gold ornaments that I couldn't replicate, and the condition of the leather was such that still had "body", which could possibly sustain the force of lifting. So, I was determined to lift it off. ( but, I told her that I might not be able to do it, before hand, just in case.) Well, although it took about 2.5~3 hours, I successfully took it off the spine!! Yey! I won!!!! (won what?)
(cough. cough. cough. cough.)
The restoration involved was a re-hinging of the spine with the original spine put back on, reconstructions / repairs of the corners and internal cloth hinges to preserve the original marble paper.
The finished restoration looks very lovely (as always!). Great that you managed to free up the glued spine and save the gold tooled designs.
ReplyDeleteIf your throat is still sore, it may still be bruised and perhaps a little bit infected? Try making sage tea, then cooling it and using as a gargle. Sage is antiseptic and also soothing - it may help to settle the irritation and heal the bruise. You could also drink pineapple juice - bromeliads have antiseptic properties and it's cooling and soothing on a scratchy throat. If the juice is too sticky, try it diluted a bit with nice fresh water.
Good luck!
As soon as I read your comment, I went to a grocery store in search of sage tea. They didn't have it.. So, I decided to have camomile tea instead, hopping that its soft flavor would ease my cough. It DID help! I'm a heavy coffee drinker and coffee wasn't helping my ordeal. So, substituting my horrible coffee habit with tea was actually a good thing!
DeleteI slept better that night! And I'm about 80% recovered from coughing.
Thanks for your advice!
MHR
Such an interesting blog, thank you! I do hope you're feeling better... Baguette injuries can be severe!
ReplyDeleteBest regards,
Erika
I feel a lot better now! Thank you!
DeleteI hope to you to complete the book cover
ReplyDeleteYou are your business more than wonderful
I've completed the book! ( a big smile !!) Thank God for giving me the strength! The client will pick up her books next week, so I'm anxious whether she likes my works.. Pray for me *****
DeleteLicorice hot syrup is very useful in case of cough
ReplyDeleteThat it was high blood pressure do not drink more than two cups
God healed
One of my dear blog friends, Lizzie has given me a solution to my horrible cough, and my health has been recovered by her advice. :-) Thank you for your advice about Licorice. I will keep it in mind. Thank you!
DeleteGreat blog yoou have
ReplyDelete