July 9, 2020 – National Sugar Cookie Day | World Watercolor Month

Transcript for July 9th

Welcome to July 9th on the National Day Calendar.  I’m John McClain sitting in for Marlo Anderson and today we celebrate a cookie for all seasons and world class doodling. More after the break from Anna Devere.

Few desserts are as versatile as the sugar cookie with a shape and decoration that sweetens any event.  It is believed that the recipe originated in the mid-1700s in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. German Protestant settlers created a round buttery cookie that came to be known as the Nazareth Cookie.  But it’s easy to see why renaming the treat after its main ingredient made the sugar cookie more popular.  Today, just about every occasion can be made more festive with a theme stamped in this delicious dough.  And frosting and decorating sugar cookies makes for a party in itself.  On National Sugar Cookie Day celebrate the joy of our favorite taste in a picture perfect bite. 

Before the invention of the printing press, books needed to be copied by hand. Monks were responsible for much of this work, laboring day and night to replicate and preserve manuscripts. But because this was so tedious, some of the monks got bored and began to add illustrations in the page margins. The eye-catching watercolor art often had nothing to do with the text at all, but they brought the pages to life. They drew everything from simple objects like plants to fantastical things like rabbits chasing people with swords. Rather than ruin the books, the colorful, sometimes elaborate watercolors transformed the manuscripts into treasured items. July is World Watercolor Month, the perfect time to create some art of your own. We recommend painting on paper, though, not books. Unless you’re painting an animal holding a sword. Because that’s just awesome.  

If you would like to Celebrate Every Day with us, be sure to follow us on Facebook and check out our website TheNationalDailyShow.com.


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