Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Twin Saints (No, Certainly Not Us)

Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian are Catholic saints that are twins. Their good deeds are reputed to include providing medical care and healing without accepting pay, hence their nickname "the silverless." They are often depicted in paintings to be transplanting the leg of a recently dead Ethiopian man onto another man, to replace his ulcered and diseased leg. Um, yeah. Here is an example...


"Legendary transplantation of a leg by Saints Cosmas and Damian, assisted by angels."
Photographed by Andreas Praefcke (2006), I can't seem to find the name of the artist, and I got this image here.


Fun! According to Wikipedia, the twins are the saints of "surgeons, physicians, dentists, protectors of children, barbers, pharmacists, veternarians, orphanges, day-care centers, confectioners, children in house, against hernia, against the plague." Catholic.org just lists pharmacists/druggists.

There are many churches dedicated to Cosmas and Damian, but the one I want to bring to your attention is the one in Twinsburg, OH. Yeah, THAT Twinsburg. Love it.

Cheers,
Alison

1 comment:

laura capello said...

i couldn't find your email address :-)

the issue i had with the article was:

1. using quinoa flour in the cake with no mention of how many people with celiac actually do not tolerate it well, as the protein in quinoa has a very similar structured protein as gluten - so someone who doesn't know this could eat it or serve it to a friend and the person would still have problems

2. no mention of checking labels (or giving any gluten-free labeling tips) or checking sources in regards to buying cocoa powder, buttermilk, vanilla extract, nuts and raisins

3. recommending people eat bacon and country ham - two of the worst offenders of hidden gluten - without giving any labeling tips or recommendations

if i sound harsh, i don't mean to. just get really upset people potentially get mislead with the facts -- and this isn't on shauna, it's on the magazines. and it's too bad, because it could have been a great starter resource for people