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It turns out my parents were inspired by the photo of the snowman-adorned statue, as you can tell from this photo of my father taken by my mother:


p.s. Isn't that a nice scarf his daughter knit him?

p.p.s. I'm only sorry there is no snowman on his head!

Family Recipes

On the day that my parents left here to return home, we found a few recipes in the kitchen, forgotten by my mother. I set them aside on my desk, planning to mail them to her once I finished The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, which I had already promised her, having sent her home with The Golden Compass.

When my parents got home (after 8 hours of driving), I received their usual phone call, letting us know they had gotten home safely. But my mother also said, "You have the only copy of the Almond Butter Sticks recipe."

This filled me with fear for two reasons.

First, these are my favorite Christmas cookies.

Second, the recipe looks like this:



The textual scholar in me immediately recognized what a tremendous responsibility I now had, with both a unique manuscript containing the only existing remnant of occult knowledge AND an item that was fading fast!

So, for the sake of posterity, because I believe in free access to knowledge, and for all of you out in TV land who may not have had these amazing treats before, here is a fair transcription:

ALMOND BUTTER STICKS
1 c. butter, softened
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 1/4 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/8 t. salt
1 1/2 c. sugar
4 1/2 t. almond extract

In large mixing bowl combine all ingredients except sugar & almond extract. Blend with mixer until dough forms. Knead on floured surface until smooth.

ADDENDUM: The dough should be refrigerated for 45 minutes at least, before attempting the rolling process.

Roll out dough, half at a time, to 14x8 rectangle. Combine sugar & extract. Sprinkle each rectangle with 3-4 T. of sugar mixture.

For each rectangle fold one end of dough over center. Fold other end over to make 3 layers. Turning dough 1/4 of way around, repeat rolling & folding 2 more times, sprinkling with sugar each time. Roll out again to 14x8. Cut into 3 x 1 1/2" strips. Place on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 mins. Remove from cookie sheet immediately. Cool.

Finished!

I am here to pat myself on the back and proclaim that my Christmas knitting is FINISHED. (With two days to spare--not bad considering I started in July.)

That's four scarves, three hats, two sweaters, one hair wrap, and one shawl.

(And a partridge in a pear tree.)

Pictures will follow after The Big Day, but for now know that I am toasting myself with a glass of Chimay.

Long, long night.

It's the longest night of the year tonight, and here it will feel even longer because of the dreary weather. (But this means we have been getting some rain--a very needed thing.)

Several years ago I went to a soltice celebration where we went round and round a fire carrying pinecones, which we through in the fire to make it even brighter--little evergreen grenades.

Tonight my parents arrive from parts somewhat north and quite a bit east.

Tonight we light every nice little candle and treelight and porchlight and penguin string lights and little sconce lights around the table in hopes of luring the sun back and fending off the darkness without with lightness within.

So for today, instead of a Friday Random 10, A Distinctly Unrandom Solstice Ten:

1. "Bring on the Night," The Police, Regatta de Blanc
2. "Dark Was the Night," Ry Cooder, Paris, Texas
3. "Light Bath," David Byrne, The Catherine Wheel
4. "The Winter Solstice," Sufjan Stevens, Songs for Christmas, Vol. 5
5. Nørgård: "Winter Hymn," Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, dir. Paul Hillier, Baltic Voices 2
6. "Winter Wind," Patty Larkin, Angels Running
7. "Barefoot," k. d. lang, Unplugged Collection
8. "Put Your Lights On," Santana f. Everlast, Supernatural
9. "(Ultraviolet) Light My Way," U2, Achtung Baby
10. "Here Comes the Sun," The Beatles, Abbey Road

So here's wishing you and yours a bright Winter Solstice.

R.I.P. Jay Evans Paul.

Born September 1915 in Brooklyn, NY. Deceased June 2007 in Newport News, VA.

And for the record, played a mean hands of cards. And finished my crackers after I licked the peanut butter off them. And never sounded anything by thrilled to hear my voice. And spent every moment he was allowed with his wife as she ailed from congestive heart failure, holding her hand, looking lovingly into her eyes.

Grandpa, I'll miss your voice, and your smile and laugh, and I am sorry I haven't managed to beat you in cards. Maybe next hand.

A simple question.

How do you tell a person that you have had enough of them in your life?

I am not talking about those people who honest and truly you have had enough of--the people you wish you did not work with, the people you should not have dated, the people who cut you off in traffic.

I am talking about the people you love. What I am wondering is, when do you say, if you are in a position of having to say, I am ready to go now. I will not see you again. You and I both know this and it is the way it is.

How do you say to this person, thank you for everything you have done to make my life richer, to be a very real piece of my experience on this earth. Thank you for being one who had the brilliant smile, one whose voice always lit up when I walked in the room, one who made me feel so valued, so precious. Thank you, and now I have had enough, and I am going on my way, so that you can do the ugly things you have to do between now and the end of your life, but I will not have to see them. How do you say to that person, I have more important things to do now? Than spend days with you as your body betrays you? Than deal with what those drugs are doing to your brain, even as they are helping you deal with that pain? How do you say, I am going back to my life now.

Can someone please tell me this?

I'm nobody, who are you?

Magpie tagged me with this fun meme, and she picked a good moment, because,

I am in the mood for a meme.

I am blogging while infusing my antibiotics.

I am visiting my parents in Virginia.

I am envious and enjoyous of my father's beautiful flower garden.

I am gaining back the weight I lost in the hospital by snarfing down my mother's wonderful cooking. (What could be better???)

I am enjoying seeing friends and family who I only get to see when I visit here.

I am missing the PP, Jacques Monod, and Tut (a.k.a. Sazha), who did not travel with me.

I am sad that my grandfather has terminal cancer, but ecstatic that I am able to visit him this week and plaster his beautiful smile in my memory.

I am in the middle of four knitting projects: one tank-top sweater, one tote bag, and two top secret projects.

I am full of ideas about what to knit next.

I am counting down the days until I get my PICC line out.

I am counting down the days until I can get back in the pool.

I am frequently frustrated at what a production being a non-driving invalid is.

I am enjoying having the windows open and breathing in the spring breezes.

I am learning patience.

I am tagging [UPDATE: names deleted--let's have a free-for-all!] anyone in the mood for a meme.

If you want to end war and stuff, you've got to sing loud.

It has long been a tradition in my family to listen to "Alice's Restaurant" on Thanksgiving. It all started about 19 Thanksgivings ago (that's 19 years ago on Thanksgiving), when my aunt and uncle were visiting us in Newport News, and together with me, a high school boyfriend, and my parents, we got talking about that song, how it takes place on Thanksgiving, and about how we should listen to it on Thanksgiving. And so we did: some people were sitting in chairs, and others were sprawled on the floor, and we were all full of turkey. Full bellies did not stop the giggling and the singing, though. And given my family's tendency to multiply jokes with repetition, it was not long before "I wanna keeuhl!" became the repeated line around the Parcheesi board.

Now when my family celebrates Thanksgiving it is usually done with another family, who have become like family over the years. This is no ordinary Thanksgiving celebration. Everything starts on Tuesday night with Dungeness crab, brought fresh in suitcases by the family members flying in from San Francisco, who until the wine-buying options in Newport News recently improved, also brought with them several cases of wine. (There was one sad year when all the suitcases made it through except the one with the crab.) Then on Wednesday it is over to my parents' house, where my mother constructs a striper feast. November is prime striper season, as you may know, and there is one person in our clan who used to fish for it all the time before he moved inland to Kentucky. Now we all benefit from his nostalgia, because she has a mighty fine crumb topping that she bakes on it. This year, I understand, there was fish leftover for the first time in my memory. Then Thursday is the turkeystravaganza, usually featuring something like 30 people, all in one dining room. After dinner there is always the mother of all napkin battles, followed by Christmas crackers and everyone wearing paper crowns while reading dumb jokes aloud.

Then we adjourn to the living room to find bits of chair or floor, for the ritual listening. Some people have a hard time keeping from saying the lines along with Arlo. There is significant eye contact when he says, "Let me tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts." Then at the end we all rouse ourselves from triptofan dreams to sing along.

In fact last year at the PP's and my wedding, when the DJ was seeming not to show up, we thought perhaps we could have everyone sing something together--something everyone would know the words to. What we came up with was

You can get anything you want
At Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want
At Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
And you can get anything you want
At Alice's Restaurant.

Can you imagine 100 people standing up at our wedding, singing a bar of "Alice's Restaurant," and sitting down? Friends, it could have been a movement--but the DJ did show up.

But back to Thanksgiving. This year, we had a small group here at our house--myself, the PP, his mother, his sister, a longtime friend of mine from work, her husband, and their bitty baby. We had crab appetizer, a beautiful turkey, cranberries, two kinds of stuffing, mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables, pumpkin pie, and carrot cake--and wine. But this was not the occasion for Alice's Restaurant.

But fortunately last night we went over to other friends' house, where there was a veritable family and friend posse. They had leftovers and we had leftovers, and bottles of wine were opened for the cause, and together we ate another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat. Then after pie, we adjourned to a living room, moved parts of wooden train sets aside, and pulled up chairs and floor for the ritual listening. It turns out that someone else there had had this as a family ritual, so she and I were always giggling in advance of the same expected pleasure of a storyline known too well.

Given the situation in Iraq, I don't think we made much progress on ending war and stuff, but it was good to know we had done our part. And even though we were not singing in unison with the crowd in Newport News, I'd like to think we had a bit of a doppler effect massacree going on. With four-part harmony. And feeling.

Thanks.

No, this is not going to be a "thank goodness nothing new started hurting overnight" post.

But I am thinking about what it is we feel thankful for. I cannot list everything, or you would spend the entire day reading my various thankful blog posts, instead of watching football as you should.

Right now I just want to say "Thanks!" to the Yale hospital folks who figured out what was going on in my uncle's heart and got it patched up. It really is remarkable, when you think about it, that doctors can send one of those tiny cameras up an artery from somewhere near where your leg joins your body, and look around inside your heart. THEY CAN LOOK AROUND INSIDE YOUR HEART, WITH A LITTLE CAMERA. Then they can take a little tube, put it inside the part of your heart that is not staying in the position that it should, then send the world's tiniest balloon in pump the tube up to where it should be. Are you pausing with me for reflection?

One of the real highlights of this fall was the phone conversation I had with my uncle, the night after he had this procedure done, a full day after he had gone to the hospital because his pulse would not come down. I can so easily go back to the moment of that conversation, sitting by the little gas fireplace in my study, wanting to physically feel the warmth that I both needed and received from hearing that he was going to be OK. It was one of those magical times when you believe and really do feel that a telephone can make a connection with someone 833 miles away.

So I am thankful for that voice-carrying technology, and for the new technology inside his heart ("a stent in my heart to match the bolt in my wrist," he said). And I am thankful for my uncle, and for the chance to have more conversations like that one.

London Bridge is falling down.

I am not sure what it is about this time of year, but it brings out my ailments. Last weekend it was a mysterious and previously unsuffered stomach ailment (thank heavens for the PP, willing to venture out to the Kangaroo Mart circa 2 a.m. in search of meds) followed the next day by Super Sinus Headache. What a mostest hostess I made. This weekend it's the one-two punch of the shoulder on my right side and my right calf. And no, this is not the shoulder that bothered me last month, although my massage therapist points out that it continues to be a disaster, just more quietly now. No, this is the other shoulder, which I injured last night--are you ready for this?--erasing a white board. Yes friends, I have reached the point in life where I cannot risk such a task without hurting myself. Then thanks to Jacques Monod sleeping around my legs during the night, and my trying to move around her, I awoke suddenly (c. 3:30 a.m.) with a killer calf cramp. Curses!

But that has not slowed down the Thanksgiving dinner preparations, no no no. I have had the wine purchased for several days now (and not drunk any of it, thank you very much.) I got a fresh free-range drug-free turkey from the poultry students, picking it up on Monday. Trips to the state farmers market and various groceries got all the ingredients I could think of. Those who know me well know that several forgotten items will reveal their identities tomorrow, just in time for Substitutions R Us.

Now's just the cooking. So far the cranberries are done (and the PP found some of the freshest cranberries I have seen this side of a Maine bog at the Marché Frais today), the giblet stock is made, the sausage (fresh Italian variety--yummy) for the stuffing is cooked, the pomegranate seeds are removed from their membrane home (for serving as aperitivo in the prosecco, just to insure that all my guests have to spend half the year in this part of the world), the beautiful bread for the stuffing is drying, and I just remembered I need to get the white wine chillin (like Bob Dylan, natch).

And that is about all that can be done until tomorrow, when I'll chop vegetables to roast with rosemary and olive oil, get the bird ready for its final suntan, peel the potatoes (and not put the peels down the disposal this year) for mashing, and make the stuffing. Other guests are bringing dessert and appetizers, which means that as far as I can tell, things are under control.

WARNING: IF YOU CAN SEE THAT THAT IS NOT THE CASE, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.

All to say, we are well on our way to a Thanksgiving dinner that can't be beat. I hope you are, too. Here are some good reminders from the Gurgling Cod:

The LA Times has a detailed story on the definitively best way to cook a turkey. This bird seems to bring out a lot of this kind of thing, suggesting perhaps that the turkey is not, inherently, delicious. News flash: it does not matter.* Poach the damn thing in Proseco, put it in a hammock lined with George Foreman grills, or go sous vide, as your tradition and preference move you. I said it before, but it bears repeating -- the excellent thing about this holiday, and the reason why today so many of us will be cooling our heels in Mpls, Atlanta, Detroit , Charlotte, Denver, or Pittsburgh airports, pondering the second 20oz draft, while keeping an ear cocked for any information on the status of the flight home -- is that it is about the asses in the seats around the table, not what's on the table. If you are giving thanks for your $15/lb-studied-Sanskrit-at-Wesleyan-heritage-turkey, or that you'll be able to watch the Lions, Cowboys, and the Bayou Classic on a plasma screen TV, you are missing the point. Count yourself blessed for the people at your table, raise a glass to those who are not, and pour out a bottle or two of the nouveau for those irredeemably absent. It is, if you do it correctly, a holiday about hanging out with people you love, eating food, and watching football on television. With attorneys in Santa suits already revving their Harleys for the inevitable toys-for-tots rides that a sheen of altruism on the naked consumerism of the Christmas season, I encourage you to spend this weekend focused on gluttony and sloth, and leave the greed until December.

I'll be feeling grateful for my family and friends who can be here and also for those of you who are too far away to break bread together. To you, I raise a glass to say (with feeling), Come on in it's around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track....