Thoughts on the Holiday Aftermath

The baby is in the car seat, the car seat is strapped in the car, the suitcases, baby supplies, dog toys, snacks and Christmas presents are stuffed into every nook and cranny, the dog is on her little mattress in the very back, the ice is scraped off the windows, and the heater has warmed up the car so its nice and cozy, and the kids are headed out the driveway, going south, and here we are in a house that feels very empty. And quiet. Yet the sweet ghost-like images of the baby and Pam and Charlie and happy dog Zoe sit in our chairs and walk through the house and I half expect to walk into the living room and see them all sitting there as they were yesterday, playing with baby Asher and watching a little television.

 Outside, it's 15 degrees but with the wind still kicking up snow and making the house groan, the wind chill temperature is closer to 5 degrees. For two days we enjoyed the storm, tucked inside our cozy house, munching on Christmas cookies and turkey sandwiches, watching the swirling snow pile up in drifts on the deck and around the house.  I  was especially grateful for the severe weather because it meant that I got two extra days with the children and grandson.  Last night we sat around the kitchen table sharing a nice bottle of malbec and playing Solo.

This morning, I awakened early knowing that it would be our last morning together for awhile, and took this picture of the sunrise.  No more excuses to delay their trip.  So after the coffee and breakfast and after packing up the road snacks and after me holding the baby every single second that I could, we all hugged and then they loaded into the car and off they went.

Now they are headed off to Atlanta to Charlie's new job.   Last night I didn't sleep much, knowing the kids were leaving. When my children are sleeping in the house, I feel a sense that all is right with the world.  I sleep more soundly and when I awake in the night, I imagine that I am peeking into their rooms as I did when they were young, and I kiss their sweet sleeping faces. Now that they are adults, you might think that it changes but for me, it never really goes away.  Since last night was their last night here, I started feeling the separation again.

I suppose this sounds all too neurotic but there it is.  I am the mother hen and I like it best when all the chicks are snug in the nest.  Period.  Only trouble is, I raised very independent chicks so of course, they are off out of the nest, into their lives and homes and their own children and not particularly inclined to all move back home. They are healthy.  Thank God.  However, every so often, when they are here for a visit, I get that nice warm feeling of knowing the chicks are at that very moment, safe and warm.  

Four Days Until Christmas, or Three if you Don't Count Christmas Eve

Because I cannot think of a worse way to spend Christmas Eve than shopping and racing around to do the last minute things, I don't count Christmas Eve.  And this year, I mean it!!! No, really!  We have sent the cookies and wrapped the gifts and written the cards (John did, actually.)  They weren't the cool cards we designed with a wonderful quote and amazing photograph and all that stuff that last Christmas I said we were going to do this Christmas, but the nice cards from the local store have been mailed!

And Today is Tuesday.  This afternoon I am baking some cookies and making haddock enchiladas for dinner.  Then going to a cookie swap.  Naturally I will be taking the molasses ginger cookies.  Tomorrow we will straighten the house and set the dining room table and make the cranberry orange relish.  Thursday John and I are driving into Bangor to pick up Dylan and take him to the store with us so that his mommy can have some time to herself. Friday maybe sing some carols, go to the neighbors for a little Christmas cheer, and then Saturday is Christmas.

I am grateful that my son Charles, his beautiful wife Pamela and their 4-month-old son, Asher are here with us.  And the Bangor family is coming down on Christmas Day.

In this time of spread-out families and kids in lots of states, we are just thankful that we can put two kids and their families under our tree this year.  We will be missing Deron and family in Colorado; Kim and family in Wisconsin; and Brian and family, in Connecticut.  But grateful for all of them, nonetheless.


We don't know what this next year will bring.  We have this time right now.  And right now, I am especially grateful for my dearest husband, John, the love of my life.  And for the wonderful family we have put together, both here and away.

Natural Flavor

We have been getting the best tiny bay scallops at the market lately. I have been baking them in organic butter, organic lemon juice, organic pecans (chopped), organic panko, and salt and pepper. Here is the dish, ready to set on the table.

So the natural flavor of this is just this: the scallops, the butter, the lemon, the pecans, the panko and the salt and pepper. These are the foods and these are the flavors. I am beginning to think that reading ingredients is either a very good thing or a very bad thing. It is bad if you do not want to take on cooking everything from scratch and you care about what you are putting in your body. And it is a good thing if you care about what you are putting in your body and you are willing to see the disaster that our prepared foods have become. And are willing to start cooking everything from scratch.

The scallops are delicious, flavorful and perfect served with a nice green salad, some steamed broccoli, and some rice. Nothing added.

I read recently a quote, "Tell the truth even if it makes your voice shake". The actual quote by Maggie Kuhn is, "Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind--even if your voice shakes."

Be real. Tell the truth. Seems to me that this not only goes for us, but for our food as well.

It's what's inside that counts!

Last night it snowed and the world is covered in white.. The sound of the cars and trucks rolling by, their tires crunching the snow, let you know that it is cold. I love that sound. I am thinking it is a strange thing that I really don't love the cold but I love waking up on a snowy morning.

And the smell of ginger cookies baking makes it all the more wonderful. Finally I have the recipe I am proud of! And it is the same recipe that I made before this one. BUT, with one major

important difference: the ginger. I put ginger from the local store bulk department in the previous one. Ginger is ginger, right? Nope. I then ordered some ginger, I picked the yellow Chinese ginger from Penzey's which came in the mail this week. So now this is what we have in the cookie jar! Spicy, crunchy, chewey, totally delicious ginger molasses cookies that are perfect.

Of course, I am using organic flour, butter, eggs, molasses, and sugar. And a little Real Salt which has all the good minerals left in it. A little teensy bit of baking soda.

We have become a lot more conscious of ingredients lately. I have shopped for organic food for years and years. Grown food organically for years. But in this past year, John decided to give up the prilosec he had been taking for 8 years or so. It was a very delicate process of carefully choosing each bite of food to be friendly to his readjusting stomach. We did the diet together and now, eight months later, he is eating normally, no prilosec and the heart burn and acid reflux are gone! I would be glad to give the details to anyone interested but this is just to say that the food search has become a lot more meticulous, as in reading and learning about

ingredients. And I was shocked to find that MSG use, which I naively though we had pretty much got rid of except in Chinese food, is rampant in prepared food, even the "natural" ones.

Apparently MSG is not the only source of free glutamate. The most interesting ingredient that appears on more food's lists than you might imagine, is "natural flavor". What is an ingredient called "natural flavor"? It is not just a description of the product, it is an ingredient.

Take these Terra chips. Potatoes, salt and pepper, oil and "natural flavor". What is that? More potato-ness? More salt? But that is salt. Pepper is pepper. What is "natural flavor"? I wrote to Terra company, a subsidiary of Hains Celestial Foods, but no reply yet.

The problem is that in doing some research about sneaky glutamate additions, which at best , well, there is no best. But at worst, cause a lot of health problems from the minor to the very severe. Anyway, in doing this research, what I found was that the there are any number of ways to add flavor enhancers without calling it MSG. And call me obsessive, but I would like to eat food that is just what it claims to be and no less or more. Free glutamate addition to foods has been linked to everything from autism to ulcers to a whole host of other problems. So why add it?

Now, I walk through the aisles of the grocery store and wonder at the millions of products that are refined, preserved, enhanced, colored, flavored and packaged and wonder how we ever got to this level of food insanity.

I am cooking more these days. Lots of vegetarian dishes. Yummy baked brussel sprouts au gratin. Sweet curried rice with veggies and nuts. Chili and soups and homemade yogurt.

And my latest quest completed, the perfect molasses ginger cookie!!!!!

More Cookies (with my grandson) and Rain

After a wonderful Saturday baking Christmas cookies with my three grandchildren while the rain and wind pounded the windows and melted all our snow, my 3, nearly 4 year old, grandson, Dylan decided he wants to stay. So after spending another night, I am thinking he might want to go home and he says he wants to stay another night. I say that they will miss him. And he agrees. He nods seriously and says, "They sure will miss me. They will miss me every minute." But he is staying.

Yesterday we started the day with Cranberry Pecan Orange cookies with an Orange Glaze. Same dough, add orange extract. I threw the dried cranberries and pecans in the food processor and pulsed it a few times until they were coarsely chopped, then added them to the dough. We shaped the whole thing into a square log, refrigerated it for an hour or so and then sliced it up, baked and glazed it with orange juice and orange zest glaze, and here they are!!

This morning he awoke saying today he wants to bake snickerdoodles. I say okay, so that is our goal today and then Mom is coming to collect him at lunch time. He is not pleased with this turn of events. I believe he sees a world of cookies stretching out into the future endlessly, If it were not for school on Tuesday morning, he would be more resistant to going home.

January 13, 2011 will make a full year in Maine. Prior to this last year, we lived in Tennessee for seven years. We went to Nashville for the music and stayed there for the music and the friends. But we could not convince any of our children to move there and that ended up being the deciding factor on whether we stayed. After hours of concentrated talking and weighing of options, we decided that it would be good for our lives to be involved more closely with our grandchildren.

But how to figure out where we wanted to go was the question. Not an easy decision when we have grandchildren in six states. But the family here in Maine was actually the one who have consistently wanted us close by. We all really like each other and get along easily. They have lobbied us to be closer since day one, and that was a factor. It is nice to be wanted.

Also, they are very supportive of our relationship with the children. Another factor. We lived in New England most of our adult lives and it is a part of the country that we both love. Our little town is on the water and that is a plus. Real estate is affordable here (although taxes are pretty high). This town is a real town...it has a main street, several good and one great restaurant, sidewalks, a golf course, tennis courts, a fabulous library and tons of activities, activitists, and a great farmer's market. All good qualities. We even have "senior college" where we can take classes in every conceivable subject from Bob Dylan, to Beowulf, to the botany of the Maine shoreline.

We still miss the warm springtime in Tennessee that goes on and on seemingly forever, in contrast to the brief and windy spring here. We miss the availability of great live songwriter performances which we adore. And we especially miss the great friends we found while living there.

It was a hard decision but we also were considering that we are heading into our elder years and it would be good to be near family now. We both think it is awfully hard on people who because of failing health have to move near their children and leave their friends and their home behind. We decided that if we did it now, we would form friends here and we will not have to move far away when we are less likely to be able to makes new friends. And ultimately we thought we were missing out on the grandkids lives.

So here it is, what we came for: Papa John with the boy, Dylan, at his feet. A warm fire, a kitchen that smells like grandma's cookies and a little basket of toys make for what one hopes will someday be comforting memories for a man who was once this little boy at his grandparents' house.

After you shovel snow, what's for supper? Chicken Soup!

Really, I do make other things. Just the day before yesterday I made a big pot of fresh chicken soup. I went to the co-op and bought a local farmer-raised whole chicken and threw that in a pot with onions and garlic and water and barley and a teensy bit of cumin and rosemary and carrots and celery and kale, salt and pepper. When it was just about done, I threw in some chopped potatoes from the local Chase's Daily farm stand. These little potatoes, something like the Yukon Gold are completely chewy and slightly yellow in color. It made the broth a little creamy, but I didn't want them to completely melt into the soup so I let them cook about 15 minutes and voila! Supper!

John has had a cold running for about a week now and it seems that chicken soup is always a comfort and some people say has actual healing powers! He isn't well yet, but perhaps it helped. He's not worse either.

The Goose Isn't the Only One Getting Fat!

Okay, so these are not ginger cookies. But in the midst of my quest, it turns out that Christmas is coming and I've been invited to a cookie swap and I want to make some Christmas cookies with my grandchildren and then I got an idea so here it is:

I know it looks a little like cranberries in the middle but it is not. It happens to be ground up candy canes. And they are delicious. The plate started out full but.....

The dough is a basic plain cookie dough and I saved a quarter of it to mix with the candy canes. I rolled the plain part out into a pretty good long rectangle and rolled the middle part into a little log. Then I put that little pink log in the middle of the rectangle and wrapped the dough around it and formed a square shape (kind of). Next time I will try a

nd get it to

be more of a square with a circle inside it, but this time it is what it is.

Plain cookie dough

I know you are supposed to sift but I don't. I just put the first three things in a bowl and whisk them all together. Then in the big red mixer, I put the butter and sugar and cream them. After which, I add the egg and the vanilla. Here goes:

3 cups flour

2/3 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks butter

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla (I have the Mexican kind that is really flavorful.)

After the butter mixture is all stirred up, add the flour mixture to it and keep mixing until it's all in.

Once you have the cookie log formed, wrap it in parchment and put it in the fridge until cold.. at least an hour. When ready to bake, cut it into 1/8" slices and place on baking pan. Bake in a preheated 350 degree

oven for anywhere from 7-12 mintes. I know this is a big range, but after the first sheet you will know how long it takes your oven. I take them out when the edges just begin to turn golden brown.

When I first started cooking, I followed recipes to the letter. Now after I have tried something a few times I start to make it mine. Then I do it the way it makes the most sense to me. I have had some serious disasters in my days of cooking, but mostly it turns out yummy.

So here we go a wassailing and Christmas is a comin, the goose is

getting fat, please to put a penny in the old man's hat... How lucky am I to be baking cookies in my nice warm kitchen and singing carols where nobody can hear me???

On the Trail of the Perfect Ginger Molasses Cookie

I started thinking about a ginger molasses cookie I had once. It was both crunchy and melt in your mouth chewy. It was spicy and not too sweet and had those little cracks in the "crust" of the top. But where to buy another one? Then, said I, "Hey, girl! You have a kitchen. You have a stove. You even have a mixer. And you can read. Make some."

Stepping up to the challenge, I found an old recipe card in my mother's handwriting for Ginger Cookies. I changed the shortning [sic] to butter and went for it. It called for the boiling of the shortening, sugar, molasses, and vinegar before mixing in the rest of the ingredients. They were cakey and smooth.

Next I found another recipe that also was a boil-the-molasses recipe but the proportions were very different and didn't call for vinegar.

It is hard to find a cookie that I completely dislike, but I am on a mission here. These were definitely not fitting the memory template of that perfect cookie.

I decided to move away from the boiled mixture and go with the cream-the-butter-and-sugar type. This is the last one I tried. Looks right but doesn't taste right. They were very bland. The texture was nearly there, however.

Ginger Molasses Cookies

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter

2 cups packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup molasses

2 eggs

4 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons ground ginger

3 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Cream the first four things and then add the other four things. Then I rolled them in good turbinado sugar. Bake about 7 minutes at 350.

These were pretty good. Had the texture and the little cracks, but they lacked the ginger-y flavor even with the 4 teaspoons. So I eyed the bulk ground ginger I got from the co-op (I love them but who knows how long that was sitting in the jar there.)

Ah, yes, my dear Penzey's! So I checked the catalog and sent for a good Chinese ginger. The next batch is going to be essentially the same but using the good ginger.

If you are searching for the very best of anything, you shouldn't get discouraged if after three tries, you haven't found it!