The Kid’s Table

There was the Thanksgiving dinner when Tom foolheartedly held up a turkey leg and, in a left field attempt to compliment me,  grinned and said “this skin is like tree bark“.  A hush fell over the crowd, everyone else put their heads down, stopped eating mid-bite and waited for the wrath of Penelope. He still claims he meant it as a compliment. Sad to say and knowing the ways of my Antler Man, I know he meant it as a compliment, but, hey, I’m milking this one for at least another 10 years. The funny thing is that it was an exceptionally good turkey that he, the esteemed chewer of bark and apple cores, and who-knows-what-else, ordered it himself, fresh from the butcher where he often stopped to get a sandwich and soup, making me wonder if he had ever had a crunchy bark sandwich with turkey breast on caraway rye – hold the mayo.

As a child, our Thanksgiving table was always crowded. My cousins, who lived next door, would often be with us.  My aunt and uncle would sometimes have guests at their house, but, because we were close in age and lived next to each other and because we shared a grandmother, who lived in our house, and because they adored my father, their Uncle Pete,  and because Teddy and I were only 26 days apart in age and similar in temperament, and, well, just because they were family, there was always room at the table.

Did your childhood celebrations come with a kid’s table? Mine did in our small house with a small kitchen and no dining room. The kid’s table was set in the tiny hallway off of the kitchen. It was just large enough to set places for four, though there were times when we squeezed in a few more. My sister, my next door cousins and me. It was a gray formica table with red plastic chairs and chrome legs that seemed to take up too much space and was a challenge for a klutz like me! The hallway was the passageway to two of the bedrooms, the livingroom and, of course, the bathroom. It was pure chaos if an adult needed to use the facilities. I don’t know how we got our food from the kitchen. My mind is blank, the memories faded. A grown-up would fill up each plate, I am certain, but all I really cared about was the once a year chestnut dressing. My sister and I wore pretty party dresses, often matching, that were buoyed by layers of flouncy  slips and I can still hear my mother saying “don’t spill” – just as one of us did. To leave the table you had to slide down off of your plastic throne, feet first, somehow get on all fours, and then crawl underneath the table to get out of the hallway. Do I need to mention the three pairs of legs waiting below in eager anticipation, or the morsels of food that somehow missed four mouths and landed on the floor? Try navigating all of that in a red checkered dress, whose pockets were sewn on backwards, compliments of a fire sale and my Uncle Red, and starched to Shirley Temple cuteness with buckled black patent leather shoes shined to a mirrored polish with Vaseline!

Did you have a kid’s table? Do you have one now?

Should Antler Man be banned to the kid’s table if he mentions turkey tree bark?

Downloaded from Shorpy website http://www.shorpy.com/

Read Full Post »

Hello, sunshine

It was so comforting to have the sun back today. She beamed brightly through the windows and warmed me with her rays and it felt so very good to see her again. As I sat in our little library late this morning, reading emails, catching up on a few things set aside over the holiday, I just stopped and closed my eyes, leaned my head back and basked in her warmth as she found me through the window and touched me gently for a while. She was a welcome guest today as she made the rounds on her low-lying path across the sky.

Our mail came very late – common for the day after a postal holiday. Our roadside box was filled with mail and catalogues. Can it be that the economy is truly picking up, or is it just that every merchandiser has finally found us here on the cutoff? I hope the former is the case and, even though I rue the loss of trees that were cut in the process, I am hopeful that this hints of some steadier days ahead.

It was close to 5 pm when I bundled up and headed out the door to check for mail. The moon was already rising and smiled hello. It has been awhile since he visited and he has grown a bit. The sun was setting and she cast a ring of pinks and reds and peachy tones around the horizon. Every way I looked, surrounding me, underneath the trees and buildings and past the cars and trucks and deer roaming about, there she was, dancing, one last dance, all around me, before she called lights out. 

It was good to see these two old friends today. They have been gone a great deal lately and I rejoiced at their return. 

           Tonight’s moon from stardate.org/nightsky/moon/
              I find it fascinating that with a few clicks on the computer this                        information is so readily available. Maybe you do too.

Read Full Post »

Candlelight and cranberries

We ate a late dinner by candlelight, mellow in its glow, Jennifer and Jason joining us to break bread and give thanks. My friend Roz gave me these cute little squirrel salt and pepper shakers as a surprise gift on a recent outing to match another tablecloth. I was delighted to find them right at home with this one. The napkins were an accidental find for 50 cents each at the Jackson Square Antique Mall that I hoped would match the tablecloth. The charger plates were as expensive as the napkins in a bargain bin last winter at T.J. Maxx. I love it when I find things that work at bargain prices.

Lots to be thankful for.

I discovered I needed just one more ingredient this morning, so, stopped at the local Dominick’s on my way to our church’s Thanksgiving service, where Tom was playing guitar. I saw this breadbasket with rolls in the bakery department, walked past, then came around again. It was just too pretty to pass up. My original intent was to make homemade biscuits for dinner, but opted instead for this unique rendition.  Tom took the picture just before Jennifer and Jason came.

These rolls were actually good. We have several left and I need to find something tasty to do with the basket. When I first saw it I thought it would be much more expensive than the $5.97 price tag. I wonder if Tom was thinking about the post on my Yia Yia’s hands when he asked me to “pose”.

The deer wandered through the back this afternoon. I saw them as I was setting the table. They are already well camoflouged and blended in with the scenery – brown leaves still on the ground, the barren trees and bushes, and a misty air about them. Squirrels scampered around, hunting for walnuts and acorns, and a lone nasturtium still holding on atop the deck.

It’s late now. The day is done as I sit here in the soft lamp light reflecting on all that I have to be thankful for and I am reminded of the words of the old Shaker hymn:

‘Tis the gift to be simple,

’tis the gift to be free,
’tis the gift to come down      where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves    in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love            and delight.

Read Full Post »

Chestnut dressing and cranberry relish

When I was growing up our turkey was stuffed with a meat mixture laced with chestnuts and Romano cheese. It had Italian bread crumbs and fennel and celery and assorted other herbs. I don’t know how the Romano came to be used, being a Greek household. Thanksgiving, however, is an uniquely American melting pot meal, is it not? My ancestors would not have gobbled turkey in the Spartan mountains of  Greece, so, they learned and adapted when they immigrated to the United States. 

When I was old enough to crank the cheese grater, my grandmother, whose hands were arthritic, would ask me turn the handle to grate the cheese. There would be paper thin slivers of shaved Romano left over and these shards of cheese would delight my tongue with their sharp reply as I slipped them into my mouth. I have her cheese grater with its worn wooden handle and sometimes grate Romano cheese – just to have the paper thin ends. 

The chestnuts would be slit and warmed on the stove top, shaken gently in an old pie tin with holes in it. It emitted a wonderful aroma and I watched the cozy scene play out through the Thanksgivings of my youth.

I make bread stuffing. I first tasted it as a college sophomore eating at my boyfriend’s house that Thanksgiving. Tom’s mom, he was then my new boyfriend, was a good cook and I found I liked her stuffing. Though I long each and every year for the chestnut dressing of my childhood, I made bread stuffing when I started cooking Thanksgiving dinners.

One of the traditional accompaniments around our Thanksgiving table is a simple cranberry relish. These days it is effortless to make with a food processor or blender. I can’t imagine the time and effort it took in years gone by chopping those hard berries by hand. 
Cranberry relish is better the longer it sits, so, I made it this morning and it will mellow until our dinner tomorrow. I’m sure the plastic wrapped bowl will be dipped into several times to check its progress before tomorrow’s feast. I’ll know by the number of spoons in the dishwasher.

The recipe I use is really a basic one for a cold, raw relish, filled with apples and oranges with peels, nuts and pineapple, but, it is special to me. My early experience with cranberries was pretty much the Ocean Spray jelly kind, eased out of a can and onto a pretty glass plate. Now chuckle all you want about PTA ladies and bake sales and such, but, I learned a great deal from the Field School PTA and forged long lasting friendships, as well as time-worn recipes that fill my files and our tummies still. 

Cranberry relish is one. I tasted it at a spring luncheon and the sweet/tart sensation was a budding surprise. I wanted more. I asked Mary Karo for the recipe, which soon arrived via mail on a cream colored note card with her monogram in front, the instructions handwritten in her neatly flowing script inside, and with best wishes for a good summer penned on back. I kept it in a safe place until November when Tom immediately recalled the taste from his youth and Thanksgiving on the family farm in Ohio. The relish quickly became a mainstay on our Thanksgiving menu and is made each year, whether  I’m cooking the meal or not.

I still refer to Mary’s note, now stained cranberry red and smudged with walnut and orange, and think of her prompt note and kindness. Mary passed on a few years ago, the first in a trio of ladies befriended in the PTA. Mary and Vicki and Juanita all fought bravely through cancer and each brought something special to the table of my life. I will say a prayer of thankfulness for the blessing of having known them for so long.

I’m thankful for you as well and the time you take to read my rambling thoughts and share in my life here on the cutoff. 

                                                   Happy Thanksgiving

Read Full Post »

Centerpiece

 Whether stuffing turkeys or  stuffing  pumpkins, it is easy  to fill things up this time of    year. 

 This is a little something I  learned from my garden club  pals last year. Scoop out the  inside of a pumpkin. Place a  wet oasis inside.  Arrange  flowers to your liking and  there you have it! A festive    Thanksgiving centerpiece or accent arrangement for your holiday viewing pleasure. You can use flowers from the grocery store, a floral shop, or, better yet,  gather things from your own yard.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much to gather under the eight foot browse line around our woody property. The deer have claimed it all. Even poor old Harry Lauder, from a previous post, has been brutally attacked. The poor fellow never saw it coming.

We actually did find several twisted branches left from the randy buck who was marking his territory with his antlers. We can see that the branches were rubbed rather than chewed. A new challenge. Unfortunately, in a delayed effort to thwart the perpetrator, the plant was sprayed with Liquid Fence before we realized that there were many loose branches that could be retrieved, so, we now have a twisted pile of gnarled twigs with the putrid “bouquet” of coyote urine. I guess I’ll use them in an outside arrangement – in a few weeks when the “bouquet”  wears off. 

                                            So goes life on the cutoff.

                      Take some time to make your own fall arrangement. 

                               

Read Full Post »

Mrs. Kraml

I’ve been wanting to clean the livingroom windows for several weeks now. They are a focal point of the room and the barometer by which we view the world outside. It is through them that we watch our herd of deer and our families of chipmunks and squirrels. It is through them that I see my flowers starting to bloom come spring and snow clinging dramatically to tree limbs in winter. It is through them we watched a fraternity of cedar waxwing partying on the scarlet berries that form on the flowers of lily of the valley in Autumn and through them where we see, each summer, a Baltimore oriole frequently come for seeds and a bath.

The windows get gritty here on the cutoff. All windows do, but here, it is with more intensity. We live in a heavily wooded area and two major expressways are close by. This is the price we pay for natural beauty and travel convenience right at our doorsteps.

The livingroom window gets a great deal of attention when young children are about. It is where they run when Uncle Tom or Aunt Penny shout “look out the window, deer” or “horses” and little faces and chubby hands are plastered in excitement as nature passes by (and that’s not  just my hands and face). The inside windows are frequently cleaned.

The outside – well, that’s another story. Early spring and late fall are the best time to clean from outside. Plants must be traversed to get to the windows and some come up close to the house. The plants would suffer inordinately from foot and ladder traffic. It is not a hard chore – just cumbersome – and usually muddy, so, I wait for quieter times in the garden.

Yesterday was muddy. Very muddy. My step stool still needs the caked mud washed off, but, oh, how clean my windows are – “the better to see you with my deer said the wolf to Red Riding Hood”!

As I was wiping them, stuck in the mud, shadows falling, and fortunately, not me, I thought of a childhood neighbor, Mrs. Kraml. The Kramls lived across the street and were such a nice family and kind to all of us. It was Mrs. Kraml who had my thoughts, however. She always washed her windows, season by season, month by month. There she would be, a long ladder propped up, her hair tied back, rags in hand, cleaning her windows. I would watch from out our kitchen window, amazed at her fortitude in the cold of winter, her bravery in the blustery, moody March, or the cool in the oppressive heat of August. Her windows were always clean and shiny, and I think I now understand a little of why she always had such a sunny attitude.

My view is a little clearer today.    Here’s to you, Mrs. Kraml.

Read Full Post »

Killing sugar

Yia Yia killed sugar. She was not a violent person and explosives were not employed. I think she invented the process.

Have you ever killed sugar?

This was something she did to pass the time when she wasn’t baking or crocheting, stuffing grape leaves or tending to her garden. I remember when she taught me how to do this. I felt quite special sitting at our kitchen table, which was the epicenter of everything that happened in our home.

Do you need a little activity to pass some time with a young child?  Perhaps something to do while waiting for your dinner date, who is late, or while the teakettle is on the flame, puckering up for a whistle?  How about that soporific lull between the turkey and the pumpkin pie at the Thanksgiving table?

Here goes.

Put a scant spoonful of sugar on the table top. Just a scant.

Spread it ever so gently about.

Take the thumb of your dominant hand, press it firmly down on a single grain of sugar and add a little wiggle.

Feel it crack? You’ve done it. You’ve killed the sugar.

Try another. Go ahead. It’s addictive.

Yia Yia, with her “broken” English, found simple, entertaining ways to spend time with her grandchildren as they grew up. In between each grain of sugar, she told stories of the “old country” and embellished family tales, the best being those of childhood pranks of our own parents. It was a little cube of time in which to bond and talk or just be quiet, and watch the little grains of sugar become sand.

Read Full Post »

Yia Yia’s hands

I awoke this morning thinking of Yia Yia. The Greek name for grandmother is Yia Yia. Was it my chatter about women’s hands the other day? Perhaps the approaching season of Advent and the ritual I love of Christmas baking – I don’t really know. I just woke up thinking of her.

Yia Yia had very small hands. She was short and my memories of her are round. I have her hands. My hands are small. So are my feet. They are the badges I wear in her honor.

I have my grandmother’s hands, but I hold them like my mother. Hers were larger with well rounded nails. I sometimes find myself looking down at them while watching a movie or listening to a speech, and there they are sitting quite still in my mother’s pose. Our Katy holds her hands the same way at times. When she was a teenager, I would just have to look at her and she would throw them up in dramatic despair. What girl at 15 wants to be like her mother, even if it is in just her hands?

My grandmother’s hands were rarely idle. Whether she was baking cookies or killing sugar or tapping at one of us on a window with her ring finger to come in or stop whatever mischief we were at, her hands were always moving. Every once-in-awhile I will tap a window, just lightly, with my ring finger, for no reason except to call her. I’ll tap when no one is looking and there she is, with me again, waving me in, calling me back.

Yia Yia’s hands. She made the most delicious Greek butter cookies, Kourambedes, that melted in your mouth and left a trail of powdered sugar in their wake. She knew when the dough was ready by its feel and would start pinching the pieces off and rolling them into shape. They were all the same size; little buttery morsels, waiting patiently in line to bake and cool and form concentric circles in cookie tins to be parceled out among family and friends or for gifts at Christmas or saint’s days. We children knew right where they were on the uppermost shelves and each in our turn would climb up onto the counter and sneak a few, tapping the dish or tin to cover our sin in the snowy white powder, only to be scolded a little later. How did she know? (hmm, could it have been the trail of powdered sugar that marked our escape route?)

Yia Yia did the same with her kefteres – Greek meatballs. Every culture, it seems, have their own meatballs. Hers were delicious, the best ever, and I remember how they were formed. Those tiny, loving, hands pinching and rolling and forming.

I can see those hands now, if I close my eyes and breathe in deep and roll my own hands together. I can see her hands. What stories they held in their creases and folds, with her simple gold band and their stains of aging and quickness and purpose. If I keep my eyes closed and breathe even deeper, I can smell the aromas of good things to eat and the circle of love she formed.

Yep. I miss her today, though she has been gone for so long now. I carry her name, her hands and her feet and, I hope, oh how I hope, just a little of her generous spirit and sense of humor.

I think I will go now and tap on a window –  and then get on with my day.

Read Full Post »

Favorites

My last few posts have been long, so, for now, I’ll send you on a cyber trip  and ask you the same two questions that another blogger asked today  – but, I won’t be handing out any antique prizes like Corey Amaro will be doing.  

Stop whining and go to the blog listed below. Do read the blog and make sure to read the comments. Last time I looked there were over 100 listings of a favorite book and a favorite blog. There will definitely be books you will recognize, from One Fish, Two Fish to The Alchemist, a great deal more that should interest you, and some interesting blogs to boot.  Go for it!   

So, the questions I’ve taken from her are:

1. What is one favorite book (I know, I know, can there be just one?) and

2. What is one favorite blog (list something other than mine, teehee).

(Hey, Katy – someone actually said their favorite book is, are you ready? can you guess it? no you can’t – it is Enchanted April. )

My favorite, at the moment, is Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott and my favorite blog is Tracey Bianchi’s, which gives me hope and makes me smile, at traceybianchi.com/

(Hey, Jennifer, Anne of Green Gables is mentioned, too.)

Here is Corey’s blog:

Ready, set, go !          www.willows95988.typepad.com/

If you don’t want to comment, no worries. The important thing is to think about a favorite book or a good website or blog, and enjoy the experience.

Read Full Post »

Ginger snaps

I’m sipping on some tea and nibbling on a ginger snap. I tried a new recipe the other day for ginger snaps and this one is a keeper. They are chewy and chock-full of flavor from danatreat.com/. I’ll make room for them in my recipe file.  mmmm!

Looking out my now leafless window, I can see the boys next door heading up their long driveway toward home, backpacks stuffed with schoolwork, older brother helping younger,  and the big yellow school bus pulling away. Seeing them return home from school is always a gentle reminder that my day is winding down, the dinner hour will soon be upon us, some tasks are done and some not. New ones crept in when I wasn’t looking. I’d better have another ginger snap. 

Today was busy with meetings and a long, gloomy drive home in the rain. Ah, it’s good to be home, settling in, checking for phone messages, reading the mail. I am comfortable in this hour that starts the turn from day to dusk. My desk lamp, the kitchen lights, the glow of the television as the evening news comes on. They are signs that all is right with my world. I can see lights starting to flicker across the road – a few more further down. The little lights shining at day’s end signal evening’s arrival is near and I know that I am so very blessed to live in a warm, safe home with food for the table and surrounded by love.

One of my meetings today was with the Elmhurst Walk-In Ministry. We heard of a few social agencies that have had to close their doors, at least for a few months. Funds depleted. A light goes out.   There are so many people in so many communities that have fallen on hard times and the number keeps rising, draining local resources and putting even more people at risk. A light goes out. I read of college students whose education will stop – their grants have dried up and their educational futures uncertain. Smart young adults of limited means who counted on the funding. Lights go out.

I value community service and try to give and do my best where I can. I can do better. We all can. I will make it a personal goal in the season ahead to reach out to others. To help turn some lights back on. I hope you will find a way to do the same. It may be muffins for someone homebound, a trip to the store, or a donation of food, clothing, or essential items like toothpaste or baby food to a local food pantry. It may be dropping some singles into a Salvation Army bucket. It may be even as simple as smiling to the lady waiting in line at the pharmacy. (I’ll tell you about her another day.)

Let’s all try to turn a few lights back on.

Read Full Post »