Life of Wry

Oh yes.

The C holiday.  Behind us.  I woke up this morning eager to return to normal, to pack up all things red and green. To put away the soldiers, angels, tassels and bells, and consolidate and stash the nuts, toffee, candy, cookies, cocoas and teas.  To clear the counters, sweep the floor, and throw open the windows to let a cool, clean breeze blow through the house… and maybe take with it all the calories and bloat.

I allowed as how that might seem a hostile act, so asked Jim if he was okay with my wiping away all signs of Christmas on this, the 26th of December.  He thought it might be nice to enjoy Christmas a while longer, at least until Peter’s back in school.

Not the answer I was looking for. But I felt so guilty about my hastiness & enthusiasm (I take way too much joy in this phase of the holiday) that I decided to be agreeable, as long as we could be clear of Christmas by the weekend.

I did manage to find a little bit of a work around, though: I packed everything up but the tree and lights, figuring the tree was the centerpiece of holiday ornamentation, and the lights added sufficient glowy warmth. This way, I could preserve significant holiday spirit and still get a jump on the packing.   I didn’t just automatically repack, however.  I decided to cull the kitschiest of our Christmas inventory–the items that come out each year but which make me feel like I’ve taken leave of all my design senses–and reorganized the remaining boxes. And that was awesome. I did a thorough clean of the house (Jim may correct me here and say it was the cleaning crew, but, whatever) and let in some of that 30-degree outside air to freshen things up.

Ahhhh…

Maybe now I can clear my head and write and read, reflect on some new year’s resolutions, that kind of thing.

Or play games with Peter.  Speaking of, any guesses where he sat?

… bring on the winter.

(One of the Santas had a bit of a headache and went to bed..  he plans to fill the last stocking in the morning before everyone gets up..)

Remember that episode of That Girl back in the 60s when Marlo Thomas got a call from her boyfriend Donald who said he was going to bring over some business associates and expected her to be a good hostess, but she had no food in the house?  Remember she searched her pantry and all she had was a box of Corn Flakes and some peanut butter and in desperation spread peanut butter on individual flakes of corn, arranged them artfully on a serving platter.. and pulled the whole thing off?

I didn’t do that.  But I was reminded of that show this morning as I spread melted chocolate on my putty-colored almond toffee, in an effort to dress them up a little.  The really teeny ones, especially, reminded me of Marlo carefully spreading peanut butter on her flakes.

Here’s the chocolate spreading operation:

And close up:

I really liked them.  My kind of candy.

Here’s some rocky road up close (also pretty good!):

And here’s a look at the whole enchilada (well, minus the stuff I baked a couple weeks ago):

So, ya know, it’s the Christmas season…. but at least there’s BAKING.  And delivering.  And talking to people when you deliver the goods.  And bringing stuff home that they give you in return.

That’s all pretty damn fun.

Been a good, messy week of baking.  Wrapped most of it up tonight, prolly.

Brought back two favorites: Silver Palate’s Butter Balls (or Russian Tea Cookies), which is my all-time favorite cookie (just so you know) and a simple rocky road recipe. (I’d tried a couple different rocky roads this year and went back to a tried and true.)  I do these recipes a lot.. they are both so good.

Tried a new almond brittle recipe this week that was very simple, easier than my past Williams-Sonoma peanut brittle recipe (though that was exceptional), but it came out kind of putty colored.  It tastes great though, so I think I’m going to try covering (or just dipping) it in melted chocolate tomorrow to distract from the color.  We’ll see.

Also tried a new flourless chocolate cookie.  Kind of insane.  Bittersweet chocolate and ground almonds, mostly.  Densest dough ever that you chill overnight then form into balls which you roll in granulated sugar before baking. After baking, you dust with powdered sugar. They come out light and chewy and rich.  And are very, very chocolaty.

I was starting to feel badly about adding to people’s holiday stress by baking a bunch of sweets nobody needs.  But Jim said nobody would want a tin of carrot sticks.  So I shall press on.

Here are a couple pics:

Butter Balls:

Chocolate Cookies (this is the first test batch.. the subsequent batches look better b/c I sifted the sugar over the cookies and baked them on silpat which made their shapes just perfect) :

I’ll show you the candies tomorrow.

Favorite holiday thing: the Home for the Holidays concert. Eight or ten performances and a huge range of music with just a tinge of holiday.  That above is Bill Edwards.  I think Peter was mesmerized by his coolness, especially since Bill is Peter’s best friend Jack’s dad.  Peter doesn’t have such cool parents.

A few more pics:

Chris Webster (from Mumbo Gumbo) sang with Tracy Walton (also from Mumbo Gumbo) and Bill. All the sets were short, but this one was WAY too short.

This is Hattie Cravens, Joe’s daughter.  Ridiculously talented little thing.

The Davis High Madrigals did a set. Gorgeous.

Joe Craven’s trio included professional drummer Jeffrey Minnieweather (wow).  He also backed up the Fabletones.

These were the only pictures that turned out, otherwise I’d have included Little Charlie and Rita Hosking, both of which were crazy good.  Well, all of it was good.

This was the 8th annual, and except for the year we were in Brazil over Christmas, we’ve been to all of them. Looks like they’ll continue for a long time.. so go next year.  It’ll be your favorite holiday thing, too.

Right. Swim. Didn’t do that.

For any number of reasons.. not the least of which was the fog and 30-40 degree temps.

Funny season, Christmas is. It’s a grand mix of burden, accomplishment, sweetness, cynicism. For many years, it’s been a confusion of traditions and a search for meaning. It’s not a big deal, life needn’t be so complicated, but then, with a 13-year old, it just is. It’s all fine, but really… it’s all wrong. Want a great big do-over.

May jot down some thoughts in a later post.

But for now, this evening, it was a really pretty, wintry sky.

… or wrapping, or baking, or addressing cards, or anything even remotely holiday related.  But I was sitting on metal bleachers in the shade on a low 40s kind of day for 7+ hours with Jim watching Peter play three baseball games in far East Sacramento.

Sufficiently warm, but just barely, wearing:

Thermal underwear, fleece pants, fleece turtleneck, down sweater, thick windbreaker jacket with fleece lining, high tech socks, thick neck scarf, furr-lined hat, fuzzy gloves, covered with two thick fleece blankets.

Here’s the view:

A fine way to spend the day, one week before Christmas.

I went to a latkepalooza tonight, but neglected to take any pictures.  Could have taken a great one of the latke-making operation in the kitchen, complete with splattered oil and potato scraps everywhere.  But didn’t. It was a messy proposition, and a messier cook.

Wish I’d gotten a pic, but how about a couple of nutcrackers instead?  These are ours, taken a few days ago.

Back to food: A few weeks ago, I thought, hey, I can be a sane person.  I can go through the holidays without eating in the holiday way.  But, man, it’s not turning out like I planned at all.  Tonight’s overindulgence, besides some monster latkes (with sour cream and applesauce) and the usual wine and cheese and interesting crackers that I can never seem to avoid consuming great gobs of, was this killer, killer fudge. This stuff was as dense as a gold bar and actually glistened.  It was cut into pieces about four times the size one should ever eat in a single sitting and I had about 3-ish of these.  At one point, I’d set a piece down on a coffee table and along came their giant labradoodle and hoovered it up in one swift motion.  An impressive move.

Anyway, eating too many things that are not any part of my regular fare. But loving every bite.