Christmas 2010 wrap-up

I really think the Bishop should have used a sermon different from the one he did on Christmas Eve 2009. It was okay once, but TWICE?!?

Had a lovely time with the Curtz crowd in evening Christmas Eve, notwithstanding a couple of irritations: a friend of Brenda's (also a volunteer at the Alzheimer's day care or whatever they call it) and Ben's sister Lillian started rhapsodizing about the 1930's and '40's, talking about how wonderful the clothes were, the culture was, Hollywood was in its heyday, things like that. Clearly neither of them had a parent who was a sharecropper during the Depression. AARGHHHH!

Christmas Day was lovely, although I ended up seriously whacked. Made cassoulet, which was REALLY good, according to all. Basically followed the recipe in Joan Nathan's book about Jewish cooking in France, involved duck leg confit (and now have a new, better, and EASIER way to make the stuff...), lamb, the usual Tarbais beans (although her recipe claims it takes an hour to cook them, after they've been soaked overnight...mine had to cook ALL DAY before they were tender enough to declare edible), sauce to which I added not just a bit of red wine but ultimately a bottle and a half, and sausage. Couldn't find any duck (or other kind) sausage or sausage recipe that had no pork in it, soooo, I sorta used the basic sausage recipe in my Charcuterie cookbook, but made it with ground veal, duck trimmings, seasonings, lots of red wine, and some goose fat instead of pork fat. Turned our really, really well. Need to write all this crap down.

Also cooked a goose; it wasn't as successful. Glazed parsnips (good); red cabbage cooked with goose fat, onions, apples, lots of red wine again, etc., and chestnuts. VG.

Sarah's cookies were dessert, along with a trifle brought by Rees's mom.

I cooked sorta all day; it was evidently all good; and I'm whacked. So there...

Sarah, Aaron and Barry all left today; more snow; and I sorta almost wrecked the Buick getting it back down the drive at the farm. Phil did manage to get it out and into the garage; I managed to direct it into a snowbank rather than into the nearby tree...

Cheers to all, Lillie

Random Thoughts on Christmas week

We've been making LOTS of cookies and things; problem is, we seem to be eating them as fast as we make them.

Also we seem to be knocking of large quantities of latest bread, the no-knead kind. That stuff seems to stay moist for an incredibly long time.

According to an article I read, email is passe, the only admissible electronic communication these days being Facebook, IM-ing, and Twitter. I am far too long-winded for tweets. I suppose this means blogging is also yesterday's communication.

Oh, how I hate the 21st century.

Still treacherous in our drive but at least it isn't as frigid as it has been.

Aaron's brother coming tomorrow.

Will be 15 here on Christmas Day. That's a lot for me.

My d'Artagnan order hasn't arrived; it's supposed to today. We may not have foie gras.

Lots to do. Not in the mood for more wrapping.

Lillie

The Week Before Christmas

Sarah and Aaron are here; arrived without incident (for a change) on Saturday. Lessons and Carols yesterday, Sunday, was lovely. Today too much shopping.

With luck, cookie-making, etc., little shopping (e.g., little time spent fighting traffic in Lexington), will dominate tomorrow. Weather bad, not getting better, evidently.

Christmas cards? Not clear...

Don't like (!) political crap going on either in DC or evidently next month in Kentucky...

Made veal garlic sausage after a fashion today. First it had too much salt, added more veal, garlic, wine, pepper, and it may actually turn out okay, notwithstanding the fat problem (raw duck skin and fat, plus goose fat, no pork) and the fact that the second effort (after adding more veal, garlic, fat...) is sorta, hey, too peppery, the freshly ground black kind. Maybe it'll be a good substitute for French cooked garlic sausage in cassoulet, anyway.

Christmas dinner projected to be roast goose and accompanying dishes, along with cassoulet. We'll see.

Martin thrilled about new car, his red 2011 Ford Fiesta...

Hairdresser Michael, who is gay, and has a long-time partner, named (I think) Bill, has interesting things to say on the topic of gay marriage...he is, it appears, to the right of me, which is shall we say surprising...

I hate politics. Am in one of my moods where I refuse to read anything political.

Weather bad...and far, FAR too early in the winter...This sort of weather isn't that unusual, but it sorta never happens until January sometime, February...this year it started late in November...

More later...

Cheers, Lillie

Christmas is near

I do love this time of year...weather has been truly awful this year, though. It's not even "winter" yet, but the pipes in Martin's cabin have already frozen twice. Things a bit better today. I have only fallen once (drive in front of garage being a sheet of ice...but hey, I fell on my left side for a change). It gets this cold here, not uncommon, however, not this early. Usually January and February.

Sarah and Aaron arrive tomorrow. Need to quit watching TV as Congress still in session. Got a lovely, lovely box from Mary Elizabeth with a pillow in it that says "My Other House is in France" (yippee!!) and a couple of towels her mother sent her years ago, hand-done with cross stitch, and scenes from France. Lovely.

Looking forward to Christmas and better weather (not much better, though). I think I probably need to read some sort of "trashy" novel, a John Grisham or something. By "trashy" I mean mindless mystery, actually...

Hope the next week is lovely...

Lillie

Weather

Nasty, nasty weather. More mornings when the temp in the kitchen in 50 degrees; I didn't look in the pantry (there's a thermometer in there, too). Lows in single digits. Got up to a balmy 20 degrees this afternoon, in anticipation of yet another winter storm, arriving tonight, couple of inches of snow, turning to sleet and freezing rain tomorrow morning. aargh. The driveway evidently thawed a bit this afternoon but was solid ice when I got home, and guess what...although I was very very careful and had on shoes with tread, I slipped and fell, fortunately on my left side for a change. Elbow, left hip, back hurts, but could have been worse. Not going back out today or quite possibly tomorrow, either. HOpe I don't run out of Scotch. Maybe it'll be warm enough in the kitchen to cook...

On a more cheerful note: finished Christmas shopping this afternoon. Phil went to J-B after his haircut, told me on the phone he couldn't find anything interesting for anybody. I told him to quit and come home: no need to buy books just to have something to wrap...so there...

Cheers, Lillie

question

I'm not a lawyer, much less a judge, but I do have a question. It's evidently not unconstitutional to be compelled to pay for Medicare and Social Security, which most people, those who benefit and those who do not yet, seem happy to do. Why then would it be unconstitutional to be compelled to get health insurance?

'

That's all...

Weather bad. Getting worse. More snow, sleet and freezing rain tomorrow. I wonder if the airport is closed already; maybe I should make an emergency trip to Texas.

Cheers...

parties, family, and Christmas

Sarah and Aaron arrive next Saturday and will be here until the 26th; we're all really excited about it.

The lab party was last night (Saturday, 11th), and the weather had been so bad most of last week that the heat pumps weren't working, which meant it was 50 degrees in the kitchen, and below 40 in the pantry. 58 or 60 in the den. And I'm supposed to cook for an indeterminate number of people in this? In the end, it warmed up a bit, and I basically got it done. And then, instead of 40-50 people expected to arrive about 7:00 p.m., the weather started turning nasty again, Phil hadn't gotten any sort of reliable headcount, and by about 7:20 NOBODY had arrived. Jim and Rees showed up (with baklava), and nobody else came. I announced that if they were the only two who came, there would be two outcomes: (1) I would have a better time than I expected to; and (2) this would be my LAST lab holiday party. Then about 8:00 a bunch of other people showed up, about 20 in all I think, so I had three big trays of pastitsio left over (and it's a bit dry), and one big tray of the shrimp dish with tomatoes, feta, etc. Not to mention some Greek salad. And eggplant, which people were raving about, although it was a mistake; I cooked it (slowly, at least) about 3 hours rather than 30 minutes. Didn't seem to hurt it, though. What happened there was that I checked it, decided it was ready to turn off, but didn't manage to do it, and went out for a couple of hours to do errands.

It appears that we're expected to get the tail end of that blizzard making its way across the midwest, followed by yet more frigid weather, temps in the single digits....argh. I did buy one of those radiant or quartz or whatever it is heaters that is supposed to be seriously energy efficient. So when the heat goes out in the kitchen, I will be able to (I hope) keep it tolerable, so long as the electricity doesn't go out, too...

Cheers, Lillie

stuff

So it's a bit of a problem posting here....

It's been SERIOUSLY cold in central Kentucky, basically, it feels like Michigan in January or February, NOT Kentucky in December. We're talking here about the hight being sorta low, like in the teens (Fahrenheit)k the kitchen being 50 degrees, the pantry 40 degrees (not as much of a problem, shall we say, as cooking being problem)...These projects sorta assume that kitchen should perhaps just retreat from the ensuit drammatllllll''Take it carlll

Kentucky and it's winter

So November is FINALLY over. I always have trouble with November, and it was especially tiresome this year. I always manage to desperately miss Daddy in November. This year there were two more deaths, one an elderly relative, the last of Mother's cousins she was so close to, Curtis Reagan. The other was sort of a tragedy: Josh Williams, who used to be the short, fat ugly but o so cute kid in the choir with the curly red hair. He was 28, and both Martin and Sarah (as well as me) had known him for 20 years. After his voice changed he sang with the men. Proximate cause of death was peritonitis; in truth, he drank himself to death, which is hard to do at 28. It was truly sad.

But now it's december; it's been snowing for two days; I've started cooking for the lab party this weekend, and I've decided to stop being depressed. Just have to clean up the house this week; all the papers are still on the dining table from when I did taxes in October. aarghhhh...

Cheers, Lillie