Gathering Greens
Yesterday, Liam and I went into the woods so that I could gather greens and he could be off-leash and sniff to his heart’s content. Other dogs walk that trail, and their scents are an endless source of fascination to Liam. By Maine standards, these woods are not deep, and they are certainly not old growth. But the trail loops by the lower Narrows, and they are lovely in a quiet way. We spent an hour or so in the woods before cutting what we needed for greens. Today, I’ll arrange the greens in a box to go on our deck. A little greenery for Christmas cheer is always a good thing.
Early December and White Bean Soup
Yesterday, Clif and I woke up to find 6 inches of snow in the yard and in the driveway. Clif took out Little Green for the first snow throwing of the season while I shoveled the backyard pathways to the wood pile, the bird feeders, and the compost bins. Liam barked and leaped at the snow as I shoveled, and it made me laugh to watch him.
I am a summer person, but when I get used to the cold, I actually do enjoy winter, that still time of muted colors when the birds crowd the feeder. Tufted titmice, nuthatches, finches, woodpeckers, and last, but certainly not least, the chickadees, my favorites, all come to the backyard feeders. Indeed, we have so many chickadees here that once upon a time I referred to our home as Chickadee Place. As my friend Barbara once observed, chickadees may be plentiful, but they are not common. No, they aren’t, and chickadees are always a welcome sight at the feeder.
White beans are simmering on the stove, and soon I’ll be making a white bean soup in my Crock-Pot. I’ll use fresh sage and thyme that have weathered the cold. I’m thinking of adding the last of the gravy and a bit of leftover chicken stock, so it will be more like a stew than a soup. Celery, onion, garlic, carrots, and mushrooms. Perhaps a sweet yellow pepper. A hearty meal for a cold night. Add homemade bran muffins, and we’ll have a pretty good meal, as Clif might say.
Today will also be a day to take stock of Christmas presents, to assess what I already have and to decide what else I might need. I’ll be placing a Daedalus order, something I always enjoy doing. Good books at reasonable prices. What’s not to like?
As I’ve often noted, we are a family with a modest budget, and, accordingly, our presents are modest. But modest or not, we enjoy giving and receiving them. We plan ahead, we make some of the presents we give, and despite the hecticness of the season, we do our best to make things merry.
No bah humbugs at Chickadee Place.
A Topsy-Turvy Thanksgiving
The week before Thanksgiving was spent cooking and cleaning, and by the time the big day came, I was prepared. The turkey was thawing in the refrigerator. The gravy was also thawing in the refrigerator. The green bean casserole had been made. Ditto for the yeast rolls. The house was dusted, scrubbed, and vacuumed. All that could be done ahead of time had been done.
Then came the call from Shannon on Thanksgiving Day. Her dog, Holly, was sick. Very sick. Perhaps it was a flu, perhaps Holly had eaten something she shouldn’t. Whatever the case, Holly was too sick to bring and too sick to leave alone for that length of time. Therefore, Mike and Shannon wouldn’t be coming over for dinner.
Because Dee was with Shannon in South Portland, this meant that Clif had to pick her up in Topsham—halfway for both Shannon and Clif. (Mike stayed home with the dog while Shannon brought Dee to Topsham.) While I had done all that I could ahead of time, there were still many last minute things to do, and I was counting on Clif to help me. But there was no way around it. Clif had to fetch Dee, and I had to finish the last of the getting ready by myself.
Nevertheless, all seemed to be going well. Clif picked up Dee. Our friends arrived and settled in the living room with wine, nuts, cheese, and crackers. Then chaos descended as the turkey came out of the oven, and various dishes went from the microwave, where they were heated, to the oven, where they would stay warm. As Dee mashed the potatoes—mounds and mounds of them—bits of potato flew onto the counter and onto her sweater. I juggled dishes from the microwave to the stove and finally to the sideboard in the dining room. Was the candle lit? Yes. Did everyone have water? They did. And more wine as well. Olives, pickles, squash bread? Check, check, check.
We gathered together around the table, and I actually sighed gratefully. Everything tasted good. The food was even vaguely warm.
But later that night, after everyone had left, Clif said, “I didn’t have any stuffing.”
“Oh?” I replied. “Well, maybe your plate was too full and you didn’t have any room.”
“Maybe.”
Then I started thinking about my own plate. Had I eaten any stuffing? I couldn’t remember that I had.
We are a family that loves stuffing, and I had actually made extra, in a casserole dish, as there is never enough in the turkey.
I had a sneaking suspicion about that stuffing, and when I checked, my suspicions were confirmed. Both stuffings, two huge dishes full, were still in the oven, pushed to the back. They had never made it to the sideboard.
And here’s the funny thing. At dinner, our friend Jill had commented on how during a big hectic meal, dishes sometimes were forgotten in the oven. Did Jill miss the stuffing? She didn’t mention it, and I think she would have done so had she noticed its absence. Nevertheless, it was a funny coincidence, especially since it was the first time I had forgotten anything in the oven.
Ah, well. We feasted, we talked, and thanks to the dishwasher, clean up was pretty easy.
And along with all the other leftovers, we had lots of stuffing. Plenty to bring to Shannon when we visited on Saturday, where an almost fully-recovered Holly was happy to see us.
Now, onward to Christmas!
Happy Thanksgiving 2013
The rain is beating down on the roof, in the yard, and on the road, but all is cosy inside. I’ve started a wood fire in our furnace, and nothing warms the house as well as wood does. Cooking has commenced, and for the most part, I am right on schedule.
Tomorrow at the little house in the big woods, eight people, two dogs, and two cats will be coming together—some more easily than others—to celebrate Thanksgiving. When all is done and the food is served, I will indeed give thanks for what I have—a snug house, loving family and friends, the animals, and another year where I am cancer free.
Our daughter Dee will be staying with us until Saturday, which means I’ll be taking a little break from the blog to be with her. Happy Thanksgiving to all readers who live in the United States. Indeed, a happy day to all readers. May your plates be full and your hearts be merry.
Thanksgiving Lessons from My Parents
This morning, I woke up to find a light layer of snow on the ground. Time to get the last of the wood stacked. Time to bring in the the fire pit. Everything else is pretty much done, which means that Clif and I can hunker down and get ready for the holidays.
As it is only two days away, Thanksgiving, of course, is utmost on my mind. Today is a day of preparation—baking the squash for squash bread, cooking the green beans for the green bean casserole, and cleaning the house. Tomorrow, I will make squash bread as well as green bean casserole, and I also hope to make yeast rolls. We’ll see. I broke down and bought store-bought bread for the stuffing. We all love stuffing, and I’ll be making a double batch, one to go in the turkey and one in a casserole dish. I have leftover stock from the gravy, and I’ll use that stock for the casserole stuffing, which is never as tasty as the one that goes in the turkey, but it will be good nonetheless.
Nowadays, it has become fashionable, on Facebook and elsewhere, to give thanks for the many good things in life. I happen to think that counting one’s blessings is a fine idea, good spiritual practice, if you will. This does not mean ignoring the painful or the negative. Far from it. However, most of us dwell quite enough on the negative parts of life. We need no reminders to count our misfortunes.
So I am going to follow suit and give thanks for a lesson my Franco-American parents taught me, a lesson about poverty and respect, two words that are so far apart in today’s society that there seems little hope in bringing them together.
Both of my parents grew up in very poor families. My mother lived with her mother and grandmother in a tiny apartment whose floors were so cold in the winter that they all had to wear their boots to stay warm. As there was only one bedroom—for her mother and grandmother—my mother had to sleep in the hall.
My father lived with both his parents, but money was still tight. He went to school with patches on his clothes and nearly died when his appendix ruptured because his parents didn’t have health insurance. (Thank God for the family doctor who demanded that my father be admitted and treated in the hospital, despite the lack of insurance. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be writing this today.)
Neither of my parents starved, but neither of them had quite as much to eat as they would have liked, and they often weren’t able to have exactly what they wanted. For my father, store-bought whoopie pies were an unaffordable treat that he longed for. My mother often commented on how my grandmother could put together a meal when the cupboards seemed bare.
Both my maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather worked in a factory, but this was before the days of strong unions and decent pay. My grandparents worked hard, but they were still poor, and the lesson my parents taught me was this: people, through no fault of their own, could indeed work hard and still be poor. My parents felt strongly that those who lived in poverty did not deserve our scorn. On the contrary, they deserved our respect, and in our house, we never looked down on people because they were poor. Never. (Laziness and lack of cleanliness were another matter, but my parents did not associate these traits with poverty.)
As Thanksgiving approaches, I give thanks that my parents taught me to respect those who are poor, to understand that hard work, cleanliness, and poverty are not incompatible. It is a lesson I wish the rest of the country would take to heart.
Crab Dip and Metamorphoses
Another busy weekend coming up. Is there any other kind this time of year? On Saturday, friends will be coming over for wine and appetizers. Along with the usual chit-chat, we will be celebrating the retirement of one of the friends. I plan to make a crab dip from a recipe I found in one of Gladys Taber’s books. The dip is made in a double boiler, and along with the crab it includes cream cheese, a bit of mayonnaise, wine, and Worcestershire sauce. This afternoon, I’ll be making homemade crackers to go with the crab dip.
On a recent trip to Trader Joe’s, we stocked up on wine that is very, very reasonably priced and quite good. The prices even go as low as $3.99, and I am not at all ashamed to serve this wine at gatherings. For those living on a modest budget, I highly recommend getting wine at Trader Joe’s. We have enough, I think, for the season, and that is one worry out of the way.
Planning ahead and organizing don’t come easily to me. However, over the years, I have certainly seen the benefits of both, and I make such an effort to be organized that I give the impression of naturally being that way. Therefore, friends are always shocked when I tell them I am not. This is a good example of the value of effort. I might never be as organized as many of my friends, but with effort, I have made great strides, and for the most part we don’t have too many moments of sheer chaos at the little house in the big woods. (We still have some, of course. When something doesn’t come naturally, effort will only take a person so far.)
On Sunday, we will be going north, to the University of Maine at Orono, to see our nephew Patrick in Mary Zimmerman’s play Metamorphoses, adapted from Ovid’s poem of the same name. The set will include a giant pool where much of the action takes place, and I am looking forward to seeing this play. As Patrick is our favorite nephew as well as our only nephew, we would go see him in anything, even something as humdrum as Arsenic and Old Lace. What a bonus when the play that he’s in turns out to be really interesting.
In between cooking, cleaning, and entertaining, there will be walks to the Narrows Pond with the dog. I’ll bring my camera. Sometimes I get good pictures, sometimes I don’t, but I never get tired of the view of all that water, gray on a day like today with a slight fizzle of snow coming down. As I’ve mentioned before, Monet had his water lilies and haystacks, and I have the Narrows.
Getting ready for Thanksgiving
Mid-November is here. The ground is hard underfoot but not slippery or messy, a winning combination as far as I’m concerned. The weather is crisp but not unbearably cold, and today I’ll even be riding my bike to the food pantry. I’ll bundle up. I have a headband that will fit under my helmet. I have warm gloves. Still, I expect my cheeks will be very rosy by the time I get to the pantry, about a mile and a half away from my house.
Next week is Thanksgiving, and this year we will be celebrating it at the little house in the big woods. Oh, the flurry of cooking and cleaning that must be done! I am happy to report that the gravy is made and in the freezer. A few years ago, I came across Julia Moskin’s make-ahead gravy recipe in the New York Times, and I decided to give it a try. For me, one of the most stressful parts of the Thanksgiving meal is the gravy. It’s always rushed, done at the last minute while all the other food is cooling and languishing on the sideboard. My gravy was almost always bland, with the fat oozing to the top. I’m probably making it sound worse than it was, but I was never happy with the results.
The first year I made Julia Moskin’s gravy, a week or so before Thanksgiving, I knew my life had changed for the better. The gravy was utterly delicious, there was no fat swimming at the top, and it took so much stress out of Thanksgiving Day. Best of all, the gravy froze and thawed beautifully. It does take a long time to make—I stretch it out over two days—but very little of it is hands-on time. For those who work outside the home, a weekend would be the perfect time to make this gravy. Go on. Do it. There is still time. You can thank me afterwards.
A couple of points about the gravy, where I diverge from the recipe: I like it thicker than Moskin recommends, and so I add the stock gradually to the roux until I get a thickness I want. If there is any leftover stock, well, leftover chicken and gravy here we come. (There is a fair amount of leftover meat after making the stock, and I use this meat for stir-fries, wraps, and with gravy, if there is leftover stock.) Also, I use chicken legs rather than turkey legs. They’re usually cheaper, and on Thanksgiving Day, nobody complains that the gravy tastes like chicken rather than turkey.
As Rhonda from the blog Down to Earth has noted, the key to a successful holiday dinner is planning and delegating. I have already delegated dessert to my friends Alice and Jill. My daughter Shannon will be making the sweet potato casserole and the cranberry sauce. Next Monday, I’ll bake a bunch of Farmer Kev’s squash. Some will go into soup, and some will go into squash bread, to be made on Wednesday. The green bean casserole will be made ahead of time, and I’m thinking of making some rolls on Wednesday. We’ve stocked up on soft drinks, wine, and salted nuts.
Are we ready for the holidays, or what?
Diane’s Feast
Last Saturday, I went to a special dinner that I will always remember. Our friend Diane hosted the dinner as a thank you to her friends who helped her when she fell, broke her elbow, and needed surgery.
“Would you like me to bring apple crisp for dessert?” I asked when Diane invited Clif and me.
“No,” came the answer. “This is my thank you to my friends who were there when I needed them.”
Diane did, however, give us permission to bring wine. Alrighty, then.
Diane is a terrific cook and a wonderful hostess, which means going to her home for dinner is always a great pleasure. But this time she really outdid herself, serving a multi-course, plated meal for eleven of us. Her long table had all its leaves, and it stretched the entire length of the dining room. Candles provided the light, throwing a soft glow on the guests and the food.
There was plenty of wine—Clif and I weren’t the only ones to bring a bottle—and it wasn’t long before the guests glowed as warmly as the candles.
Then came the food, plated and served in courses: mini cheese tarts with carrot and zucchini ribbons; red lentil and winter squash soup; potato, parsnip, and chickpea cakes drizzled with sesame ginger sauce and served with a roasted beet, walnut, and goat cheese salad; and for dessert—pumpkin custard served with sliced apples and an almond-ginger cookie. Oh, my! It was all so good.
Because the meal was served in courses, it stretched over the entire evening, and this meant there was plenty of time to talk with the other guests—kindred spirits, all—about the things we love—books, movies, art, and politics. There were plenty of jokes about how Diane could break an elbow or an arm any old time she wanted, and we would all be there to help, knowing what a fine meal would be waiting for us when Diane had healed.
More seriously, Diane toasted us, her friends who were there when she needed help. We toasted her, a fine cook and hostess as well as a good friend. We were all more than glad to help her when she needed it. After all, that’s what friends are for.
As it happened, I sat at one end of the long table, where I could get a good look at everything—the glowing table, the food, the guests. While I am certainly sorry that Diane fell and broke her elbow, I was so grateful to be invited to this dinner, to this fine night when everyone came together, united by friendship, care, good food, and wine.
A Short Break from the Blog
This week, I have a big writing project to work on, and I will be taking a break from A Good Eater until it is finished. Busy, busy, but pleasantly so. When I return, I will have a Crock-Pot white bean stew recipe to share as well as musings about November, Thanksgiving, and a food drive at the Winthrop Food Pantry. Maybe even something about chocolate fudge, which I have never made but am thinking of doing for Thanksgiving this year.
Until next week…
