Ground Hog’s Day

My Dear Boo, whew! Family Christmas is now Christmas Past. Aunt Teri and Uncle Joey hosted all of us once more. They are so gracious and hospitable for having almost thirty-five people in their home. I would have been nuts, but they took everything in stride. Their home was perfect, the decorations were perfect, and the food was perfect.

It is always fun to get together with family and friends, especially around the holidays. It is amazing to see how much the nieces/nephews have grown, both physically and mentally. The three year old nephew that could not string together three words for a sentence suddenly is talking to you as if he were your college professor explaining that Schrodinger’s cat is a thought experiment, often described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. Heck, all I wanted to know is what he wanted Santa to bring him!

The niece that was sporting braces, and glasses, and pigtails and who walked, talked and dressed like the Ed Grimley character from Saturday Night Live has now transformed into this stunning, poised, graceful young lady. All the teens and pre-teens were texting away and able to carry on three other conversations at the same time. And “talking” in some foreign language…..OMG LOL POS AML ASAIK RUF2T. I can hardly stay focused on one conversation and be able to respond with some intelligence. Crap! When did I get so old?

Since I have not been working this past month I feel like I am living the “Ground Hog’s Day” movie. Every day I would get up, stay in my pajamas, bake like crazy and fall into bed. Get up the next day and do it all over again. I must have brought at least two dozen of eight different kinds of cookies, Puppy Chow, Chex Mix, Winter WonderLand, Pretzel Toffee, pumpkin pie, homemade marshmallows, and S’More Pops. It took an Army of people to get my truck unloaded and all the goodies into the house. There is only so much that we can eat, so I would find myself going door to door in the neighborhood passing out the treats. The first week everyone was pretty receptive, however, by the end of the second week I did notice a change. When I would ring their door bell lights would suddenly go out, the television would suddenly go quiet, but that did not stop me. I would just leave the treats on the door step – much like the gardeners who have their abundance of produce in the summer and try hard to find someone to take it off their hands.

Now that the baking is finished my “Ground Hog’s Day” has varied a bit. I get up, fix some coffee, turn on the television and veg out all day, then get up off the couch and go to bed. I am becoming a slug and watching the FoodNetwork. I believe that I have watched all their Food Challenges. Yesterday’s challenge was to use cereal to build a bridge. Seriously?!! Maybe the Food Network execs are bored, too. Guess this means that my self imposed vacation is over and I need to start looking for a job – Joy Rising?

Sweet Toffee Pretzel Mix

Preheat oven to 250 degrees

Ingredients:

  • 6 c miniature pretzel twists
  • 4 c mixed nuts
  • 2 c light brown sugar
  • 1 c butter
  • 1/2 c corn syrup
  • pinch of salt

Directions:

  1. On a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan, combine the pretzels and the nuts.
  2. In a large saucepan combine the butter, sugar, corn syrup and salt. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves.
  3. Bring to a boil and cook until thickened (firm ball stage – 260 degrees F). Remove from heat and pour over pretzel mixture and mix until everything is coated.
  4. Bake in preheated 250 degree oven for about 20 minutes (stir about halfway through to be sure everything bakes). Remove from oven and spread out to cool on a sheet of parchment paper.

Variations:

Can add 3T pure maple syrup

Can add 2 c chex mix in place of some pretzels

Can add 2T cayenne pepper

That Wascally Wabbit

My Dearest, Boo.

One of the many things that I am so proud of you is your love of reading.  Since you were a wee tiny baby I have always enjoyed sharing my love of books and reading with you.  We would read together books that would eventually become the books we would read over and over again.  Some of your favorite were “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”,  “Stone Soup”,  “High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Rourious Sky Pie Angle Food Cake”,  “Pancakes, Pancakes, Pancakes”,  “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”,  “Green Eggs and Ham”,  and “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”.  It was fun, as we would then take to the kitchen to make something that went with the theme of the book.  Those I wrote down in your very own cookbook that I entitled “To Stir With Love”.  All too soon you graduated to the books on tape for children.  You so loved “reading” along with the tape and the joy on your face was a sight to behold.   Soon you were the one writing the stories and you granted me the privilege of reading some of them.  I believe that it was, in part, all the reading you did when you were young that helped foster your love of writing.

To remember the sound of your laughter of joy while we read together can still bring a tear to my eye.  Chuck Jones is a man you may never have heard about by name, but I do know that you know his work.  Mr. Jones is regarded as the creative drive behind the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melody characters of Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Porky the Pig, Wile E. Coyote, and the Road Runner.  He, too, believes that the voracious reading he did when he was young was the wellspring of the creative inspiration he brought to all his characters.  And that laughter springs out of us and out into the world, joining us to the rest of the world.  Reading is good; reading is essential to our souls.

One book that I was never successful to find something that you would eat as a theme was the Beatrix Potter book  “Peter Rabbit’s Giant Storybook”.  The main idea of the book was the many ways that Peter Rabbit was able to outwit Mr. McGregor and feast on the vegetables in his garden.  You weren’t a vegetable eater when you were young and things have not changed much since that time.  I would still have trouble finding a dish to go along with that theme.  Sorry, Boo, but broccoli with cheese sauce does not count, as your helping would only have three or four broccoli spears and a plate of cheese sauce!

Your Aunt Rose one Christmas wanted to give you a special, unique gift and knew of your love of talking books.  She purchased “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and set down with a bell and her tape recorder.  She was so excited for you to have this gift!  And you could not wait to find our tape recorder and start “reading”.  We got a blanket and cuddled up on the sofa for our “reading” time.  I cannot remember the exact wording of the book, something about Peter and an ejection to get out of the garden and away from Mr. McGregor.  God love your Aunt Rose!  As we were listening to the tape what she read was the Peter had an erection!!  Gracious!  Did you ever think that Peter Rabbit would be an X-Rated book??!!!  It was all I could do to calm down my laughter long enough to call her on the phone and give her grief about her tongue twisting.  And here we are, twenty-five years later, and I am still giving that sainted woman grief!!

Your Aunt Rose is a very special woman.  She is the one that anyone can turn to for help and she will be the first one to lend you a hand.  She will be the first one on your doorstep when trouble comes knocking and she will give you the shirt off her back if that is what you need.  This is a quality that she embraced from your Grandpa Riley.  He, too, had a heart as big as the outdoors.  Aunt Rose always has a giant smile on her face and, just like Grandpa Riley, a tremendous love of her family.

I find myself thinking a lot about my Dad today, as we celebrated our Family Christmas.  Wishing he was here to celebrate with us.  I know that he would be so proud of all of us and how we are able to have fun together; to enjoy one another; to value one another.  And, especially, that we did listen to him and now believe and understand his constant telling us that we need to stick together; we need to be there for one another.  Family is all that matters.  He would be sitting in a big, comfortable chair, drinking a hot coffee, watching all of us and having a giant smile on his face.  You could just look at him and know………..Joy Rising!

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Rolo Turtles

Ingredients:

  • 1 package small waffle shaped pretzels
  • 1  13-oz package rolo candies  (or rolls of candies, about 60 total)
  • 1 package m&m candies

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees
  2. Cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and place pretzels individually to form one layer
  3. Place one Rolo candy on top of each pretzel
  4. Bake for 4 minutes or until candies soften
  5. Immediately remove from the oven and quickly place on three m&m candies, pushing down to “squish” the rolo candy
  6. Cool for about 20 minutes, then place uncovered in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes to set.
  7. Transfer to a decorative plate and enjoy!





Granny, Grace and Fiestaware

I wanted to share the pork tenderloin recipe, that just happens to be one of Boo’s favorites, so I needed to get a picture quick.  She was home from work and smelled the deliciousness as she drove into the garage.  No time to put the meal on a fancy plate for it’s “close-up”.  I needed to get it onto a plate and ready to eating!  That’s why it’s on my everyday black Fiestaware plate.  Fiestaware reminds me of my beloved Granny, Isabelle (or Izzy).

Granny was an amazing woman who, although she was Scottish, I am sure somewhere back in time one of her ancestors must have made a trip over to Ireland and kissed the Blarney Stone.  That woman was quite the storyteller and poet.  I remember going to her house, sitting at her kitchen table with a hot cup of tea.  I felt so fancy sitting there will Granny and whatever visitor showed up.  There was always someone at Granny house.  She had such a welcoming manner and always made you feel special.  Granny would fix me a cup of hot tea in her turquoise Fiestaware cup.  Boy, did I feel grown-up sitting there with the adults!  In my child’s mind I just knew that she truly was someone special, just by how everyone was treating her and being so respectful of her.  I had no idea that they were just reflecting back to her what she was giving to them.  Respect and love.

Granny would write poems and one day had them self-published (and by self-published I mean she copied, cut and stapled them together in a booklet herself) and sold at a local store.  Since my older sister, Rose, and I were the first grandchildren we had our very own poem and they were in her book.  I was even more honored, as she had also written a poem about my beloved daughter, Megan.  It was all I could do to stop myself from gluing the other pages together, so that the only pages you could read were the ones about me and Boo.  In reading through her book I found a wonderful story about her Fiestaware dishes.  She told the story of how she came to own the eight place setting of the dishes.  She must have really sweet talked the sales person into some kind of deal!  I was just sure that the sales person just put together the set by taking one colored pieces from one set and then another colored piece from another set and so on and so on.  I could not have been more wrong!  Not only did I learn a new story about my grandparents, but I learned a valuable lesson on how to be the most gracious person you can possible be.

When Granny and Grandpa married they, like so many others, were poor and had to furnish their home with cast-aways from family and friends.  Granny’s dishes were a hodge podge of different patterns.  Today decorators will tell you that it is quite fashionable to mix your patterns, as long as they are in the same “color family”.  Not only were Granny’s not in the same “color family”, I am guessing that some of them were perhaps “first cousins who married and produced genetically” one ugly color!  One year for Christmas Grandpa, with a huge beaming face, presented Granny with a huge box and the story of how he and the children had saved their pennies all year just to be able to buy her the one gift she had always dreamed of having.  Granny just knew that it was a set of matching dishes, so she could hardly contain herself as she tore open the box!  Here is where the lesson of being gracious comes in.  With tears streaming down her face she smiled and told them all how happy she was with her gift, how proud she will be to serve meals not only to her family, but to friends on her beautiful set of matching Fiestaware.  That is my definition of “grace”.  Doing all that you can to make the other person feel as comfortable as possible.

During the 1950’s Fiestaware came in four colors – orange red, yellow ivory, green, and turquoise.  You could purchase a four-place setting of any of those four colors or you could purchase a four-place setting with one color of each place setting.  Can you guess which one Grandpa picked out?  You guessed it – the box with a place setting of each color.  Granny still did not have the dishes she wanted, the matched set.  However, what she got that Christmas was something even better.  Granny loved these dishes for what they represented to her – a tangible symbol of the love she had from her beloved husband and children.  And isn’t that what we all want?  To know that we are loved.  Grandpa and Granny had the best marriage.  They loved each other until the day she died, thirty some years after Grandpa died.

So, in my married life I did get what Granny thought she wanted.  I had a matched set of dishes.  I wasn’t one of the lucky ones to find that kind of love with a husband.  However, the love she found in her children I did find in my Boo.  She is one of the kindest, gentlest, compassionate people I know.  Boo also has the “grace” gene from Granny.  At work there is a gentleman who comes in who is deaf.  Boo found several books on Sign Language and is working at basic signing so that she will be able to help this guest at her place of business feel more comfortable.  Grace in action.  And, she is a good little eater – Joy Rising!

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PEACH  GLAZED  PORK  TENDERLOIN

Serves  6 – 8

Preheat oven to 325 Degrees      Prep Time  15  minutes      Bake  Time  1 ½- 1 ¾  Hour

Ingredients:

2# Pork Tenderloin

¾ tsp Dry Thyme   (if you use fresh Thyme  you will need  1 ½ tsp)

¼  tsp Salt

¼  tsp Pepper

2/3 Cup Peach Preserves

4 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

½ tsp Ground Ginger  (if you use fresh Ginger  you will need 1 tsp)

Directions:

  1. In a small bowl mix together all ingredients, except for the tenderloin.
  2. Place tenderloin into small baking dish; cover with ingredients in the bowl.
  3. Place into oven and roast until thermometer reaches  160 degrees.
  4. Take out of oven and cover with foil.

Gravy

Ingredients:

2 T Butter

2 T Flour

2 C Liquid  (you can use milk or chicken stock or mixture of both.  I use equal portions)

Drippings from Baking Dish

Directions:

  1. In saucepan on low heat melt butter;  add flour.  Stir together and cook for about 2-3 minutes to allow the “raw” flour taste to cook out.
  2. Add in the drippings; stir together.  Cook for another 2- 3 mintues.

Add in the rest of the liquids; stir together.  Allow to cook until desired thickness.  This will take about another 2-3 mintues.