Less than Humble Pie

So if you're eating humble pie there is a chance that you could be eating Bambi's mother for desserrt.  I'll stick with  Mediterranean style food.
 
 
 

I like the article about the Christmas drinks.  Hot chocolate with tequila sounds much more festive than hot chocolate with marshmallows. 

Every woman on the planet (and every relative) seems to see me as a potential 'stuffed sausage'. It's not even Christmas and I'm beginning to get that 'sick feeling' every time I look at .... MORE FOOD :-( .   I am so looking forward to January and eating normally again..... that's when you're starved and any food tastes great!

I would vote for serving a healthy slice of Humble Pie to Congress immediately. I have a Honey-baked Ham that I will consume over the next few days with some Fat Tire Ale and I will fire up the grill and throw on some healthy Filets during the holidays as well served with my favorite Cab.  Growing up in the Appalachians, no part of the animal was considered waste whether from the farm or from the hunt and having just read Dickens' in a local reader's theatre, many of his passages were the outgrowth of a time when poverty was rampant which brings me to the metaphorical piece of Humble Pie that leads to a satified feeling called "being thankful" and full of "grace", the essence of Christmas.  

 
A house of God, its altar abundantly adorned with red and white poinsettias, comes in a close second to that same space garnished with Easter lilies but only because they smell nice.

The best Christmas dinner is one where the cleanup crew is fun to be around. No matter where I am, I wind up policing the kitchen, perhaps it's guilt for doing -0- preparation, and THEN stuffing my face. Cleanng up with a cool posse, however, can be fun. Swap jokes and gossup with people you either hardly ever see, or virually never see under circumstances where they can talk freely. And there are ways to retaliate, if someone gives up a secret they promised to guard with their life. I like filling up the turkey baster, 1/2 way, with plain water. That's the thing that looks like a supersized syringe, correct? Better that squirt guns on the playground. Funny happy memories, chasing each other outside, wearing bib aprons, armed with turkey basters.....

Doc Nolan: Did your kid ever have a gerbil or hamster, with an exercise wheel? We need to develop a human-sized equivalent. Those stationary bicycles are so boring, even though I did install a squeeze bulb horn, and hang a raccoon tail from the back of the seat. Perhaps if I got myself one of those strobe flashing red lights, to warn virtual cars approaching behind me???

 
I had meant to append the defense of poinsettias to the day that they were cruelly assaulted.

Turkey, and I have been in touch with the cook at Fat Mama's Soul Food for advice as to how they get theirs so succulent, tender and moist.

The answer seems to be that they roast half birds long and slow with no concern for crisp skin or presentation. Portions are held in gravy until served. Nobody complains.

 
This is going to be one of those days when somebody says: "To die for!" isn't it.

Christmas day is a perfect day to dine at the truckstop at the edge of town and have chicken fried seak, lumpy smashed potatoes, gravy, and corn.  Keep the coffee coming.  Now that's a meal to live for. Dessert is the  kitchen full of Christmas cookies waitingfor you back home.

Bert, the cleaning up is always fun.  I, too, remember my Grandmother and mother doing the dishes to the great sounds of Nat King Cole and Mitch Miller Christmas records.  When every dish was put away, we had lovely desserts of pie, cookies, and the Christmas stollen.  It was great and I have tried to carry on these lovely traditions for my own little family.  They do appreicate it and makes it feel like the holidays.

Recently  I  subbed  for  a  teacher  who  had  been  through  a  complicated  surgery,  which  took  a  physical  as  well  as  psychological  toll  on  her.   Since  I  am  not  certified,  she  stayed  in  the  back  of  the  room,  relieved  that  someone  else  was  at  the  helm.  Some  of  the  students  were  problematic,  behavior  issues,  but  hell  that's  just  a  challenge  for  me.
 
History  of  our  country's  relationship  with  the  world  was  the  topic  of  the  day.    Most  didn't  bother  to  read  the  chapter  in  advance,  which  was  fine  with  me,   it  was  written  by  someone  who  had  more  disinformation  than  information,  jmo.    I  read  a  few  quotes  from  the  Cold  War,  and  asked  if  anyone  could  define  "detente."   Silence  followed,        so  I  asked  for  examples,  and  got another  long  awkward  interlude.
 
Detente,   I  said  was  a   mutual  standing  down  of  hostilities  between  nations,    for  everyone's  benefit.   Since  Christmas  was  approaching,  I  said  that  I  try  to  do  something  for  animals,  wild  &  domestic.   Animals  can  teach  us  a  lot  about  life,    including  how  to  interact  with  each  other  in  a  balanced  relationship,  with  loose  rules  governing  everyone's  right  to   have  a  reasonable  chance  of  survival.
 
I  buy  sacks  of  sunflower  seeds,    to   feed  the  woodpeckers  and  assorted  other  perching  birds.     That  makes  the  birds  very  happy,   snow  &  ice  cover sources  of  natural  food.   But  it  also  made  the  mice  happy,  who  live  in  a  crawlspace  under  the  porch.   We  have  an  agreement.   I  don't  try  to  exterminate  them,   and  THEY  agree  not  to  come  inside.   Lint  from  the  dryer  I  set  out,  & they  use  it  for  nests.   The bird  seed  gets  dropped  often  by  the  feathered  friends,   meaning  the  mice  have  easy  pickings.  
One  more  party  to  our  relationship  of  detente  is  Tom  the  tomcat.   He  sees  the  birds  at  the  feeder,   and  goes  bonkers,   they  are  eye  level  with  the  window  ledge  for  that  reason.   Free  entertainment.   His  other  function?   The  mice  multiply  rather  rapidly,  short  gestation  period.     So  the  cat  catches  the  slow  ones,  Darwin's  survival  of  the  fittest.  AND  this  means  the  cat  leaves  the  birds  alone.....he's  got  plump  four-legged  prey  on  the  ground,  a  target  rich  environment.
 
I  have  absolutely  no  idea  why  I  told  this  story  today,  except  maybe  Christmas  brings  out  the  spirit  of  getting  along  with  each  other,  detente,  if  you will.    So  if  any  of  you  have  any  spare  homemade  cookies,   don't  pick  up  the  ones  the  little  kids  drop...I'll  forage  around,  and  eat  them.   Then  you  have  access  to  more  true  stories,  from  me,   so  govern  yourselves  accordingly.....     By  the  way,   the  kids  in  the  class  ALL  got  engaged  in  the  discussion,   even  the  ones  who  fancied  themselves  as  incorrigible  prisoners  of  a  minimum  security  correctional  facility,  not  students.    Think  out  of  the  box.  Or  make  a  NEW  box!

I have very fond memories of sitting under the table in my Grandma Jones' huge basement kitchen with my sisters and some of my cousins, eating Christmas cookies after morning Mass as a child before we moved from Baltimore to Milford, Ohio.
 
 
There was so many kinds of food at Grandma's because she and Aunt Betty would be cooking and baking for weeks beforehand. Besides the stuff that they made, my mom and other aunts and uncles would bring even more food. There was everything you could possibly think of to eat (I remember Uncle Louis bringing a cooler of steamed blue crabs that he'd frozen at the end of the season one year) and none of the many, many great-aunts and uncles, aunts and uncles, first and second cousins and in-laws that filled the former boarding house ever went home hungry.
 
 
We generally ate all day long, carrying plates and sitting in every room of the house except the front parlor where the Christmas Tree and creche were and no one, not even grandpa would go in with food or drink under pain of death. Us kids were only allowed in the front parlor with it's antique furniture and persian rug on Christmas and Easter, and realising it was a great privilege, never went near the door with even a cookie crumb. Everyone however, sat down together at 4 p.m. for Christmas dinner either around the big table in the kitchen or the card tables that were set up around it for the people who wouldn't fit. The main course was always had three meats: a huge ham, a beef roast of immense proportions and a turkey that probably took three men to take down--or at least it seemed that way to me at the time.
 
The boar's head was saved for Twelfth Night when I was a 19 year-old and attending my first Society for Creative Anachronism event in Dayton, Ohio. It was in a candlelit room in the basement of a church and included singing the Boar's Head Carol and the serving of hot Wassail following a medieval feast of four removes. Since then I've attended many Twelfth Nights and the boar's head has come with an apple or orange in it's mouth or most lately, rigged to "breathe fire" with sterno (the feast was hosted by the Barony of the Flaming Griffin).
 
I've had umble pie just once and must say that I wasn't too fond of it. Organ meats are very strong tasting and rich and I couldn't stomach more than a mouthful. But I see how in a world where heat was by wood or coal fire, and unheated carriages, horses or your own feet were your only modes of transportation you would really want rich meat like that to help you stay warm.
 
Sorry to have been incommunicado but I've been very busy with work and my freelance job. I'm going ot spend the weekend after Christmas skimming over the posts I've mised and getting caught up. I hope you are all well and happy and those hit by the blizzard have successfully dug themselves out.
 
I have to put the last couple of ornaments on the tree when I get home and finish baking the oatmeal raisin cookies and macaroons for Friday. I'll make sure to stop and leave a large plate of each in the club car, along with a big bowl of eggnog. Bless you all!

Good to see you back Katz! "Busy with work" is a great reason to be away...

  
Peter Lake,

You got it. One of the best Christmas dinners we ever had was at Red's Pizza when the whole family was trying to get past a recent death. It was cozy, warm and they shrugged and made cheeseless pies for the vegans.

That White stuff that comes over a chicken fried steak seems to have as its primary ingredient... peppah! Probably why it is so good.

Is it just me, or do the cookies seem extra nice this year?

Off to pick up a load of guests... the magic starts today.

Comfort and joy to everybody!!!

The perfect Christmas dinner would have no dessert...I am ALL DESSERT-ED OUT!!!  I appreciate the thought and the traditions but please no more pie, cake, cookies, candy, sweet drinks, pastries, confections, etc.
 
I long for a salad...

Stoney your Red's pizza story reminds me of the year my dad was in the hospital (apx. 80 miles from our home) from Thanksgiving through Christmas...we decided since most restaurants were closed on christmas we'd try to find Chinese take away after my dad had gone to sleep (a la "A Christmas Story), found a great mom&pop Chinese restaurant where we were greeted warmly and treated like family.  It was memorable and wonderful.

God  bless  all  those  who  see   Christmas  through  the  eyes  of  a  child.....

PL- Chicken fried steak- smothered w/ gravy- oh my!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I may call around & see if anyone has that as a special today- it's lodged in my brain- I must have it....
 
Pretty much anything smothered in gravy is delish -w/ the possible exception of "Humble Pie"- g-r-o-s-s...
 
NACHISTA- I have not reached saturation point w/ sweets yet, but I know that feeling where you never want to see another thing w/ sugar in it for the rest of your life. Whenever my mother has eaten too many sweets she craves a dill pickle- it's something from her childhood & has always made me laugh.
 
Off to clean & make a batch of Amish sugar cookies...

The one sweet thing at Christmas that I never get sick of are oranges.  Be they mandarins, clementines, blood, pineapple, or navel...all members of the orange family are a welcome sight.
 
Speaking of Christmas oranges, has anyone seen or read the book called "Christmas Oranges" by Linda Bethers and Ben Sowards?  It is a tear jerker of a picture book and definitely a heat warming Christmas story.  If you get a chance, read it.
 
Some other of my favorite holiday stories are:
"The Forgotten Carols" by Michael McLean (the music is divine!),
"Snowmen at Night" and "Snowmen at Christmas" by Caralyn Buehner and Mark Buehner, "The Christmas Box" by Richard Paul Evans,
"A Christmas Dress for Ellen" by Thomas S. Monson and Ben Sowards,
"A Christmas Bell for Anya" by Ben Sowards and Evie Stewart.
"The Christmas Humbugs" by Colleen Monroe and Michael Glenn Monroe
 
 

In our office, someone a long time ago started the tradition of giving small gifts of appreciation the week of Christmas to all their co-workers.  It spread and now most of the people who work here do it as well, most are very clever and put little poems or notes with their treats (my favorite was the kissing reindeer made of our 2 candy canes and some pipecleaners).
 
Back when I actually had spare time (*sigh* I miss those days) I would bake mini loaves of crusty italian bread and then mix up a double batch of Rocky's garlic spread (I still have the original recipe that my uncle taped to the wall of the restaurant for me to work from), put it in the little ziplock individual serving cup sized containers.  I would get to work early Christmas Eve and have a loaf of bread and a cup of garlic spread on everyone's desk with a note that said "spread the joy".
 
But last year and this year I just didn't have time and I realised when I got to work on Christmas Eve that I didn't have anything.  Everyone would have been cool if I didn't get them something, but I really wanted too.  So my nephew told me that I should get olive garden breadsticks as a substitute (good but not nearly as good as my homemade).  So I did that and got 2 of their family sized salads as well...it was a huge hit after the parade of fudge, carmel popcorn, taffy, and chocolates that we'd received.  So I'm doing that again this year.

Humble pie---one of my favorite dishes, although as stated not quite so popular in today's day and age I find myself brought back to the years I spent living in the Northern Transdanubian region of Northern Hungary.  The city Tokaj, the year 1984, easy women and hard dinners. After one passionate,  long love making session with a fine young lass I found myself victim of one of Tokaj legendary downfalls----the world famous Tokaj wine had conquered my body and sense's and when I awoke I was miles from my dwelling.  Clothed only in my thickly woven Irish Tweed Vest (No 2521) I thanked God for its smooth feel on my bare body---but back to the story.  Not knowing where I was I quickly blew my Acme Metropolitan Whistle (No 2442) and was surprised when a flamboyant fellow wearing a Pickford Blouse (No. 2611) came to my aid and offered to take me in for the night. Thankful for this peculiar mans generosity I insisted on preparing that nights dinner----anything you desire I told my new friend, who had revealed his name as Clarence.  When his choice was made I was delighted to her the words spill from his full lips----" Humble pie is my choice".  "AN EXCELLENT DISH"! I cried.  I then started preparation of the dish--First I went into the nearby forest and snared a stag.  Gutted and hung from the backyard tree we were now ready to start cooking.  "Where are the pots and pans"? I asked.  Clarence replied "I only have the ones under the double bowl.  Then the most glorious set of pots and pans was revealed to me---the Mauviel 7-piece starter set (No. 1280).  I prepared the meal and to this day it is one of my finest memories cooking with a man.

 
 
We Wish You a Merry♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ Christmas♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪We Wish You a Merry ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪Christmas ♥ ♥ ♥We Wish You A Merry ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪Christmas ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪...And A Happy New Year!♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪... Copy and paste~keep the wave going

stoney!  your 'to die for' comment!  hilarious! 

nachista:  you copy and paste, that's how you all do that?  I was going to congratulate you on your amazing talents at computer keyboard artistry.
 
Oh, another bubble burst.
 
 

I am ever so grateful we are not having umble pie at any time this Christmas. 
 
I never knew...humble pie was actually umble which meant "innards."  So many of those old recipes were innards or somehow involving innards, you have to be real careful about resurrecting them, you'll be eating things best tossed to the hounds as Peterman wrote, unless you check the ingredients carefully.
 
 
And while I fully appreciate having to eat something other than your kin at the holiday dinner table during the lean years, if it's only umble pie on the table, I'd rather eat dirt.  
 

Merry Festivus, all my fellow Eye-landers! For our Yule celebrations, pork and apples figure prominently. We do big, tasty roast pork with stewed apples. Of course, these menu choices reflect the traditions of the true Gods of the Northmen, whose Halls are filled with feasting on roast pig, and Idduna's apples - for eternal life! Except I don't feel very eternal after a belly full of pork roast, apples, and mead (and potatoes, and sauerkraut, and fresh bread, and pie, and... you get the idea). I feel like making the perfect hybrid of my head and a sheepskin-covered couch pillow.

Park4, I have no talent of my own...my talent relies in "borrowing" useful things from the real creative minds!

Jonathan:  tell me there's no head on that roast, no apple in the mouth of a head that's on your Festivus main course.
 
Even if you serve the porker in its wholeness, please tell me you don't.
 
This would fall in the category of a white lie, and will in no way negatively jeopardize your standing with the big guy in the red suit who's covered all over in ashes and soot and so forth...

nachista:  I still think you're pretty darned clever.  I mean, after all these years with this computer, it never occured to me to "borrow." 
 
 
Now, nothing will be safe from my little cut'n'paste right click.
;)
 
 
 

Being from Louisiana I've eaten so many different things for Christmas and the holidays in general. Sure, the usual turkeys and hams and roasts and potatoes and all but we would always have something out of the usual to try. It made for some interesting and not so interesting experiences along the way. But anywho, variety, is the spice of life!

Nachista:   I've  been  talking  to  some  of  the  others,  and  I  was  nominated  to  find  out  the  time  and  location  of  your  Christmas  party.....lol

Our somewhat traditional dinner of the last few years is crab.  I'll cook eight of them this year.My brother snears at anything traditional but, he'll go for crab.  Everybody pigs out on crab, salad and bread.... it's messy and relaxing.
 
As to  yesterday's topic, our tree topper was "Benny" a small stuffed bear.  At  one point we had a panic and thought he had gone to Nepal in a sleeping bag we had loaned to our friends but, after carefull searching Benny waas still home.
 
Does anyone want the sees candy and marzipan coffee cake that I can't eat?

Bert it is tonight from 6pm til midnight, wear your jammies.  Tonight is the only night that all my nieces and nephews could come over for our annual "smallies" party.  Usually it is a sleepover but since I have to work tomorrow and tonight was the only day that everyone could come the parents have to pick them up by midnight.
 
All the kids are still coming in their pjs and I'm serving pizza, a giant bowl of candy, caprisuns (almost as good as sippy cups), and showing all the Christmas cartoons/claymation/movies they can stand.  All the girls get their fingernails painted and then after breakfast (in tonights case after the last movie) I read them some of my favorite stories (see above list) until the parents come to get them, it is a huge hit.
 
Christmas Eve is the BIG party for my immediate family.  It starts with a huge buffet dinner that my mom whips up:
 
Starters:  Shrimp cocktail, saucy crab/cream cheese dip, crudités, cheese/fruit plate
 
Entrees:  Roast beef and turkey (this year my brother who lives in Seattle brought live lobster to add to the feast as well)
 
Sides: Rotkohl, mashed potatoes, funeral potatos, stuffing, asparagus, corn, parker house rolls, strawberry/spinach salad with candied pecans
 
Drinks:  Non-alcoholic mulled claret served hot, and "camel spit" (pineapple soda served over a block of frozen fruit juices to make slush).
 
Desserts: pies, piese and more pies
 
After dinner we all roll into the sitting room and everyone (no exceptions) has to share a talent with the family.  Some sing (badly), some play instruments, some write poems, some read stories, last year one kid drew a picture.  Last year I performed a magic trick that ended up being my husband's christmas gift...a puppy.  This year I'm learning (slowly and painfully) how to knit.  I've made a scarf for the puppy from last year, she is going to model my talent for me.  Then to finish it off we stand around the christmas tree with lighted candles (dangerous, I KNOW, but no one has been burned or lit on fire yet) and sing Stille Nacht. 

Kim, my brother from Seattle drove down here earlier this week and he brought with him a bucket of live crabs and a bucket of live lobsters.  The crabs were proptly cooked and cracked and put aside for other dishes but the lobsters we left alive to show all the little kids. 
 
My brother and I thought it would be funny to put one on my head and take a photo...uh, not so much.  Even though the large claws were shut with a rubber band it curled its creepy little feet into my hair and wouldn't let go...it was unpleasant untangling it.

I did get revenge, we cooked that lobster and its tail is waiting for me in the fridge...I marked it so I knew exactly which one to eat.

KIM:
 
I'll take some of that Sees off your hands. Especially if you have any carmels left.
 
 

NACHISTA:
 
I went to look for that picture of you with the lobster in your hair.
 
You MUST post that!!!!

Nachista:   Pajama  party?   Cool!    My  favorites  {Winter  mode}  have  a trap  door  in  back,  and  feet.    That  way  the  whole  house  temperature  stays  low,  saving  energy,  whereas  the  people  cluster  together,  first  for  comraderie  and  warmth  around  the  fire,  then  later  for  support  of   the  president's  energy  policies.....sleeping  together  reduces  carbon  emissions,   builds  morale,  and  sometimes  even  helps  repopulate  the  planet  with  other  cool  people,  who  in  turn  will  start  out  with  jammies  with  feet  in  them.....circle  of  life.

So  has  our  resident  television  commentator  given  her  recommendations  for  this  evening's  veiwing  enjoyment?   It's  been  years  since  I  got  a  printed  copy  of  a  weekly  tv  guide,  and  I  "read"  lots  of  Sunday  papers,  but  from  a  computer  screen.  

oops.
my bad.
I was trying to wrap a toy stuffed shark, it ranks up their with Peterman's giraffe, of yesterday. 
It sits there and looks like a quiet, well-mannered stuffed large-ish shark with a polka dot body and a pink plaid head, but when I try to wrap it, it takes on a kind of life of its own, it doesn't bend or cooperate at all.
 
Anyhow that's where I've been and what I've been doing when I ought to be perusing TCM to see what's on tonight.
 
It's Wednesday night, right?  Well, if it's Wednesday, it must be Bogie Night....I'll be back with the line up.
 
Meanwhile, here's looking at you, kid.

Park4- A stuffed shark needs a make shift box around this middle, just a square that first like a belt so you can anchor the wrapping paper to something and fold it around. 
 
Right now I'm staring at the gifts I have to wrap for my family.  Later.  I've got 24 hours, right?

It's a perfect night to sit inside and listen to the sleet hammer on your roof mixed with a cold hard rain slam against your windows, and think good thoughts for all the holiday travelers out there.   And focus on your widescreen because YES, it's Bogie Night on TCM. 
When I think of Bogie, it's usually in combination with his gorgeous wife and fellow actor, Lauren Bacall, and tonight, they're here in four of their best known films a deux.  She was amazing looking, wasn't she?
 
 
8:00 PM EST
To Have And Have Not (1944)

A skipper-for-hire's romance with a beautiful drifter is complicated by his growing involvement with the French resistance.
Cast:
Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Lauren Bacall, Dolores Moran
Dir:
Howard Hawks
 
 
10:00 PM EST
Big Sleep, The (1946)
Private eye Philip Marlowe investigates a society girl's involvement in the murder of a pornographer.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers Dir: Howard Hawks BW-114 mins, TV-PG

 
 
12 Midnight EST

Dark Passage (1947)
A man falsely accused of his wife's murder escapes to search for the real killer.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead Dir: Delmer Daves BW-106 mins, TV-PG
 
 
2:00 AM EST

Key Largo (1948)
A returning veteran tangles with a ruthless gangster during a hurricane.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore Dir: John Huston BW-101 mins, TV-G
 
 
 
That's eight hours worth of Bogie and Bacall.  Which is not the worst way to spend the night before the night before....
 
 
 
"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow." ~ Lauren Bacall to Humphrey Bogart in To Have And Have Not.

Julia:  You're a genius.  I need you here.  I've got lots more presents to go...
 
The shark was the hardest, or it is so far.  I wound up tying it like a firecracker, 3 feet long, scrunching it up at it's nose, ribbon around the scrunch, then taping taping taping, and when I got down to the tail thing, I scrunched that up too and tied ribbon around it.
 
I once took a job in high school at a small shop, wrapping gifts.  I am the worst wrapper, and whatever I wrapped looked awful, and I don't know why they hired me, other than no one else applied for the job.
 
But oh how I cringed when I heard "Would you like that gift-wrapped?" and inside my head there's this "NO, make her say NO, please NO!" -- but everyone who came into that shop, it seemed wanted gift wrap.
 
It was a very bad 4 days that I spent at that job.  My employer and I agreed on an amical separation, and that was the end of my gift wrapping career.
 
 
And today, there is this toy shark, to remind me just how inept I am at this wrapping thing...well, onward.  The next one is a book, and I think I can handle that.

DONG- Is that a picture of Michael Vick next to your post?

nachista
We Wish You a Merry♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ Christmas♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪We Wish You a Merry ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪Christmas ♥ ♥ ♥We Wish You A Merry ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪Christmas ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪...And A Happy New Year!♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥ ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪...
 
 
back at ya gal...
 
If I could figure out a way to get them to you I'd send you some clams.
 
 
my friend Van is having "chittlings", turkey necks and wings, turnip greens and sweet potatoes for Christmas Day Dinner.
 
My steamed oysters( picked up 3 bushels today) roast turkey etc seem so tame.

Stoney - It's definitily thepepper, if it isn't then you gotta shake a little more to it.  I think it is the ultimate comfort food. It's not just you.  The cookies are exceptional this year.  Many of our customers at the shop have come with a bundle of warm cookies and other treats that have made it home.   That's what so nice about life in a small northern town.
 Be careful out there.  Its mighty slippery.

PeterLake:  are you two talking about Chicken Fried Steak, the gravy?  I can't find the beginning of your 'conversation' with Stoney...?
 
If it is chicken friend steak, and you are talking about the "white stuff" being the gravy, oh yes! my dad was from Arizona and he made the best chicken fried steak in the world, with gravy, and oh yes, it's the black pepper, you need lots of it, and then more of it, and just in case a little bit more -- and then you've got proper southwestern chicken fried steak and gravy.
 
And if you and stoney were talking about something else entirely, I'll just back out the door here...and hope I don't trip on the doormat on my way out....
 
be careful out there!  it's not fit for man or reindeer.

Stoney said: Is it just me, or do the cookies seem extra nice this year?

Well, the sugar cookie recipe that you gave to me is on it's THIRD batch! The first one was demolished at the church Christmas social, the second was distributed today in cookie plates for the sisters of our ward who didn't get to come to the party because of transportation issues, and I'm making the final batch tonight for my own family. The kids are going to "paint" them with the powdered sugar/milk frosting tomorrow.

Our Christmas dinner is going to be baked ham with cloves and pineapple glaze, potatoes, sweetened carrots, and home canned green beans, with Cherry pie, vanilla ice cream, and cookies for dessert. But the big thing in our house is Christmas Breakfast.

My stepfather, who passed on 19 years ago this coming New Years Eve, was the co-founder of a nationwide chain of restaurants that specialized in pancakes. When I brought my husband and kids to spend Christmas with Matt and my mom the Christmas after my first child was born, I awakened to the awesome smell of stewed apples and cinnamon, cherry-cranberry compote, sausage gravy, biscuits, omelets with cheese and ham, and pancakes. Matt got up at 4:30 am to start the prep work, and by 7:30am, the family was rousted out of bed for a literal feast to start Christmas Day.... While we don't make even a third of the food that Matt did, it has become tradition for us to have a pancake breakfast with maple flavored sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast. Yum!

As far as 'umble pie, I don't go there. I don't consider myself squeamish (says she who skinned and butchered a deer for her husband less than four years into her marriage), but there are some things that after one taste, I just have to say, "No more." Innards being one of them.

May all be blessed with enough healthy food to eat, everyday of the year... and may we all be truly appreciative of that which we have.

Also, Dancingkatz, you forgot to mention the three bowls of eggnog: The kids' bowl (non-spiked), the spiked bowl, and the bowl that only the bravest drank from (because the uncles would just keep pouring in alcohol of practically any type except for beer as the level went down....)

FYI, I'm Dancingkatz's twin.... *waves at twin sister*

Have a Merry day whether you celebrate Christmas or not!

I don't know why I haven't been on here as much as I would like. I guess my brain went to sleep.

I do, however, wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, or whatever other holiday you choose to celebrate. And I'll try to be on more often.

PARK4 - It's just pepper on the gravy....

oh.
 
well.
 
 
New subject:  Merry Christmas PeterLake!