A Goof and Gladys Taber

First, the goof...

On my previous post I bombarded you with pictures of preparation of our New Year's Day supper and then....

Then I left out the picture of the completed meal!

I just discovered it and inserted the picture there but this is what our meal looked like:

And now for Gladys Taber, my dear Gladys!

If you're a Gladys Taber fan, you remember that she loved sauerkraut, even made it herself when she and Jill first moved to Stillmeadow. 

And if you're a Taber fan but don't have her book of short stories called One Dozen and One Short Stories, do yourself a favor and find a copy! Here's a link to one at Amazon. 

One of my favorite stories in the book is called "Matchmakers" where shy spinster Miss Moss finds herself being wooed by shy bachelor Mr. Barnes. One day he takes her to his favorite restaurant and they discover they both love sauerkraut.

I love sauerkraut too but didn't put a picture of it in the previous post because it's very difficult to make sauerkraut look good. So I enhanced it a little in this shot.

See, kind of the ugly duckling of food, but such a beautiful swan in the mouth. 

Or Gladys and I think so, anyway.

But Mr. Barnes swept her into a German restaurant where everybody knew him, and the tables had checked covers on them, and it smelled of sauerkraut. This was the downfall of Miss Moss. She cherished a secret passion for sauerkraut, which her mother had never let in the house. She sank into the chair at the little round table and raised her eyes to Mr. Barnes, and said, "Oh--I smell the sauerkraut...."

"Hi, Gus," he said. "Double my order."

from One Dozen and One Short Stories

by Gladys Taber

And they and the cats lived happily ever after!

                                        

 

What Was Cooking on New Year's Day?

While some of the menu for New Year's Day at our house may change from year to year, there are always collards in the pot and black-eyed peas. 

But before I get to that meal, let me wish everyone a very happy and healthy 2019! It is so very kind of you to visit here at this odd little duck of a blog where I am the only one quacking away. 

While I love blogging at Dewena's Window where friends drop by to carry on two-way conversations, Across the Way is a place where I can write more often of the little moments in my life that I don't want to let slip away.  

So thank you so much for continuing to come here to Across the Way! I hope that your New Year's Eve was pleasant and that 2019 presents you with opportunities for meaningful work and relationships and growth of spirit.

RH and I enjoyed a quiet New Year's Eve at home with BreeBree and James Mason and had one of the most comforting soups in my repertoire for an early supper, Cook's Illustrated Farmhouse Vegetable & Barley Soup.

Recipe here! I tried to link directly to the magazine's recipe that I use but evidently you have to be a member to do that and who needs another password to keep up with, right? But I found the same recipe that you can print out. 

On New Year's Day morning, RH started cooking pork chops in his favorite black iron skillet. 

With it we allowed ourselves a special treat that before we've only made when family was with us, Silver Palates Fabulous Croissant French Toast. I found a recipe link for you that the Chicago Tribune had for it in a column they did back in 1985, here.

I'd been saving these croissants that were on sale at the deli after Christmas. I gathered my ingredients while RH was cooking the pork chops.

Why two bowls? One recipe with lactose free milk for RH and half and half for me in the other one--Publix was out of heavy cream the day after Christmas but this was almost as good. And I was out of Triple Sec but substituted Chambord instead.

I set the table with two plates from a stack of old restaurant china I have, The Clock restaurant.

Breakfast was so good! Then we started cooking for an early supper, RH washing the collards and doing the tedious job of cutting the heavy part of the stem out of each leaf while I started the bacon cooking and the onions after the bacon came out of the pan. 

I don't use the hog jowls that most people do here in the South when cooking collards. It was only when I first tried Gourmet magazine's recipe for collards (here) that I discovered I loved collards.

I'd soaked the black-eyed peas overnight and got them going next and then got the small pork loin ready to roast.

I use a recipe from my old Southern Sideboards cookbook for that, a favorite with the excellent introduction by Wyatt Cooper, Anderson Cooper's father.

This is a Junior League cookbook and those are always good. My copy is falling apart, I've used it so much for decades. During this year's holiday season I've made three or four recipes from it. I do add some Boar's Head sauerkraut to this dish the last half hour of cooking.

This was more cooking than I usually do for just the two of us but New Year's Day is special. And it was one of those cloudy days where it was fun to be in the kitchen for hours. And I had this beautiful amaryllis 'Caprice' from White Flower Farm to keep me company. There are four blooms open now but yesterday the first two opened.

Here's a closeup. Red amaryllis are my favorite, double ones at that, but we forgot to bring them in before frost so I was in the mood for a pink one for my kitchen, in the silver golf trophy bucket with moss from our yard tucked around the base.

I sat down to rest after everything was cooking and the dishwasher loaded and caught up with some blog friends. RH got some much needed relaxing done while watching marathon Firefly episodes on television in between checking on his favorite football games.

At last our first supper of 2019 was ready and we sat down to the table and gave thanks for the meal and the blessing of living in our cozy house on Home Hill.

We know not what the future holds in 2019 but we know that the Heavenly Father will be there with us every day and night. And I am always like a child looking forward to Christmas morning on New Year's Day. I am expectantly watching for the gifts that each day will bring.

As Abbie Graham writes about the gifts of a new year, I will watch for "the gift of hours and far-seeing moments, the gift of mornings and evenings, the gift of spring and summer, the gift of autumn and winter."

Happy New Year dear family and friends!

December Goodbye

It's not already here, surely. Time to say goodbye to December? And time to say goodbye to 2018? 

I rarely sit down to write a post without doing a rough draft and certainly not when I don't even have a clue of what to write. But it's late on Sunday night and this post needs to go up Monday morning December 31 so I'm going to put some pictures up and wing it, with hopefully a better story later on at Dewena's Window to go with more photos of our Christmas weekend 2018.

As usual on the last day of the month, I thank artist Kevin Dodds for his calendar pages that speak to my heart. I loved this year's so much that I ordered a new one that will go up in our kitchen January 1st.

The kitchen shelf next to my calendar changes almost every month, seasonal changes and little things that remind me of our granddaughters every day as I cook our meals.

The sweet photo on the left above is from last year when we got to see Nora play the Virgin Mary in her school play.

I know it's silly to talk about how she and her little sister have grown since last Christmas as children have a way of doing just that...but I truly can't believe how much they've grown. 

Someone is peeking through the tree branches!

These old pink camels keep watch over our girls' current Christmas photo.

And our younger granddaughter is now old enough to help put together and decorate my Viennese Sandwich Cookies. 

Help, nothing! This big girl calmly and carefully put the cookies together herself, dipped the edges in the melted chocolate and rolled them in sprinkles--all by herself, with her mom standing by just in case.

Next year she'll probably be taking over my kitchen, and oh boy do I need all the help I can get now!

I'm so thankful I had plenty of help this year as our sweet houseguests saved the day for me, pitching in while making every minute a joy for me as we got ready for family coming for a party Sunday afternoon.

I don't know what I would have done without their help! 

But the girls' parents did find time for some Christmas kisses. These aren't staged kisses by any means. I hope they won't mind me embarrassing them but these two remain a marriage made in heaven. 

Not all of our guests that afternoon were family. I spy a sweet blog friend sitting on the left end of the sofa who came all the way from North Carolina with her husband to meet us for the first time! And yes, the television is on during the party as well as Christmas music because football is on and RH loves football. And as hard as he works he deserves to have it on...muted, though. Pretty please.

Blog friend Doreen and I did get some time to talk seriously, just as we do in our emails. With our other pen pals Poppy and Tammy we four carry on some lallapaloosas of girl talk. If only the other two had been here too--some day!

I have a photo of Doreen's husband talking to my brother-in-law Fred but can't manage to convert it to jpg. That means a call for help and also I must first get permission  whether I can post the Fisherman's photo or not!

I did my Christmas shopping at the local antique mall and among other things, snapped up all nine vintage aprons I found there. Grandsons Alex and Luke modeled them for us, with help from their little cousin.

That little lace apron went to a daughter-in-law whose wedding to our son last fall on their farm included lace covered hay bales. 

My dachshund apron was a Christmas gift last year from a daughter-in-law, so every lady received a vintage one even with one saved for a daughter-in-law who couldn't be with us due to bronchitis.

I think the aprons were paired up with the right ladies, including those on our beautiful daughter Christy. Who are those young women with her? Only the loves of her sons' lives, that's who! 

My sister Teresa is talking to our granddaughter-in-law. The tiny tot in her mother's arms is our new great-granddaughter! Her big brother is running around somewhere, keeping his daddy busy probably. And that's our beautiful daughter-in-law Courtney in the cool outfit that Christy and I loved and two or our grandsons catching up with each other.

Zack and Bryan sample some snacks and aren't nearly as serious as they look here. 

Christmas Eve morning it was soon time to say goodbye to our granddaughters who had to return home with their parents to get back in time for candlelight Christmas service. Believe me, I stretched that getting ready to leave time as long as I could, watching two episodes of My Little Pony with our darling girls. But all too soon it was time for them to gather their gifts from aunts and uncles.

Christmas Eve night was a quiet one with just us and our daughter and son-in-law. Christy grilled burgers for us and cooked a prime rib roast for the next day. After supper we watched It's A Wonderful Life together.

On Christmas Day RH and I finished up some cooking and then we were off to Zack and Courtney's house, the farmhouse they bought from us two years ago.

I love this photo of RH and Courtney but didn't get one of Zack and Court together, both of them too busy hosting.

And this one of Christy and Bryan!

I have other photos for the Window post so hope to cover everyone then. It was a wonderful time together as we all feasted on turkey and prime rib and delicious sides and desserts galore.

It was the perfect ending to Christmas Day but RH and I were  tuckered out and were the first to leave. We went home and and put our feet up while the young set cleaned up. 

And so Christmas 2018 is over but there's still time for me to read the Christmas books I didn't have time for before Christmas. These below don't include a stack that I have managed to read.

I will continue to observe Christmas through the 12th Day of Christmas and you'll probably find me listening to Christmas music all through January. I'm not ready to dismantle Christmas yet. Not the Christmas trees inside or the one on the kitchen porch with its purple and pink lights that shine in the night and I enjoy while I'm cooking supper.

I'm hoping our neighbors will leave up their Christmas lights a while so I can enjoy them every time I look out my bedroom windows.

Even when the lights go out up and down the street and the trees come down and the last cookie is eaten, I pray that the joy of Christmas will stay with me and with you. 

A happy and healthy New Year to all! See you in 2019!


Note: Many of these pictures were taken by our son Defee--all of the good ones were! A thank you to him!

Dear Nora,

My dear granddaughter, I know you've grown so much since your daddy took this photograph a few years back. Now you share this little white Christmas tree that your mommy and daddy gave me before you were born, and I gave back to you the year this picture was taken, with your little sister.

But someday you will be your mommy's age, or even my age, as hard as that is to imagine. So here's a little advice about Christmas from someone even older than your Mimi that maybe you'll find handy when you celebrate Christmas as an adult someday.

Christmas is not the time for attending to one's duty; it is the time for having attended to it. If duty must be done, do it early. If there are letters that ought to be written, cards that should be exchanged, packages that must be gotten off, do all these things in that first burst of Yuletide spirit engendered by the merchants in late November.

Abbie Graham

Time Off and On

So just remember, dear Nora, do what I say, not what I do! Don't save everything that should have been done in late November and early December for those final few days before the Christmas festivities begin.

I wish someone had told me that way back when I was near your age, lying under the Christmas tree.

My love to you and your little sister, Nora! See you soon,

               Mimi

To my dear visitors here at Across the Way, I'll be back after Christmas but will pause now to celebrate the birth of our Savior with loved ones.

RH and I wish each of you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Love to all,

Dewena

Christmas Tree Countdown, 8 & 9

Christmas trees 8 & 9 go up first and are taken down last, too cheerful at night or on dark mornings to do without easily while we sit on the sofa and snuggle with BreeBree and James Mason. 

This skinny champagne colored tree was in my dressing room at Valley View but now is our main indoor tree here at Home Hill. 

The ornaments on them are mostly old pale green, blue and pink ones with tarnished silver glitter fish scale design.

It fits tightly but perfectly in an old green garden plant stand and the rim holds vintage speckled Shiny Brite pink and pale green ornaments. Standing guard among the ornaments are four vintage celluloid deer. 

Right next to the champagne tree, on top of a bookcase holding books of three of my favorite mystery writers--Louise Penny's Armand Gamache series, Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series and Margaret Maron's North Carolinian Judge Deborah Knott--is a large old Dept. 56 Christmas tree dressed in fairy lights and old silver ornaments.

It sits on an Old Hall, English tea set, one I never have to polish because it's shiny stainless steel not silver. There's even a cute little mustard pot and minuscule spoon with it.

Maybe waiting for a little honey in his tea is a baby Steiff bear, a gift from my daughter years ago.

This is the end of my Christmas tree countdown, even though there are tiny ones scattered around the house. For some reason, my heart is feeling a little bit tender at the end of this post. 

I imagine because there are so many sweet memories behind the Christmas things I've kept after two downsizing moves. These are objects that bring back memories of decades of RH and I going to yard sales and junk shops and antique stores, with at least two of our four children in tow at a time.

We always promised (bribed) them with cash of their own to spend on their collections--advertising mechanical pencils for our firstborn son, Breyer horses for his little sister, and later with our second batch of kids, sports memorabilia for one son and Native American objects for our youngest, along with minerals and rocks, vintage Christmas items, vintage Star Trek items (and he was able to sell most of those for hefty prices on eBay later on in life!).

And then there was the Christmas decorating that back then began on the day after Thanksgiving Day where there was the fun of hauling barrels out of the attic and decorating the house together.

There was a different tree in those years, loaded down with decorations they made in school and ornaments that were their own with new ones added each year, and taken with them when they left home. 

I had lots of little helpers in those days, lots of little sugar cookie decorating helpers, lots of little ones who even when they were big still wanted Christmas books read to them at night. 

And there were three sons and one daughter to tuck in bed on Christmas Eve and say the final goodnight to:

"Jump in bed and cover your head

'cause Santa Claus comes tonight!"

Hey, little furry squirrel who came all the way from "West Germany" once upon a time and ended up here at Home Hill after traveling with me from Valley View to Florida and back to Tennessee again, you'll understand if you hear some crying in the room along with Christmas music playing, won't you?

Mommas do that sometime.