Weekly Cooking (and related issues) Thread

[Jamestown1630]

I have to admit that with Christmas coming, and work issues, I'm so busy right now that I've got little for you this week in terms of recipes.

But I've been thinking of some things that I remember from my childhood Christmases. As I've mentioned before, I was largely raised by my paternal Grandmother, who was born in 1890. Her own childhood took place at a time when not many people had Christmas trees in their homes; I remember Granny telling us that in the 1890s the Christmas tree, for her small-town Virginia area, would be in the Church, or in a municipal place.

But treats for the kids at home were very special and important at Christmas, and my Grandmother always followed the tradition that she remembered from her own childhood: She filled our stockings late on Christmas Eve, when we kids had gone to bed, and then she hung them up on the window moldings, either side of our Christmas Tree.

There were always tangerines and apples; a bunch of walnuts and other nuts in the shell that we would have to crack with the nutcracker; little packs of M-and-Ms, and those hard candies shaped like raspberries with soft centers. Except for the apples, these were things we had at no other time of year, in the 1950s, and even into the 60s; and we really enjoyed them. It was the last thing we 'opened' on Christmas morning; but strangely, it is also among the things I most remember.

Of course, in later years, when Christmas Trees in the home had become a real, mainstream American tradition , my Grandmother and Father had been into the whole Christmas Tree thing 'Big-Time', for decades.

In the 50s and 60s, we'd go out on a cold December night to buy the tree from the local Lion's Club, which had their tree sale only a few blocks from our home. We'd choose our tree (this was a serious, time-consuming deliberation! but every year it was, of course, the Best Tree Ever!) and we'd walk home carrying it horizontally, Granny in front holding the top part of the tree, and my brother and I in the back, holding up the heavier bottom of the trunk.

(For some reason, we sang "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest", while we carried the tree those few blocks. I have no idea why; it was something my brother instituted, and it became a weird family tradition ;-)

Decorating was also a little weird. Daddy would have a couple of drinks after dinner, ensconce himself upon the reproduction Duncan Phyfe sofa (his Domain), and direct the first application of decoration, as the rest of us put on the electric lights.

We had to unscrew and screw little light bulbs over and over, until they were all perfect, according to Himself. Then we'd put the glass balls on, and the colors had to be equally positioned and perfect.

Penultimately, Daddy got up and put the star on top (he was the tallest person in the house!) and then permitted us to apply the final gilding of tinsel. But we couldn't just grab a bunch and throw it - we had to delicately place a few strands on every branch. (Oh, Hell; we bunched-and-threw quite often, and it became a little riotous at times. But by then, Daddy was.....well....'in the mood' ;-)

And it WAS the 'Best Tree Ever', every year! It became an actual Presence in the house, for a few weeks; a glorious Spirit, smelling like beautiful, fresh, cold Winter - and feeling like Love. Waking up in the morning and walking into the living room where it stood in its glory, was marvelous. There really was another 'Person' in the house, those weeks!

(Some years ago, I purchased an item on ebay from someone in New England. Since it was around Christmas time, the seller put a big bunch of freshly cut pine branches in the box, as an extra, ephemeral 'something'. I thought that was a very thoughtful touch, and it gave me a lot of pleasure.)

It's been a long time since I've had a real Christmas tree, because I've got cats all the time now, and they want to chew and climb the tree. But this year, I'm going to buy a real wreath and hang it inside, so that I have that fragrance and Presence again.

My Aunt always sent a big box of cookies, candy and fruitcake - I'm convinced that everything wrong with my teeth today, is due to her wonderful confectionery! I've posted her cookie recipe before, and her fruitcake was pretty standard for that time (despite all the jokes about Fruitcake, my husband and I love it, and I bought my dried fruit last weekend, for to make one.)

But her fudge was really amazing. She made a chocolate one, and a sort of Penuche one. After she died, a cousin gave me the recipe for the chocolate, and I was a little surprised that such a simple recipe made that fabulous fudge: while she was alive, my Aunt guarded that recipe as if it were the Family Jewels, and I had thought that it was a mysterious and exotic one.

(I recall her using asbestos pads on top of the electric range, while cooking it. So, I've never been sure that these quickly-jotted and second-hand instructions are the exact ones - but, here it is. She often added chopped walnuts, but we liked it best plain.)

Grace's Chocolate Fudge

Mix in saucepan:

4 cups Sugar

2 cups Evaporated Milk

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 pound (8 squares) unsweetened Chocolate (brand lost to posterity)

Heat over medium heat, and cook to 228 degrees (??? perhaps someone with Fudge Experience can enlighten us)

Beat in:

1/4 pound Butter

7 ounces Marshmallow Cream

1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

Spread in pans and refrigerate for 24 hours before cutting into little squares.

-JT

[Jamestown1630]

I love the way they’ve wrapped it like a meat salami :-)

[Stand Watch Listen]

So many of us have cherished, warm memories of the Christmas' of our youth. At this time of the year I listen to a CD track that evokes a great collection of my own experiences.

"The Train"
by
Geoffrey Lewis

There was hardly anyone on the train, as it moved through the countryside. The snow covered land slipped smoothly by. Way out there I could see a lonely house now and again just turning on their lights against the cold on coming night. Two thick coated horses in the almost dark, steam coming out of their nostrils, eating hay, then they were gone. The sky was quickly dark, the stars were crisp through the chill air.

Wasn't very warm on the train. A man was asleep at the other end of the car, his coat rolled up for a pillow and a Christmas present had fallen on the floor. A few seats away a young woman sat with her baby. She was staring out the window. She saw me looking at her, reflected in the window, and she half smiled at my reflection and she stared beyond that out into the cold dark landscape that was slipping away. I turned and gazed back out my window and then I heard a very soft ohhhhh. I turned and looked at the woman and I saw her hug her baby to her very closely and very intently.

Suddenly, I felt very close, very close and warm and a door appeared in the back of my mind. I opened it and light flooded in and I heard my father say, "Burrrr, burrrr, it's cold outside. You can put those logs right on the fire," and as I stepped in he shut the door behind me. I was standing in my living room, the Christmas tree was all lit up over by the front windows.

I heard laughter upstairs, my mother came through the swinging kitchen door carrying a plate of red and green frosted cookies and behind her came the smell of roasting turkey like a gauze that draped around my head, like the smell of earth that hangs out in the ocean and let's you know home is just over the horizon. Someone was stamping snow off their boots on the back porch and my little sister and two of her cousins were lying on their stomachs in front of the tree, starring at the presents like sharks at a man's legs under water, hoping to see beyond the tinsel and pretty paper.

I put the logs down and took off my gloves to warm my frozen fingers. In the dining room my grandma was scolding my grandpa about the best way for him to crack the walnuts that he was already cracking. He looked at me through the doorway and shrugged his shoulders and continued shelling the walnuts. I took off my thick coat and threw it on the floor by the door and went to stand by my aunt who had just called me to come sing the tenor part at the piano. There was talk and loud laughter coming out of the kitchen where the windows were steamed. We were singing, sometimes forgetting the second verses, but sounding pretty good.

But suddenly, somewhere in all the warm and familiar sounds, I heard someone very quietly crying. I looked around trying to locate the person and then my eyes landed on the young woman in the train a few seats away holding her baby. Her eyes with tears, hardly seeing the back of the seat in front of her. I got up and walked awkwardly up the aisle of the swaying car. I put my thick coat around her shoulders, then I sat down beside her. I held her hand in both of mine and we rode like that not looking at each other...looking straight ahead and I head her whisper under her breathe,"Merry Christmas."

The train slipped away across the sleeping land into the dark winter night.

[Ellendra]

I remember when I was little, my parents went through some tough financial times.

One year, I think I was 6, it occurred to me that it was only a few days before Christmas, and we still didn’t have our tree up. It was an artificial tree, and I knew where all the pieces and the ornaments were, but for some reason I couldn’t convince anyone that we should get it out.

So, tiny skinny little me wrestled with a plastic-and-wire tree that was bigger than I was. It scratched up my arms something fierce, but I put it up and decorated it myself.

On Christmas Eve we went to a special church service. I don’t remember the service itself, although I was probably in the pageant. What I do remember is when we went out to our car, somebody had left a bag full of groceries in the back seat!

I didn’t understand at the time just how tight finances had been. But I remember turkey dinners on Christmas day :)

[Liz]

The perfect Christmas gift. Filled w/ imported chocolates. The elegant
monochromatic look turns a plain cardboard box into a special gift.

CHOCOLATE BOX

Line the base of a cardboard box with clear cellophane
and crumpled gold tissue paper to elevate the contents.

The pictured box is filled w/: A chocolate brown teddy bear.
A block of chocolate truffle. Ribbon-tied cello bags w/ peanut clusters.
A slab of chocolate covered peanuts. Bars of milk and white chocolate.
A triple chocolate chip cookie. Foil-wrapped chocolate assortment.

Tie w/ wide chocolate brown ribbon.

[Liz]

A Christmas village in an apothecary jar. First line the bottom of the jar
w/ epsom salts to get that just-snowed look. Then arrange the houses
and surround w/ glittery snow-covereed trees. Add a little fence...maybe
a miniature sled.

[Jamestown1630]

Love that, and found a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5XKdf-YRSc

-JT

[Jamestown1630]

That’s a wonderful story.

There were years when things were pretty lean for us, too, when I was small; but that’s actually one of the things that makes Christmas so special in my memories.

When I look back now, realizing things that I didn’t at the time, I’m amazed at how my father and grandmother managed every year to make Christmas so wonderful and memorable, regardless of the finances. Maybe we got one, great, gift: but it was one very carefully chosen, and put on ‘layaway’ many weeks before.

I think what made it all magical for me, were the lights and decorations and tree - largely my Granny’s work.

(One of my greatest memories is the year my brother and I both got bicycles from Santa - we were small, so the bikes had training-wheels, and little mechanical bells on them. That year, we were allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve, and sit on our bikes, ringing the bells at midnight, while watching Guy Lombardo :-)

Those bikes must have broke them for weeks...

-JT

[Jamestown1630]

That is so clever!

This year, Joann’s had exquisite little paper houses and churches, with tiny LEDs inside that make the windows light up. I couldn’t resist, and bought one; but I put it on the tree and forgot to turn it off, and now it doesn’t light up.

Husband says it just needs new batteries, which can be replaced; and those little houses would be perfect in the apothecary jar scene.

-JT

[jocon307]

I worked with a gal from Jamaica years ago, she was a real domestic goddess that gal. She could sew, did beautiful, lacy crochet work and she could really cook too. I know she could cook because we used to have a little potluck in our office on New Year’s Eve.

One year she brought in “mutton stew”, very good but it wasn’t lamb. I asked her about it later and she admitted it was goat, but she called it mutton because she was afraid otherwise we wouldn’t have eaten it. And she was probably right about that.

She also made a fantastic rum fruit cake. Well, it was the kind of cake where you just pour the rum right over it and let it meld for a while. Delicious and I think with 3 small pieces you’d be pretty bombed!

[jocon307]

Thanks I’m going to check that out too!

[Jamestown1630]

My sister-in-law used to keep horses, and we would ride together. She also kept a goat, as a ‘companion’ for the horses, to keep them calm.

When we would ride out, that goat would cry like crazy, because she couldn’t come with us - we could hear that goat crying for almost a mile. And when we came back, she’d walk along every step, as we walked the horses to cool them down. She was a lovely goat.

We’ve got lots of restaurants around here that serve Goat; but I can’t eat anything that’s been a friend of mine ;-)

However, we used to have a local restaurant that made the most fantastic Rum Buns, and I’ve gotta track down that recipe. But in the meantime, here’s something for you (I usually swap-out the Bourbon with Rum):

http://www.ezrapoundcake.com/archives/5395

-JT

[Mears]

“When we would ride out, that goat would cry like crazy, because she couldn’t come with us - we could hear that goat crying for almost a mile. And when we came back, she’d walk along every step, as we walked the horses to cool them down. She was a lovely goat”

---

I LOVE that story.

.

[Jamestown1630]

If I recall correctly, that goat’s name was ‘Gertie’.

(Gertrude, fer short :-)

-JT

[NorthstarMom]

I loved Krumkaka so much that my great aunt (the only one who still made it) would give me a box at Christmas. Haven’t had it for years. I should learn how to make it-its so good!!

[Jamestown1630]

Is this what you mean?

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/68293/norwegian-krumkake/

[NorthstarMom]

Yes :-). They are always so pretty, too as the iron has a pattern to it.

[NorthstarMom]

Yes :-). They are always so pretty, too as the iron has a pattern to it.

[Liz]

Those little paper houses are adorable.

Maybe you could put a flickering tea light in the bgrnd...to light the houses from behind?

I’ve seen some scenes in a jar w/ little figures of children and lamp-posts (some actually light up).....easily found in Christmas shops selling various Christmas villages.

[Jamestown1630]

Here’s a very pretty iron:

http://www.bonton.com/product/209378.html?CID=GOOG-PLA-AS&gclid=CNaJv8SA1MkCFVQYHwodsGMFiw&kwid=productads-plaid^61159713196-sku^0087877839001@ADL4BONTON-adType^PLA-device^c-adid^53182469661

[NorthstarMom]

Thanks! I may splurge on that, try to introduce my kids to a taste of their Norwegian heritage. Sure beats lutefisk!!