My Happy Diversion

All over the world today, there is trouble. Every news headline, every post on Facebook, every Tweet serves to remind us what a dangerous place our planet has become. Donald Trump, who is spewing neo-Nazi rhetoric and scaring the crap out of everyone (even the GOP), the recent terrorist attacks by Daesh, Syrian refugees trying to escape the violence and turmoil in their country only to be met with hatred, prejudice, and lack of hospitality from the one nation in the world that is best equipped to take them in, and Russia threatening both Syrian and Turkish borders pushing us dangerously near the brink of WWIII, are all events that serve to make us feel powerless, fearful, edgy, and hopeless.

But today I am in my kitchen, for tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Today my eyes are on my laptop screen where I've pulled up all the recipes online that I'm using for my family's feast. Today my head is into

checking to make sure I've gathered all the ingredients I need to make the brine for our turkey, and checking to make sure that we have enough heavy cream to use in my creamed confetti corn dish, and making sure I don't over-bake the pumpkin pies so they won't crack. Today my heart is overwhelmed with love and gratitude for my family, and I'm pouring all of it into every dish I prepare for them. When I do this, I shut out the world and all its troubles. I shut out fear, confusion, anger, hatred, and hopelessness. Today is about love and about the people I love most.

So here's to happy diversions. Here's to turkey and all the trimmings. Here's to family. Here's to world peace. Here's to gratitude for what we've been given.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Don't Mess With Tradtion

My family goes for a very traditional Thanksgiving - turkey with all the trimmings. However, they aren't picky about how the "trimmings" are prepared. They allow me the license and creativity to find new ways of preparing the traditional Thanksgiving foods, so it keeps things current and interesting. I always do a traditional roast turkey (we all seem to prefer it over the popular fried and/or

smoked versions), which almost always turns out tender, moist and flavorful, but this year I've decided to try brining for the first time. I'm going with a slight variation on Alton Brown's brine recipe and useing his roasting method (which I've used now for several years, and love).

Stuffing and/or dressing is my most "messed-with" Thanksgiving side dish. From year-to-year I never seem to prepare it the same way. For years I used my mother's traditional southern cornbread & biscuit stuffing recipe and didn't deviate from that at all. My mother actually got offended if I tried recipes for traditional foods that weren't her recipes. (One year I made Christmas sugar cookies from a friend's recipe which was given as part of a gift of Christmas cookie cutters. I thought my mother was going to disown me for it.)

It wasn't until Mother passed away in 2001 that I really began to explore my own culinary creativity and style and started searching for new and different ways to prepare traditional dishes. After Steph and I got together, I learned that she really wasn't fond of cornbread based dressings and so that gave
me license to do something different for the first time. Since then, I've added different variations of nuts, berries, fresh herbs, bacon, sausage, and varied the types of bread I use in my homemade stuffing. And every year my family compliments me on my creative culinary endeavors.

Sorry Mom, it's not that I didn't love your Thanksgiving dressing when I was a kid. But I'm a big girl now with my own family, and I love making them happy and hearing their compliments and
accolades at the Thanksgiving table every bit as much as you did.

So here's to "messed-with" Thanksgiving recipes and to those who aren't wed so much to tradition as they are to the love and togetherness that those traditions inspire.

Celebrating Music, Celebrating Humanity, Celebrating Life

Growing up Baptist, I missed so much of the incredibly beautiful and meaningful music associated with this season of the year because Baptists avoided anything that was too liturgical. It wasn't until I sang this piece with the Stillwater Chamber Singers several years ago did I realize how truly magnificent it is.

I no longer celebrate the religious aspect of this season, preferring to celebrate it in a fashion that reflects its pagan origins of fertility and rebirth, but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate its significance to others and to western history and culture. Happy Easter to all my friends, however you celebrate it, or not.


Pergolesi's magnificent Stabat Mater for Soprano & Alto

Valentine's Day Haters and Other Cynics

My mother loved holidays. She loved them so much that every holiday in our home was decorated in the particular theme with ornaments and knick-knacks that she purchased and collected over the years. It didn't matter if it was a big holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving, or a minor holiday like St. Patrick's Day or Lincoln's Birthday, she had decorations for it. Her two favorite holidays were Christmas and Valentine's Day. In our home, Valentine's Day sentiments weren't reserved for one's sweetheart. As with all our holidays, it was a time to celebrate family ties and the affection we had for one another. I can remember looking forward to going down stairs to the kitchen breakfast table and always finding a small heart-shaped box of chocolates from my dad, a card and a stuffed animal or sometimes even a pretty piece of jewelry from my mother, and beautiful cards with loving sentiments from my brother (when we both grew old enough to purchase and exchange greeting cards). Because this day was always so family-centered for us, I never thought of it as an exclusive holiday for lovers. Being someone's "Valentine", meant that you cared about them be they a family member, friend, or a love interest. It wasn't until after I got married that I realized that not everyone thought of Valentine's Day in the same "universal love" terms as I did. I'll never forget the year that my husband fussed at me over how much I spent at the Hallmark store on cards for my family and friends, as well as on the postage to mail all of them. I was cut to the quick over his chastisement and I didn't understand why $25 and much less than that on some postage made such a huge dent in our budget, especially when I was expressing to my family and friends how much they were loved and missed. He didn't see it that way. To him, Valentine's Day was a day you got your sweetheart candy and flowers and perhaps took her out to dinner--if you could afford it. (It's probably not a surprise that my first marriage ended in divorce after 18 years.)

When I was nearly 40 years old, I met the love of my life and it altered my view of Valentine's Day considerably. Suddenly I was thrust into Cupid's realm of hearts and flowers, kisses, singing birds, and more romance than I had ever known. I was so in love and so overjoyed that I wanted to shout it to the world. Valentine's Day suddenly became one of my favorite holidays and I was unreserved with my online public displays of adoration and affection for my partner, until Facebook. It wasn't until I joined Facebook in 2007 that I learned that celebrating Valentine's Day was politically incorrect, and those who didn't know this, and

who posted sentimental sayings and public displays of affection, or even general sentiments directed towards friends and family were deemed insensitive to those who didn't have anyone to love or who were loved by no one. I was surprised by the number of statuses from my "friends" expressing their disdain for the holiday as well as the cynical memes from atheist sites that explained the dubious origins of St. Valentine's Day. I began to question whether or not I truly was insensitive when I posted my enthusiastic sentiments for not only my love, but for my children and friends. So the next year when February 14th approached, I hesitated to say much about it and for several years I "overlooked" the holiday so I wouldn't be deemed a jerk by my Facebook friends.

 In the seven years that I have been on Facebook, it has probably taken me five years to come to the conclusion that there are entirely too many cynics and haters out there and that every last one of them are only too happy to drag you down into the mire with them. Cynicism is a spirit killer. It rejoices in gloom and doom and points it's angry, accusing, crooked finger at anyone and everyone who would let the smallest

glimmer of hope, happiness, joy, or love, into it's myopic, narcissistic existence. I finally unfriended most of the cynics on my list and the rest, I've hidden. I love Valentine's Day, and I love having a special day on the calendar to express that love (although I don't need a special day to do so), to my friends, family, and most especially to my dearest Steph. And most of all, I love the smile on each of their faces when I tell them that I love them on Valentine's Day. Thank you, Mother, for instilling in me an appreciation for the things that matter most, most especially for the genuine expression of love on the special days that we have set aside to do just that.

Easter Blessings

Wishing you and yours a joyous season of love, laughter, and renewal. Happy Easter. 

The only bad thing about vacations...

...is that they have to end.

I have had two, four-day weekends in a row and I've so enjoyed them that I dread getting back into the routine. These last two weekends have been filled with nothing but lazy indulgence - going to bed late and sleeping-in late, hot tea and biscotti with Steph at 3:30 in the afternoon, endless games of Scrabble while listening to our favorite classical music station, playing around on Facebook, blogging, finding new and interesting videos on YouTube, and relishing every last minute of our quiet time spent together.

Back to work tomorrow...sigh...

New Year's 2009/10

Last night we had our annual New Year's Eve party, and it didn't disappoint. At first we were afraid that the attendance was going to be down, but between Jacey and her boyfriend Kyle (he's a keeper, Jacey!), Heather and her boyfriend, Bryan (he's a keeper, too!), and of course, Allen, Ville (who showed up despite the fact that she felt like crap), and all the rest of us, we had one of the best attended parties in recent years and definitely one of the most fun! The following pictures are of some of the highlights!

Nettl gets down.

Micah & Steph do the bump.

Joel guards the food.

Ville is ready for her close-up.

Micah as Stevie as Keiff.

 

Allen gets down and dirty.

Happy New Year, 2010!

Wishing you love, joy, success & prosperity in 2010!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Our White Christmas, 2009

Our little cottage in Christmas Eve snow!

 

Looking through the wreath on the front door.

 

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The humble plight of the Ugly Chicken

Back in the mid 1970's, when I was a teenager, my mother went out and purchased a whole box full of unpainted ceramic Christmas tree ornaments and all the paints, brushes, and supplies that we would need to paint them. There were all kinds of ornaments - cute little mice perched upon Christmas packages, stockings, candy canes, manger scenes, stars, etc. However, among all of these cute and whimsical ornaments, was a plain, ugly, chicken which never got chosen to be painted.

My mother, brother, and I, all three, spent many leisurely, creative hours, painting ornaments, and by Christmas, we had quite a collection of ceramic ornaments to both hang on our tree and to give away as gifts. And as the supply of unfinished ornaments would begin to dwindle, Mother would go out buy another batch for us to paint.

One day, when I was rather bored, and needed something to do, I got the box of unpainted ornaments down and found that the supply had dwindled to only a few of the least favorites, so I decided to finish them up. Among the few, was the ugly chicken, which no one ever wanted to paint. There were only about five or six left, so one-by-one I painted the remaining ornaments, leaving the chicken for last. When I finally got to it, I decided that I would do the best I could with it and when I had finished, I decided that he was still every bit as ugly after I painted him, as he was before. When everyone saw that I had painted him, they laughed about how ugly he still was but they decided that he deserved a place on the tree.

From that year on, he was given a special place on the Erwin family Christmas tree, in the very back, on the very bottom branches where no one could see him. Even after I was grown and would bring my own family back home for Christmas, I would look for the ugly chicken, and there he would be, hanging on the very bottom branches, in the back of the tree.

In June of 2001, Mother passed away after a long and arduous battle with breast cancer, and my dad decided to sell the house that had been our family home since 1967.  My mother loved holidays and Christmas was her favorite of all, and as a result, there was an abundance of Christmas decorations -garlands, wreaths, stockings, ceramic angels, Santas, elves, and tree ornaments that had been collected and saved from my brother, sister and my early childhoods. Dad went through each box of Christmas decorations and divided them up, giving some to my brother and sister, as well as to me, and when I opened the box that contained my share of the decorations, I found that among the many ornaments, I had been given my mother's treasured Hallmark rocking horse collection, the little wooden angels that I brought back from my European travels, and several of the ceramic ornaments that I had painted as a teenager, including the ugly chicken.

So now the tradition continues: The ugly chicken has had his special place on Steph's and my tree since Christmas of 2001, in the very back, bottom branches. And every Christmas as we unpack the ornaments, my kids ask me if we still have the ugly chicken.  Two Christmases ago, when Lauren was in France as an exchange student, I was talking to her on Skype and telling her that we had put up the Christmas tree, and she asked if we had hung the ugly chicken.  She was obviously comforted by the fact that though she was far away from her family, the family traditions remained firm, and that when she returned home by the next Christmas, she would find that the ugly chicken still had his humble but honored spot on the family Christmas tree.