Ryan's Quiche

We had to attend a party last Saturday and were asked to bring an entree. I wondered about what to take, as it had to be easy to make and transport; I probably would not be able to warm it up after it had been sitting in the back of our cold car for the hour it took for us to get here, and it had to be non-messy to eat because we would be balancing our plates. All of this meant that my default lasagna or meatballs in the crockpot wouldn't work. I was eating brie and apples one evening while I recounted my dilemma to Ryan and he suggested making a brie and apple quiche. We talked about some of the details and he came up with a delicious solution.

1 pie crust

1/2 pkg maple sausage, browned and crumbled (probably ~8 oz.)

1/2 apple, sliced very thinly

1/3 lb brie, rind removed

6 eggs

1 cup milk

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp salt

Add the browned and crumbled sausage to the pie crust.

Layer sliced apples on top of the sausage. 

Cover the apples with brie cut into slices (or hand-squished into flat pieces).

 Whisk eggs, milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg together.

Pour the egg mixture over all the rest of the yummy stuff in the pie plate.

Bake at 350° for 50-60 minutes. 

I think it's better eaten warm while the brie is nicely melted, but it also works if you have to make something easy to take to a party that won't spill in your car, will be edible even though you can't warm it up, and won't be too difficult to eat even when you're juggling a plate and a drink. Enjoy! 

Glögg

Over the past week I have discovered that glögg (a high-strength Swedish mulled wine concoction) can give you the fortitude to cast on 318 stitches for the third time, deal with a finicky furnace when the temperature is 22°, calm your nerves after a day filled with delays and aggravation, and even recover after a party where some people made spectacularly ignorant and intolerant comments (but you were afraid to say anything because they happen to be your husband's bosses). 

I was lucky enough to receive this as a gift from a lovely and thoughtful friend, but I've enjoyed my evening imbibement so much that I think I will make some myself when this jar is sadly empty. There seem to be many, many recipes out there, but I will probably try the simplest one first, the one that has ingredients I can actually obtain. Even Penzey's doesn't seem to carry Indonesian long peppers, but I did order cardamom seeds.

If you get a chance to sample glögg or even make it yourself for some delicious, holiday warmth, I'd highly recommend it. Glögg is good for what ails you, and may also work wonders if you're lucky enough not to have any ailments.

Amaryllis Watch 2016 - 2017

Have you seen those commercials where Sarah McLachlan talks about donating to the SPCA and urges people to consider rescuing animals while heartbreaking pictures of the cats and dogs are shown? I know it's not quite the same thing, but I could have sworn I heard Sarah McLachlan's voice as my cart veered toward a large display of amaryllis while shopping the other day.

There were probably a hundred or more bare amaryllis bulbs, packaged in a pot with a cardboard cover tight on the top. I don't need any more amaryllis as I have five or six ready to be repotted for reblooming. But then I spotted the one valiant, dauntless bulb, that even without soil, light,or water had still managed to produce a flower stalk which was growing sideways out from under the cardboard cover. That seemed an amazing feat to me, so I rescued it, brought it home to plant, and so begins Amaryllis Watch 2016 - 2017.

It's obviously the one on the left with the flower stalk and leaves bent at right angles, but I'm hoping that with a little TLC and sunlight, positive phototropism will work its magic and it will soon straighten out. The one on the right is one of my old bulbs that I repotted in hopes that they would provide each other with a little company and encouragement.

Sunlight has been in short supply here for the past four or five days, but now that I've rescued this amaryllis, we're both going to be looking for the light.

To ornament ...

is to embellish, enhance, enrich, and grace. These are the words that immediately came to mind when I considered today's Think Write Thursday topic of writing about my favorite holiday tradition. For me, the holiday is Christmas, and the tradition, while not terribly original, is hanging two very cherished ornaments on the tree. Many of our ornaments are special and have stories behind them, but these two always crown the tree.

I've written about my first grade teacher, Mrs. Neusch before, but I'm not sure that she knew back in 1963 that she was beginning a Christmas tradition. She put up a tree in the classroom and our homework one weekend early in December was to make an ornament for it. I remember bursting in the back door after school and telling my mother about the assignment and all the ideas I had come up with on the bus ride home. My ornament was going to be pink, with sequins, glitter, and diamonds, and be the best ornament ever.

I don't remember the actual making of the ornament at all, but it's pretty clear that it is my mother's handiwork. No first grader could blow out an egg, dye it pink, and glue on felt holly leaves, sequins, glitter, and diamonds, but my mother did. It seemed wondrous to me that she had created the ornament of my dreams, and I thought (and pretty much still do!) it was the best ornament ever. Part of the Christmas miracle of this ornament is that is has survived, uncracked and undamaged, for 53 years.

The second ornament is the one that Mrs. Neusch gave me as a gift that Christmas. She chose a different one for each of her students, and she said that this one reminded her of me because the angel had blonde hair and open arms, and was reaching for the stars.

These ornaments are important to me because they are reminders of people that loved me, listened to me, and believed in me. They are also important reminders that people are always more important than things. My own sons know how special these ornaments are to me, but I may have stressed that too much when one Christmas Ryan told Justin to be careful because I might love these ornaments more than anything. That was terrible to hear, but a perfect opportunity to hug both of them tightly and tell them that I would always love them most of all. Someday the egg will break, and all the glitter will fall off the moon, but I will always have lovely memories of loving people.

Read other Think ... Write ... Thursday! posts here, and sign up for Carole and Kat's great idea here.

G'ma

Today is my grandmother's birthday. It's an easy date for me to remember as she always joked that it was "a date which will live in infamy". I don't know what year the picture above was taken, but that is how I often think of her. A kind and gentle woman, but photos don't show that she was also independent, creative, and even rebellious if it meant doing what she believed was right.

Born in 1904, she became a schoolteacher as many women did then. She met my grandfather, but didn't let the fact that Ohio schoolteachers weren't allowed to be married in 1927 deter her. They ran away to West Virginia, got married in secret, and kept that secret for a year by living apart. I marvel at the courage it would have taken to defy her parents, society, and jeopardize a job she loved and needed. She told me, "It isn't fair that a woman should have to give up everything of herself when she marries."

I was the oldest grandchild of five, and while she always made me feel as if I was special, I think my sister and cousins would all say the same thing. Even though we lived more than 400 miles away, my grandparents came to visit us at least four times a year and we spent two weeks with them every summer. Those were glorious days when she taught me to knit, sew, crochet, garden, and cook. On walks through the woods she showed me how to identify trillium, bloodroot, and dig sassafras roots for a spring tonic. I'm not sure when we started calling her G'ma, but she loved it and it stuck.

G'ma was an excellent seamstress, sewing dresses for us for every occasion. This is my sister and me in new dresses, with our mouths and hands full of the licorice and gumdrops G'ma kept in the canister in the kitchen, just because she knew we loved them. Her sewing abilities extended to drapes and slip covers, almost always without a pattern, but fitting perfectly.

G'ma excelled at traditional "women's work", but didn't think twice about doing "men's work", too. This is the cabin that she and my grandfather built, and the outhouse that she dug a six-foot deep pit for. I wish I had a photo of the wood-burning stove inside where she cooked meals, and baked bread and cakes, after she had chopped wood for it.

Because I know how much G'ma loved me and appreciate everything she taught me, I think of her almost every day. Sometimes it's when I'm making dinner (city chicken because cubes of pork and veal on skewers used to be cheaper than chicken). Other times it's when I'm thinking about taking some half-assed shortcut and hearing G'ma's voice saying, "That's not how we do things, Bonny!" But it's always with love because I would not be the person I am without G'ma.

Decompressing

Is anyone else decompressing from NaBloPoMo? Trying to come up with a blog post every day in November caused me to start viewing everything in "blog mode". If I found myself doing anything that could even possibly provide blog fodder, I took photos, jotted down a few thoughts, and sometimes started a draft post. While going through the photos on my phone, it became clear why I never used some of these ideas.

All of the Christmas catalogs I received in just one day.

The cranberry pie I baked after cleaning out the freezer and finding six bags of frozen cranberries.

My results after Justin told me he microwaved an egg in a round Tupperware container to make a breakfast sandwich. 

Good idea, but I should have added cheese and bacon.

An odd (but interesting) heavy hunk of stainless steel that I found in the street during a walk. 

A broken-striped newt picture that Justin drew for my sister-in-law probably 15 years ago that she framed and still displays.

Yesterday I was baking cookies to send to Justin and realized while I was taking photos
 that most of you had probably made cookies before;

 I no longer had to write a post every day, and this was not a blog-worthy event.

Living in blog mode is interfering with my being present in the moment, so I'm going to decompress a bit, quit thinking about NaBloPoMo, and post when I have something worthwhile to say, while hopefully remembering to still take photos occasionally.

All right everyone, back to your knitting. 

Think ... Write ... Thursday! Hello, December

Hello, December,

You snuck up on me, just like every year. One moment it's Thanksgiving, with too much delicious food and not quite enough time with family, but as soon as I finish washing the Thanksgiving china and vacuuming the crumbs from under the table, I turn around and you are knocking at the door. Your stress-filled days of Christmas shopping, crowds, cleaning, decorating, attending work parties when I'd rather stay home and knit just wear me out. You've given me too many instances in which I desperately miss my far-away sons, and then have to pretend that I'm not sad so I don't spend our video chat time with tears in my eyes, making all of us sadder. Thoughts of what lies ahead when you whisper that this is most likely the last Christmas for several ill family members are almost too much to bear.

But ... you've also got some warm moments in your cold days. An empathetic, understanding, and pragmatic oncologist that I love and just want to hug (and I might even do that tomorrow). Cookie Day with all the women in my family is a real highlight. Enjoying the fact that Ryan is becoming a creative cook, who is able to use his chemistry and math backgrounds to come up with a delicious new quiche that I am taking to John's boss' party. Appreciating that Justin is an incredibly responsible and forward-looking young man, working long and hard towards a permanent position so he doesn't have to be an intern forever.

December, your gift of Christmas is what usually comes to my mind first when I think of you, but this year you are presenting me with something I will appreciate even more - your solstice. That day with the fewest hours of daylight reminds me that yes, there is plenty of darkness, but minute by minute, more light is returning with every new day.

So hello December, with your good and bad, light and dark, happiness and sadness, but always love.

Yours in warmth,
Bonny

Read other Think ... Write ... Thursday! posts here, and sign up for Carole and Kat's great idea here.