Post by Honeylioness on Jan 7, 2011 15:41:29 GMT -5
13 January 2011
Okay - now that I have wrapped up November, time for a December re-cap - even though December is past. Oh well, perhaps my 2011 resolution should be to keep atop this forum more often.
During the first weekend in December I had made plans to have a cookie making marathon and get made the traditional goodies so we could get them into the mail quickly - as it's going to take some time for packages to get to China and Finland.
Ines and Siying were of course eager to help and even invited some friends over to "help". So on Saturday, December 4th I had four teenagers in my kitchen, aprons on and ready to go.
One of the things I learned that afternoon was that it seems as though I am the last person in America who actually cooks and bakes from scratch. Ines had helped make cookies with her grandmother when she was younger, and Erik asked if slicing pieces off the store bought tube of dough counted.
OY.
So I showed the kids how to properly measure dry versus wet ingredients. What it meant when the recipe told you to "cream" something, why baking soda and baking powder are NOT interchangable and yes - it is really not that hard to make butter cream frosting and fudge from scratch at home. They thought these items could only be purchased in a store.
After feeding the kids pizza for lunch I had them each mix up a different color of frosting for the cut out cookies we had made and cooled. One of the said "OH, I always wondered what people used food coloring for". I also introduced them to the ziplock bag trick. You fill a small ziplock with frosting, seal the bag, cut off one bottom corner as small as you can, then press the frosting towards the opening - a quick and disposable piping bag. They set up a work space in the dining room with cookies, frosting, colored sugars and sprinkles. I set up the cd player with Christmas discs and let them have at it.
By the end of the day I had a kitchen completely coated with flour and sugar, a dining room floor crunch with sugars and sprinkles, a sore back and an entire table of cookies:
* 10 dozen chocolate chip cookies
* 6 dozen peanut butter blossoms
* 3 dozen Greek crescent cookies
* 6 dozen cut out sugar cookies - frosted and decorated
Not too bad for a day's work
**************************************************
This year was an alternate year for me to travel - by that I mean that I usually travel to Seattle every other year to spend Christmas with my parents. As such it was just myself, Ines and Siying for Christmas morning.
On Christmas Eve I prepared a nice dinner and final gifts were placed under the tree. We then went to the Episcopal Church in Chelmsford for late services. There was a hymn sing first then Christmas Mass which started a little after 10:00 pm. For me this is always one of the most moving services of the year. Especially when they dim the sanctuary lights, we pass a flame from person to person, candle to candle and sing 'Silent Night' - it makes me cry every time. The girls both said they enjoyed it - though I know Ines has mixed feelings about faith and Christianity at the moment.
The nice thing about having older kids in the house is that we no longer are all awakened at 6:00 am by a little one who can no longer contain themselves. So after getting up at a decent hour and getting our coffee/tea it was off to open gifts. Both girls seemed rather stunned at the number of presents they received as even my parents and Ruth had packages for them.
From "Mom" there were new scarves, a new shirt and a pleather jacket for each of them. From the "grand parents" - new cozy slippers. Mom also had made each girl their own cookbook with starter recipes of the dishes they like best such as Chicken Picatta, Beef Stew, Potato Leek soup, Twice Baked Potatos and Buttermilk Fried Chicken. There are plenty of blank pages as well for more recipes.
When I had mentioned to Ruth that I was creating these books she offered to get each of them some utensils - which I had also considered. So each girl got a gift bag with an apron, wooden spoon, silicone spatula, set of measuring cups, a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup, a set of measuring spoons and a steamer basket. As all the recipes I have and the girls are copying are in US measurements I thought it would be best to give them a set of tools in US measurements so they do not have to always be converting recipes into metric.
Originally the plans for dinner included inviting any serviceman/woman stations in the area to dinner as an alternative to being stuck on base on all. However the liaison at the USAF base never got back to be to either confirm or deny they needed additional families. So it was going to be just us three. Then a week before I learned my friend John V from work only had plans in the morning to visit his nephews, and no plans for dinner. So now we were four.
As it was a small number I had let the girls know I would be open to something more "special" than just ham for Christmas dinner .... such as lobsters. One of the perks of living along the Northern Atlantic seaboard is the ease of getting fresh Maine lobsters. And to make it even better - John insisted on paying for them. So I ordered four 2.5 pound lobsters for our dinner. Though even with days to go before the actual meal Ines was vehemetly stating she would NOT be present at their "execution". Even though she WOULD be eager to consume them afterwards. when I brought them home she was more than disconcerted to realize there were live critters in the refrigerator - however with the cold they were more comatose than threatening.
One of my family's traditions at Christmas is to have a Buche de Noel for dessert on Christmas Day - as a nod to my French Canadian great grandmother I suppose. Armed with my mother's recipe I began the first of several steps to make this rather impressive looking dessert. The cake was baked, rolled and left to cool on Christmas Eve and the filling was made and put into the fridge to chill. Then after presents were opened the girsl helped me assemble the Yule Log. You must unroll the cooled sponge cake, spread out the filling, roll it back up, trim to resemble a log then with a dark chocolate mixture cover the cake and make striations to resemble a log in the forest. This illusion is complete when you add sprigs of pine and meringue mushrooms (made the day before) to the serving platter. Not only does it look very impressive it tastes pretty great as well.
Now came the time for the lobsters to take their bath. And to my surprise Ines was in the kitchen to watch the first one go into the pot head first. 20 minutes later and we were sitting down to eat: A lobster per person, clarified butter with lemon juice, steamed asparagus and a nice loaf of bread. The girl's faces were pretty funny when they realized they EACH got their own lobster - and these monsters pretty much took up the entire dinner plate.
**********************************************************
On New Year's Eve Siying, Ines, her friend Ritika and myself went down into Boston for the afternoon. The city holds one of the oldest and largest First Night celebrations in the country. This includes the transformation of the Frog Pond from a wading location to an ice rink - complete with it's own Zamboni that regularly cleans the ice.
While waiting in line I left the girls for a quick foray over to a food vendor and came back with a very American treat .... and something neither of my girls had ever tried .... Elephant Ears, also known as Fried Dough in the Northeast. A snack with no redeeming nutritional value at all - but after their first nibble they were hooked and the three teenagers devoured the majority of two I brought back.
Finally we had made it to the front of the line and the admission counter. Ritika had half heartedly tried to make a case that she was so bad at this she should sit on the sidelines and just wait for us - however on the sly Ines had mentioned that money for R was more than tight - so I paid for her entrance and skate rental fees.
Now - I have not been on ice skates for over 20 years .... and now I remember why. I did my first circuit of the rink - which somehow grew by 10 times once I was on the ice - pulling myself along on the boards. Poor Siying was even more challenged as she had never even worn skates before and was trying to "walk" on the ice - which was proving less than successful.
Meanwhile our resident Finn was gliding and circling as with no problem at all - even showing off a bit and going backwards. And when she found me almost at the end of my first rotation she was laughing hard - "Finally" she pointed out "There is something I do better than you!" This idea really seemed to please her out of all proportion! But I must admit I most likely looked incredibly like a duck out of water on the slick surface.
I took a pause and re-tied my skates - much better. They had been too loose before - and I took to the rink again. Almost down with my second go-round I was beginning to remember how to do this ... by the third I was able to take several gliding pushes at a time without falling flat on my arse. However the muscles in my lower legs were less impressed with my progress OR my participation in this activity.
After sitting down for a while and enjoying watching the girls help each other we were ready to head off to the next thing. I was so pleased to see Ines taking the initiative to help both Siying and Ritika, separately and together, in getting a feel for the rink. She would take each one out towards the middle, hold their hands and skate backwards while towing them along.
But now we headed South and West towards Copley Square - one of the ice sculpture sites and where the Grand Procession would start. To get there we cut through Boston Garden which was strung with white lights, over the Lagoon where the Swan Boats reign during the summer and then down Newbury Street - the most famous, and expensive, shopping street in Massachusetts. It is our Rodeo Drive. The girls liked peering into windows and exclaiming over design houses they knew but could never afford.
After wandering around a bit looking at both the sculptures and the people (always interesting to be sure) we meandered down Boylston Street and found a view spot raised a bit above the street in a small patch of raised lawn in front of a church. While the parade started late it was cool to see the different local groups and costumes.
We then made our way back through the Public Gardens and down into the T where a train quickly took us back North to where we had parked the car. Then back to Lowell and dinner.
Siying did not quite believe me when I had told her that the New Year's Eve tradition here in New England is to eat Chinese food. However as we passed several restaurants with full parking lots and a constant flow of people in and out she began to catch on. We headed to a local buffet style place which is only about half full on a normal busy night - this evening it was packed.
Once we got home and all snuggled into our jammies ... Ines gave up the ghost and was in bed around 10:00 pm. Siying did manage to stay up and we watched the mob in Times Square as well as the fireworks over Boston Harbor in a live telecast. And shared a bit of champagne ... after all ... it was New Years.
Okay - now that I have wrapped up November, time for a December re-cap - even though December is past. Oh well, perhaps my 2011 resolution should be to keep atop this forum more often.
During the first weekend in December I had made plans to have a cookie making marathon and get made the traditional goodies so we could get them into the mail quickly - as it's going to take some time for packages to get to China and Finland.
Ines and Siying were of course eager to help and even invited some friends over to "help". So on Saturday, December 4th I had four teenagers in my kitchen, aprons on and ready to go.
One of the things I learned that afternoon was that it seems as though I am the last person in America who actually cooks and bakes from scratch. Ines had helped make cookies with her grandmother when she was younger, and Erik asked if slicing pieces off the store bought tube of dough counted.
OY.
So I showed the kids how to properly measure dry versus wet ingredients. What it meant when the recipe told you to "cream" something, why baking soda and baking powder are NOT interchangable and yes - it is really not that hard to make butter cream frosting and fudge from scratch at home. They thought these items could only be purchased in a store.
After feeding the kids pizza for lunch I had them each mix up a different color of frosting for the cut out cookies we had made and cooled. One of the said "OH, I always wondered what people used food coloring for". I also introduced them to the ziplock bag trick. You fill a small ziplock with frosting, seal the bag, cut off one bottom corner as small as you can, then press the frosting towards the opening - a quick and disposable piping bag. They set up a work space in the dining room with cookies, frosting, colored sugars and sprinkles. I set up the cd player with Christmas discs and let them have at it.
By the end of the day I had a kitchen completely coated with flour and sugar, a dining room floor crunch with sugars and sprinkles, a sore back and an entire table of cookies:
* 10 dozen chocolate chip cookies
* 6 dozen peanut butter blossoms
* 3 dozen Greek crescent cookies
* 6 dozen cut out sugar cookies - frosted and decorated
Not too bad for a day's work
**************************************************
This year was an alternate year for me to travel - by that I mean that I usually travel to Seattle every other year to spend Christmas with my parents. As such it was just myself, Ines and Siying for Christmas morning.
On Christmas Eve I prepared a nice dinner and final gifts were placed under the tree. We then went to the Episcopal Church in Chelmsford for late services. There was a hymn sing first then Christmas Mass which started a little after 10:00 pm. For me this is always one of the most moving services of the year. Especially when they dim the sanctuary lights, we pass a flame from person to person, candle to candle and sing 'Silent Night' - it makes me cry every time. The girls both said they enjoyed it - though I know Ines has mixed feelings about faith and Christianity at the moment.
The nice thing about having older kids in the house is that we no longer are all awakened at 6:00 am by a little one who can no longer contain themselves. So after getting up at a decent hour and getting our coffee/tea it was off to open gifts. Both girls seemed rather stunned at the number of presents they received as even my parents and Ruth had packages for them.
From "Mom" there were new scarves, a new shirt and a pleather jacket for each of them. From the "grand parents" - new cozy slippers. Mom also had made each girl their own cookbook with starter recipes of the dishes they like best such as Chicken Picatta, Beef Stew, Potato Leek soup, Twice Baked Potatos and Buttermilk Fried Chicken. There are plenty of blank pages as well for more recipes.
When I had mentioned to Ruth that I was creating these books she offered to get each of them some utensils - which I had also considered. So each girl got a gift bag with an apron, wooden spoon, silicone spatula, set of measuring cups, a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup, a set of measuring spoons and a steamer basket. As all the recipes I have and the girls are copying are in US measurements I thought it would be best to give them a set of tools in US measurements so they do not have to always be converting recipes into metric.
Originally the plans for dinner included inviting any serviceman/woman stations in the area to dinner as an alternative to being stuck on base on all. However the liaison at the USAF base never got back to be to either confirm or deny they needed additional families. So it was going to be just us three. Then a week before I learned my friend John V from work only had plans in the morning to visit his nephews, and no plans for dinner. So now we were four.
As it was a small number I had let the girls know I would be open to something more "special" than just ham for Christmas dinner .... such as lobsters. One of the perks of living along the Northern Atlantic seaboard is the ease of getting fresh Maine lobsters. And to make it even better - John insisted on paying for them. So I ordered four 2.5 pound lobsters for our dinner. Though even with days to go before the actual meal Ines was vehemetly stating she would NOT be present at their "execution". Even though she WOULD be eager to consume them afterwards. when I brought them home she was more than disconcerted to realize there were live critters in the refrigerator - however with the cold they were more comatose than threatening.
One of my family's traditions at Christmas is to have a Buche de Noel for dessert on Christmas Day - as a nod to my French Canadian great grandmother I suppose. Armed with my mother's recipe I began the first of several steps to make this rather impressive looking dessert. The cake was baked, rolled and left to cool on Christmas Eve and the filling was made and put into the fridge to chill. Then after presents were opened the girsl helped me assemble the Yule Log. You must unroll the cooled sponge cake, spread out the filling, roll it back up, trim to resemble a log then with a dark chocolate mixture cover the cake and make striations to resemble a log in the forest. This illusion is complete when you add sprigs of pine and meringue mushrooms (made the day before) to the serving platter. Not only does it look very impressive it tastes pretty great as well.
Now came the time for the lobsters to take their bath. And to my surprise Ines was in the kitchen to watch the first one go into the pot head first. 20 minutes later and we were sitting down to eat: A lobster per person, clarified butter with lemon juice, steamed asparagus and a nice loaf of bread. The girl's faces were pretty funny when they realized they EACH got their own lobster - and these monsters pretty much took up the entire dinner plate.
**********************************************************
On New Year's Eve Siying, Ines, her friend Ritika and myself went down into Boston for the afternoon. The city holds one of the oldest and largest First Night celebrations in the country. This includes the transformation of the Frog Pond from a wading location to an ice rink - complete with it's own Zamboni that regularly cleans the ice.
While waiting in line I left the girls for a quick foray over to a food vendor and came back with a very American treat .... and something neither of my girls had ever tried .... Elephant Ears, also known as Fried Dough in the Northeast. A snack with no redeeming nutritional value at all - but after their first nibble they were hooked and the three teenagers devoured the majority of two I brought back.
Finally we had made it to the front of the line and the admission counter. Ritika had half heartedly tried to make a case that she was so bad at this she should sit on the sidelines and just wait for us - however on the sly Ines had mentioned that money for R was more than tight - so I paid for her entrance and skate rental fees.
Now - I have not been on ice skates for over 20 years .... and now I remember why. I did my first circuit of the rink - which somehow grew by 10 times once I was on the ice - pulling myself along on the boards. Poor Siying was even more challenged as she had never even worn skates before and was trying to "walk" on the ice - which was proving less than successful.
Meanwhile our resident Finn was gliding and circling as with no problem at all - even showing off a bit and going backwards. And when she found me almost at the end of my first rotation she was laughing hard - "Finally" she pointed out "There is something I do better than you!" This idea really seemed to please her out of all proportion! But I must admit I most likely looked incredibly like a duck out of water on the slick surface.
I took a pause and re-tied my skates - much better. They had been too loose before - and I took to the rink again. Almost down with my second go-round I was beginning to remember how to do this ... by the third I was able to take several gliding pushes at a time without falling flat on my arse. However the muscles in my lower legs were less impressed with my progress OR my participation in this activity.
After sitting down for a while and enjoying watching the girls help each other we were ready to head off to the next thing. I was so pleased to see Ines taking the initiative to help both Siying and Ritika, separately and together, in getting a feel for the rink. She would take each one out towards the middle, hold their hands and skate backwards while towing them along.
But now we headed South and West towards Copley Square - one of the ice sculpture sites and where the Grand Procession would start. To get there we cut through Boston Garden which was strung with white lights, over the Lagoon where the Swan Boats reign during the summer and then down Newbury Street - the most famous, and expensive, shopping street in Massachusetts. It is our Rodeo Drive. The girls liked peering into windows and exclaiming over design houses they knew but could never afford.
After wandering around a bit looking at both the sculptures and the people (always interesting to be sure) we meandered down Boylston Street and found a view spot raised a bit above the street in a small patch of raised lawn in front of a church. While the parade started late it was cool to see the different local groups and costumes.
We then made our way back through the Public Gardens and down into the T where a train quickly took us back North to where we had parked the car. Then back to Lowell and dinner.
Siying did not quite believe me when I had told her that the New Year's Eve tradition here in New England is to eat Chinese food. However as we passed several restaurants with full parking lots and a constant flow of people in and out she began to catch on. We headed to a local buffet style place which is only about half full on a normal busy night - this evening it was packed.
Once we got home and all snuggled into our jammies ... Ines gave up the ghost and was in bed around 10:00 pm. Siying did manage to stay up and we watched the mob in Times Square as well as the fireworks over Boston Harbor in a live telecast. And shared a bit of champagne ... after all ... it was New Years.