Less than a month between
Thanksgiving and Christmas, the holiday season was over in a flash. Still in
the moving mode, we didn’t decorate for the holidays and didn’t even enjoy our usual month of Christmas music. No Tree. No Music (very little, that is). No Wonder
we never got into the spirit of Christmas this past year. In spite of that, we
did have several memorable experiences. For starters, Maria spent the
equivalent of a month with us beginning in November through the first of the
year. Ruben spent that same time period working shipyard on the fishing boat he
and Maria work on during the year with the balance of the time spent in Mexico
on a hunting trip and later at a family reunion. Maria and I spent our time
working on quilting projects at the cabin. A few of the projects were started
years ago (commonly known as UFOs to quilters) and all but forgotten. I quilted
one of Maria’s tops she had absolutely no recollection of making. It now hangs
on a wall in her bedroom to enjoy every morning (half of the year, anyway) when
she wakes up. We did get sidetracked on a new project called a Leaf Topper.
It’s so cute and so much fun to make that we set aside the UFOs and made a
couple of dozen of the toppers. What fun!
We started a new holiday tradition
this year. For years I’ve admired our friend’s Amaryllis (a large flowering
bulb that is dormant throughout the year until it blooms in the fall to late
winter). Cece buys the bulb each year from the local nursery or as she did this
past year, Walmart, and starts it so that it flowers over the holidays. We
visited her mid-November and hers was close to blooming. Our first stop after
leaving Cece was to buy three Amaryllis bulbs at Walmart, one for us and each
of the girls. For over a month the girls and I shared not just our daily cat
stories, but also the wonderment of our Amaryllis bulbs. Once the bulb was
watered and started growing, it literally grew an inch a day. Jana’s hearty plant,
pictured below, was the first to flower. It grew so fast and became so
top-heavy that before it’s second flower could fully open it tipped over and
broke. Sad. Ours bloomed shortly before Christmas providing us with a beautiful
centerpiece for much of December and Lauren’s, stunted from a mishap on our
Thanksgiving trip to visit her, is just now blooming. It didn’t grow leaves but
put all its energy into a single flower.
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| Jandy's Amaryllis |
We spent Christmas Eve Eve entertaining
special guests, our young friend Ted and his wife. Yes, wife! We have known Ted
for about twenty years now. I first met him when he gave Jana a ride home from
school when the battery died in her car. I was fixing dinner when they arrived
and invited him to eat with us. I remember two things about 18 year old Ted…he
was not bashful and he had a hearty appetite. Shortly after that Ted started
working for us doing all sorts of odd jobs and he continued to work for us
until he graduated from college and found less taxing employment.
Unfortunately, that was in SoCal and our time together became limited. We still
enjoy the occasional visit when Ted returns to Amador County to see family and I’ve
stayed in touch with him on Instagram for several years now. I began to see the
occasional picture of Flor a few years ago with more and more photos of Ted’s
beautiful friend and soulmate posted this past summer. So, it was not a
surprise when Ted announced last Fall their plans to marry. It was a delight to
spend an evening with Ted and get to know Flor.
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| Ted and Flor with their dogs, Piper and Olive |
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| Christmas Eve at Ruth's Chris |
Christmas day was probably the most relaxing I’ve had since becoming an adult, when all responsibility for the special dinner fell on my shoulders. A big thank you to Jana and Andy for a wonderful meal beginning with white truffles (known as the diamond of the kitchen) shaved and served on a delicious toasted whole grain bread they brought from the Grand Central Market and soft cooked eggs. It was my first experience with truffles and one I won’t forget. Two days before their trip North, Jandy attended Truffle Day in Los Angeles to buy the fresh wild truffles, harvested in Northwestern Italy and overnight flown to LA for the event. Interestingly, truffles grow underground near specific trees and are harvested between September and December with the help of female pigs, or more recently truffle dogs, to identify their location. About the size of a walnut, irregular shaped and warty, they are one of the most prized and expensive food in the world. It was an amazing Christmas experience. These incredible appetizers were followed with homemade fresh pasta topped with a delicious sauce made from San Marzano tomatoes. I’d heard a lot about San Marzano tomatoes having taken cooking classes at Home Chef twenty years ago as well as several online cooking classes from great chefs like Thomas Keller. I’ve never found them locally, so we’ve stuck to the next best thing, Roma’s from Davis Ranch that are tossed with balsamic vinegar and roasted until caramelized. Not bad. I understand now why Jandy’s go-to dinner when entertaining is homemade pasta with this delicious red sauce. It is impressive and delicious. It was so good we had it again on the following day. Kudos to our two young home chefs.
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| Andy processing the balls of pasta dough using the KitchenAid spaghetti attachment |
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| Lauren making a childhood favorite dessert |
I met the challenge of gifts that
must fit in a Christmas stocking with a genius idea. To test just how “genius”
it was to be, I ordered it for myself back in October. A microgreen kit. I’ve
been so anxious to write about it, but of course I couldn’t without spoiling
the girls’ surprise. I often say I hate cookies…not the edible kind, but the
kind on the computer that accumulate data about a person’s likes and dislikes
based on search history. It really is an invasion of privacy, but every now and
then it yields very good results. Both girls have a bit of my green thumb and
enjoy plants. What can be better than the edible kind of plant? I must have previously searched on things like edible gardening, hydroponics, and the like, because
one day in October up popped a website called Hamama, offering their indoor
microgreen system using “seed quilts” (patent pending) and water. It’s a grow
your own nutritious (several times more than the fully adult version of the veggie)
microgreens on a window ledge. Possibly a perfect gift for the girls. To be
sure, I had to test it. I ordered one, planted my seed quilt the day it
arrived, and ten days later we were eating zesty mixed microgreens. It was
definitely a winner. The perfect gift that keeps on giving throughout the year.
It’s mid-January as I’m writing this and I can assure you both girls are
growing and eating their microgreens. I ask daily...Have you had your microgreens today? And Verne and I are still growing and
eating ours. A healthy and satisfying start to a new year.
Speaking of a new year, we drove Lauren home after Christmas and spent over a week with her acclimating to Oregon. It’s taken a while, but the last few days of our visit Verne was actually successful navigating the Beaverton area without relying on our Nav system. It’s been a challenge as the streets all go at odd angles and they change names regularly. In a matter of a few miles, one of the streets near Lauren’s home changed names three times. Yikes! Anyway, by the time we were ready to drive home (to Volcano), we were beginning to feel like we were already home (in Portland). That’s a good sign as we are determined to make the move in 2020.
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| Lunch at Andre's...the Best sandwich made with the Best Dutch Crunch rolls with a side of the Best potato salad ever |
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| Hiding the unsightly media cords |
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| Big job, small hands required |
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| Ruben and Verne wearing matching sweaters from Norway |
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| Verne (still wearing his most favorite sweater) sitting in Starbucks entertaining himself with his iPad (I like how our reflections are superimposed over him... ALWAYS WATCHING! |
