Count down to Christmas

Couchwood dining room buffet & secretary, Christmas 2011

by Pat Laster

 

                By the time this is posted, it will be almost too late to think about getting the house clean and decorated, the molasses balls mixed, mashed and cooked, the mincemeat pie baked, the gifts wrapped, and still have enough holiday joy left (or restored) to welcome the folks from Florida. Or from wherever your relatives live.

                A week ago Thursday, my house was a mess. (Wasn’t everyone’s?) Boxes brought down from the attic held ornaments, Santa Clauses—one with a sleigh and a lone deer from the old, old set of three– plastic icicles from the Paulus grandmother and plastic-circles-with-Christmas-figures-inside from the Couch grandmother.

                By Sunday night after the morning choir service of Lessons and Carols and the church’s evening Family Night (Sights and Sounds of Christmas), my molasses ball ingredients still sat on the countertop. The dry ingredients had been sifted three day ago and covered.    

                Our tree this year is not the expensive (at the time) pre-lit job. That one's still in the attic where I hauled it last year after grandson Billy broke it into its three components so I could manhandle them up the stairs after he’d gone back to HSU.

                No, this year, the “tree” will be my late mother’s 6-foot tall Norfolk Pine that has miraculously stayed alive. Never mind that several branches fell off as I was shaking it before deciding whether to use it. Oh, what the heck, I might as well be different this year. Give the family something to talk about and visit over.

              To begin, I spiral-wrapped the three major stalks with silver tinsel. Then, selecting weightless ornaments, I hung them from the branches. Cutting red tinsel into 9-in strips, I draped them over the tallest limbs (a kitchen stepstool was required).

              No lights, of course, but I directed a high-intensity desk lamp upward and it helped. If any more branches should fall before Christmas, I might be left with a large Charlie Brown tree. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

             On Monday morning, the molasses-ball stuff still sat on the countertop. But I had other fish to fry. I’d “dressed” the dining table but not the buffet and the two china cabinets. So that morning, I kept saying aloud, “Dining Room,” when I’d want to stop for a different project. As I write, the buffet is done as are the two china cabinets--one in reds and the other in blues. And, the molasses balls after baking turned into cookies.

             Gifts are yet in the bedroom closet—or unbought. But I know what I’m looking for and where to find them. One luncheon date today (Wednesday--I received another invitation for the same date but declined) is all that’s on the week’s schedule. That is, until family from Florida arrives Friday.

          Attending holiday programs of the Arkansas Chamber Singers, the Horace Mann Arts and Science Magnet School, the Hendrix College choir, and singing in a church choir presentation of Lessons and Carols infused many with as true a meaning of the season as is possible, given the horrible massacre in Connecticut.
                May the God of love and peace be with us every one this Christmas. Amen and amen.
c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press, Benton AR

Times spent in the kitchen: variation and near fiasco

by Pat Laster

 

                In a recent post, I said I didn’t spend much time in the kitchen. Meaning, I don’t ordinarily cook. But one day, I did, and it turned out swell [Slang: excellent]. 

          I needed a dessert for a family dinner I was hosting in a week or so. Frozen pear sauce (with peelings) from last year’s early crop lay in the chest freezer. [Advice to self: if you do this again, put the hard little knobs through the sausage grinder.] I thought: look for a recipe for applesauce cake; it should be the same thing, right?

                From a Piggott United Methodist Church cookbook, I found one. Since I already had ingredients similar to those in the recipe, I thought again: what about substituting what’s already in my pantry/fridge. I set all the needed supplies except eggs out on the countertop thinking I would cook either early morning or late night. I did neither. For a week or so, those things took up habitation.

                But on a day when the temps were supposed to be MUCH cooler, the spirit finally moved and I got busy.

                I turned the oven to 350 degrees, then greased and floured a glass 9 x 13 inch glass dish instead of a bundt pan, per the recipe. I had one, but I didn’t want to use it.

                In place of “one box French vanilla cake mix,” I used what I had: a Betty Crocker white cake mix, expiration date, August 2012.

                In lieu of “one package French vanilla pudding mix,” I used a plain old vanilla, store brand box.

                The four eggs were a no-brainer. Nor the one-third cup vegetable oil.

                Instead of “one cup raisins” I used one cup of mixed dried fruits—cranberries, yellow and dark raisins.

                Rather than “one cup chopped pecans,” I used one cup sunflower kernels. Cinnamon and nutmeg amounts remained the same.

                Instead of “one cup applesauce,” a cup of pear sauce.

                I beat the eggs together first with a whisk, then added and “blend[ed] all the ingredients.” With the same whisk—no getting out the hand beater and counting three minutes as some recipes say to do.

                Voila! A perfect cake using similar ingredients. Now, if I can keep from eating it before company comes.

             Do you suppose I could copyright the recipe?

                Oh, and now, the new crop of pears is coming on, er, down. Just today, I gathered a bailed bucket of windfall or weightfall or too-crowded-I’m-getting-outta-the-way-fall. This is the second batch I’ve brought in.

                The first batch of small green pears, I cored and gouged out the rot, dropped them into water sprinkled with Fruit Fresh. I would cook them with the peelings, and then rice them into smooth pear sauce. In my aluminum kettle, I dumped the fruit, added sugars, both brown and white, a dash or two of salt, and a dash or three of cinnamon. Put the heat at 5/10 [medium?] and went off to the computer.

                Soon, I smelled something. I ran into the kitchen and turned the fire off before grabbing a hot pad to the metal handle of the lid. The fruit was prettily glazed and sitting in a little floor of honey-textured syrup. Well, a little thicker than honey, to be truthful. No need to rice these skins. They are as tender as the pears.

                Maybe I’d better stay out of the kitchen after all.

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press