Posted by Anne

A Life in Pencil strawberry tart...created the weekend Elizabeth and I planned to start our blog.

If you’ve read this blog for very long, you’ve probably deduced that both Elizabeth and I are avid cooks.  We tinker in the kitchen, swap recipes, and drool over food blogs.  When Elizabeth visited me last summer, we spent a chipper afternoon in my teeny kitchen, creating a strawberry tart from farm-fresh Northwestern berries.  I left the custard up to Liz, knowing she’d manage just fine, while I rolled out a crust and eased it into the tart pan.  We cook.  I’d like to humbly (or not-so-humbly?) submit that we both cook pretty well.  And we cook from scratch.

From Scratch. I wonder about this phrase.  There’s value in this phrase…and pride.  It’s the barometer for “real cooking.”  Go to a party bearing a homemade pie or batch of zucchini bread, and you just might be asked, “Did you make this from scratch?”  99% of the time, my answer is “yes”.  And part of the reason I cook from scratch is because it’s simply what I know…it runs in the family.  One need look no further than my sister or mother.  My mother is notorious for only buying the makings of a tasty meal.  I had a friend in high school—he’d enter our kitchen, open the fridge, and groan.  “Don’t you have any food?” This was always odd to me, since my Mom’s fridge is generally stuffed to the gills with…food. When I’d point this out, my friend would reply, “No, I mean SNACKS.  You always have very fine looking ingredients with which someone might make something.  But that’s not the same.” And my Mom has passed this on.  I can confidently say Elizabeth is the same—her culinary gifts were handed down by her equally gifted mother, and then honed to a talent by her own curiosity.

But there’s another reason I cook from scratch—beyond the influence of my mother. I love the process.  I love starting with a few raw ingredients, and crafting them into a whole.  I love beginning—pulling bottles of spices from my cabinet, and veggies from the drawers of my fridge.  I love stirring, whisking, and wondering how the finished product will look and taste.  And despite my love of lists, I often find myself tampering with recipes, or ditching them altogether.  Cooking—from scratch—is part of my routine, and my life.

My cookbook shelf. (Or at least one of them...)

From scratch. It’s an integral part of my culinary self, but I’m afraid it ends there.  If there’s one thing I avoid in my life, it’s starting over again…from scratch.  It’s puzzling to me, because I have the ingredients to start from scratch.  I am resilient.  I can even be tough.  I’m an extrovert who loves meeting new people.  And at times, I’m even creative.  The raw material is there.  But new beginnings still exhaust me—making me wish for the brownie-mix version of a head start when it comes to planting myself in a new situation, new job, new community, or new life.

We often need to start from scratch.  For good reasons and difficult reasons.  Marriage.  Divorce.  Loss.  Birth.  We need to know how to start over, and use the gifts (ingredients) we’ve inherited and developed.  We need to know how to blend them together, into a new and satisfying version of ourselves.  We need to adapt to change.

If only it was easier.  Like baking a cake…from scratch.

How about you?  Are you better at working from scratch when it comes to your life, or your kitchen?

Posted by Elizabeth

I am on a plane back to Albuquerque today, left pondering the events of the past week of my Christmas in Mexico.  But the things that stand out to me aren’t events at all.  They are moments – simple moments, that have been forever etched into my mind.

One night we played poker with my mother-in-law, Cecilia’s, poker buddies, a group of women from all corners of the globe who come together to drink tequila, eat good food, and take one another for a few pesos every Thursday.  Cecilia’s friend, Pilar, told me, “Jueves son sagrados.”  Thursdays are sacred.  I had never played poker, nevertheless a game conducted in Spanish, and I was nervous.  Nervous to be out of my comfort zone.  Nervous to be out of control. But I soon learned the names of the different cards, how to pass, how to call, how to raise, and how to begin having fun. Regardless of barriers of age and language, we were soon a well-oiled machine in sync, collectively ooing when the right combination of cards was placed on the table, and sighing in disappointment when they weren’t.  My dad, who speaks very little Spanish, was soon raking in the chips and sharing telling glances with me to help my game along.  I squealed and clapped my hands when I won my first round, and when we settled our bets at the end of the night I came out money ahead, and wondered what I had been so nervous about in the first place.  Years from now, I’m not sure I’ll remember how many rounds I won, but I think I’ll remember a night where everyone had an equally good time.

A few nights later, Cecilia and I took over the kitchen to prepare classic American dishes for a very Mexican Christmas.  Cooking has never been an activity that we’ve shared, and we’d never spent so many hours in the kitchen together.  But we successfully bobbed and weaved our way through her tiny kitchen, finding ourselves clueless in the middle of making marshmallows, furiously spreading the quickly-cooling confection on a greasy cookie sheet, while strings of white sugar spun around us.  Halfway through our cooking extravaganza, when Maikael and my dad went out to run an errand, she paused and took out a bottle of Bailey’s from the pantry.  “You want some?” she asked.  I’d never had Bailey’s, but I found myself quickly accepting.  With the heavy, milky liquid swimming around the ice cubes, we silently clinked our glasses together and shared a quiet moment, pausing just for a moment in the eye of the storm.  Years from now, I’m not sure that I’ll remember what we made that night, but I think I’ll remember the sound the ice cubes made as they swirled around the glass.

Maikael and my dad, Senor Fogonero

On Christmas Eve we made our way over to Pilar’s house, where we were amongst the first guests to arrive.  Someone was trying – unsuccessfully – to get a fire started, and before he knew it, my dad was suckered into keeping the fire going all night.  He hopped up every so often to tend to the fire, poking gingerly at the simmering logs and politely declining the suggestions to use candles and canola oil to keep it going.  By the end of the night, he was officially known as Senor Fogonero, the man who shovels coal into a steam-powered locomotive.  Years from now, I’m not sure I’ll remember who was at that party, but I think I’ll remember that, for a brief moment in time, my dad was The King of the Fire.

Later that evening we made our way downstairs to Pilar’s driveway, where a Nativity scene draped in psychedelic flashing lights stood.  The party gathered in a semicircle around the manger, our coats gathered tightly around us, nimbly holding oversized candles.  Pilar’s granddaughters each held a side of a scarf, where baby Jesus was carefully placed between the two corners.  Then, they began gently rocking him as the group started singing Las Posadas. We didn’t know the words, but we peered at the lyrics over someone’s shoulder, humming along, the soft glow of the candlelight illuminating our faces.  Before he was placed in the manger, Pilar passed around the figurine of baby Jesus, and we each kissed him.  Years from now, I’m not sure I’ll remember the words to the song, but I think I’ll remember huddling in the cold and, for a fleeting moment, truly experiencing the spirit of the holidays.

Senora Claus

We went upstairs for dinner at 11 pm, a multicourse affair with a steaming terrine of potato leek soup, that famous salted cod dish, pork loin dusted with chile powder, pork loin baked with white wine and dried fruits, and a true buffet of desserts, from rum cake to German stolen.  We laughed and ate and talked, covering topics as diverse as bad jokes and the persistent drug problems that plague Mexico.  Just before dinner was served, Pilar’s granddaughter, Natalia, shimmied her way out of the bedroom in a Santa Claus sleeper.  “Senora Claus is here!” someone shouted, before Natalia ate a piece of grasshopper pie and promptly fell asleep on the couch, her red suit peeking out from underneath the blanket.  Years from now, I’m not sure I’ll remember everything we ate that night, but I think I’ll remember the feeling of being warmly brought into the fold as a foreigner on Christmas Eve.

Life is a series of moments.  And yet, these moments are alarmingly fleeting:  they are so easy to pass by that we often forget them before we even have a chance to remember.  It’s a bit like lucid dreaming, where we must train ourselves to memorize these moments while they’re happening, without trying so hard that we’re pulled out of the moment altogether.  This is a delicate balance, and our difficulty in achieving this balance might explain why we insist on treating life as a series of events, even when we know that it’s the moments that matter most:  the crash and bang of events is simply easier to inscribe on our memories than the whisper of moments.  But it’s those whispers that have the most to teach about better living a life in pencil: lessons about losing control, being quiet, having a small but special place in the world, shifting our focus away from “things,” and being made to feel a part of something.  Although the lessons are quiet, they resound louder than most events ever will.

What small, but special, moments will you hold near and dear to your heart from this holiday season?

Today we continue our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, we will share what it means to celebrate the holidays — Life in Pencil style.

Posted by Elizabeth

Christmas Eve in Mexico is so different than the December 24ths of my childhood.  There were never any hard and fast traditions growing up; rather, each phase of life offered a different touchstone.  When I was very young we spent the evening with my dad’s family, opening gifts in my grandparents’ musty basement, passing through a curtain of vintage beads to get to the Christmas tree.  On those evenings, my dad would point to the blinking lights in the sky – my grandparents lived directly in the flight path of the nearby airport – and would wonder aloud if Rudolph was one of them.  When I got a little older, Christmas Eve was spent at my aunt and uncle’s house, which always boasted – and still does – an enormous tree with outdoor lights slung to and fro on the branches.  There we maintained the Christmas tradition of English crackers, popping the tissue-wrapped cylinder open in a noisy flourish to reveal a paper crown, a charm, and a really terrible joke that no one was smart enough to decipher.   And when I got older still, we fled the suburbs to the comforts of the city, taking in A Christmas Carol at one of the downtown theatres, until my mom decided she couldn’t take one more year of Scrooge.   In those years, I remember dreamy driving tours of West Seattle’s grandest homes, boasting magnificent light displays, and ending the evening over flaky fish and chips at Spud’s – the only fish and chips I’d eat.  Every year was different and, unlike some families who open gifts or go to evening church services, the 24^th always played second fiddle to the main event the next day.

The streets of San Miguel de Allende on Christmas Eve, 2007

In Mexico, Christmas Eve is called Nochebuena; literally, “good night,” a term I’ve always been fond of.  In Mexico, Christmas Eve isn’t just a big deal; it’s the main event.  And when we celebrate tonight, we’ll be following in the footsteps of the generations who have passed before us, because December 24 in Mexico is soaked in ritual and tradition.  First, there will be a posada. In the nine days leading up to Nochebuena, communities throughout Mexico gather to reenact the Holy Family’s search for lodging in Bethlehem.  While public posadas are held, we’re lucky enough to have been invited to a private posada at Pilar’s house, a friend of my mother-in-law’s.  Here, the room will be divided into two groups, each engaging in a “call and response” song, one group asking and the other group denying, over and over again, a room at the inn.  Finally, the Holy Family is granted permission, everyone is joyous, and ponche, a spicy holiday beverage, is served.  I do not know the song Las Posadas, I have absolutely no idea how this will go, but I’m okay with the ambiguity, safe in the arms of tradition.

The last Christmas feast in Mexico did not involve salted cod...which is why I undoubtedly have a big smile on my face.

Afterwards, we’ll eat a traditional Nochebuena feast, the centerpiece a dried salted cod called bacalao, an unfortunate import from Spain.  I can’t say that I’m thrilled about supping on dried salted cod — I would prefer a sweet honey-glazed ham – but I will cheerily eat the cod because I know that, across Mexico, everyone will be sitting down to a version of the same meal, and sometimes it’s more important to be part of something bigger than oneself than to be gastronomically satisfied.

A real nacimiento. You'll notice that "el diablo" is always lurking somewhere in the scene.

At some point during the evening, Baby Jesus will be placed in the household nacimiento, or Nativity.  In Mexico, a Nativity scene – not a Christmas tree – created from clay or plaster figurines, heno (Spanish moss), and other natural elements, is the centerpiece of holiday decorating.  Entire market stalls are devoted to nacimiento supplies, and individual displays can be quite elaborate, ranging from tabletop displays to room-sized affairs.  Jesus’s crib is left empty until Nochebuena, when he is carefully placed in the bed of straw.  In San Miguel de Allende, the community nacimiento fills the central plaza, and when people exit midnight mass from the grand cathedral, a tangled nest of pink spires, they emerge to find Jesus in the manger surrounded by a menagerie of live animals.

In San Miguel's live Nativity!

Christmas Eve lasts well into the wee hours of Christmas morning, the solemnity of what is truly a religious holiday punctuated by celebration.  And it is this tension that makes Christmas in Mexico so dynamic, the hoards of church-goers mingling with bursts of fireworks, posada songs with live burros, nacimientos with roving bands of barking dogs.  The last time we were in Mexico, I don’t remember sleeping a great deal on Christmas Eve, and when I finally drifted off, the roosters began crowing.  It is not a quiet affair, but it is an oddly peaceful one, not defined by gift-giving — which doesn’t happen until Epiphany, in January — but by tradition.

Although I don’t know for sure, I suspect there isn’t a lot of the “doing your own thing” that characterized the Christmas Eves of my youth.  We talk a great deal in our culture about creating our own memories and traditions, and I think that’s important – sometimes for our sanity, if nothing else.  But I think there’s also something to be said for embracing ritual, taking part in the way things have always been done.  Maybe it’s because I don’t have any Christmas traditions that have carried me through the entirety of my life.  Maybe it’s because I wish Christmas Eve represented something more, something magical. Maybe, even in Mexico, that isn’t a realistic thing to wish for.  Maybe I’m being sappy and sentimental and completely unreasonable.  But it’s Christmas, right?  If there’s a time to be sappy and sentimental and unreasonable, it’s today, the good night.

However you spend your Nochebuena, I hope it is a “good night.”  Feliz Navidad!

Today we continue our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, we will share what it means to celebrate the holidays — Life in Pencil style.

Posted by Elizabeth

Old Town, Albuquerque

This past weekend was what I affectionately dubbed “My Crazy Holiday Weekend,” a flurry of activity crammed into the 60 hours between Friday morning and Sunday evening.  There was a Charles Dickens Tea with my friend, Paris, where we munched on Great Expectations Beef Wellington, Tiny Tim’s Stuffed Cherry Tomato, and Little Dorrit’s Sticky Toffee Pudding amid a cozy tearoom bathed in soft light and merry music.  After that was shopping in Old Town, the ancient adobe buildings draped in swags of evergreen and crowed with old-fashioned luminarias, the original New Mexican holiday decoration.  There was dinner with Ignacio and Anna at an old-fashioned hacienda on the outskirts of town, where they serve killer drinks and smoky-hot enchiladas, a final “hurrah” before we leave town for the holidays.  There was a just-because brunch with my friend, Sarah, and the neighborhood holiday party, where we hobnobbed with neighbors we see but once a year.  But amidst all the hustle and bustle, I found a few hours of quiet reflection in the most unlikely of places:  a holiday sing-a-long.

Singing used to be a huge part of the season for me.  For the six years between junior high and high school graduation, the weekends during the month of December were booked solid with a never-ending parade of vocal recitals and Christmas concerts, a multilingual cavalcade of music.  The rhythm of our household danced to the beat of music one month of the year, leaving little time for other holiday revelry.  And that was okay with us.  When I was 12, I remember my first concert with the Seattle Girls’ Choir, our voices filling one of the mammoth downtown churches.  Ask my dad to recall a Christmas memory, and he will tell you about the time my choir sang on the Seattle Waterfront, a string of teenage girls forming a processional into the space, candles casting a soft glow on our faces, as my solo voice rang out acapella over the crowded room…

Veni, veni Emmanuel;
Captivum solve Israel,
Qui gemit in exilio,
Privatus Dei Filio.
Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,
Nascetur pro te, Israel.

He remembers the words to this day.

When I got invited to a holiday sing-a-long at The Jobe’s this Saturday, I was immediately transported back to this time in life when singing was synonymous with the holidays.  I eagerly accepted the invitation, excited to join voices with a group, something I hadn’t done in nearly 13 years.  The house was aglow with twinkly lights, a sweet little Christmas tree, laced with strands of popcorn, perched in the front window.  I stepped into the house, which was filled with the aroma of posole, a Mexican stew studded with giant kernels of hominy and pork that is traditionally served during the holidays.  A felt banner with the 12 Days of Christmas, stitched years ago, lined the mantel, and a Nativity scene, graced with real frankincense, took center stage.  As is always the case at The Jobe’s, I felt as if I had stepped back in time.

LiP Reader ABF and daughter, Madison, nestled together after the sing-a-long.

Mrs. Jobe distributed songbooks, “The Annual Jobe Family Sing-a-Long” scrawled by hand on the front in silvery letters, to our little group, our numbers having dwindled in the hours before the party from 18 to eight, before settling herself at the piano.  For an hour she plunked out familiar songs, and we smiled at one another as we sang Silver Bells and Silent Night. I learned Christmas in Killarney, a Jobe Family favorite that I had never heard before.  When we sang Santa Claus is Coming to Town, I laughed and told the group that I hated the song:   my dad always sang it to me when I was being bad, the lines, “He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good” setting me sobbing every time.

At the end, Mr. Jobe called to Mrs. Jobe, “Get me my broom, Mary.”  Recovering from a knee surgery, Mr. Jobe propped himself on the edge of his plush recliner, clutching his weathered broom in one hand, and started to tell a story.

“Back when I was growing up — this is 70 years ago now – I went to a country school.  Every year we had a Christmas party.  We didn’t give much because there wasn’t much to give, but Santa Claus came and all the children got a piece of candy.  There was a Christmas pageant, and at the end, when it was time to go home, a first-grader was selected to give a little speech at the end.  When I was in first grade, I was that boy.  I stood on the stage with a broom, making like a janitor, and said this poem.”

Mr. Jobe recited a poem from memory, “The Janitor’s Ode,” which said, in a nutshell, “the show’s over, get your kids and go on home now.”  And with that, the singing was over and we adjourned to the warmth of the kitchen, where we ladled big bowls of posole and a steaming plate of fresh pinto beans.  Our little party sat around the table, where we caught up, sotto voce, on the last three months since I’d seen them.

As I made my way out to the car as night began to fall, it struck me that the tradition of singing during the holidays wasn’t about the quality of the voices or the repertoire or the music.  It was about coming together for a moment in time, being one united voice, if only for an hour.  It was about a brief respite of solitude cutting through the frenetic energy of the season.  Even though those holidays of my youth, revolving around a busy performance schedule, were action-packed, once we hit the stage, our voices raised in unison, the concerns of the outside world disappeared.  Because when we sing, we can be nowhere other than exactly where we are.

Which holiday activities or rituals transport you to the past while keeping you grounded in the present?  What’s your favorite holiday song?  Does a sing-a-long sound like fun, or your worst nightmare?  Where do you find community this time of year?

In New Mexico, nothing brings a group together quicker than posole, and you won’t find a holiday party without a pot simmering on the stove.  If you’re looking for a taste of New Mexico this December, try my mother-in-law’s recipe, which she makes every year.

Cecilia’s Posole

1 large pork roast, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 espinazo (pork back) – she insists you need the bones to flavor the broth
8 cups water, or enough to keep pork submerged in pot
9 garlic cloves, divided
5 to 10 dried California chiles, washed and deseeded (use gloves!)
1 medium onion, chopped
Pinch of cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
10 to 12 cans of white hominy, drained of any liquid

Add chopped pork roast, espinazo, 5 garlic cloves, water, and salt and pepper to taste in a very large Dutch oven or soup pot.  Simmer until pork is throughly cooked, about an hour.  Meanwhile, simmer chiles with plenty of water, about an hour.  Strain chiles, reserving the cooking water.  Add chiles to blender with onion, a pinch of cumin, 4 garlic cloves, and enough of the reserved cooking water to achieve a proper sauce-like consistency (start small, and add more water as needed — it should be neither too thin or too thick).  Add hominy and chile sauce to the stock, and let it simmer until meat is very tender.  Remove bones from stock.

Serves a LOT.  This is a party stew!

Today we continue our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, we will share what it means to celebrate the holidays — Life in Pencil style.

Posted by Anne

The book that launched an afternoon.

One of my favorite holiday decorations has always been…the book.  Each year when my Mom hauled out the usual decorations—candles, nutcrackers, etc—she also pulled her favorite seasonally appropriate books off the shelf.  During the holidays, A Christmas Carol in its leather-bound glory would sit in a place of honor on the coffee table, along with Twas the Night Before Christmas.  But there was one other book…a poem…that Mom set out to read.  It’s called A Cup of Christmas Tea, and my Mom just adored it.  It tells the story of a busy modern woman who must go visit an elderly friend (or was it a relative?) for a “cup of Christmas tea”…hence the title.  And despite the woman’s reluctance, it’s a wonderfully touching tea party.  She finds herself slowing down, and learning something new.  It’s a lovely poem, soaked in estrogen and filled with holiday cheer. 

Now, as I kid, I didn’t find this poem particularly thrilling.  Even though I wanted desperately to attend tea parties (and magically become English), I still preferred that other poem about St. Nick clattering around on someone’s rooftop.  But this old poem of my Mom’s must have rubbed off on me, because this year, in a moment of holiday inspiration, I asked a neighbor of mine over for a cup of tea to celebrate the holidays.  I wouldn’t exactly call her “elderly”, but she’s certainly not a peer, either.  She’s someone who often wants to chat, but in the break-neck speed of my weekly schedule, I rarely allow a word in edge-wise.  This was my chance to redeem myself…my Christmas gift to her.     

So this past Saturday, I gathered together my tea party…determined to make the whole affair decidedly cheerful and elegant.  As it turns out, my neighbor doesn’t like tea (or coffee).  Hmmm, not to worry.  I decided to make cookies and some kind of punch.  As it turns out, she doesn’t eat sugar.  Hmmm….my fantasy tea party was tanking by the minute.  I called my Mom—the expert at feeding and entertaining senior women, and asked her what to do.  “Well, hon, obviously you serve some savory snacks and wine or sparkling water.”  Oh, Mom.  Brilliant that woman.    

My holiday spread.

And so I did just that.  I laid my coffee table with the prettiest water I could find, and arranged cheese straws, crostini, and spreads.  I used platters and pitchers we received for our wedding—the stuff that people always think is too formal for everyday (but shouldn’t be). My guest arrived on time, bearing a gorgeous poinsettia and sugar-free cider.  We sipped the cider, and munched on the snacks.  We covered everything from marriage to travel to real estate.  She told me stories.  I told her stories.  I learned about the origins of the town I’ve called home for over a year now.  We talked, and kept talking…for somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple hours or more.

It was lovely because it was slow.  It was an afternoon “in pencil”.  And for all the chaos of the holidays, it felt so warm…so civilized…and even a little old-fashioned.  I had nowhere else to be, and nothing else to do.  I was present with her—enjoying the company of someone I otherwise never would have taken the time to appreciate.  And ultimately, I was glad I’d done something other than bake her banana bread, and stick it on her porch.  She loved my conversation a great deal more.  (And apparently doesn’t eat sugar).  So as it turns out, my Mom’s poem was spot-on.  I hope you all have the opportunity to take an “afternoon off” this holiday season, and find someone—young or old—with whom you can share a drink, and simply talk. 

Any holiday books that have ever inspired you?  Do you ever find a moment to slow down during the holidays?

Today we continue our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, we will share what it means to celebrate the holidays — Life in Pencil style.

Posted by Elizabeth

“This year, appreciation may be the best gift of all.”  Or at least that’s the case according to a new Hallmark commercial.

According to yesterday’s New York Times article, “Fewer Gifts and Frills Are Expected in a Rough Economy,” people are giving less this year, and the gifts they are giving are decidedly simpler, drawing on homemade goodies or gifts to be enjoyed at home, where we’re apparently spending more time than ever these days.  Some are forgoing gift-giving altogether, sending greeting cards instead.  While many are touting this “return to simplicity” as the new normal, most are dubious that, once the economic situation rebounds, this more conscious consumerism will quickly fall by the wayside.  And that is a shame, because, as the article states, “while all that cutting back is good for consumers’ bank accounts, many insist it is even better for their souls.”

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never been a big gift giver, and my reasons aren’t grounded in any sort of moral or financial reasoning.  Rather, the act of heaping on gifts doesn’t feed my soul.  I find that I – and the receiver – am generally happier with one well-selected gift, a gift that, I hope, is a reflection of that person.  Our mothers told us, “It’s the thought that counts.”  But we’ve all been in a situation where we’ve held a gift in our hands and thought, “This person doesn’t know me at all.  There was no thought or care put into this.”  I’m not concerned with whether a gift is homemade or store-bought, simple or extravagant – only that it be soulful, that it stirs something in me, no matter how small.

I’m not going to tell you a sob story about how I never had any cheery packages under the Christmas tree, or how I search the world over for the perfect gift whose every detail must be imbued with meaning, because none of those things would be true.  I will say, however, that opening gifts on Christmas morning was an exceedingly long-winded affair in my family.  Not because there were so many people (there were only three of us), or because there were mountains of gifts (I’d estimate our household was pretty average).  It was because my parents insisted that we pay attention to the process of gift opening, that we be conscious of what we were receiving.

We opened one gift at a time.  Before the paper was even torn, there was a great deal of speculation as to the contents of the package.  Boxes were tumbled in our hands, testing for weight, a sophisticated mental cross-check occurring between the physical specimen and the gift list.  When the paper was touched – exuberant ripping for me, careful unfolding for my dad – and the box finally revealed, there was a great debate.  Do you think it’s what the box really says it is, or something else? Finally, the gift was unveiled.  That’s when the admiration began.  Oh wow, this is just what I wanted.  You remembered!  You know what I’m going to use this for? Once the gift had been given sufficient attention, two words were required before moving onto the next:  Thank you.

Of course, sometimes this process became a bit much.  My dad was notorious for reading the barcode on the packages, which caused me to roll my eyes and shriek, “Just open it, Dad!”  And every year my father picked up the smallest package under the tree, shook it lightly, held it to his forehead a la Johnny Carson’s The Great Karnak, and declared, “These must be the keys to my new motorboat.”  My dad made this same joke every year.  We all knew there would never be a motorboat – in fact, there would never be anything that extravagant under the Christmas tree, because that’s just not how gift-giving went in our family.  As an adult, I am grateful to have been taught this lesson about gratitude and appreciation.  No matter who I receive a gift from, I find myself going through a truncated version of this process that was passed down to me from my parents.  I’ll never forget the first Christmas I spent with Maikael’s family, where the gifts were devoured with the ferocity of a whirling dervish, the fun over in a matter of minutes.  The next year, I insisted we take turns.

For the first time, I made the vast majority of my Christmas gifts this year.  I created my own festive gift baskets with items I canned from the fruits of my garden this past summer.  Some people received jewel-like jars of organic tomato sauce, nestled in curls of paper with a rustic clutch of spaghetti and a bottle of favored wine, a homey dinner for two.  (There is nothing more soulless, in my mind, than a pre-packaged gift basket, convenient but utterly lacking in charm and personality.)  Others received jars of green tomato-orange jam, a sweet-tart marmalade that my friend, Atarah, gave me the recipe to when I was up to my ears in green tomatoes this fall.  They are simple gifts, not at all extravagant, but I felt a stirring in my soul when I handed over the baskets to the people on my gift list.  And I hope they felt that, too.

Have you cut down your gift list this year?  Are the types of gifts you’re giving different than the past?  How does the opening of gifts go in your house?

Today we continue our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, we will share what it means to celebrate the holidays — Life in Pencil style.

Posted by Anne

As I think I’ve mentioned before, I was an imaginative kid.  You might say I was a little odd.   I wouldn’t blame you if you did…it’s the truth.  As a kid, I had two favorite activities:  1) Cooking, and 2) Pretending.  The fascination with cooking needs no explanation.  I simply loved my chow.  Still do.  But the pretending is more of a mystery to me.  Generally, it involved imagining I lived in another time—always past tense—and preferably somewhere in the UK.    These fantasies were involved and detailed, and very, very real to me.  I wandered our house, our street, and our backyard–acting out stories with zero awareness of who might be watching.  This was my world, and I loved it.  I often wonder why I was so prone to all this “pretend”, because my life was pretty sweet.  I mean, it’s not like I needed an escape or something.  But still, at age 11, I would have greatly preferred a childhood in Victorian England.

As I grew older, my brain remained imaginative, but the ability to lose reality and act out stories began to wane.  (No doubt due to the tragedy of adolescence and an emerging sense of self-consciousness.)   I needed a new avenue to live out my imagined self.  So one Christmas, I decided to put my fantasies into action.  I wanted to cook my way to Dickensian London.  Drawing on my extensive experience with Victorian holiday meals (aka, Mickey’s Christmas Carol), I determined just what we needed in order to eat an authentic Dickensian meal.  We needed a Christmas Goose.  And I, in all my 11-year-old culinary wisdom, would roast that bird.

My fantasy...minus the hats.

Now, I’m sure there would be some Moms out there who would have steered me back on course—back to the safety of a well-roasted turkey.  But my Mom is a history buff, an Anglophile, and a curious cook.  So I’m pretty sure I didn’t need to do much to convince her of the virtues of a historically accurate Christmas feast.  So with her blessing, I dashed to the living room to find my favorite picture book—A Frugal Gourmet Christmas.  I turned to the two-page spread with a giant goose, whole roasted onions stuffed with breadcrumbs, and all manner of starchy rich side items.  And on December 25^th, we roasted my first (and last) goose.

In my world, the feast was a major success.  My mother has since revealed that the meat tasted pretty greasy and fatty, but what do you expect?  This is a game-bird, Mom!  But despite its mediocre consistency, the bird has survived family lore for one reason…the aftermath.  Like any responsible cook, I helped with the clean-up.  I just wasn’t very good at it.  I was used to cleaning up after brownie-baking, not a holiday meal.  But not to worry, I thought.  This will go so fast with our super-handy kitchen disposal.  So I shoved everything down that hidden grinder—carrot peelings, potato peelings, goose drippings, and the outer layers of the onions I had so meticulously stuffed.

Yeah, I clogged the hell out of that drain.  As my parents so vividly recall, we were up to our elbows in nasty water and goose fat.  And nothing could get that drain unclogged.  Do you want to know how much Roto-Rooter costs on Christmas Day?  I couldn’t tell you.  But I’m sure my Mom could.  Because that’s what we had to do.  And so, in the end, my triumphant Dickensian feast stumbled.  (And it left me with a major phobia of putting much of anything down our disposal these days.)

God bless us, every one.

It’s funny—while I was aware of the debacle at the time, my memories of that little project are still merry and bright.  We still have a picture of me with that fatty old goose.  I’m wearing the striped sweater that was my favorite at the time.   And I’m smiling proudly, displaying my creation.  When I look at it now, I’m impressed that I was so willing to try something new.  Even though it failed on some level, I shook things up, and indulged a fantasy.  I wonder what would happen now, if I let myself live just a few more of my fantasies.  What if I took more risks, and embraced my imagination?  Some misfires, I’m sure…but just as many stories.

Any holiday disasters on your record?  When have you indulged a holiday whim?

Today we continue our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, we will share what it means to celebrate the holidays — Life in Pencil style.

Posted by Elizabeth

This week of the year is always a strange one for me.  Thanksgiving is a fading memory, but the holiday season hasn’t yet shifted into high gear.  The week after Thanksgiving feels like the holiday hinterlands, the afterglow just before something new emerges.  We dredge the past rather than creating something new, pilfering the remains of a forgotten holiday meal before the parade of parties and feasts begins.  Yesterday I found myself contemplating what to make of the final bits of our coveted heritage turkey (the ones that Maikael would prefer that I save for sandwiches, but that I can’t help but refashion into a new dish for dinner).  Because my mother is never far from my thoughts this time of the year, I felt inspired to make her very simple recipe for chicken noodle soup.  It is a dish my family often enjoyed on lazy Sunday afternoons, or whenever some leftover poultry was in need of a second life.  The recipe is not entirely of her creation; my mother was a magpie, searching for the shiny bits amongst recipes and gathering them to make her own version.  But my mom had a way of recreating something that always tasted better than the original recipe, a gift I did not inherit.

As the late autumn afternoon cast long shadows on the kitchen table, I followed her recipe to the letter, tossing rounds of carrots, thick slashes of celery, shards of turkey,  and flakes of parsley into the amber broth.  My cast iron pot, the color and girth of a battleship, happily simmered on the stove while I rolled a long, stretchy sheet of dough.  As I cut the dough into imperfect ribbons, I remembered the day, just weeks before she died, that she taught me, with unexpected urgency, how to make this soup.   It was if she knew on some deep, internal level that her time was growing short.  A few weeks later a dear friend’s husband died, young and without warning.  At a loss for what to do or bring, I took my solo, maiden voyage into the world of my mother’s soup.  What could be more curative, I reasoned, than chicken noodle soup?   I recall with precision clarity the cold, grey day that I dashed through my neighborhood farmer’s market collecting crisp apples the size of baseballs and handfuls of fresh walnuts, which I knew my friend loved, to accompany my modest offering.

When I think of that particular late-autumn I think about this soup, which I made often during that period.  I made it upon returning from my friend’s, where I commented in my diary, “I feel as if the other shoe is about to drop.”  I made it a few days after my mom died, lacking the energy or appetite to fix much else.  And I continue to gravitate towards this soup when my heart longs for my mother, when both my body and soul are in need of nourishment.   Last night, as I sucked fat, rustic noodles through my lips and sipped spoonfuls of the most flavorful broth I’d ever made, I found myself completely content, the waves of memory lapping against me.  It dawned on me that this soup, more than any other dish, is a touchstone of my mother.  Nowadays I rarely make this soup, and I don’t know why, because there is no easier way to connect to her spirit than through such a simple pleasure.

If you find yourself needing to use those final bits of Thanksgiving turkey, or discover that your body – or soul – is in need of some warmth, please make this chicken noodle soup.  I guarantee it will set you right again.  What foods connect you to your past this time of year?

Sheri’s Chicken Noodle Soup
Serves 4 -6

Soup base:
Two (2) cups of precooked chicken (anything will do – rotisserie or leftover) or two boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and then shredded

Twelve (12) cups of chicken stock (store-bought, homemade, or bouillon cubes added to water)

Four (4) large carrots or six (6) small carrots, cut into thick rounds

Three (3) celery stalks, cut in large slices

A handful of parsley, chopped

Noodles:

Two (2) egg yolks

½ of an egg white

1 ½ Tbsp. water

½ tsp. salt

1 cup flour

Directions:

If using precooked chicken, measure and set aside.  If not, bake chicken breasts in 375 degree oven for 40 minutes.  Once chicken is prepared, place in large stock pot with chicken stock, carrots, celery, and parsley.  Simmer for one hour.  While soup base is simmering, prepare noodles, combining all ingredients with a fork until well-mixed.  Flour a countertop and knead dough until no longer sticky.  Roll dough very thin, into a 14”x14” square.  Carefully transfer onto a cutting board.  Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut dough into strips (approximately ¼” wide and two inches long).  Lay the noodles on the board to dry a bit.  Once stock has simmered for an hour, add noodles to the stock, stirring to distribute.  Bring stock back to a boil, and gently boil for 20 minutes.

Posted by Elizabeth

My mother died suddenly, without warning, on Thanksgiving Day seven years ago.  It was a strangely symbolic day for her to die, a holiday that revolves around food, one of the great loves that she and I shared.  I don’t remember the exact date, just the fact that it was Thanksgiving, the two events forever coupled in my mind.  When I think about Thanksgiving, my grief is wrapped around the pumpkin pie; the turkey is stuffed with sadness.

I want to put my heart into preparing the foods I love, that my mother loved, but it is all so complicated.  The year after she died I baked my first bird; a proud moment for most women, indicating the baton had been passed from one generation to the next.  For me, the baton hadn’t been passed so much as dropped abruptly at my feet, the resounding “thud” still echoing 12 months later.  Over the next few years I couldn’t even think about Thanksgiving, preferring to let the day slide by without notice (if that was possible).  Maikael and I went out to a restaurant one year, a very expensive and nontraditional affair, the slab of turkey on the plate the only reminder of what day it was.  Most recently I’ve purchased boxed dinners for two from Wild Oats, shoveling mashed potatoes out of plastic containers onto casual dinner plates.  I know it sounds pathetic, but I preferred it this way.  Although I tend to elevate food on a pedestal most days of the year, today – the one day on our calendar where food is placed in highest esteem – it was important to downplay its meaning.  I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge that there was anything special about the occasion, because remembering wouldn’t allow me to forget.

This year I’m finally ready for things to be different.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps enough time has passed.  Perhaps it’s because I spent last Thanksgiving holed up in a hotel in New Zealand, where I supped on an entirely too-large steak – jarring enough circumstances to conclude a seven-year cycle of wallowing.  Whatever the reason, I’m ready to move on, to pick up the tradition of Thanksgiving again. It was important to start small, to imbue just enough pomp and circumstance to help the day feel special, but not so much as to feel disappointed if things didn’t go as planned.  I invited my friend, Tim, the consummate foodie who maintains the appropriate level of reverence for good food.  We built a menu together, drawing on classics while incorporating what we hope will become new favorites.  (A nod to custom while celebrating tradition seemed fitting.)  Everyone agreed that rolls were in order, but a fierce debate broke out between homemade, tinned, or store-bought, each evoking different childhood memories.  There had to be pie, but we were divided on what kind, finally settling on pumpkin sour cream, made with real pumpkin puree.  Maikael insisted on mashed potatoes and stuffing, and we all agreed that we could do without the Jell-o salad we grew up with.

But the piece de resistance, the only thing I insisted on, was the Heritage turkey.  After reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, where she devotes an entire chapter to this bird, bred for hundreds of years in our country, I knew I had to have one.  Superior in taste and quality, I ordered my turkey from a local farm last March, giving it enough time to mature for Thanksgiving.  On Tuesday I picked up the bird from the back of a dusty white pick-up truck parked in front of a local furniture store, one of only six butchered by a lone farmer’s hand for the year.  Valerie, the farmer, had lost her husband around the holidays last year; we shared an instant kinship, participants in a club for which we maintain a reluctant membership.  She handed me the turkey, wrapped in white paper with the words, “Happy Thanksgiving, Elizabeth!” scrawled in black.  It was regal and special.  It was the kind of thing my mom and I would have spent hours talking about over the course of the year, waiting and wondering what the turkey would taste like.  It was the perfect way to move forward.

And yet, as I prepared for this modest feast, I could feel the past tugging at me.  As I flipped through my recipe file I stumbled upon the recipes for the dishes my mother had planned on preparing seven Thanksgivings ago, pages torn from Country Living and Martha Stewart and stuffed haphazardly in the front pocket.  I had found them sitting unceremoniously on the kitchen counter alongside an already-cooked turkey that day, and couldn’t bear to throw them out.  It meant too much.  There was the recipe for the Pumpkin Sage Cream Sauce to dress the pumpkin ravioli I brought from an upscale market.  And Cranberry Bean Salad with Butternut Squash and Broccoli Rabe, whose ingredients weren’t destined to come together in the dish.  Amongst the many mysteries that day held, there are certain questions I will never have the answers to.  Why had my mother ripped four pages on roasting vegetables from an obliging magazine?  Was she planning on making the roasted carrots or the roasted beets?  It wouldn’t have mattered; my mother knew I loved both.

When I thumbed through my copy of The New Vegetarian Epicure, searching for inspiration for this year’s dinner, I was stopped in my tracks, as I always am, by the recipe for the Walnut Tart.  It was my contribution that day, my mom having supplied the walnuts, which she received from an itinerant walnut farmer who stopped by her bakery every fall. Every time I see that recipe I remember insistently knocking on my mother’s apartment door for 45 minutes while, unbeknownst to the world, she lay splayed on the cheap blue carpet on the other side of the door, her heart having mysteriously stopped hours earlier, while I cradled that ridiculous walnut tart in the palm of my hand.  I brought the dessert back home at the end of the day, too distraught to eat it and too distraught to throw it away.

I am working hard to free myself of these culinary shackles; you cannot celebrate Thanksgiving without addressing food.  (I can’t help but marvel at the fact that my relationship to food is so comfortable the other 364 days of the year.)  But rather than let myself be ruled by my discomfort with food during this 24 hour period, I am reclaiming the positive connotations.  I love cooking.  My mom loved cooking.  She’d be proud to see me scurrying with authority around my own grown-up kitchen, basting my heritage turkey.  I wish she could be there to sample a slice of my homemade pie.  But when we gather around the table this evening, I know her spirit – tucked in the folds of the rolls she taught me to make, nestled in the crinkle of the pie crust she showed me how to prepare – will be with me.  My mother is always with me in the kitchen, especially on Thanksgiving.

Today begins our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, Anne and I will share what it means to celebrate the holidays – Life in Pencil style.  We’ve made a commitment to focus on simple pleasures this holiday season, and we’ll be sharing our experiences, experiments, favorite holiday memories, cherished recipes, time-honored traditions, and small ways to make the holidays more fun…or at least more bearable.  That’s right, folks:  a month of posts to make your holidays—and life – richer.

Posted by Anne

I’m a terrible gardener.  My Mom has always been a fantastic gardener, and awaits the coming of her annual Burpee seed catalog with charming childlike eagerness.  Sorry, Mom.  I can’t relate.  In the plant-world, I might as well be the grim reaper. 

Just one portion of a typical week...

I’m not that worried.  And that’s because I happen to be a member (like Elizabeth), of a local farm’s Community Supported Agriculture program.  Every Wednesday, Ryan dutifully picks up our “farm box”—an enormous Rubbermaid bin of organic goodness.  There are many reasons I’ve loved my CSA program this year—lower grocery bills, amazingly fresh tomatoes, and of course that whole “good for the environment” thing.  But there’s one benefit of the weekly CSA delivery that I’ve enjoyed more than any other:  the opportunity for some seriously Life in Pencil cooking. 

While the weekly box provides a plethora of tomatoes, corn, and mixed greens, there are additional veggies to decipher—rainbow chard, Italian kale, and delicata squash.  It’s a veritable parade of vitamin-rich side items I can’t always find at my local Safeway.  And when faced with a veg I’ve never met, I have to get creative, and I have to improvise. And so each week, I learn something new.  When it comes to dinnertime, change is good. 

This brings me to the final benefit of the CSA season—rediscovering and redefining vegetables I’d long ago crossed off my grocery list.  You see, not every box contains delightful surprises.  As much as I learned to rejoice each time I opened the box to see rainbow chard, my heart sank just as deeply when I glimpsed one of my all-time least favorite members of the vegetable world.  The eggplant.

Sorry, you eggplant lovers out there, but I just don’t get the eggplant.  Sure, it looks pretty, which makes it all the more disappointing.  The skin is tough and waxy.  The inside is flavorless and spongy—and spongy just can’t be a good thing when you’re talking food.  But once again, my CSA challenged me.  It refused to allow me to remain in my eggplant-hating rut.  It gave me THREE Japanese eggplants.  And let me tell you…they were big ones.  At first, I panicked.  I mean, how many times can you make eggplant parmesan?  So one desperate evening, I hit the web, and found a failsafe recipe for eggplant.  It accomplished the unthinkable.  It made me enjoy a meal built entirely around my former purple enemy. 

So thank you, CSA.  Thank you for making me try new things, and throw together meal after meal of spontaneous dishes.  And for the joy of discovering new ingredients, and re-discovering old ones.

I realize this recipe is out of season, but if you need a good eggplant recipe, here you go!

• 1 medium eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic, whole
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
• 1 pound rigatoni pasta
• 1/4 cup torn fresh mint leaves
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl combine the eggplant, cherry tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Spread the vegetables out in an even layer on the baking sheet. Roast in the oven until the vegetables are tender and the eggplant is golden, about 35 minutes.

While the vegetables are roasting, place the pine nuts in a small baking dish. Place in the oven on the rack below the vegetables. Roast until golden, about 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and reserve.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain pasta into a large bowl and reserve 1 1/2 cups of the cooking liquid.

Transfer the roasted vegetables to a food processor. Add the torn mint leaves and extra-virgin olive oil. Puree the vegetables.

Transfer the pureed vegetables to the bowl with the pasta and add the Parmesan. Stir to combine, adding the pasta cooking liquid 1/2 cup at a time until the pasta is saucy. Sprinkle the pine nuts over the top and serve.