Why I Hate New Year's Eve

I hate New Year's Eve.

I didn't always hate it. I spent my share of 11:59's sharing kisses under falling confetti while sequin-and-black-dressed beauties swayed to "Every Breath You Take" (substitute the appropriate song for the years from 1973 through 1983--this year it may be twerking to "Wrecking Ball"). We gave all that up when we had children, the hassle of securing a babysitter, the compounded sitting and cocktails/appetizers/dinner/champagne fees prohibitive to a young family. Suddenly, there was the added worry of WHO WOULD TAKE CARE OF THE CHILDREN IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO US TONIGHT WHEN EVERYONE DRIVES LIKE CRAZY? Plus, that little black dress didn't fit over my hips quite the same.

The last fully glamorous New Year's Eve I remember was spent at the Monterey Bay atop Mt. Washington with four other couples. We toasted each other at a long white-clothed table overlooking the Pittsburgh lights. My expectations for 1983 were full of crystalline wonder--a fragile, blown glass bubble of promise. That night, I had a tipsy heart-to-heart with my beautiful friend Elaine in the ladies' room. I can't remember what we talked about, but I remember the warm feeling I had as I caught our blurry reflection in the bathroom mirror. Three of those couples divorced not long after our New Year's date. I don't know if I miss all of them so much, but I miss that girl I was then. And I certainly miss Elaine, whose boyfriend found her hanging from the upstairs bannister a couple of years ago.

When our oldest two children were babies, our new-parent friends took turns hosting parties. All of our little ones attended in fleecy footed sleepers, and we played games and grazed on spinach dip in pumpernickel bread bowls and bacon wrapped around water chestnuts. There was always champagne, though depending on the year, some of us couldn't drink. It didn't take more than four or five years for this new tradition to fall to the wayside. As our collective children grew older, the logistics became more problematic, so our new normal became the Sunday Family New Year's Eve celebrations. Our table covered with appetizers, we'd watch movies until 11:30, turning to Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve to watch the ball drop, exchanging sticky HAPPY NEW YEAR! kisses all around. You can guess what happened next.

We really don't have plans for tonight, never sure of who might be home or who might need a ride. I did put together the Raspberry Sangria recipe ingredients for my daughters to take to their party. My freezer is full of mini meatballs, shrimp, and mini dogs wrapped in pastry, just in case. It looks like us and Dick Clark...I mean...Ryan Seacrest...again.

My youngest daughter just leaned into my writing space to say "We never have New Year's Eve parties here."

Here's why I think I hate New Year's Eve:
1. I'm not that girl in the little black dress anymore.
2. I didn't pay enough attention to her when I could.
3. My children don't know that girl. They would have liked her.
4. That damn glittery ball makes so many promises it can't keep.

Raspberry Sangria

 

 

If you'd like to make a batch of Raspberry Sangria, here's what you will need.

• 1 jug Riunite Bianco (wine lovers, please forgive me)
• 1 32-oz Sierra Mist (the diet version is delicious, too)
• 1 large Cran-Rasperry juice drink (this comes in a low-cal version, too)
• Chambord to taste (about a cup)
• Frozen raspberries.(if you go the low-cal route, you can pretend this beverage is actually good for you...and you can start the new year with a healthy drink).
• Thinly sliced oranges (really, you can add any fruit...in sangria, the more the merrier!)
• Mint sprigs

If you are making the punch at your house, use your mother's big glass punch bowl. Mine loved Riunite Bianco, and so her bowl is quite happy to hold this punch. If, however, you are sending this  to your daughters' party, use the plastic punchbowl from Party City. Refrigerate all ingredients (if you are in Western Pennsylvania, your garage will work just fine as a refrigerator on New Year's Eve). When it's time to drink, pour all of the ingredients into the bowl. Don't defrost the raspberries--they act like tiny ice cubes!

 

The Grinch in me is fighting my fingers as I type the following: Happy 2014!

Jilliebeanery#2: The Right Mug (#writergirlproblems)

Lately, my words are stuck.

Most of the time you'll find a line of words behind me, letters hooking tails of j's and y's onto curves of c's and o's. Sometimes they trip me, the word trail growing so long that it entangles my feet, and I lurch ungracefully from my word world back into the real one. You may have seen me pulling words from my mouth like a magician with his bouquet of flowers that seemingly appears from just inside his narrow sleeve. At a party once, I touched my ears to find sparkling words dangling from my lobes, hiding a little behind the swing of my hair.

No such luck these days, though. Now and then I can feel my words climbing toward consciousness, but my locked mind knocks them from their ladder, and the rest  scurry back down into the darkness. I think of Annie Dillard who taped brown paper over her window so she wouldn't be distracted by the view while she wrote. I want to be that woman, but my windows are flung open, and there's no telling what will step through them.

On days when I can't write for all the nonsense that's heaved itself up and over the sills, I make a pot of coffee, and go to my cupboard to choose a mug that fits inside my cupped hands just so. If the coffee is hot and strong enough--if I've chosen the right mug, I just might get my words back.

 

The Princeton mug is my cold nose buried in Gary's warm neck. Back in the day, we'd walk from his room over to Prospect Street to buy a bottle of hooch to pour into the big silver thermos. One sip from this mug, and I'm back at Palmer Stadium, at football games I didn't really watch, more interested in the man by my side and the deep thermos full of apple cider and clear brown whiskey.

 

 

 

On cold-hearted days, I often pull the Pawleys Island mug from the back of the cupboard. It's hard to explain why this cup offers me comfort since it was on Pawleys Island that we lost two of our children for a hellacious half hour one summer night. We'd been shopping at the little village center, walking from one store to another, negotiating purchases with our four children. "Blackbeard sword? Hmmm....good idea now, but not when we start the long drive home and you want to whack your brother with it for 12 solid hours."

At some point, my husband and I decided to separate, each of us concentrating on just two instead of listening to four continuous rounds of "He's getting that? I want that!" When we got back to our car, we only had two of our four children. I can't remember now how they wandered off--perhaps one of them was intent on having that Blackbeard sword after all. One of us blinked, and they were gone. I do know that my husband lost his mind a little, flattening his thumb in the car door. He ran from shop to shop, blood drops marking his way. After our lost children were found, we sat in our red Astro van and breathed in the sweet smell of our family. 

 

 

 

If you ever get to Warehouse Point, Connecticut, even if you have to make a detour in your road trip, you MUST go to the Maine Fish Market and order a lobster roll. A mound of sweet white lobster chunks will arrive in a split and buttered roll. Some like their lobster coated with mayonnaise, but I order mine plain with a little drawn butter on the side.

The Main Fish Market is about a work day away from Pittsburgh, but I'm up for a road trip, if you are. When you visit the day after Christmas because your daughter is playing ice hockey in the Polar Bear tournament...when you've left behind the Christmas mess to be cleaned up after you return...when you fall from the car exhausted and sooooo hungry...the nice people at the Maine Fish Market will give you a coffee mug as a belated Christmas present. We have six mugs. There were a lot of Polar Bear tournaments.

 

 

The lobster rolls aren't as good in Mystic, Connecticut, but the lobster omelets at the Little Kitchen will straighten out any kind of day you are having. One rainy September day, we found ourselves visiting Bryant University with our youngest daughter, a lacrosse player. She liked the university, but when she toured the athletic facilities, one of the lacrosse players explained that winter workouts included shoveling the snow from their practice field. I knew then that we wouldn't be making the drive from Pennsylvania to Rhode Island again. She'd be joining her sister in California (as she put it..."shoveling snow in January or 60 degrees in January?"), a drive far too long for me to make in a day (really not even in three days). The next morning, we stopped in Mystic Seaport for breakfast at The Little Kitchen, and all was right with the world while the three of us sipped coffee and hot chocolate from these mugs. Just then, she was still close beside me.

  

 

 

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a teacher."

"Oh, what do you teach?"

"English...writing."

Now, picture a person grabbing her throat, squeezing her eyes into slits, and scrambling backwards in response. I get this reaction often, thank you very much. Is it any wonder that I need some comfort? Don't be surprised when I tell you that Shakespeare soothes my soul. My mother bought me this mug when we visited Stratford Upon Avon the summer before I was married. I might have been an English major, but she was a child who grew up with a library in her home, these leather-bound volumes one of her few concrete memories of childhood. The quotation is from Macbeth, and, in addition of memories of my mom, it conjures up Mrs. Dyas, my high school English teacher, who stood on her desk, bringing the Weird Sisters to life, reciting "Double double toil and trouble," making a mark on a class of startled teenagers. I'd sell a little of my Shakespearean soul to have coffee with these ladies today, but I manage to capture a little of them when I wrap my hands around this mug.

 

 

 

If you give a girl a cup of coffee, she's going to ask for a beignet, at least at the Café du Monde in New Orleans. Of course, this is after the jazz on Bourbon Street and Snug Harbor. It's after the oyster and artichoke chowder and the jambalaya too, baby. Beignets are best at about 4 a.m.; the hot grease and powdered sugar followed by hot chicory coffee make the best antidote for a night on the town. There's promise in the New Orleans night, you know?  While sitting in the black iron chairs at the café, in between licking your fingers, if you listen hard enough you can hear the hot iron screech of the streetcar named Desire. 

 

 

 

Paris. Enough said.

 

 

 

Some days call for the Sumo mug, which holds twice the amount . Okay, okay...it's really a bowl. Some days call for a bowl of coffee. On big coffee days, I'm so very glad my son thought of me while in Tokyo. You really have to love a mug decorated with a ring of wide-eyed Sumo wrestlers. He gets me, this kid of mine. I can see him wrapping this mug in t-shirts for the luggage trip home thinking, "yeah, I can see her filling up this baby." And, I do! Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.

 

 

So, now we're getting to it. Sometimes the blunt directive of this mug is what I need. Time to write again if the caffeine whooshes through my brain, clearing the word chute of sludge. From this mug to the writing god's ears, I say.

 

 

Bottoms up! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes You Just Need a Little Tomato Pie

 

 On the day before I leave for Arkansas:

 before I strap myself into the car for a 14-hour drive,

 after I finish my work day where I am assembling 450 snack bags of Double Bubble and business cards advertising the university writing center,

after I stop on my way home at the Giant Eagle to stock the fridge for my son who'll be watching our dogs,

 after I drive the 50 minutes on 79 and open my front door at 6 p.m.,

but before I wash and iron and select a week's worth of clothes,

and before I write the checks that have to be mailed before we leave,

and before I run the sweeper, change the sheets, and spritz up the bathrooms

---on this day in particular,  I should not be making tomato pie. 

 

Tomato pie isn't difficult, mind you. Assembling it, however, does include slicing, salting, mixing, layering, topping, and baking. Then, that tomato pie will beg for an arugula side salad drizzled with my tart and sweet lemon dressing and an ear of sweet corn. You may not know this yet, but it's hard to say no to a tomato pie.

To make one, you'll need:
4-6 glamorous tomatoes, red and ripe to bursting
1 refrigerated pie crust (unless you aren't leaving for Arkansas the next day, and then you might want to make your own)
2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup mayonnaise
1/3 red onion, thinly sliced
1 giant handful of garden basil, thinly snipped with kitchen shears
salt and pepper.

Slice those red beauties, salt, and drain in a colander for about 30 minutes. Layer the tomatoes and basil into the pie shell. Sprinkle with the onions.

 

Top with a mixture of the mayo and cheddar cheese.  

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Bake at 375 for 40 to 45 minutes, and be prepared to bite into a hot and creamy slice of heaven. If you aren't going to eat directly from the pie pan (which some people may or may not have done), let the lovely pie set for about five minutes for easier cutting.

 

 I could have/should have called for a pizza.

 

But the tomatoes! There they sat on my kitchen counter, their brilliant red flesh calling out to me. "Don't leave us here when you go!"

 

  And, so, on the day before we rolled down through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi into Helena, Arkansas, I made a tomato pie. The next day, all of the highways' white lines formed a giant string of em dashes taking me closer and closer to my girl who'd moved so far from home.

 

 

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (or Martinis, Lemonades, Bob Dylan, and a little Marilyn Monroe)

 

 

I've got a case of the burning funk, but, don't worry, it's nothing a little vintage Dylan and a dirty martini can't fix.

I don't know how I've lived this long without hearing Bob Dylan's "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," but I almost took a left instead of a right when he brought it to me, a little liquid leopard oozing through my car speakers the other day. I spent the next couple of days asking everyone close to me: "Have you ever heard Dylan sing "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat"? Most hadn't, but everyone should.

 

Have you?

 

 

No? Well, listen up. This song is a smoky, bluesy invitation to the 1966 Dylan, before his garble consumed his lyrics. This song opens the door to the world of Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol, of Jackie O and Camelot, to a time when I wasn't who I would be, and the whole world lay in my palm like a smooth marble.

My world then consisted of endless library shelves and the pirate ship that came to life on our gray wooden front porch. The Beatles weren't big yet--John Lennon just making his famous "bigger than Jesus" remark. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were still alive. Apollo 11 was a couple of years away from landing on the moon.

My world and I hadn't made some of our biggest mistakes yet.

We were still Bob Dylan smooth.

Now, not so smooth, I know that a martini can help give a high reading on the smoothometer.

If you aren't a martini drinker, please excuse the following commercial:

I like mine dirtied up with a splash of salty olive juice and the rest just crisp Tanqueray--the bartenders at Atria's shake a mean dirty martini, almost sloshing over the brim, tiny ice crystals still swirling for the first sip of liquid cool! I think Bob Dylan would approve--after all, "Leopard-
Skin Pill-Box Hat" has the same kind of beat as a really good martini should.

But, if gin and olive juice do don't it for you (I can see some of your grimaces right now), try this summer-porch-sittin' strawberry lemonade. It'll do the trick, although you might want to put on your cowgirl hat and hand over the leopard hat.

Strawberry Marilyn

 

First you need some lemonade. You can make it fresh, like I did here, by squeezing lemons and mixing with sugar and water.

 

For really, really good lemonade:

1. Dissolve one cup of sugar in one cup of hot water.

2. Cool (No, I don't mean you...I'm talking about the simple syrup!)

3. Mix one cup of freshly-squeezed lemon juice (I get about two tablespoons from a smallish lemon). Roll your lemons (but don't let anyone see you) to maximize the juice flow.

4. Add 3-4 cups of water and some ice.

5. Drink up, and then let me know how good it is.

 

Trop 50 makes a nice light lemonade, too. (If you want to make sure that the little leopard-skin pill-box hat still fits, you can make the above recipe with Splenda.)

 

 

Yumalicious waddawadda bing bang!

 

The secret to strawberry lemonade is (shhhhhhhhhhhhh) pureed strawberries. Just clean them, husk, and pop into a blender. Hit the pulverize button or something like it, and you'll have a lovely sweet addition to your lemony drink.
Add some of the thick strawberry juice to a glass with crushed ice.
If you want just a delicious summer thirst-quencher, aka Virgin Strawberry Marilyn, add lemonade now, plunk in a straw, and drink up.

 

I was just kidding before about the secret ingredient. It's really a nice pour of Marilyn Monroe Strawberry Vodka. Well, hello beautiful!

 

Fill up the remainder of the space with lemonade, stick in a straw, and settle in with your very cool drink.

But probably not as cool as that little leopard-skin pill-box hat.



 

 

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Pimento Cheese Spread

Back in the days when we probably still weren't grownups, we vacationed in Corolla, North Carolina on a split of land where the ocean lulled us to sleep every night, no matter what happened during the day. In the earliest of those days, the family of Gary's college roommate had a house just down the blacktop street from us. Really, it was a lovely cottage, in the best sense of the word, with a screened-in porch facing the dunes and the waves. Dave's mom had an open-door policy, and I'd often walk the beach, climb the steps up and over their high dune line, and knock on the porch door to see if anyone was home. When someone was, we'd sit on the porch or the hanging swing with a glass of tea and shoot the breeze. I know now that I wanted to be part of that family, especially on the nights we visited for a clam feast, when the small kitchen would be overrun by perspiring chefs, when the dining table would be covered with newspaper, when beer and salt and butter coated our sunburned lips. My children learned to eat clams there, Laura, Andy, and Rachel piling their paper plates high with sprung-open shells first and then later with steamed shrimp.

I think I wanted to belong to Dave's mom mostly, this generous-spirited woman who would talk books and words with me, spinning away beach afternoons and evenings on her porch. I think I sometimes didn't want to go back to our house, a place I wasn't sure I fit into the larger scheme of things, a house larger and grander than the cottage down the way, with people who often didn't get me. In the long run, she lost her Dave too early, but not before he'd shaken hands with loss a few times himself.

Usually, I'd cook dinner for our friends, a high-calorie mess of seafood, cream, and pasta. This dinner involved a trip to our local seafood stand after a trip to Tommy's Market, about 20 minutes away in Duck. Tommy's was pricey, but it stocked those lovely vacation foods that we craved--salty, fresh-boiled peanuts, fancy potato salads, and bottles of clear white wine. I'd wheel the mini cart through the tiny store, overloading the basket with homemade pasta, cheese wedges, and blueberry pie. At the prepared foods counter, I always grabbed a large container of pimento cheese spread. This spread was so unlike the small jars I could find at home, this one containing thick shreds of cheese in a garlicky dressing. For as long as I could remember, my mother'd longingly described the pimento cheese spread of her southern youth. "Mom," I told her through the phone. "Tommy's Market has it!"

Little did I know that making Tommy's Market quality pimento cheese spread was so easy. And, so it goes...some things turn out to be easier than others.

If you have ten minutes, you can have pimento cheese spread, which will make your day a better one, I promise. This recipe is mighty comforting. I'll do a throw down with Tommy's Market if they'll agree to it.

 

Here's what you need:

• 1 pound shredded cheddar cheese. (I buy a block and shred it myself. Do it...you'll be glad when the fresh cheese curls melt in your mouth...just watch your knuckles!)
• 1/2 red onion, grated (Do yourself a favor and buy a hand-held grater. You can lay it across the bowl and grate directly into the mixture. Don't chop or mince the onion--you want the shreds to curl up against the cheese.)
• 2 garlic cloves, grated. (I use my micro planer for this...I saw Rachel Ray grate her garlic this way a couple of years ago, and I've never gone back to the dicing or smashing method. This way, the garlic melts into the mixture, rather than popping up in hard pieces.)
• 1 4-oz. jar of pimentos, drained and chopped. (I bought mine in strips, so that I could chop mine a little larger than the small dice of the jarred version.)

• 1-2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce, depending on taste. (I used two.)
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise, depending on the creaminess factor you want. (I'm an eyeballer, folks. It's hard for me to give exact measurements, so I suggest starting with one cup, and then adding a little more at a time, if you like. Also, use the good mayo. There's no way to lighten a dish that already has a pound of cheese in it.)

• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. (Yes, ma'am, I'm an eyeballer, all right.)
• Mix together, and eat. (I guess the pimento cheese purists would advise refrigerating for an hour, but those of us, who can't help ourselves, we eat it right out of the bowl.)

 

Mama Told Me There'd Be Days Like This

You've probably heard my story about the cardinal on my deck.

No?

Okay. Here it is in a cupful of words.

I was still in my pajamas at almost noon. Where was everyone else in my life that day? Work, school? I'd been watching morning television programs absently, my mind sunk in the hollow of my heart. Thinking maybe coffee would shock me into action, I stood at the kitchen sink rinsing the pot, looking onto the barren deck, a weathered gray slab stacked with empty planters. A crust of spring snow whitened the rails and corners, but in this landscape, there was nothing to relieve my spirit. Yeah, mama told me there'd be days like this.

And then!--a plump cardinal perched on my brick windowsill, his peppercorn eyes searching mine through the glass, his lush red an invitation to beauty. In that moment, I breathed more fully than I had for a long time. Here's what he told me:  "There is beauty all around you."

And so there is.

Here is some beauty from my day:

 

Gary found this fashionably-striped caterpillar while turning over our kitchen garden.

Our new friend appears to be at home in the spectacular lantana I've just planted. Dear CP, please wear your black and green stripes when you come back as a butterfly.

 

Purple frills and an orange nasturtium just may cause a flower riot.

 

My husband has planted enough pepper plants---banana (sweet and hot), jalepeno, chili--to open a cannery, and my lone zucchini plant was cast out of our small garden. "You're going to keep the pot on the deck?" Mr. Pepper asked incredulously. "You'll have zucchini runners all over the floor!" Does anyone see a problem with that?

An old Easter basket holds zinnias at my front door. When Rachel and I bought this old kitchen chair at a local found-items shop, the saleswoman told us "Now, remember, this chair isn't for sitting!" I didn't tell the zinnias.  

Scarlet trumpet vine berries burst into coral bells, its tendrils digging into the mortar of our brick house, every year, performing a Wallenda-esque feat of balance and courage. One of my poems about despair and hope and beauty-in-the-moment was inspired by the massive trumpet vine shadowing a gray stone Mary who sits in a little garden just off of our deck. "Trumpet Vine" found a lovely home in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers. Here's a few lines:

 

                                   I carry water in a plastic blue pitcher to the potted plants,

                                   whispering in cool aqua tones, their flowering days numbered.

                                   Delicate buttons of lantana wave as I work near Mary,

                                   branches jousting playfully with the wind.

                                   Hard purple berries erupt into tiny pink and yellow circles,

                                   running round and round, spinning to a sunny center.

                                   I shield my eyes from the sight, pinching dead blossoms

                                   between my fingernails. Tiny jade hummingbirds hover,

                                   wings whirling furiously in direct defiance of gravity,
                                   hanging on a puff of blue air, chancing all to dip beaks

                                   into lavender cups, wings wet and heavy with hope.

 



 

 

Yeah, mama said there'd be days like that, my mama said. She also taught me the comfort to be found in a cold glass of sweet tea, which is in itself a beautiful thing.

 

To brew my version of Mama's Sweet Tea, here's what you'll need:

 

 8 Luzianne Tea Bags, tags removed

2 gallons hot water

2 cups (Okay, okay...but this is sweet tea!) Splenda

Steep until dark red.

 

Serve in tall glasses with crushed ice and lots of lemon slices. If you've had a gray kind of day, the kind your mama warned you about, you might want to add a splash of Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka. Take your glass out to your deck or your porch or your front stoop. Maybe you'll see the first of summer's lightning bugs. Remember what my cardinal told me: "There's beauty all around you."

 

 

 

 

Jilliebeanery #1 (Including Panko-Crusted Goat Cheese and Sweet Lemon Vinaigrette)

 

I've been hitting the blogger circuit lately, stepping into other people's lives for a spell. After visiting, I always leave comments (please write back!), which I like to think of as the 2013 version of the 19th-century calling card. Blog posts are just like old-fashioned paper invitations: "Come on in and take the armchair by the fire. The tea's almost ready."

 

Most of my new bloggy friends share their favorite things now and then, lovely pictures and words of and about French homes and blue farmhouses, antiques and repurposed castoffs, mouthwatering concoctions cooling on countertops, and glimpses of family love--near perfect and almost dysfunctional, all waving me in, making me comfortable in their separate worlds.

 

So here's my invitation to you: Step in, and I'll show you around my place a little. Maybe we'll have a bite to eat when we're finished.

  

 

Matthew, my oldest son, brought this dear wooden elephant family back from a trip to Ghana, where he'd gone to take photographs. The carver sold them in sets, but not in graduated families of six, big to little.  Matty can be very convincing, and somehow the seller was made to understand that this gift had to contain a father, mother, biggest brother, big brother, little big sister, and baby sister. The elephant family rode home in a backpack, along with some Canon equipment, slung over the shoulder of a 6'4" traveler.

I had a hard time finding just the right spot for this sweet gift, the elephants' dark roundness blending too easily into tables and shelves.

Their current home is a repurposed planting box that held six small clay pots of portulaca for years, until the bottom fell out! Here, the repurposed box is turned on its side, allowing a private room for each of them.

 

 

 

 

 If you come to visit me, you'll find this ceramic heart hanging in my entryway. I found it in a little shop outside of Boston, where we'd traveled to watch my oldest daughter play lacrosse with her college team. Allowed some rare time away from her team, we walked the hilly streets linked by small shops, stopping first for red velvet cupcakes crowned with fat pink icing roses and then for creamy, white chowder spooned up at a table in front of an old stone fireplace.

I did indeed buy the little heart as a memento, but look closely at its message. "Expect miracles."

 

I always do. 

 

 

Okay, I'll admit it. I have a glass problem. I'm attracted (especially to dishes) to things made from glass, so if you need to borrow platters, plates, bowls, cups, or glasses, you know where to come. Once my husband asked me to stop buying dishes, but I think I've convinced him that one can never have enough (I just keep cooking!), especially when they are as lovely as this one. We bought this thin curve of a platter at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, where I stood mesmerized by the tablets of colors crafted by the vendor's glass alchemy.

 

"We'll take the big one," my husband told him.

 

 

And so we did. In the summer, this platter holds greens lightly tossed with a sweet lemon vinaigrette (mix the juice of 1/2 lemon with 1/3 cup olive oil, about 2 tablespoons of Splenda, and salt and pepper--this is a to-taste vinaigrette, so don't be shy---lick your finger and then adjust to your liking), often topped with panko-crusted goat cheese (the secret here is to partially freeze the cheese,  cut into 2-inch slices which are then pressed into a plate of panko crumbs and browned quickly in about an inch of olive oil), thin red onion, and chunks of pear,

just like this:

 

 

 

When the salad's all gone, and we've licked the lemony bits from our fingers, I wash the gem-studded platter gently, holding it up to catch the light streaming through the window.

 

 

 



On Blessings: Strawberries and Flying Children

 

 

 

You know that sweet saying about giving your child wings? I used to think it was cute, too, when I was still zipping my babies into footie pajamas. Back then, I fueled myself with aphorisms, imagining myself slam-dunking the parenting thing (imagine a very nice pat on the back here--"Oh, yes, I'm raising my children so that they will ffffllllllyyyyyyyyy!"). People who write darling little embroidery-worthy witticisms like this obviously haven't had children who are born in flight mode. My third child emerged in take-off position, landing gear raised and flight plan plotted. At first, she wanted to fly out of her high chair, and then across the ice, and then down the field. When her plan took her out of our nest,  being her mother morphed into a bittersweet combination of wonder and angst.

Once I wrote this:
 

My body does not forget. Missing her wells in me, rough waters threatening to pull me under. At the sound of my morning alarm, I imagine her still asleep, curled on her side, three hours behind me. We are connected by phone lines, divided by time differences. She calls me while riding her bike home, my mind tangled in the three lanes of traffic she has to cross with a phone held to one ear. Sometimes she calls me while in line at Starbucks, saying "Bye...love you" as she reaches the register.

If I had one of those big world maps, I could track her with push pins. Sacramento, Tokyo, Chicago, Florence, Cinque Terre, Rome, Paris, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh. Last week, she took off again, this time for Helena, Arkansas where she'll spend two years teaching chemistry in a modular classroom.

Guess who bought the luggage tag?

A little of mom goes with her by way of a teacher's box, including the same kind of book I've used to plan my classes for years.

  

Meet Momma Bear, who had to ride for 14 hours wedged between the front seats. Excuse her ragged looks, please--she's been on the road quite a bit over the last 24 years.

 

 

 

This may be one of those you-had-to-be-there kind of pics. Here's a play-by-play in case you missed it. I'm standing on the front steps yelling mother-love kinds of things (drink your orange juice, call me any time, park in well-lit spaces, the first days will be really hard--but it will get better, let me know when you get in!), and Gary is driving along side of Laura. Yes, you are seeing correctly. He drives down the street with her, forcing her to take up the on-coming traffic lane. He follows her down the hill to our plan exit, where he honks like a mad goose to send her off.

 



And where do the strawberries come in?

The thing is that Laura loves strawberries. Once, at a graduation party for one of her brother's friends, she stood by a silver tray of plump strawberries dressed in white and dark chocolate tuxedos, plopping them into her mouth until the hostess lifted the tray and placed it on another table. Laura really, really loves frozen strawberries mixed with Jello and layered on top of baked and buttered pretzel crumbs, the whole sweet thing slathered with cream cheese, Cool Whip, and sugar. The making of Strawberry Pretzel Salad annoys me with its mashing of pretzels and sloshing of Jello, So, when we went to a family gathering just two days before she left for Arkansas, I decided to try a more grown-up berry recipe, a Pinterest-proclaimed marvel: the Strawberry Blessing.

 

Here's how I conjured up a Strawberry Blessing:

You'll need to gather a few goodies.
 

1 cup strawberry jam (I had only enough strawberry to fill 3/4 of the cup, so I filled it up with a lovely mixed berry jam I'd picked up at a local farm market.)

 

1/2 cup warm water

 

1/3 cup orange juice

 

1/4 cup Cointreau (divided in half), plus one extra tablespoon

 

1-1/4 pounds mascarpone, at room temperature

 

1-1/3 cups whipping cream

 

3 tablespoons sugar

 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Savoiardi--also known as ladyfingers!  (You'll need three packages of Savoiardi. Twenty-four come in a pack, and I used exactly 52 in my 9 x 13 pan. You might be more Savoiardi-savvy than I, but, after a hunt through the bakery and cookie section in my grocery store, I finally found these in the specialty Italian aisle. Just a note: the bakery lady did not a) remember the bakery ever carrying ladyfingers and b) know that the furtive Savoiardi could be found in her store.)

 

1-1/2 to 2 pounds strawberries, washed, dried and sliced (And, oh!, it is strawberry season!)

 

2 tablespoons lemon zest (Use one plump lemon for this amount of zest. Naked lemons can be used for all kinds of other lovely, lemony things.)

 

 

Fourteen Steps to a Strawberry Blessing: 



 (None of which involve the annoying pretzel crunching or Jello sloshing!)

 

1. Mix the jam, water, orange juice, and 1/8 cup of the Cointreau.

 

2. In another bowl, whip together the mascarpone and the second 1/8 cup of Cointreau. 

 

  

3. Beat the whipping cream, sugar, vanilla extract and remaining 1 tablespoon of Cointreau until stiff peaks form. 

  

4. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream mixture into the mascarpone to soften the mixture. Then, carefully fold in the remaining whipped cream mixture.

 

5. Spread 1/2 of the jam mixture in the bottom of a 9 x 13 dish. The Savoiardi will absorb all of this lovely liquid.

  

 

6. Behold the naked lemon! Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the lemon zest over the jam mixture. (I've learned that a little of the bitter makes the sweet so much more delicious.)  

 

 

7. Line the bottom of the dish with Savoiardi, covering the entire pan. You may have to break the ladyfingers into smaller pieces to fill small spaces.
 

8. Spread half of the mascarpone mixture evenly over the Savoiardi.

9. Layer half of the sliced strawberries over the mascarpone.

10. Spread the second half of the jam mixture over the strawberries. (You might want to lick the bowl.)
 

 

11. Sprinkle the remaining tablespoon of lemon zest over the strawberries and jam.

 

12. Repeat the process with the remaining ingredients, laying a second row of Savoiardi over the  strawberries and jam, then spreading the mascarpone mixture over those, and last,  covering with the  sliced strawberries and lemon zest.

 

13. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours. (I suspect this is when the blessing happens.)

  

14. Enjoy your blessings: strawberry and otherwise. 

 

 

You can find the recipe I adapted at Cream Puffs in Venice. Here's the Pinterest description that made me think Laura might like it:

"It was glorious. Angels sang. I think there were even harps. As far as I’m concerned you can call it whatever you like. I call it good."  

 

And we did think it was glorious, all of us--my sister's family and mine, from the oldest cousin (my son) to my nephew's baby boy (blessing number five for Jeff and Heather, and, well, okay, he's a little young to eat cake). What did Laura think? I'm pretty sure she still likes the Strawberry Pretzel Salad more, but, then, again, you'll have to ask her. I'll let you know when she's back in town.