Second Blooming

Catching Up

Well hello.

I don't seem to have been paying much attention to y'all lately, have I? I'm so sorry. I think about y'all all the time, but I just haven't been able to sit down and write anything.

It's funny, the other day I was telling my friend Melissa that despite the fact that I hadn't seen her in months, I felt like I had because I often talk to her INSIDE MY HEAD. I could pick up a phone and call her and actually tell her things, but instead I have long conversations with her INSIDE MY HEAD. She was happy to hear that she's very witty and charming INSIDE MY HEAD, and I love that she always laughs and laughs at my jokes and wholly appreciates what I'm sharing with her. INSIDE MY HEAD.

And that's just where I've been blogging lately. INSIDE MY HEAD. I have written, maybe...15 posts. INSIDE MY HEAD. Trust me, they were all very witty, and clever, and you all loved them all. INSIDE MY HEAD.

But now we are OUTSIDE MY HEAD, so I will try to catch you up a bit on Christmastide in Second Blooming world.

It rained. Finally. Y'all have to understand that we are in a serious drought out here on the west coast. It hadn't rained in moooooonths. So rain was good. What was weird was the way our 100-year old house reacted. About six months ago, the bathroom door stopped closing. The old house had shifted and the door suddenly didn't fit the frame anymore. We had somebody look at it, but he said he was worried about changing anything because it was likely to shift back, and if he messed with it, he'd ruin it. Well guess what? After the rains, the bathroom door now closes perfectly. But now the FRONT door isn't working. It's better now, but for about three days, the only way we could get in or out of our front door was for me to perform what Jude called a "This is Sparta!" on the door. Much like this...

 

 

It really was much like that. Only the role of the Spartan dude in the skirt was played by a middle-aged woman in yoga pants and Uggs. Me. I can't imagine what the neighbors thought. Jude LOVED it! He thought I was a read bad ass.

Jude is, sadly, no longer a believer. And in true Judelike fashion, he was in no way angry that we had deceived him Santa-wise, he was only worried that he had ruined Christmas for me. Because he knew how much I loved the whole Santa business. Sweet boy. So when it came time for him to write his letter to Santa (or letter to "Santa" as he now says with air quotes), he balked, and said he really didn't want anything. After much needling, I discovered that the problem was that he had suddenly realized that Jimmy and I pay for his Christmas presents. All this time he'd been thinking it came for free from the North Pole. How much do I love my kid? So I had to go kind of off-letter this year to figure out what he really wanted. I knew he desperately wanted a gaming computer, but sadly, they are a bit pricey. Then...a high school-aged friend of Jude's told me about...Zee. Zee is a computer geek dude who rebuilds computers and beefs them up with lots of RAM and...video card thingies (okay, clearly I don't have a clue here, it's all very technical and...stuff), and sells them to gamers on the cheap.

So I email this Zee, and he told me he could hook me up with just what Jude needed. All I had to do was drive down and pick up the computer in (cue the ominous dum-dum-dum-dum music)...Bellflower, California. Beautiful Bellflower is a wasteland of stripmalls and factories and storage units situated in the armpit of the 605 and the 91 freeways. Let's say it's in Southeast Hell. Zee then texted me this picture so I could find the building...

I swear to God, this is the place. The things we do for our kids.

Luckily, I did not get sold into white slavery, and Zee turned out to be a righteous dude. He set us up with this baby...

This picture doesn't do it justice - the monitor is massive!

The boy is in heaven. He gave me a hug that would be worth driving to Southeast Hell and back every day.

I managed to avoid a Great Teacher Gift Debacle again this year! See previous disasters HERE and HERE. Nosireebob, I have learned from my mistakes. This year, I found something quick and easy and usable, that has a long shelf-life. Just what I needed. I combined a couple of recipes and this is what I came up with. You should save this recipe for next year...

Rosemary Sea Salt

1 3-lb. box kosher salt

2 bunches fresh rosemary (destemmed)

Finely chop the rosemary. Place salt and rosemary in a large pot, and heat over medium heat, stirring often, until it's heated through - about 10 minutes. Pour into a large bowl to cool. Add to wide-mouthed half-pint Mason jars and seal.

Made 11 half-pint jars. Weird amount I know.

My favorite Mondegreen of late...

Jude asked me why there was a Christmas song about "Korean eyes". After puzzling for a bit, I figured out what he was talking about and explained that the line in "Winter Wonderland" is "It will really be like a picture print from Currier and Ives" not..."Korean eyes".

It reminded me that I spent much of my childhood thinking there was a country called Orientare. As in "We three kings of Orientare."

Maybe folks from Orientare have Korean eyes

Well there you have it. Words have appeared OUTSIDE MY HEAD. In the next couple of days I'll be back with my Feast of the Seven Fishes menu for this year. It was goooood (if I do say so myself).

Merry Christmas, y'all!

 

Almost not bad picture of us if Jude had just stopped moving. Thank you Aida.

Another Thanksgiving in Bullet Points

• Best turkey ever. Seriously. For several years now, I've been brining my turkey using THIS recipe from Alice Waters. And it's been damned good. But this year, I decided to try something new and went DRY brine. Oh yeah. I used this recipe from good ole Southern Living Magazine. It was super simple and MUCH less messy than the wet brine. And the turkey was moist and yummy.

 Herbed Dry Brine for Turkey

3 tbsp. kosher salt

3 tbsp. dark brown sugar

2 tsp. rubbed sage

2 tsp. dried thyme

1 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp. garlic powder

Stir all this together. Pat the turkey dry. Sprinkle 1 tbsp. brine into the cavity of the turkey. Reserve another tbsp. brine for later. Sprinkle the rest all over the turkey, rubbing it into the skin. Cover and chill the big bird for 10 to 24 hours.

When you're ready to roast, rinse the brine off the turkey and pat dry again. Then mix the reserved tbsp. of brine with 1/2 cup of softened butter. Loosen the skin over the turkey breast and spread the butter under the skin over the breast. Oh YES! Amazing!

Then just roast it the way you like to do.

• JUDE ATE SOMETHING GREEN! Spinach, no less! My best friend Kaysie's family always makes Spinach Madeline for holiday meals, and I decided to haul it out this year. I must admit that it's possibly the least healthful vegetable recipe imaginable, right up there with that Bloomin' Onion from the Outback. But he not only ate it, he gobbled it up and asked for SECONDS! Here's the recipe that Kaysie gave me long ago, but I'm afraid that the Jalapeno Cheese stuff can't be located anywhere, so you should substitute Velveeta and some Pepper cheese grated together. I'm thinking you could put in whatever kind of cheese you want, but don't try to make it too healthful or you're defeating the purpose.

Kaysie's Spinach Madeline

2 pkg. frozen chopped spinach (boiled and squeezed very dry - reserve 1/2 cup of liquor)

4 tbsp. (1/4 cup) butter

2 tbsp. minced onion

2 tbsp. flour

1/2 cup evaporated milk

1/2 cup reserved spinach liquor

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

6 oz. Kraft Jalapeno cheese roll (or Velveeta or Pepper Jack) - cut up or grated

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

3/4 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 cup bread crumbs

Melt the butter and saute the onions. Stir in flour to make a roux. Add evaporated milk and spinach liquor and cook until thickened. Add salt and pepper. Add cheese a bit at a time, stirring each addition until it melts before adding more. Add the Worcestershire and garlic powder and spinach. Transfer to a baking pan. Top with bread crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees until it bubbles around the edges, about 30 minutes. Sit in shock as your vegetable-hating child asks for seconds!

• I'm thinking that next year I'm going to find a folding table to set up on the side of the dining room and just go buffet. It's the same problem every year, there's too much food on too many large serving dishes that don't all fit on the table and are too hot and/or heavy to pass. I think it would be easier if we all just got up and helped ourselves. And that way the kids could grab their own food without their parents having to wait on them. Somebody (mmm...Lynn) needs to remind me of this next year!
• Best Thanksgiving purchase - a Girlmade Apple Pie. I am a total snob about store-bought desserts. As in...I won't allow them at my dinner table. I either make it myself or we don't eat it. However...this year I made a slight exception. Jude's school is very involved in do-gooding, and every year each class does an Adopt-a-Family thing. The kids all come up with ideas to raise money for their family. Six little girls in Jude's class got together and offered homemade apple pies, which they took preorders for and then handed out in the carline at school. Those little girls worked themselves silly and damn if that pie wasn't delicious!

• This last Friday after Thanksgiving was possibly the laziest day that our family has ever experienced. Jimmy stayed in bed all day. Really. All. Day. And Jude and I sat on the couch and played video games and ate leftovers until I finally decided that we had to do something productive. So we went and got ice cream. Yes, productive is a relative thing. We then curled back up on the couch with MORE leftovers and watched a double feature - The Princess Bride, followed by Spaceballs. A Sillyathon. Next year we need to add some Monty Python. I am proud to say that Jude is now walking around saying things like "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.", "Inconceivable!" and "May the Schwartz be with you."

Jude, eating ice cream at Scoops, our favorite neighborhood ice cream parlor. Please notice that Jude is dressed only because these are the clothes he wore in Thanksgiving night and he SLEPT IN THEM.

• Best leftover repurposing of the year. I made Aimee's Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Onions recipe again - delicious as always. But by Sunday we were totally OVER the whole leftover thing, so I had to get creative. So I sauteed a mess of kale (That's a Texanism - "a mess". It's a vague measurement that approximately equals "a buttload".), tossed in the leftover sweet potatoes and onions, added olive oil and a half a pound of cooked pasta, then sprinkled it with freshly grated Parmesan and YUM!

Okey dokey, that's all for Thanksgiving. I am proud of myself for not veering too far off my diet and leftovering myself back into my fat pants and for managing to get to the gym twice during the Thanksgiving weekend.

How were your Thanksgivings?