Month: December 2016

     ‘Twas the night before Christmas,

When wrapping gifts in the spare bedroom,

Mom and Dad were sitting in a puddle of ribbon, paper, and warranties.

By midnight it was plain to see, that they were getting cranky.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

 In hopes that Santa would soon be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

With flashlights and blueprint’s to catch Santa, danced in their sleepy heads.

And Mommy in her bathrobe, tape stuck on her nose and I in my ski jacket, raced out into the cold.

The easy-to-assemble dinosaur diorama (with 99 parts and one -soon to find out-missing) in the car I went to pluck.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I hit my head on the trunk, like to see, what was the matter.

Away to the street I flew like a flash.

Tore open my jogging pants and fell across the grass.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,

Gave a luster of midday to our roof’s clogged gutter.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleight and eight tiny reindeer,

With a lump in my throat and noticing a beaming light in the kid’s room I ran like crazy and tumbled into the living room.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!  To the top of the porch!  To the top of the wall! Now, dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!

I gasped for air and calmed my jitters,

By laying under the Christmas tree glitter.

It was a shiny silver aluminum tree,

With red and green strobe lights sitting below, that twirled and danced and splashed all over me.

And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof.

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew out my head, from under the tree,

Down the chimney, Santa came to greet me.

Tarnished with ashes and soot, he was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.

With a bundle of toys, he had flung on his back, he gave me a lecture on yearly chimney cleaning, sighting a danger, that was sitting there brewing.

We talked of life and what the last year had brought,

I told him we paid off the freezer and tried to be good.

He paused and drank the glass of milk,

And ate the plateful of cookies the children had left.

He went straight to his work,

Filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.

With a wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,

He spotted the bowl sitting by the fireplace ledge.

I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

My wife’s homemade carmel corn had glistened from the bowl.

One bite and with a shout of glee,

He asked for the recipe, please.

7 quarts popped corn

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup white Karo syrup

1 teaspoon salt

2 sticks butter

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

l teaspoon vanilla

Boil the brown sugar, Karo, butter and salt for five minutes.  Remove from heat and add soda and vanilla.  Pour over the popcorn and mix well.  Pour into cookie sheets and bake in a 250 degree oven for one hour.  Stir several times during baking.  Delicious!

 

It’s a pleasant, wet and rainy day, and I am standing in a semicircle of approximately 133 “you cut ’em” Christmas trees.

My husband is running with a sawblade in his left hand, a blue tarp in his right hand, and a translucent look in his eyes.  Evidently, he has spotted yet another tree that might meet his specific conditions.

My 7-year old daughter is lying on the ground at my feet, moaning deliriously that she is “tree sick.”  Her tiny limp body is lying quietly as she explains that after rows and rows of trees she can no long muster the energy to walk another step.

I don’t know about you, but when I go to ‘cut’em” I don’t waste a lot of time. I stride briskly to the most attractive tree standing and shout, “Here!”

Your professional Christmas tree cutter (husband), on the other hand, does not even think about cutting until he has conducted a complete tree study of the site-circling the selected tree warily, as though it were an alien space-ship, checking it out from every possible angle, squatting and squinting, finger in the air checking the wind, feeling the needles, analyzing the distance from the road to the truck, back to the tree…

And so, amid an atmosphere of unbearable tension, comparable to not being able to find your car keys when you are already late to that very important meeting, my daughter and I wait, and wait, and wait.

By now our daughter is trying to make snow angels in the mud and I am unbelievably letting her.  I see other families in the tree farm.  They’re staring intently at trees way off in the distance, but I think they’re staring at us.  We have been here so long.

I think about grabbing my daughter’s hand and pulling her up to her feet and taking her down the hill for our third cup of hot cider and her second candy cane, but too late, she has been entertaining the crowds by holding her breath as she runs up and down the tree rows.

The more time that passed with virtually nothing happening, the more excited I got about that cider.  I started down the hill when suddenly I heard a loud, long, whopping yelp that I recognized as my husband.

I turned to see him stand up, wipe tree pitch off his hands, and in a voice that would have made a gold digger stop, announced, “This …is the tree.”

There it stood in all of its glory-all 14 feet of it.

“That’s too big,” I said.

“Not so,” he said. “I will trim off the bottom.  You’ll see.”

“Don’t you remember last year?” I asked.  “It was too big, you did not trim enough.”

“Did so.”

“Did not.”

“Did so.

“Did not.”

“Did.”

“Not!”

Like anything else, success depends on the proper tools, so in the back of our truck is an assortment of many saws, blue tarps, gloves, rope and any necessity to fall Paul Bunyan’s tree.

“Quick, run back to the truck and pick out the yellowed handled two blade milliliter saw.  Oh, and by the way, grab me a cider,” he says with a big smile.

Rolling my eyes back in my head and shrugging my shoulders, I approached the tree surgeon punched him in the arm where he pretended to be knocked into the fir tree, and I headed to the car trying to consider the many, many complex factors involved in the “you cut ’em tree man.

This is, after all, a once a year experience.  And this tree-prepare to experience a heart tremor- was home cut.  How were we going to get it in the truck, let alone through the front door?  At least when I finally do get home I can make a nice hot cup of:

HOT SPICY APPLE CIDER

6 cups apple cider, 1 cinnamon stick, 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 teaspoon lemon rind, 1 can (2-1/2 cups) unsweetened pineapple juice.

Heat cider and cinnamon stick in a large pan.  Bring to a boil and simmer covered for 5 minutes.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer uncovered 5 minutes longer.

SIMPLY DELICIOUS EGGNOG

1 egg, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 cup chilled milk, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla.  Beat egg and sugar together.  Beat in milk and vanilla.  Serve cold in a tall glass sprinkled lightly with nutmeg.  Serve immediately

Note:  This column was published in Sandra Haldeman Martz of Papier-Mache Press, anthology “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays”.  Where I was welcomed by two different Barnes & Noble bookstores that held a booksigning and reading. 

 

 

 

 

Back before microwaves and MTV (remember records?) there was a newlywed who thought she knew the whole kit and kaboodle of life.  She lived in Georgia surrounded by strange places and new faces. Her job at the local paper was to write obituaries, weather and TV highlights.

When the Family page editor’s pregnancy left an opening, she found herself writing a daily food column, which she crowned “Overdone and Undercooked,” the title coming from her unique newlywed cooking skills.

Back before yuppies (where did earthshoes and psychedelic painted vans go?), there was a married woman.  Motivated by the curriculum of her new college town, she surrounded herself in exams, parties, philosophy, parties and midnight snacks. The local paper was thrilled to run the new, “Overdone and Undercooked” that had recipes for beer bread and advice on how to feed a crowd of 50.

That is when she ran into an incredible phenomenon-sell all your wordly possessions and travel till your money runs out.

Back before “state of the art” and “Let’s do lunch,” there was a wife who ate her way through Mexico, half the U.S. and 18 European countries.  By Venice when the gondola started to tip precariously, and all the swimwear had shrunk in Mexico, she returned home and ventured that wearing all the culinary classics on one’s hips would never start a new trend.

But it did turn “Overdone and Undercooked” into a gastronomical gourmet event. (And she became addicted to eating and showed no signs of breaking the habit.)

After a decade of marriage, she was used to him being messy and he was used to her being chunky. Next came pregnancy and motherhood.

Before motherhood, she had told her best friend that the friend was raising her three sons all wrong.  She would never ever feed her kids Lucky Charms, or give ’em a nuki (pacifier), use plastic diapers, or forget to pick them up at school.  Now, tears welled in her eyes as the new mom fell to her knees and grabbed her best friend by the ankles, begging for forgiveness.

Back before our little town became a city, she was still living in her bathrobe, no makeup and picking up last year’s tinsel, when something life-changing happen.  The door slammed. It was 8 a.m. Silence. Her daughter started grade school. “Now,” her husband patted her shoulder, “you can come work for me.”  So, for the first time in six years, she grew fingernails, shaved her legs and finished a complete sentence uninterrupted.  The first client that was rude, she told them she was going to count to three.

Back before our town had a six lane freeway, the wife/mom/head chef/bottle washer saw her little baby had turned into a pre-adolescent, with a very busy social life and a request- that Mom’s name not appear on any more volunteer lists.  As she watched her child learn basketball and the tuba, she realized that there was a happy, healthy child and it was time…

She went to her closet and pulled out the special trunk, and in there she dusted off her ole friend. She realized that she knew squat about the kit and kaboodle of life, but she had become a better cook!  And she had something she hadn’t had in a while-time.  And tremendous energy and enthusiasm,for a desire to share with the world the joys and enjoyment of the pleasures of the table.

“Overdone and Undercooked” is a joy to share with you, my new friends.  Old columns, new thoughts and a recipe or two.

And since you always remember that sweet little baby this is a great recipe for new mom’s.  The women of today is an inteligent consumer.  She is concerned with value and nutrition and many have shunned the preservative ingredients of canned baby food.  That’s why I always enjoyed easy to make and serve Food Cubes.  Don’t laugh! These are the best way to serve your baby fresh food.  You heat and eat. And just need a blender.

Try this great recipe today:

Meal in One Food Cube      1 cup cooked poultry, meat or fish; 2/3 cup vegetables or fruit, raw or cooked; 1/2 cup cooked rice, noodles or cereal; 1 cup (or less) liquid cooking water from vegetables or fruit juice.

Place liquid in blender.  Add other ingredients. Puree to desired consistency.  Freeze in food cubes (ice cube tray) at once. Can be kept frozen for 1-4 months. Equals three cups, 15 food cubes or 4-5 meals.