Thankfulness, sharing and celebrating
I hope you’ve
been able do all three of these things this holiday season.
It has been
a remarkable year and I am thankful that I’ve survived and thrived with the
help and companionship of friends and family.
I am nothing short of astounded at how many people, busy with work and
their own lives, still make time to check in on me, or give me a hand with
things I cannot do without assistance.
The carpenter who built our home 12 years ago spent time here last
weekend, to change out my water filter and repair a closet shelf. Other friends sometimes call or stop by to
ask if I need anything. For this I am
very grateful.
To elaborate
on sharing…
It was a joy to volunteer for a recent
community turkey dinner fundraiser and share the work with many other wonderful
folks. We served 120 turkey dinners on a
Saturday afternoon, and gave meals away to anyone who was in need.
Recently I also had the unique joy of sharing the experience of an alpaca trek
with three friends! The alpaca farm at
Cape Newagen offers guided treks around the seaside community. They give you an alpaca to lead for over an
hour. Mine was named “Gracie” and she
said “Mmmmm” a lot! The owner/handler
trained them to give kisses for treats.
You have not lived until you have been kissed by an alpaca! That’s the way to celebrate life!
I was also
blessed to have my daughter and son-in-law spend a few days with me over
Thanksgiving and I’ll be sharing some Thanksgiving side-dish recipes in this
blog entry.
Although I
have adjusted to living alone, the quietness of my life has been a challenge
for me since Bruce was a very loquacious guy!
With two people in the house over the holiday, the space within the home
warms and fills the void. Once my family
left for home, the space seemed to change on a molecular level, and the void creeps
back like fog on the river.
Silence is a
presence to contend with when you first live alone. Eventually you do have to learn to accept it,
although you can always work around it by adding a soundtrack of some kind. Or you can learn to listen to the
silence. There is a reason that vows of
silence are a part of holy orders.
Before we lived in a world of electronic devices that constantly emit
sounds the world must have been a pleasantly silent place. We’ve just forgotten how to live in a silent
world.
“Everything
has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may
be in, therein to be content” - Helen
Keller.
Thanksgiving
Recipes
Nana’s
stuffing
My
grandmother used to make the stuffing for our Thanksgiving turkey, in the
pantry of our extended family home in Ayer, Massachusetts. She used a very old, hand crank meat grinder
and I often helped her force the bread, celery and onion through the device to
make the stuffing mix. She always warned me not to stick my fingers in the meat
grinder! My family’s favorite dish at
Thanksgiving is the stuffing and they insist that I make extra! So I add a casserole of extra stuffing to put
in the oven for the last hour of roasting the turkey.
1 loaf of
stale bread or “stuffing bread” as sold in the markets
2 large or 3
small onions
4 stalks of
celery
1 cup of
chicken broth
½ stick of
butter
Spices:
Aleppo pepper, salt, marjoram, thyme and rubbed sage
Use a food
processor (updated from the meat grinder days) and coarsely chop the bread in
batches, pour into a large mixing bowl and then chop the onions and celery the
same way and add to the stuffing mix. Add
the spices, and I did not provide precise measurements so I will say “Season to
taste” but use at least a half teaspoon of each spice, more if you like hearty
flavors.
Warm the
chicken broth in a small saucepan and melt the butter in the warm broth. Gradually add the butter/broth mixture to the
stuffing mix and stir as you add the liquid. Take care not to make the stuffing overly
moist or it will make the stuffing dense and heavy. Barely moist will yield fluffy stuffing. After filling the turkey cavity with
stuffing, put the extra stuffing in a buttered casserole dish. To make this extra stuffing taste like it
came from the turkey, I place “turkey parts”(you know the ones in the bag you
find in the turkey, the neck and gizzard) on top of the stuffing and let the
flavor infuse throughout the uncovered casserole while baking.
My Kind
of Squash
Butternut or
hubbard squash
butter
shredded coconut
salt and pepper
You can use
butternut squash for this recipe, but when I can find a hubbard squash, that is
always my first choice. This squash has
excellent flavor and is never runny and water soaked but a word to the wise, it
is very tough to peel! The hubbard squash I used to find were as big as a large
pumpkin but now growers favor a smaller squash, no bigger than a basketball. Boil your peeled squash until it is tender and
drain well. Add lots of butter and about
a half cup of shredded coconut, plus salt and pepper. Mash squash until smooth. Move squash to your serving casserole dish. Sprinkle more coconut on top and broil for 1-2
minutes until coconut is toasted.
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