Rediscovering Old Cookbooks and Soups

Traditionally, in our house the weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday is the weekend to decorate the house for Christmas. Decorating the house for Christmas is not an easy task. After years of collecting Christmas decorations and sorting them into plastic tubs for storage, we never seem to have what we need at the moment we need it. Up come the rubber tubs from the basement-- filled with decorations-- but they're usually the wrong ones! Usually, I find that the extensions cords that I see all over the house during the rest of the year now seem lost, and this calls for a trip to the store. Then, after hanging a green pine garland on the stair railing we find out the lights don't work, so that means it has to be taken down, and after another trip to the store we finally hang a beautful pine green garland decorated with tiny white lights and gold bows. It always takes longer to decorate the house than I think it will!

Spending time and energy decorating the house usually puts me in a domestic diva mood, so even though time was tight, I knew that hungry mouths would be asking about dinner later in the day. Even with everyone running around doing their holiday shopping, we still like to sit down as a family for dinner. However, after so much feasting this Thanksgiving holiday, it was finally time to wind down the eating and simplify... and my answer to simple eating is always a great soup.

On a whim, I reached for one of my older cookbooks looking for a soup recipe... and I found the perfect one in the Moosewood Cookbook. It was a gift from my friend Bernie in 1980. I settled on making a Broccoli Soup which made the vegetarians in the family very happy. The soup turned out well, except that the next time I would whip in the sour cream to make it a bit thicker. Cooking this soup from this cookbook brought back lots of memories... back to my "earth-mother" days and cooking everything from scratch. I remember Bernie and I cooking recipes from this cookbook and sharing our successes and failures! In then end, rediscovering the Moosewood Cookbook and broccoli soup reminds me that rediscovered things from the past can become a new tradition in the future.

Thanksgiving

Thankgiving holiday is my favorite of all holidays. It's so completely American; takes place on the fourth Thursday of November, which also means most workers take the Friday after off. That makes for a wonderfully long holiday weekend! What makes Thanksgiving so wonderful is that it's all about the food and coming home... the point is to have a huge feast with friends and family. It doesn't involve the stress of gift giving or a round of parties to build up to the day, it's simply about having Thanksgiving dinner at home. Every person has a cooking assignment: I always make the jello salads (again, a very American thing!), and Ed has made the turkey for over 30 years! He's perfected it with our favorite oyster stuffing, and everyone in the family, including our German shepherd Fawn, loves it! Phil makes the potatoes and pumpkin pie, Sophia makes the apple pie, and Lili makes a green bean casserole. Michael makes a Southwestern corn casserole, and so on. I love to get up early and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV-- that's a memory from long ago when my Mom and I used to watch it together when I was growing up.

Of course, the day after Thanksgiving is when life changes-- the frenzied shopping begins and mall road rage reaches a peak. Some of the stores and shopping centers are opening up as early as 4 AM this year, offering special sales between opening and noon, all in an effort to draw in a crowd of shoppers. I think I'll pass on all of that and just enjoy staying at home :)

Sherlock Holmes Movie

I seldom watch movies a second time, just like I do not read books for the second time (except readings for my doctoral studies-- I read those many times!), but the new version of the movie Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law is one that I am watching for the second time.

This is a movie in which one needs to pay attention. The dialogue is full of nuance, and missing any of the dialogue would make it more difficult to understand the character's motives and details of the plot of the story. Besides being an example of really great acting, the editing of the movie and its use of flashback techniques make this movie well-worth watching!

Opera, Holidays, and Mall Parking Lot Rage

Last weekend's evening at the opera was a wonderful time with family and celebrating a birthday. Every time I go to the opera I like it even more! Supposedly, music changes the brain and listening to music is good for you. I am now searching for a CD of opera arias-- good road music :)


The holidays are here, and even though the shopping rush usually begins after Thanksgiving, my visit to the mall this weekend before Thanksgiving showed that the whole world has already started Christmas shopping! Parking lots were filled and so the ritual of stalking for parking spaces has begun. Parking rage has taken over the minds of even the most reasonable persons! Time and again I saw cars cut in front of other cars waiting for a parking space, or angrily driving around a car patiently waiting for a parking space. Whatever happened to Mom's lessons of minding your manners and being considerate of others?

Crisp Fall Days

It's amazing how one can live in a place for many years and yet not experience one of its finest spots-- yesterday we took the dog for a walk in a park near the reservoir. It was an oasis from suburban life-- rolling hills, a stream with small waterfalls, stone walls designed to create outdoor seating areas, and a meandering path dipping down into a valley among a canopy of trees. It used to be part of a wealthy estate, and was donated to the citizens to enjoy. Fawn loves it! Although- as a walking dog goes she doesn't do so well... walking with Fawn means letting her take the lead and stopping and sniffing when she sees fit. However, she loved it and so did we, and I can just imagine walking there when snow covers the ground.


I love Autumn and the crisp air, but this Autumn seemed to have gone abruptly from warm weather to very cool. Overnight leaves have fallen, and I guess it will be just one more brisk wind before all the leaves have fallen from the trees. While talking my brisk exercise walk this afternoon I noticed that it's time to do a final grasscutting before the mower is stored until Spring, and since we've had several frosts already, I could see that the hardy mums are starting to look dilapidated. This afternoon's grey skies and crisp air are reminders that Thanksgiving is right around the corner. One of the joys of living in the US is Thanksgiving, a very American holiday. It's a time for families to gather and feast together. It's my favorite holiday since it revolves around food and family rather than gifts.

So-- where am I going with these rambling thoughts? I'm on the verge of finishing "reading" A Farewell to Arms. I'm sorry to have it end-- this book has made my walking so much more pleasurable. The characters have become so real, and John Slattery's reading of this book has brought WW I into the present. I shall miss it!

Obama's Wars

Slowly working my way through Obama's Wars. It's a challenge just to keep up with which General or politician is promoting which course of action-- but in the end, the book does provide deep insights into the political structures behind the 2 wars we're now fighting. My greatest insight has been in reading how the President's inner circle has kept significant Generals or military reports at bay from the President-- guess you could call that a little turf protection. It really shouldn't be surprising that a new administration, finding itself engaged in two war fronts, doesn't quite understand what's going on. I'm reading this book hoping that I will come to a greater understanding of how Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan fit together in the bigger puzzle of war in the Middle East. I am also curious to see if anyone in the administration understands the depth of the differences between the mindsets of US and Middle Eastern societies. Most disturbing is reading about the depth of Karzai's corruption. I can't help but feel somewhat pessimistic... if we are to really work at winning the war in Afghanistan we'd better plan on 20 or 30 years in that country. Do we have the capability for sustaining that action?