December in Facebook Posts

I have been thinking that the little snippets of life I post to Facebook are a diary of sorts, and compiling these bits together should give you an idea of my recent activities.

December 1st

I got a Christmas decorating injury. I must have sliced my finger on a cardboard box and -- sorry if this is disturbing to some of you -- actually sliced into my fingernail at the root end. Who knew that Christmas decorating was dangerous?

December 3rd

Some news. I got my new proofs this morning and approved them. "Action Men with Silly Putty" should be available in print in the next three or five days. I'll make a big announcement when it is.

December 5th

Last week, I wrote up a draft for the first chapter in the Paloma book (a biography.) I still need to fill in some blanks for chapter one and got some new information from Paloma's mom. I helped Mom decorate the house and prepare a special Christmas luncheon for her Bible study ladies on Friday. I arranged the fruit salad plates and helped serve. Mom made a terrific seafood medley with crab, shrimp and scallops in an alfredo sauce over rice. Dad put his origami skills to work with some fantastic napkin folding. (He folded trees with green napkins and pinwheels with red ones.) I finished off the week going to see Handel's "Messiah" by the Cathedral Choir at Hawthorne Gospel Church with friends Jeannie and Iris. Friend Stan was part of the choir, and his son was the tenor soloist. It's been a wonderful Christmas season so far.

Soprano soloist Winnie Nieh

December 5th

I just got my copy of Maria Lynn Hurty's "Christmas Crazy to Jesus Joy" Advent devotional. I read her reference to the "greasy grimy gopher guts" song and thought, "That's my Maria." She does make a spiritual point of it, I promise. I'm pretty sure she serenaded me with that song once upon a time. I know she taught me the "My Reindeer Flies Sideways" song to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance." Really, it looks like a lovely book with some nice thoughts, beautiful photography and some Maria humor.

December 5th

Well, here it is. "Action Men with Silly Putty" is now available in print. $:) 8.99 It would make a good Christmas present for someone or maybe just a gift to yourself.

December 7th

I did some transcription today from one of my interviews with Miss Paloma. Earlier, I helped to rearrange the furniture to make room for the Christmas tree in the front room, and Dad assembled it. Decoration for the tree will happen tomorrow. Already, two packages arrived at the house with gifts I've ordered. I did all my shopping online. Tonight, I plan to watch the live "Hairspray" on NBC.

December 10th

Mom and Dad got a new high-def TV on a Cyber Monday deal. When it was first set up, we didn't have the new cable box, so I enjoyed connecting it to my Youtube account to play my Youtube lists and recommendations on the big high-def screen. Some of the musicians I follow make very visually pleasing videos, often taken in nature scenes, so it was very enjoyable to see them in high-def. We watched Piano Guys, a cellist named Tina Guo and The Harp Twins, Camille and Kennerly, among others.

December 10th

I'm putting more ornaments on the tree today. We have a number of bird ornaments, airplane ornaments, star and angel ornaments. For some reason, I tend to arrange these on levels towards the top of the tree, birds then planes, then stars, then angels. This is what I try to do anyway. Right now, unless I move him, I've got a little boy flying a kite that is somewhere in the airplane level and practically in the realm of the angels. (This thought was not in the original post, but I thought I would add it here. That kite has a lot of lift!) 

December 11th

My family seems to know I like to cuddle up in blankets in cold weather. One year, for Christmas, I received a Snuggie. Another year, I received another brand's version, what my brother dubbed the "blue burrito." The blue blanket zips and snaps around you and transforms you into a kind of burrito. Well, it's blue burrito weather. In fact, I have that and an additional blanket.

December 12th

I have to report for jury duty tomorrow. Do you think that if I tell them I'm a mystery fiction writer, I won't get assigned to a case?

So, the day went by fine. I was in the jury pool for a criminal/murder case. I suppose it could have worked as a research opportunity as a couple of you pointed out. On the questionnaire, I did mention my mystery novel and named "Forensic Files" as a TV show I watch. Anyway, I wasn't selected, and I don't need to return tomorrow. I was able to do a lot of nice reading on my Kindle and finished the book I had started.

December 15th

I made up a new word for the state of today's weather ... bbrriness.

December 18th

I'm watching a movie starring two of my favorite classic actors, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, "The Philadelphia Story."

December 18th

We had a lovely Christmas cantata yesterday. The worship team proceeded down the aisle with electric candles. One of the little girls in church dressed as an angel and sat by the manger scene with a little lamb puppet. We sang with a a combination of CD accompaniment and live piano. We even had a small brass section, two trumpets and one saxophone, playing for the processional, recessional, Christmas carol singalong section of the program and in the foyer before and after the concert. Hot chocolate and cookies were served. It was all lovely. One friend commented (slightly paraphrased), "You know how you are watching a Christmas movie and everything is so cozy, and you wish you were there? I felt like I was in a Christmas movie. I was there."

December 19th

I've been enjoying reading friends' posts about their Christmas baking. Yesterday, I baked peanut butter blossom cookies with Hershey kisses. Today, I hope to make gingerbread men with a new Kitchen Aid mixer.

December 20th

I just made some gingersnaps for Christmas. I tried out a recipe from a food blogger and adapted it slightly with some seasoning ideas from an Alton Brown recipe. These have a combination of fresh grated ginger and minced crystallized ginger instead of ground ginger. Mom, Dad and I all taste tested them and decided they are pretty good. I added a half cup flour to one half of the dough for making gingerbread boys tomorrow.

Parsley, Sage and an Herbaceous Tribute to Brit Crime TV

Dad's herb garden

"Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme ..." The first time I heard this song was in an elementary school music class. I wasn't too impressed with it at the time. Maybe the melody seemed slow and melancholy. Maybe the lyrics seemed a little bit odd. I wasn't sure what parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme had to do with going to Scarborough Fair, and I wasn't sure why the first person narrator, if he wanted a true love, demanded she make him a cambric shirt. That is certainly an odd wooing ritual. "My fair lady, I feel you are my true love. If you want to be my true love ..." Snap! "Make me a shirt." It seems like the ritual should be reversed, and the wooer should be doing kind deeds for the woman he is trying to win. "My fair lady, please accept these wildflowers as a token of my admiration."

All these years later, I am still not enlightened about the connection between herbs and Scarborough Fair or any of the other enigmatic lyrics, but I've gained some appreciation for it. That may have changed when I heard this version of it by Hayley Westenra of Celtic Woman.

A bit of this musical theme is worked into the theme song of one of my favorite TV mystery series, "Rosemary and Thyme."

It's a good cozy mystery for those who like a good mystery that won't show graphic violence or close-ups of bodies and their various injuries at the medical examiner's table. The show's heroines are two friends named Rosemary Boxer (Felicity Kendal) and Laura Thyme (Pam Ferris) who are in the gardening business together. The coincidence of two friends with such names who also happen to be gardeners doesn't seem too probable, but it's charming. The two also have detective/sleuthing skills however. Laura is a former policewoman, and Rosemary is a plant pathologist. Rosemary's plant expertise is useful in unraveling each mystery, often but not always involving toxic plants. It's also a visually beautiful show, because each episode is in some different fantastic garden somewhere. There's some mild humor woven into the stories too, which I enjoy. So, if you'd rather see roses than bullet wounds, this is the mystery show for you.

Photo from Acorn TV

Photo from Acorn TV

My father has been keeping an herb garden for quite a few years now in his retirement, and this garden has all four of the herbs mentioned in the song plus chives, tarragon, basil, marjoram, lavender and peppermint. How nice this will be for any cooking this season. I love the taste of fresh herbs but particularly basil and rosemary. Mom read about how feverfew might help migraine headaches, so for my sake, they added this to the herb garden. See my earlier post on migraine and music therapy.

Dad recently emailed me photos of his herb garden, mainly to show me this ...

And this ...

which were side by side in the garden.

Cute, Dad. Very cute.

Not to tire you with too many different renditions of "Scarborough Fair," the Gothard Sisters have a nice harmonic version and are interesting to watch with their graceful movement and different instruments.

Berry Trifle for "Downton Abbey" Night

 

A professor friend of mine, a college friend's father, recently posted a photo of his wife's English trifle dessert for Downton Abbey night. I thought this was a wonderful idea. I celebrated my birthday this past weekend and thought a trifle dessert with Downton Abbey could be a part of my celebration.

I have made variations of trifle before. The last recipe I tried before this was an adapted Pampered Chef recipe, a sort of Black Forest cake variation. I remember I used a Ghiradelli brownie mix instead of Duncan Hines. It was delicious but not exactly a traditional English trifle. I've even seen variations made with Twinkies, but, obviously, great English manors in the 1920s did not serve trifle made with Twinkies. I decided to look online for a traditional recipe.

That was a trickier business than I expected. I found several trifle recipes by British TV chef Jamie Oliver. These seemed promising for being more authentic and traditional. Reading one of his recipes, I had to keep reminding myself that "jelly" meant "gelatin." (For British friends and readers, you may already know that Americans use the word "jelly" to refer to what you would call "jam." You may not know that, although gelatin is the formally correct American term for "jelly," most of us, informally, use the brand name word Jell-O in place of "gelatin.") 

Jamie Oliver's one recipe called for ready-made sponge cake or trifle sponges and blancmange, a gelatin dessert made with cornstarch and milk. It would save some steps to use ready-made products, but I didn't think I would find either of these in stores near me, at least, not easily. I would be more likely to find a ready-made angel food cake, but I didn't think angel food cake was synonymous with sponge cake. I just looked up the difference between the two, and it would seem that angel food cake is made with egg whites only and sponge cake with whole eggs.  

I then found this Williams Sonoma recipe that provides links to their recipes for both the sponge cake and crème anglaise layers and uses dried cherries and pears. That seemed both authentic and doable, if more time consuming, since it provided the recipes for components I doubted I would find in stores. In the end I used a different Williams Sonoma recipe.

I settled on making this Williams Sonoma berry trifle recipe. There were several reasons why I picked this one. 1) This one uses mixed berries, and berries are my favorite fruit. 2) This one called for ready-made pound cake, which I was more confident I could find in stores. It would also be less time consuming to use a ready-made cake. 3) Several of the recipes I reviewed and considered called for some sort of liquor, possibly a sweet sherry. This one uses orange liqueur which I already had on hand. 

I am basically a teetotaler and live in a family of teetotalers, but we do cook and bake with wine and other liquor sometimes. Occasionally, we buy liqueur for a special recipe that hangs around for ages since we don't drink it or frequently use it for a recipe. We have some kirsch that we used years ago for a Bon Appetit magazine recipe for Black Forest cake for my father's birthday. Somehow, we had some Cointreau liqueur we used for I forget what recipe, and I was glad to put it to another use and avoid buying another liquor to hang around for ages.

 This recipe calls for two pounds of mixed berries. I went over the two pounds, using a pound of strawberries, 12 ounces of blackberries and a dry pint (12 ounces) of blueberries. Here are my beautiful strawberries in their special berry basket of the lettuce spinner, ready for their bath (or maybe shower would be a better term.)

I hulled and sliced my strawberries.

I then added the other berries to the mix.

I then added quarter cup orange juice, a quarter cup Cointreau and a quarter cup superfine sugar to my berries to let them macerate. The superfine sugar was one ingredient that was slightly elusive. I looked for it in the nearest supermarket, Kings Supermarket, and did not find it on the shelves. I thought perhaps I would have to use confectioners' sugar. I'm not sure that would have worked as well, however; because the superfine sugar is a quick dissolve sugar to use with liquids. I came home, and we were out of confectioners' sugar. I then headed to Foodtown. (I realize these are store chains that are regional to me, but it may be helpful to those in my area.) I hoped to find the superfine sugar and knew, that if I failed to find it, I could, at least, pick up the confectioners' sugar. I did find the superfine sugar at Foodtown. Success! 

Each of these chains carry different products. Kings Supermarket caters to a sophisticated clientele. This is an advantage when tracking down a specialty product, but the shelves are sometimes filled with specialties and imports and have less room for more ordinary products. They also may not carry as many baking needs.

So, if you have a little trouble tracking down superfine sugar. Mine looked like this, in a tall plastic container with a flip and pour top.

I made one mistake though. I forgot I would need the confectioners' sugar also for my cream layer, so ... Almost success! Cooks, bakers, do you find yourself doing absent-minded things like this sometimes?

At home, I zested my lemon with a microplane. The zest would be mixed into the cream layer.

I found Entenmann's brand pound cake, which might be helpful to those in the Northeast U.S. I'm not sure in what states this brand is available, but I was surprised to see Entenmann's products in stores while I was in Florida. I bought two cakes, not knowing how much I would need to equal six cups of cubed cake. The recipe actually asks for lemon pound cake which I did not find in the store (but would likely be delicious!)

One loaf cubed was approximately equal to six cups. I did not open the second box.

My process was interrupted by my birthday dinner with Mom and Dad out at Olive Garden. I left my berries to macerate. After dinner, I bought my silly confectioners' sugar, so I could continue.

I then whipped my cream in the mixer: two cups of heavy cream, one and a half teaspoons of vanilla extract and a quarter cup of confectioners' sugar. I had some more obstacles here. I was using an ancient old General Electric mixer that dates back to the 1960s at least, so it took a higher speed and three times the time allotted in the recipe to get my cream whipped, but, at last, I got those nice soft peaks. The lever for changing speeds is also broken on this old mixer, but my clever dad created a wire gizmo to work in place of the old broken lever.

In a separate smaller bowl, I beat a half pound of mascarpone cheese to soften it. I then folded the mascarpone into the whipped cream and folded in the lemon zest.

I then alternated layering the ingredients in the trifle dish. It should be three layers each of the cubed pound cake, the cream and the berries. Perhaps because I added more fruit, I couldn't fit a third layer of cream in the trifle dish. I solved this by slicing up some of the second pound cake and serving that with dollops of the extra cream for that evening. 

Here is my finished product.

In spite of a few obstacles and absent-minded moments, it came out quite well. It was refrigerated overnight. By the time it was Downton Abbey time, as my mother put it, the flavors had married. As TV chef Emeril Lagasse would put it, the various layers of flavors were getting "all happy in there." I suppose it's fitting that these sweet things should happily marry. Fans of the show would like to see Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes just as happily married.

We watched Season 6, Episodes One and Two back to back. You may want to wait on reading ahead if you haven't yet seen these episodes.

The story line concerning Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson stood out to me as being the most touching. Mrs. Hughes has a little private talk with Mrs. Patmore, the cook, and expresses that she is embarrassed about her aging body. She wonders if Mr. Carson is expecting a full marriage or he expects to live with her more like brother and sister. In their extreme delicacy, the two ladies have enough difficulty discussing this matter as two female friends. In even greater awkwardness, Mrs. Hughes commissions Mrs. Patmore to speak to Carson on her behalf.

Mom and I felt so sympathetic with Mrs. Patmore, exchanging tense glances across the room. This photo captures how uncomfortable the poor woman is. At last, after a lot of  delicate hinting and euphemism, Carson begins to understand her meaning. We are rewarded with a rather touching speech.

Carson says, "Tell her this, Mrs. Patmore: That in my eyes, she is beautiful...."

"I want a real marriage, a true marriage with everything that that involves. I love her, Mrs. Patmore. I am happy, and tickled, and bursting with pride that she would agree to be my wife. And I want us to live as closely as two people can for the time that remains to us on earth." -- Mr. Carson

Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes meet together some time after that, and Mrs. Hughes herself has some sweet words.

"If you want me, you can have me, to quote Oliver Cromwell, 'warts and all.'" -- Mrs. Hughes. (Sigh) Very satisfying and sweet, right? We would hope spouses would forgive us all our imperfections.

Mr. and Mrs. Bates also have a beautiful moment. Poor Anna has had several miscarriages and is very concerned she can't give Mr. Carson children as he would wish. She seems to blame herself, but Mr. Bates says something lovely to remove some of that self-blame.

"To me, we are one person, and that person can't have children." -- Mr. Bates. "We are one person." That's exactly how married people should feel.

In another little story line, Edith's daughter Marigold temporarily goes missing with Mrs. Drewe, the wife of a tenant farmer who had been raising her. It's a complicated situation. It is practically a kidnapping, only she takes her safely back to the farm, and her husband helps to return the child. Mrs. Drewe tells her husband that nobody was paying any attention to the child at the outdoor event where Edith and family were looking over some pigs. I can understand some of Mrs. Drewe's feeling. She had grown attached to Marigold. The Grantham children only spend one hour a day with their parents and the rest of the time with nannies. It doesn't seem like an ideal way to raise children. I don't really want Lady Edith to be separated from her daughter, but I wonder what arrangement will be best for Marigold? Lady Edith is pursuing a journalism career and considering moving into a London flat. This seems to suit her talents, but how will this lifestyle fit with raising Marigold? It will be interesting to see where this story line goes.