Fidget

One of my Christmas projects - an inkjet/rubber stamp card with origami ornament and photo of the two of us. The theme was Light.

How was your HolyDay? Ours was really very nice… Too short, really, for all the things we wanted to do. We started our day by singing some worship songs together. We had played Santa for each other and filled up the handmade personalized Christmas stockings that my Mom had loaned us for our away-holiday. I got lots of candy, protective goggles for chopping onions (they really work - no more tears) and Napoleon Dynamite chapstick! I’m just like ND when it comes to being obsessive about chapstick…

Then we cooked a big breakfast. I made Crepes for the first time and they came out really yummy. They’re so easy, and so good! We enjoyed them with fruit sauce made from frozen mixed berries, whipped cream, and side orders of hash browns just like my Dad (the breakfast expert) makes, and sausages (with maple syrup of course.)

Next was presents. We had lots of boxes that had come in the mail from various family members. What a wonderful batch of gifts! Thank you so much, everyone. BN and I had decided to get ourselves a big shared gift this year - we are looking to get one of those kitchen “island” carts - for storage and use as extra counter space. But we did give each other several small gifts. By far the most special gift I received this year was the solid teak hand-carved comb that BN designed and made for me. It’s elegantly shaped and wonderfully smooth - he’d been sanding it every day while waiting for the bus. The wide teeth are perfect for detangling my damp hair (which is approaching waist-length after growing for 2.5 years!) and the teak wood is water-resistant by nature. I’m quite a lucky woman to have such a skilled and creative husband.

Our afternoon was spent talking on the phone with family & relatives, playing a favorite board game, Settlers of Catan, and before we knew it the time came to go to the K family’s home for Christmas dinner (with Figgy Pudding for dessert!) We had a great time and stayed up very late playing Pictionary and “speed Scrabble” with the K’s and their 2 teen daughters. It was a blessing to be with church “family” friends on Christmas.

Compared to this one…

…The scene in A Christmas Story where they go to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Eve and have whole roast goose and are serenaded by a quartet of waiters mispronouncing the chorus of Deck the Halls may not be the most memorable. But I sure was reminded of it this Christmas Eve. I had spent the afternoon in the kitchen making Figgy Pudding so BN suggested we go out for dinner. A perfectly reasonable and good idea, other things being equal. But it was Christmas Eve, and not very many restaurants are open then. And this is Eugene, where there really aren’t very many good restaurants to begin with. BN called and found that “Kabuki Japanese Steakhouse” was in fact open. We hadn’t been there before, but we like Japanese, so we hoped for the best. It turned out fine except:

1. We were the only ones there, which felt sort of dismal - it’s one of those chef-cooks-at-your-table kind of places, where you’re supposed to have a crowd of friends in a busy restaurant with lots of excitement.

2. As a result our waitress was very attentive, and there was a 1-to-2 chef-to-diner ratio. That contributed to the awkwardness. Plus, the two of them were identical twin sisters and probably about 19. (Not Japanese, of course.) They were chatty and friendly, but it wasn’t our idea of a romantic date to make conversation with a couple of people waiting on us hand and foot. Something about the whole thing felt really surreal and like, are we being filmed? isn’t this a scene in a movie?

3. Because of the service-intensive nature of the restaurant, the food was very expensive.

4. But, it was not at all what I would call Good Food. Certainly not worth what we paid for it. The portion sizes weren’t even large. The rice was chewy, not fluffy. The vegetables were boring. The chicken and shrimp were not impressively flavored or textured.

On the whole, we wished we’d taken the money and bought groceries and cooked our own dinner. I coulda stir-fried way better than that.

Nevertheless! Our Christmas Eve was far from ruined. I will block yet another restaurant fiasco from my mind with memories of sitting cozy on the futon, lights dimmed except for candles and our tiny tree, playing Trivial Pursuit with my dear husband. We eschewed the board and chips and just took turns reading the cards to each other, if you get three or more right you keep the card. Everybody wins. We even had cocktails - BN invented a mix with the brandy bought for the Figgy Pudding, pomegranate juice, etc. Life is good.

My family is very tradition-oriented. Not that we do everything in a very culturally traditional way (though in some cases we do), but rather we tend to do the same things the same way every year and feel a bit sad if something’s different. This year was pretty different since BN and I stayed in Eugene for the holiday. But, I was mostly very glad for the chance to break out of the mold and try new things this year. I thought, I should find some classic Christmas food that I’ve never tried and make that, and what more obvious choice than Figgy Pudding. “Oh bring us a figgy pudding…and bring it right here! We won’t go until we get some…” When I was little I always thought it was Piggy pudding because Piggy was a real word, whereas Figgy? not so much. Though a pork-based pudding doesn’t appeal to me, then or now. Anyways. Whenever I want to find a recipe for something like this, I look online. I can pick and choose and even combine recipes. (I also tend to check Joy of Cooking so I can see if there is any Definitive American Way to prepare the food in question.) So I discovered that the thing to do is base one’s Figgy Pudding on a carrot-cake mix and go from there. The whole thing seemed quite straightforward and also, figgy pudding being British, “pudding” really means more of a cake-like substance. So there was no tricky milk-scalding, egg-white-stiffening, or gelatin-firming to be done. Just baking, or rather steaming, for a very long time. (and yes, GC, it’s baked in a pudding basin!) I have to confess I haven’t had a very good track record with baking recently. I used to bake cakes and cookies quite a bit when I was a teen, with reasonable success, but recently I have gotten way over into the other camp, of gourmet cooking, mostly savory Asian entrees rather than sweet European desserts. Which is all very fine for our waistlines. I just like to experiment and substitute ingredients to suit my taste or convenience, and that doesn’t always work out so well in baking. Another thing is, I don’t even own an electric mixer. (I got a lot of mileage out of this Figgy Pudding thing talking to ladies at church and they all gasped and said you have to have an electric mixer to make cake!!!) Luckily I actually ended up making a figgy muffin, which doesn’t need much stirring at all, let alone beating in a mixer… See, I was in the grocery store (actually, the grocery palace - more about that another time) and the Betty Crocker type of cake mix had trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup. And I needed carrot… the only other carrot option was an organic, all-natural muffin mix. So I figured, I can adapt and substitute. It’ll be fine. I took note that the cake mix called for more oil and eggs than the muffin mix. And off I went. Christmas Eve was Figgy Pudding day, so that afternoon I got right down to work. I brought dried figs and water to cover to a boil, took them off the heat and soaked several hours until softened. Chopped the figs and boiled the fragrant liquid down a ways with some sugar. I used 3 eggs and whirled the liquid ingredients in my blender because I figured that couldn’t hurt. But I stirred until just combined with the muffin mix (plus golden raisins soaked in brandy, orange zest, sliced almonds and spices.) I also used melted butter rather than oil, cause it’s way yummier.

The trickiest part of the whole process was lining my large metal bowl with foil. I tried to use one piece to go all the way around but it was just not working. So I had to use several pieces. What a concept. The main thing is to have a “collar” of foil around the top of the cake to fold down over it and steam rather than just dry out your pudding.

And it came out great - not soggy, not dry or hard, but just a nice dense, fruity cake. Served warmed with the fig syrup drizzled on and whipped cream, it was a unique holiday treat to write home about.

The invitation said “light hors d’oeuvres will be served.” Unfortunately we ate a sizeable dinner right before we came and were unable to partake of most of the 10 or 12 desserts (including a cranberry party mix I brought which was pretty much lost in all the decadence) and hardly any of the astonishing array of appetizers, cheese, dips, etc. Oh, well. We always enjoy a good chat with our church friends, and we met a new friend - the host’s Devon Rex cat, a breed perfect for allergic cat lovers. I’m allergic, and both BN and I love cats so this was an interesting idea to us - a cat that doesn’t have the typical allergens. (They have very short, dry fur.) Maybe there’s hope for us getting a cat someday after all - we’d have to save our pennies since these unusual kitties are quite spendy. The P’s have 3 and Opal, the little gray one, was very social and went around to each lap that was open in the living room, including mine and I enjoyed petting her without sneezing! But, once she found BN, she knew she’d come across one of her own. Recognizing a true cat-whisperer, she snuggled right up onto his shoulder and took a snooze for the rest of the evening. We had to wake her up to leave. So cute! But the Devons are kind of unusual-looking. Something between a sphinx and Yoda… I thought Opal looked a little bit like a gargoyle. But in a friendly way.

Hi, everybody! It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post. I have been frantically at work on all my Christmas projects. A significant bulk mailing (multi-piece Christmas card) and lots of surprises for gifts. Today I mustered up my courage and took my packages to the “po” and mailed ‘em off. Wow, that feels good! (And let me tell you, I wasn’t the only resident of South Eugene that did the same) This year is exactly the same as other years in the amount of work I’ve made for myself getting ready. But this year the deadline was today, Mailing Day (Heck with Boxing day! Today was the last day to box everything up and check-box it right off of one’s To Do list. That’s a big deal!) instead of Christmas Eve at midnight or so. But this year I was forced to get done early so now I have a week to relax. That’s pretty cool.

I’ll post photos of my Christmas card soon, and the surprise projects after the 25th. For now, check out this funky version of an elf hat that I made awhile back, right after Thanksgiving when the Christmas projects were mostly still brewing on my brain’s back burner. That’s the problem - I usually don’t get my bright ideas until just before T-day, and then I just have to go ahead and bite off more than I can chew because the ideas are too good to pass up. And I truly do enjoy the projects, don’t get me wrong. Time just gets a little tight, that’s all. Like a few years ago… I think it was 2002. I had a new book about making handmade journals and memory boxes. So I dove right into making a hand-bound book or box for everyone in my immediate family plus BN and another friend (That’s 10 projects). It took way more materials than I thought and way, way more time than I’d planned on. I was living alone in my studio apartment and I stayed up ALL NIGHT on December 23rd, finishing them up. That was the pinacle of my tradition of last-minute Christmas frenzy. I sure was tired on Christmas that year!

For our first stay-in-Eugene Christmas, I bought a little potted tree - a Dwarf Alberta Spruce, to be exact. I’m so proud of myself because I transplanted it into a nice big pot, all by myself. I made a fabric tree-apron (a tree-skirt would be trouble for watering a live plant!) and got a set of tiny rice-lights for it. We do have some ornaments but they are mostly too big and heavy for the tiny tannenbaum, so I hung them around the edge of the pot. I folded some mini-origami stars; they are more size-appropriate to actually hang on the tree. I placed the whole setup on a sturdy little low table, that has a shelf so that presents can actually go under the tree! Altogether the display is 52″ high, so it has quite a presence in the corner of our living room. Now, if only it would snow outside - it’s white out there, but white with fog!

Baby SI was due this week, but he was born almost 2 months ago! Praise the Lord, he was over 4 pounds and was able to come home from his out-of-town birthplace after a month in the NICU. This quilt was planned and begun by the time of his unexpected arrival, and then I was really motivated to finish it, as a coming-home present.

This blanket was hand-knit with love, in an “Illusion” or “Shadow-knitting” technique, with simple stripes that reveal stars when viewed from an angle.

The secret is in the purl ridges strategically worked either in the foreground or background color. This is my biggest project to date, using 6 balls of yarn, knit in three panels joined with mattress stitch and a hand-tacked cotton flannel backing (love those little spacemen!) with hand-applied satin binding. The yarn is a cotton-wool blend for softness and warmth. Completed size is 32 x 40 inches, not including the binding.