Tag Archives: holidays

Not Christmas Without Charlie Brown

Posted on December 26, 2024 | 1 comment

I admit it, I’m a Christmas purist. Keep all your Hallmark-ness about becoming a princess (what does that have to do with Christmas?) or finding love in [insert exotic destination here], every year for me it’s Rudolph, the Grinch and Charlie Brown and his sad little tree. I enjoy a world where the little guy, even a dorky little dentist, Cindy Lou Who and everyboy Charlie Brown get their day.

Perhaps the media all missed Charlie Brown this year, as I did, because I could only find it paid on all the channels I already pay for. Oh, it’s extra to see Charlie Brown at Christmas, you’ve only been a member here for 20 years so you have to pay extra now.

Anyone who’s ever seen a Charlie Brown episode knows that Lucy tees up a football and promises Charlie Brown she won’t snatch it away when he comes to kick it. No, I promise you won’t wipe out this time, trust me! Then she inevitably pulls it away. That’s life for Charlie Brown so why doesn’t our mainstream media get it yet? It’s been decades!

Donald Trump isn’t even president yet, but he’s threatening to take over Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal. That is red meat to keep his base occupied while he gives away the store to his Broligarchy of Billionaires (BoB) and leaves the other 99.8% of us holding the bag. Be prepared to lose public education, healthcare, access to affordable meat and produce, and see your Social Security check dwindle before your eyes before it disappears entirely. All while the crazy weather becomes even more disastrous for the American people because this so-called gilded age will glorify the raping of our lands for fossil fuels “like you’ve never seen before.”

There’s a great scene in Charlie Wilson’s War where the late, great actor Philip Seymour Hoffman explains that if people are tittillated by sex and drugs on one hand, the manipulator can hide a battleship behind the other. Trump never fails to put a shiny object of adoration for his fans, of ridicule and derision by his critics, only to grift with the other hand. He tried to steal a presidential election, for heaven’s sake. He stole confidential documents that belong to you and me. He and his family have illegally made untold millions off the presidency and are poised to make even more in Trump II, with the BoB as his co-conspirators.

There will never be a budget reduction or lessening of the deficit. There is no Deep State, it’s just a ruse to dole out political patronage to the MAGA faithful. If anything, salaries for these 50,000 political hack positions will be increased. The BoB wants environmental, employment and other regulations to be axed, but that’s not going to save money either. Why? Because that’s not the point. Instead of draining the swamp, Trump brings it with him into every business enterprise, including his biggest ever, the presidency. There are no ethics rules, and SCOTUS has made sure that anything he does in office is protected.

Did you notice that we no longer have a glaring election integrity problem? We don’t, because Trump won. That means it was never an issue in the first place. Ditto “woke-ness,” which means whatever the person who says it wants it to mean, CRT (critical race theory, never a problem for high schoolers), and the threat that children will be irreparably harmed if school and public libraries (even bookstores) have books that mention gender or racial equality. Or if the two transgender athletes in a state ever wish to use a public restroom assigned to their assumed gender? Not an issue.

Political vendettas have existed as long as politics itself, and the flawed human beings who become politicians. We’re all flawed, silly, not just politicians, we just see their foibles. There’s not one angelic party and one run by the devil him/herself. I’m just mad at that guy for winning, so I’m gonna find a reason to toss him in jail or at least audit his taxes. I do believe in good and evil, but not a broad brush to say all Muslims are bad, or my mother treated me badly so let’s let all women die in hospital parking lots awaiting non-existent medical care.

Aptly, as we celebrated Jesus’ birth yesterday (between shopping for deals on Amazon), WWJD? Do unto others. Respect others. Help out your neighbor. Mentor a young person interested in your field. Say a kind word. Give to charity (a real one, not a PAC). Adopt that stray dog that’s been hanging around your yard for weeks (after you take the time to find out that he’s not lost, he’s abandoned). Stop doomscrolling for a day, hide your phone and take a walk in nature, or read a good book. You’ll be all the better for it. You read this blog and it offered some solutions instead of just ranting, see?

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year, use the time to spend with family, regroup, and get ready for 2025. Cheers! Dee

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Collecting

Posted on November 22, 2017 | 2 comments

OK, the worst thing I collect is paper. I’ve gone paperless on bills but they still are duplicated in the mail even though I have asked utility companies and banks to quit that practice. Now I like to have leases and corporate forms organized on paper and will learn more about scanning and the “cloud” when I feel my personal privacy and safety will not be compromised. It would sure make my desk look better!

I collect cookbooks and have since I was seven years old. I concentrate on the best ones and buy out-of-print copies for wedding couples and used ones for me when I can, and do recycle some through the local book mailbox. Give one, take one was always my motto staying cheap in my 20’s at pensions in Europe.

Collecting excessive clothing, shoes, jewelry is a no-no, I’ve never been interested in it. I’ve recently started buying a couple pair of silk long underwear to wear underneath slacks and shirts as they’re so warm and comfy but for the first time in 20 years I now have stacks of catalogs in the mail that only they could have sold my name to other companies. More paper. Oh, I do not collect husbands. They just show up when we’re grown up and we stick. I’m sending mine off to the family ranch today as I’m not well enough to travel.

When I was born my parents decided to get a tree ornament for the holidays every year, of course for my younger brother and sisters as well. Each had an initial and date. I’ve lost many of them over the years but a few remain.

My husband and I met over 16 years ago and will be married for 15 very soon. I wanted to renew our vows but that will have to wait. Two months after we met I found two rustic wooden stocking ornaments. He chose the blue, I took the green. Over the years his has been a Scottish bagpiper, me the national flower of Scotland, the thistle.

He is a trout (tried fly fishing once with his brother, nothing, I ended up fishing for steaks at the local Whole Foods) from the western rivers and I am a bear on a sled. He is an old bi-plane with Santa on top and I am another, a moose lying down atop my plane with lots of presents to give. Last year we were hand-knitted finger puppets, now on our tree. He is on the front door wreath as a cow, I am a horse, and our dog Zoe is, well, a dog.

My husband is a lasso-tossing snowman, and another snowman from the mountains with me as a reindeer standing, in an apron, with a tray of cookies. Cooking implements from copper pan to whisk, all ornaments over my life.

This story has and will be told. My folks put each of our ornaments in a box to send off to college. These are yours. Young people who are married or planning marriage like the history and tradition I love to share. Why would I always seek out a 40 year-old out-of-print book by James Beard (Theory and Practice of Good Cooking) as a gift and reference cookbook as a wedding gift? Don’t buy them all, thanksgiving is for 60 and I need enough in the marketplace for gifts!

I talked to my brother by phone yesterday and told him I’m taking my husband to the airport today to see his family for Thanksgiving. He asked, isn’t that the airport he won’t let you walk into because it has a used bookstore before security that has cookbooks? Yep. My brother and I are each spending the day alone over 1,000 miles away but with a shared family recipe. He was invited here but demurred this time. He’s seeing a football game. I’ll be watching The Mind of a Chef or reruns of NCIS.

I’ve never made or wanted to make turducken but I decided on chicken saltimbocca, chicken, s&p, sage. Chicken is pounded flat, seasoned, then add a slice of prosciutto, roll tightly, brush with melted butter and dredge with seasoned flour (chop a leaf of sage in the flour as well) and roll in bread crumbs and bake for about 45 minutes. I suggested that at a certain time of day brother and I lift a fork of my “pigchicken” and have a toast. Happy Thanksgiving to you! My husband just relayed the dog to me early morning and about the box of ornaments given every kid, said “this is yours, good riddance!” Perhaps.  Then again perhaps I’ll send our old dog Zoe to my brother for company! He’d love that. Dee

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Birds

Posted on November 17, 2014 | 1 comment

I wanted to title this “Game Birds” but Jim Schiltz would not allow me to do so. I just got off the phone with him in a fascinating interview in which I learned many things about….. birds.

Who is Jim Schiltz? Only the head of Schiltz Foods, Inc. and Schiltz Goose Farm, Inc. He knows his birds. He told me geese were domesticated about the same time as dogs and cattle. My research on dogs says up to 40,000 years. I’d have to check my father-in-law, the rancher and former dairyman, on cattle.

For those of you who know me from the past, yes, I still want a capon and have spent years finding one. While I’ll be at Nanny’s for my 13th Thanksgiving with my husband’s family and am only allowed to bring table snacks, sides and a dessert, Christmas is a different story, to be told later.

One of my favorite girlie movies is the one where the Aussie/Canadian girl learns to fly and takes the geese, from the eggs she found, south for the winter. Fly Away Home, with Anna Pacquin and Jeff Daniels and Dana Delaney. These must be different geese.

The farm began in 1944 and Jim was added to the gaggle in 1962. After tastiness, they had to breed for white feathers because everywhere but France, where the infamous Toulouse geese live and die, people want white down pillows, not grey ones.

Jim said he’d heard of an 82 year-old goose, and that many can live to 25 or even 40, but after maturity they usually go to dog food. Lucky dogs! Mine eats frozen raw rabbit, lamb, turkey, and venison, but I’ll have to check out goose.

Which brings me to capon. It was always a special meal in our home and widely available, even in rural neighborhoods like the one I grew up in. On my birthday I got to choose my cake (Viennese Chocolate Pecan Torte) and dinner, which was capon.

I mis-spoke earlier when I said this was my 13th Thanksgiving at Nanny’s. My husband worked for an online retailer years ago and they wouldn’t let him off for Black Friday so we had to forgo the trip. A month earlier I went to Whole Foods and asked for a capon. No. I asked why? No reason. I asked customer service. No answer. I called HQ. I don’t know why they won’t let me order a capon.

Look up capon on this site. I’ve done my research. Wapsie Farms had capon. Marc and Jim struck up a friendship at industry events and now Schiltz farms has a capon enterprise as well, and you can order from them at http://www.roastgoose.com.

My husband has been off for several months on a consulting contract but of course we’re meeting at his Nanny’s for Thanksgiving. Christmas we’ll have on our own. I’m getting a goose, a capon and a container of goose fat to make Pommes Anna and keep in the frig for good stuff. Jim even told me how to cook a goose (recipes are on the site) but they do have a goose for ‘fraidy cats. Get it frozen and heat it up in an hour. Your family and guests will never know and you can make side dishes instead of basting!

I do shop at Whole Foods Market and everyone is nice to me at this store, but I may have to keep moving around the country to keep that the case when I bring up capon. The store’s protein rules are strict and arbitrary. My father-in-law would love to get his registered Angus cattle into the butcher’s case, and so would raisers of geese and capons.

Principles, not solely marketing, should be the driving force in a market, and that market could be anything from Wall Street to Main Street. The holier-than-thou attitude of Whole Foods Market looks down on anyone not wearing espadrilles and carrying in ten bags then asking if you want to donate a dollar for using the bags you already bought from them, and if you want to donate to their charity of the month.

GIVE ME CAPON! For heaven’s sake, is that too much to ask? Cheers and Happy Thanksgiving. I’m making spicy almonds and cashews, marinated Kalamata olives, cranberry chutney, brussels sprouts and cauliflower gratin, and mincemeat tarts. And driving 1,500 miles to get there.

Many thanks and happy holidays to the Schiltz’s and the Wapsies, who both hail from Iowa. I won’t hit that state or SD en route but got a bunch of quarters to get through the Oklahoma Territory as I messed up and put a dollar bill in the machine two years ago. Oops, almost got a warrant on that one. Caponly yours, Dee

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Days

Posted on October 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

In a former life I was asked to create days off (with pay for state workers) and that didn’t really work except for Martin Luther King Day, and we all were off for that and we took a station wagon to D.C. and did events all day and heard Coretta Scott King speak at the AME church. Amazing!

My role at work was to stop these things from happening and no new days off were approved on my watch but three days of commemoration were to be celebrated. Raul Wallenberg, (NAZI  prisoner and Swedish freer of thousands of Hungarian Jews from Hitler). Tadeusz Kosciousko (Polish hero 1700’s) who has a bridge nearby and Saul Wollenberg who helped finance our Revolutionary War in the late 1700’s.

Of course I did 1,000 other things but as I look back these are more important at this point in my life. See, I always let other people steer my life from parents to college to bosses. Believing in myself, walking an old dog and cooking breakfast and dinner for husband and dog every day for years is comforting. Writing is a joy. Having challenging conversations with a really smart person makes me want to get up every morning. The dog, Zoe, doesn’t talk so much as make her essential needs painfully known, no matter day or night.

Cheers and have a wonderful day! Dee

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Seasonal Blog

Posted on October 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

Grapes in September-October, capons October to November, what have I missed?

November-December is mincemeat season.  My mother and aunt made their own once, with suet and beef.  Gross.  She said she’d never do it again so our best friends for the holiday season were Crosse & Blackwell, and Nonesuch, all sans beef and with the brandy.  She did make some lovely mincemeat tarts.

A couple of years ago my brother, who lives in NYC in the middle of the best shops in the world, couldn’t find mincemeat.  One purveyor told him he might have better luck in New Jersey, imagine that.

Then he took to the internet and looked up mincemeat and what came up?  My blog, which he’d never read.  Serves him right.  I got on Amazon and sent two jars of mincemeat to my father, which was his holiday destination.  And Dad had a jar on hand and had already made Mom’s mincemeat tarts.

Fate intervenes in mysterious ways.  Ten years ago I found a glass I thought my now husband (nearly nine years now) might like in his new place, 1,000 feet away from mine.  He had nothing but a colander in his kitchen.  So I bought a box of the glasses, six in three sizes, and walked them 1/2 mile home.  It nearly killed me.

As I thought he was at work I walked up the steps and left the glasses there, knowing they wouldn’t be stolen, then walked the rest of the way home.  When I arrived home there was a note, “Home sick.  Need to take an aspirin.  Do you have a glass I can borrow?”

Hopefully my brother can read my blog and contact me on his new Mac, five years newer than mine.  Oh, well.  He doesn’t have my full-sized wireless keyboard, huge screen, speakers, trackball mouse, headphones and Skype.

See the capon entry for how to find one, also mincemeat.  Dee

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Holiday Traditions

Posted on December 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

I think now that my family always fought with them. We never knew when to get the tree. Lights went up by our mother and father. We each got our own ornament each year so got to hang them, and I was the oldest so always got two more than my younger sister. tee hee.

Dinner used to be turkey with all the trimmings, which changed I don’t know when, as Mom went to a traditional British dinner with prime rib, potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and sides. I did the “sides,” changing them every year.

Everyone discussed presents and the routine was changed every year, even though everyone said it was “routine.” Opening Christmas morning vs. Christmas Eve. After we were adults, we each picked a stocking and stuffed it for less than $20. I think our parents got each of us four a gift or two, and we got them and each other something. Hopefully my siblings don’t read this blog (unless it mentions mincemeat) otherwise the debate will start anew.

One thing we did agree on was that breakfast started early morning with Hungarian pull-apart coffee cake made by my sisters from brioche with cinnamon, sugar and nuts. We had that with coffee or tea. Early afternoon was the dinner. Then, desserts were mainly predictable, added over the years.

There were always mincemeat tarts, Scandinavians, Snickerdoodles, date squares, gingerbreads and lebkuchen. This year we are flying to my Dad’s for Christmas eve and day. Mom is gone now. My husband and I have been together for ten years and we don’t get each other Christmas gifts. But I was born in November and he in December and we don’t give gifts for those occasions either. That may be why we flew to see his family for Thanksgiving and mine for Christmas. Happy holidays! Cheers, Dee

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Back in the Game

Posted on December 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

My reserves were slow to kick in, but this latest sinus attack is getting under control. Ten days of h-e-double toothpicks and things are looking up.

What gets me back in? Family, Christmas. In all our years together we’ve never had a tree as hubby said he was allergic. But when I was sick he delivered a wreath for our front door. No worries, we don’t have room for a tree here. I couldn’t find our ornaments from last year but his mom delivered with: a tin poinsettia leaf she decorated while she was pregnant with my husband; an ornament her mother bought in Albuquerque shortly before she passed; and an ornament bought or made by my husband’s great-grandmother. They’re all out on our front door on a beautiful evergreen wreath with other ornaments from Margie.

All have Texas themes but one needed a photo so I took one of my brother-in-law fly-fishing out here so he’ll always have a place in our lives and at least on our tree/wreath. I haven’t been able to do much since we returned from Thanksgiving so have done a bit of holiday stuff, very simple as this is not our place and all our good things are in storage.

Perhaps I can get you photos, tomorrow. We did see an ermine last week, all white, amazing! And a coyote was quite close the other day looking for food. Luckily our dog was not seen out walking at the time.

Thanks for hanging out and commenting on the blog. Dee

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