Right before Christmas I discovered that there were two Princess Bride cookbooks. Who knew? You all know me well enough to know that I couldn’t stay away from this. The first one came to the library yesterday… I was outside the library door when they opened.
It’s a fabulous book… lots and lots of glossy stills from the movie and a lot of chat about the filming, in front of and behind the camera. Even without the recipes it’s a fun read.
The recipes themselves are nothing out of the ordinary but the NAMES of the recipes are a hoot. Here are a few:
Hash You Wish
Buttercup Buttermilk Scones
Chips of Insanity
Mostly Dead
Bonetti’s Defense
Anybody Want a Peanut
Bread Pirate Roberts
Normally I like to make one or two recipes from a cookbook like this… just for fun. I’m thinking the Bread Pirate Roberts and the Chips of Insanity are on my list.
Maybe we should have a Princess Bride theme party. The Lightning Sand pudding cookie cups look fun too!
Husband loves to grill and smoke meats. He has an enormous wood and charcoal smoker/grill in the back yard. It works pretty well, but it is often not possible for him to take a whole day to smoke something, and it isn’t possible to do it in the winter. In December he found on-line an electric indoor smoker that uses wood pellets as fuel. It is made by GE. We got it, and he used it for the first time last week.
I was somewhat skeptical that we could use a smoker indoors without smoking up the house, but it worked well, and there was only the smell of smoked meat, not smoke, in the house. It took 7 hours to completely cook a 4 pound chuck roast. The smoker is really quite small, and fits nicely on the kitchen counter. The smoke is filtered through water reservoirs and comes out of the smoker as warm air. It is a brilliant machine.
Have you acquired any new toys lately?What do you like to grill?
Yesterday I had to stand in the check-out line at Target; I was getting a giftcard for YA and I’ve never managed to do self-checkout successfully with a giftcard. There was only one cashier working the regular check-outs and the line was pretty long. The woman in front of me had a cart full of items, including a bunch of veggies which the cashier had to look up one by one. At one point the cashier asked to see her ID – it was a six-pack of something. This woman was clearly a senior citizen: completely white hair, hearing aids, cane on the side of her shopping cart. If I had to guess she had to be at least 80. The cashier looked at her license and typed something into the cash register. The line behind me got longer as this happened.
I understand that there are probably laws and/or corporate policies that lead to asking every single person for ID in these circumstances, but truly, carding an 80-year old woman at Target? And considering that I never get carded at the liquor store here in Minnesota or even buying liquor in Wisconsin (wine advent calendars at Aldis), I’m guessing it’s a Target policy and cash register programming enforces it. Sigh.
As I was heading to my car, it occurred to me that the woman’s purchase couldn’t have been alcohol. In Minnesota you can only buy alcohol at a state-licensed liquor store.
One of the hallmarks of my annual holiday party is the amount of food – it seems like enough to feed an army. I can’t help myself; there are so many things I like and so many things that others like.
Of course, that much food means lots of leftovers. For the most part this isn’t a problem; YA and I happily nosh on party goodies for days afterwards. Most everything lasts a few days and some things (like the sliced cheese) can go longer if they’re wrapped well.
What doesn’t last too long is the leftover crudite. I wanted carrots, peppers and cauliflower this year. YA wanted broccoli and celery. I also had grape tomatoes left over after making the mozzarella skewers, so I added them to the serving plate with the other veggies. I have to say that most years I end up tossing more veggies than I like so this year I really committed to myself that I would figure out a way to not waste so much.
The first up was ramen with veggies in a peanut sauce. This is something we have a lot at our house but usually I make it with frozen vegetables. I chopped up a couple of cups of veggies, sauteed them then added the ramen and the peanut sauce. Quite tasty.
The next day I made a veggie and cheese frittata (extra points for using some of the leftover cheese). Sauteed chopped veggie, added eggs and cheese and a bunch of spices and baked it up. So easy and yummy.
The last of the veggies went into a soup. I was going to add some pasta but YA wanted potato. I ended up putting some of both in. It made a huge pot, which disappeared pretty quickly.
So for the first time ever we managed to get through all the leftovers on our own, including all the crudite, without having to toss anything!
Did you have any leftovers this holiday season that you had to deal with?
In a conversation yesterday afternoon, YA was telling about some woman online who has quit her job to be an influencer. Apparently this woman is garnering a lot of negative attention right now and shedding followers like a Samoyed in summer. She then went on to suggest that I could become an influencer. When I stopped laughing (quite a bit later), I asked her what I could possibly influence. She said baking or book reviews.
While I do think my baking is usually top notch, I am not meticulous. A co-worker way back in the day said once that “done is better than perfect” and if I have a motto in life, this is it. I also do not think that I am a discerning enough reader to do book reviews. I like what I like and would be the first to admit that I’m probably not consistent in how I allot my praise or criticism.
My comment to YA was that I’d be ashamed to leave the house if my job title were “social influencer”.
My parents and I always opened our presents on Christmas Eve after church. That was a German tradition from my mother, and also cleared the way for Christmas with family on Christmas Day.
We usually headed for Magnolia, MN late morning on Christmas Day to either my paternal grandparent’s farm or the farm of my dad’s younger brother a couple of miles east. My dad’s sister and family would come from Sioux Falls, and we would have a huge meal (usually turkey and all the fixings), and then we children would have to wait until after the dishes were done to open presents. That was a long wait! Late in the afternoon we would head to Pipestone, 25 miles north, to whichever of my mother’s family would host Christmas. There usually were no presents, just a big meal and lots of desserts.
Yesterday we spent time in Brookings opening presents, taking turns cooking, napping, reading, doing art projects with our grandson, and listening to grandson read aloud the various books he received (Cat Kid, Wild Robots, or Dog Man). He also received some pretty wonderful art kits which he started to use right away. It was very foggy outside, and we didn’t go anywhere. We watched The Muppets Christmas Carol after eating the French Canadian tortiere that grandson and I assembled and baked. He was a good dough pincher. It was a restful day. The Westie and cat napped on various soft blankets. No one had to wait for the dishes to get done before opening presents. We cleaned as we cooked. We listened to Christmas music on MPR all day. It was a great time.
What were your family gatherings like when you were a child? What were some of your favorite presents?Who did the dishes?
While my parents have predominantly British and German ancestry, you wouldn’t know it from my upbringing. No culturally relevant foods, no traditions, no nothing. It wasn’t a void that I ever looked to fill, but it does mean I’m a bit of a tabula rasa where culture and tradition are concerned.
There are just a few things that I’ve carried from my childhood to my adulthood; most of the traditions that YA and I observe are things we made the decision to do, not things that I did growing up. I was going to list a bunch, but the list is too long!
I’ve lived in the heart of Scandinavian culture here in the Twin Cities for 44 years. I’ve taught myself how to make aebleskivers and Swedish pancakes, visited the Swedish American institute. One year we did a Saint Lucia observation at our church (UU); I made YA a white dress and we fashioned the candle wreath for her head, although none of the kids actually had their candles lit (phew!). We have a nisse watching out over our garden and I have a few heavy Scandinavian sweaters.
But for some reason, I have never gotten around to making a kransekake, the stunning tower of cake/cookie rings that you see on the covers of many Scandinavian cookbooks. It’s called a crown cake and sometimes a wreath cake as well. Well, this turned out to be the year. I knew our Anna had the rings/pans that you need to make the individual rings/wreaths and she graciously offered to let me borrow them. I found several recipes and decided on one that I could pipe out of a bag rather than roll out the dough in log forms. It turned out to be ridiculously easy… truly the hardest part was figuring out which of the two largest pans was actually the biggest one. My recipe made way more dough than I needed… next time I attempt this, I’ll have a plan for this. Maybe save it until after the first batch is baked and make a smaller tower. I know purists would not have added sprinkles but I just had to.
It made a lovely party centerpiece and if I do say so myself, tasted really good. The only problem is that people were afraid to mess with it. I’ve had this problem before with pretty cakes or rice krispy trees; I usually end up cutting them up so they don’t look too daunting. I did this with the kransekake as well. About ½ of it got eaten at the party and I’ve been nibbling away at it since then. This turned out to be a fun attempt for me; it may get added to my stable of traditions.
When was the last time you pushed yourself to try something new? How did it turn out?
Husband and I have been drinking more tea lately, I suppose because it has been cold. We got a tea catalogue the other day and found some fruit teas we ordered-Rote Grutze, a German fruit tea made from hibiscus, grapes, elderberries, and blueberries, and a black tea that has rice flower, grapes, papaya bits, cinnamon, pear bits, fig bits, orange peel, nutmeg, cloves, maple syrup-, honey. and pear flavors. It is also made in Germany. They both taste really good.
We have all sorts of teas in the cupboard. I like Earl Grey and Assam teas. I guess Ostfriesland, where my ancestors come from, consumes the most tea per capital of any country in the world. We really became tea fans when we lived in Winnipeg and took tea at the Hudson’s Bay Company tea room, It was so fun to go there for tea and fancy cakes on Saturdays.
We really like our new teas. They help keep out the cold. I like my traditional black teas with lemon, not sugar. Husband likes cream and sugar in his. He also drinks iced tea like other people drink soda.
How do you take your tea?Ever had a formal English tea experience?
One thing I am very thankful for is that we don’t have very many food allergies in our family. Our daughter-in-law was diagnosed with both lactose and gluten intolerance earlier this year, but those diagnoses were determined to be false, so she can eat what ever she wishes. Our daughter is allergic to capers, but that doesn’t impede her eating at all.
I was fascinated to read about a Minnesota dairy farm that has specially bred cows that produce milk that many people with lactose intolerance can drink. I was also glad to read that area schools are starting to use the milk for their students. Here is the Fargo Forum article.
I guess this is one way genetic engineering can be quite helpful. I can’t imagine not being able to consume dairy. I also wonder why we hear so much more about food allergies now than we did years ago. Are people just more sensitive, or weren’t food allergies in the news back in the day?
Any food allergies in your family? When was the last time you ate capers? Make up some goofy conspiracy theories for the upswing in food allergies?
When Alice’s Restaurant Massacre by Arlo Guthrie was recorded in 1967, I was 11 years old. I remember it clearly and saved up to buy the record album pretty quickly. I couldn’t find any little clips, so this is the whole thing.
I loved folk music – it made me feel quite part of the times. Not quite rebellious – I didn’t have much to be rebellious about. My folks were quite liberal for the times; once when I was in junior high they excused me from school so I could protest against the war with the Webster College kids (college was between our house and the junior high). Although I don’t know if either of them ever listened to Alice’s Restaurant, I’m pretty sure at least my father would have thought it was quite funny.
In looking up the dates I discovered that the song, sometimes referred to as “talking blues” is also known as a “shaggy dog” story. Wikipedia defines it as “an extremely long-winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax. In other words, it is a long story that is intended to be amusing and that has an intentionally silly or meaningless ending.” Mark Twain, Gogol and Isaac Asimov were all cited as contributors to this “genre”. Who knew?
Arlo was adamant that he used the name Alice’s Restaurant because he liked it, not because the restaurant in the song was anything like the actual restaurant, owned by a friend of his, Alice Brock.
Alice was an artist, a restauranteur and a writer. She thought the song was funny but did not like the movie. She felt that she was wildly misrepresented in the movie and was fairly vocal about it, hence Arlos’ comments that it wasn’t HER restaurant in the song. One of the movie’s producers apparently made it possible for her to publish a cookbook.
As the years went by she came to appreciate how her role in the song and movie had somehow catapulted her into a 60s icon. Brock even recorded a series of custom introductions to Alice’s Restaurant for stations that regularly play the song on Thanksgiving. She and Arlo also combined their talents for a children’s book, Mooses Come Walking, and they remained friends until her death.
Alice passed away last Thursday, just a week from Thanksgiving, the holiday that inadvertently shoved her life into fame and recognition. I will have to play the whole Massacre tomorrow while I’m getting my vegetarian sourdough sage stuffing ready.
Trail Baboon 