Category Archives: Gatherings

Gatherings, holidays, Nature, Stories, Uncategorized

Baboon Dreams

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I am not  proponent of analysing dream content for deep meanings.  If my dreams mean anything, they reflect my current degree of anxiety.  I had the funniest dream the other night, though, that I would like some Baboon help with interpretation. I should add that I had this dream  when I was particularly calm the night of Thanksgiving Day after a hectic month at work.

I was in a small house, at a party of some sort. Steve, Linda, LJB, Bill and other, obscured  Baboons were there. PJ arrived at the party with six enormous boxes of freshly picked garden peas still in their pods with vines attached. The boxes also had beautiful vases in them. While she doled them out to everyone, Bill was correcting my grammar in a very kind way as I spoke.

The scene shifted to a car with Steve and PJ. Steve was driving the car in a snow storm up a hill toward a group of building that were part of a college. It turned out to be a college I had attended. I took them around and introduced them to a psychology faculty member who is, in real life, an old college boyfriend from Buxton, ND who is a church organist and oboe player. He has never had anything to do with psychology. He was wearing academic robes.  We left the college and walked out in the snow, and Steve proceeded to explain the significance of various naturally formed snow and ice sculptures, Then I woke up.

That has to be the silliest dream on record. I have no idea what Freud would make of it.  I find it interesting that I dream about Baboons when I am  feeling  calm after hectic times.

If you were a psychoanalyst, what would you make of this dream? What is the silliest dream you ever had ?

Family, Food, Gatherings, holidays, Uncategorized

Leftovers!

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Photo credit: Steven Puetzer / Getty Images

YA and I have done Thanksgiving with the same folks for all of her life so I don’t know about anybody else’s traditions, but at our festivities, everybody brings some Tupperware (or cheaper equivalent!) and then after the meal, we divvy up the leftovers. Our favorite leftovers include mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and sage dinner rolls.  YA wants the potatoes; I want the sage rolls.  Here’s my favorite leftover recipe:

Juju’s Sage Rolls w/ Cheese
1 sage roll (or two if you’re counting this as a meal)
1 not too skinny slice of cheese (your choice)
Butter (or mayo or mustard)

  1. Heat up the roll a bit, either in the toaster oven, the microwave or even the regular oven if it’s already on for something else
  2. Pull the warm roll apart (breathe in deeply while you do this so you get the sage smell)
  3. Slather on the butter or mayo or mustard
  4. Add the cheese
  5. Eat with your favorite day-after-Thanksgiving beverage!

What’s your favorite way to deal w/ leftovers?

 

books, Food, Gatherings, Stories, Uncategorized

Dairy Ephiphany

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Thanks to Charles Dickens for setting the scene….

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

And in the midst of the chaos it sat, surrounded by its golden foil wrapper. Artisanal butter – a golden yellow color, soft and salty.  It made believers of us all.

Do you have a secret indulgence?

Food, Gatherings, Stories, Uncategorized

Soups Galore

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A friend of mine hosts a Soup Swap twice a year. The rules are pretty simple.  You bring 6 quarts of soup, preferably frozen.   One at a time you tell the group what soup you brought and what’s in it. This is when you “sell” your soup: why did you made it, where you got the recipes, what add-ons you brought along (croutons, bacon bits, etc.)  Then you choose a number (there were 27 of us this time). When it’s your turn, you get to choose one of the soups.  We go from #1 to the end, then from the end back to #1 until all the soups are parceled out. To help with the process, there is the “Wall of Soup” where everyone’s soup is listed. Once all of a soup has been taken, that soup gets crossed out.

Of course there is also wine, appetizers and my friend always serves tomato soup over rice. If it’s your first time at a soup swap, you are a “soup virgin”.  One woman often has her mother make her soup.  Occasionally someone buys their soup and that’s part of their soup story. Everything is OK.

The first time I went to a soup swap, I was the only one who brought a vegetarian soup. I came home with 6 meat soups that I promptly gave away to neighbors and co-workers.  Most of the time there are a fair number of vegetarian options, but it’s the experience that draws me back.

This time I brought “Any Squash Shooters” and my add-on was a little cello bag with two shot glasses and a small packet of popcorn. I came home with Tomato Pesto, Creamy Butternut, Coconut Curry Squash, Tomato Red Lentil and 2 quarts of Vegetable Salsa Soup.  I’m already planning what to bring to the spring Soup Swap.

What soup would YOU like to bring to a swap?