Excess? What Excess?

We were invited to my aunt's Christmas dinner cruise on a beautiful boat, and I volunteered to bring dessert. My aunt requested something along the lines of a red velvet cake with crushed candy canes. I latched onto the candy cane idea and then got a little out of control with it. I ended up adding a few more holly leaves around the bottom, but didn't have time to take more pictures because I was of course working on the cake up until the very last minute. I'm kind of in love with red and white, and I just happen to have a ginormous holly bush in my back yard.

This cake was so much fun to make; the boys helped me unwrap all the little round candies and were really good about not licking one single piece. The cake was chocolate-peppermint and the frosting was my usual Swiss Butter Cream, but I added some peppermint extract to match the candy cane theme. There was a lot of cake left over and my aunt asked me if I wanted to take some home, but I sent it all home with her because as it turns out, I still prefer decorating a cake to eating it.

Oh Christmas Tree

Every year, Aaron and I get into a funk over the tree. I'm not really sure how or why it happens, but almost every year it does.

First, it was the lights. He comes from a colored lights family, I'm from an all white lights family. There are strong feelings on both sides. At first, we alternated; our first Christmas together we used colored lights, the next Christmas all white. I didn't like how one of us was always disappointed, so I came up with the idea of using red and white lights intertwined. We both liked that better, but it still wasn't highly satisfactory for either of us. This year I decided I wanted Aaron to have colored lights, and as I was untangling the many strands of brightly colored offensiveness he asked "What are you doing?"

"I thought we'd use colored lights this year. You know, like the Mickey Mouse Christmas tree cartoon where Chip and Dale are hiding in the tree and it looks like a magical Christmas village inside the branches."

"Oh. I was going to tell you to go ahead and use all white lights this year."

"But you hate all white lights."

"I'm not crazy about all white, but I like you, and you like white lights."

So we used both.

At 5 and 3, the boys are actually pretty good decorators. It's nice not to have a baby trying to chew on the lights or smash the glass balls together. Our kids never terrorized the tree much as babies, but they've never been able to hang ornaments very effectively either. I guess this year, everyone grew up a little.

I never buy Good Housekeeping, but I couldn't resist this one.

It was a good buy, because I got the snowflake idea out of it. We hung a snowflake garland last year, but I'd never thought of doing it from a mirror. I like it.

I think our tree turned out nicely as well. The whole thing was, by far, the most painless tree experience we've ever had. In the past we've made the purchase in the evening, after Aaron comes home from work. That was a terrible idea. It was always freezing cold and we were all hungry, so we'd arrive back home as a family of frozen, grumpy elves. Then it'd be too late to decorate the tree that evening and Jack would have a meltdown, but not before Aaron and I got really irritated with each other over trying to get the tree straight in the stand.

This year was great. We went to Costco first and stocked up on a few things, which felt really cozy. When we got to our usual tree place(a convenient, short drive from our house) there were really only two likely candidates, so we let the boys choose. We paid and got out of there, then headed home where I'd already rearranged the furniture to accommodate the tree. I put on some Christmas music and put away all the food, while Aaron took the boys outside to put up lights on the chicken coop. Hormones(non-pregnant ones) may have been a factor, but I got a little choked up watching the boys through the window. It has been one of Jack's fondest desires to decorate the chicken coop so that "it will look DUST like Snoopy's house in Charlie Brown Christmas!" Even typing about it now, I get a little misty. I love, love, love that Aaron takes our kids' dreams seriously, even if they don't seem "important" by adult standards. The way Jack's eyes were shining told me that Aaron had done so much more than put up a strand of lights.

As an added bonus, Jack's blood work came back: normal. While part of me is bummed that nothing indicates where his migraines are coming from, I'm enormously relieved that everything really bad can be considered ruled out. He hasn't had a migraine since his last chiropractor visit a week ago, and has had fewer headaches in general. I don't think this is the last we'll see of his migraines, but at least the next time he gets one I won't be worried that something deeply menacing is going on with his brain.

Bring back that Blogging Feeling

I'm not sure if I've gotten too busy, too lazy, or if my children have gotten more interesting, but I don't seem to have much of a blogging drive lately. I'm not sure what to make of this. I still blog everything in my head, and maybe that habit is having some kind of placebo effect on my desire to do any actual blogging. Also, it's early December, the time of year when I really don't have my act together at all. I'm trying not to celebrate Christmas prematurely while trying to simultaneously stay on top of some kind of Advent tradition, and it never ever works. And at this point, there are so many things I haven't blogged that the list of Significant Posts I Should Have Written is kind of big. For example:

-Iain and Jiyoon's wedding

-The cake I made for said wedding

-My trip to Boston

-My trip to NYC and the famous people I saw while I was there

-The first snow of the season in the Pacific Northwest

-How chickens feel about snow

-Thanksgiving and the only reasonable way to roast turkey

See what kind of pressure I'm under? Add to that list the fact that Matteas decided to spontaneously potty-train himself on Thanksgiving, and you've got a serious blogging back-log. We've also had a bit of family rearrangement lately, as Aaron is building a bunk house for my parents down at their cabin. That's what he's working on in the picture. Drilling into concrete is a necessary step in the process of bunk house building. Aaron doesn't like it when I watch him build stuff because occasionally he can't see his work through the thick cloud of lust emanating from me, so I have to snap a few quick pictures and head back to the cabin. We've been spending every Friday and Saturday down there for the past month until now, when Aaron drove down without me. Jack had a migraine last weekend and some appointments this week, including a blood draw yesterday which he tolerated calmly as I panicked that he would panic. So I felt like Jack should have a mellow weekend, meaning one that didn't include five hours of driving.

About that blood draw: I'd deeply appreciate your prayers. Since taking him to the chiropractor, Jack's migraine situation has been much better but they do still happen. Thus the blood draw. I'm torn between wanting the tests to come back normal and hoping that they point to some kind of diagnosis, something we can hopefully fix. They're not looking for anything serious at this point so I'm not super anxious, I just want to know what's going on with my kid and why he occasionally experiences debilitating pain. I'm an attentive mother like that. The results should be back by Wednesday, at which point I will promptly update. I might even throw up a recipe or two between now and then, a few things which prominently feature NOT turkey. I love Thanksgiving, but I'm glad it only happens once a year.

I Hope They Let Us Come Back

We're at Target. Jack is walking, Matteas is in the cart. He scoots his bum forward so that his legs stick out as far as possible, and notices that the bar between his legs does some interesting things to his pants.

"Mom, look at my pa-china!!!" he shouts, grinning from ear to ear.

"Meatteas, you don't have a vagina, you have a penis."

"Yes I do have a pa-china! Look at my pa-china!!!" he insists.

"Fine, you have a pa-china, just stop shouting about it."

Worth the Wait

I didn't mean to do that. Be gone for over a month, that is. I was on the East Coast for ten days, then I was trying to get back into the swing of home life, and then it had been so long that the pressure of "what do I blog about next?" only increased. At least, in my own mind. So what is the deeply significant topic that brings me back to this space? Pie. Pumpkin pie, specifically. I'm not a huge pie fan usually, least of all pies that have vegetables in them, but what I am a fan of is tradition and this time of year, tradition calls for pumpkin pie. I continually find that my best recipes are born out of a challenge to improve something I don't like, and this pie is one of my favorites because it has been a point of conversion for a lot of people who've eaten. Almost every time I serve it someone at the table says(after a second slice) that they usually hate pumpkin pie, but this one is delicious. I've gotten a few requests for the recipe this week, and seeing as how Thanksgiving is a week from today I thought I'd put it up here in a timely fashion. I kind of sort of adapted this recipe from Cooks Illustrated, but I've changed it so much that I feel it kind of belongs to me now. The parts I took from Cooks Illustrated were combining pumpkin with sweet potato, and reducing the mixture with the spices on the stove to remove some of the water and concentrate the flavors. The step of baking at 400 degrees to start and then reducing the heat to 300 after 10 minutes is also a Cooks Illustrated trick. The rest of the recipe I came up with after making about eight pumpkin pies, each of them different from the last. Cooks Illustrated calls for canned pumpkin and canned candied yams(say that ten times fast), but I strongly feel that if you're going to eat pie it should be the best pie possible. You can't get the best pie possible from a can. I've tried. It always tastes vaguely of skunk farts. Maybe you're the sort of person who enjoys that kind of funk, but if not, welcome to a better way. Life-changing Pumpkin Pie 1 sugar pie pumpkin, roasted 1 medium-sized sweet potato, roasted 1 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg 2 tsp. grated fresh ginger 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 cup brown sugar 3/4 cup heavy cream 1 tsp. vanilla 2 eggs, well beaten Prepare your favorite crust(see bottom of post for suggestions). Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds, then lay the pumpkin halves cut-side down on a foil-lined baking sheet. Poke the skin a few times with a fork for ventilation. Wrap the sweet potato in foil and put it on the baking sheet next to the pumpkin. Roast until the pumpkin and potato are soft and gooey, about 25 minutes for the pumpkin and 35 minutes for the sweet potato. When cool, remove the skin. Slice into large chunks and puree in a food processor, or blend with a hand-held mixer until smooth and no lumps remain. This process yielded 2 1/2 cups of pumpkin/sweet potato puree. Transfer the puree to a medium sauce pan and add the ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is reduced to 2 cups. I'm not positive exactly how long this took because while I was doing this part Matteas knocked over a huge pillar candle, spilling about 1/2 cup of hot green wax on the carpet. While I cleaned that up he peed in the corner of the living room, so then I cleaned that. I think it was about 20 minutes. Use your own household disasters to gauge the time. You can skip this step, but consider the fact that by doing this you're removing 1/2 cup of water, water that doesn't have a lot of flavor. Removing the water also makes for a firmer, silkier texture. In any case, what you want to end up with is 2 cups of pumpkin/sweet potato puree. Remove from the heat and add the salt, brown sugar, cream and vanilla. When the mixture is well incorporated, add the beaten eggs and combine well. Pour into prepared pie crust and bake at 400 degrees for ten minutes, then reduce the heat to 300 and bake an additional 40 minutes. Let cool to room temperature before further cooling in the fridge. Go ahead and top it with whipped cream when you serve it, but honestly, it doesn't even need it. The texture of this pie is rich and silky-smooth, the flavor buttery and perfectly spiced. It's downright voluptuous, which I didn't know a pie could be. For the crust, I pulsed the following in my food processor: 1 cup oats 1/2 pecans 1/2 cup flour(spelt works great) 3 TB sugar 1 cube frozen butter, cut into chunks 2 TB ice water Pulse the oats and pecans together until they form a coarse flour. Add the sugar and pulse to combine, then add the butter and pulse about ten times. Begin adding ice water 1 TB at a time and pulse a few times until the mixture holds together when you pinch it. Press about 2/3 of the mixture into an ungreased, glass pie pan and bake for 10 minutes on 400. You will have a lot of pie crust mixture left over, but I loved the flavor; a crunchy, nutty shortbread crust that was a perfect compliment to the spicy pumpkin. It was also easy to work with and didn't require any rolling-out or extra fussing, which I appreciate. Another great pie crust shortcut is to grind up those crunchy Nature Valley granola bars, the really hard ones that come with two bars in a shiny green wrapper, and add melted butter. I've also used ground graham crackers or gluten-free ginger snaps. They all work. Note: I've also substituted the heavy cream with soy milk and coconut milk for my dairy-intolerant dinner guests. The coconut flavor does come through, but it wasn't something I objected to. Using all soy milk tasted just fine, and I imagine that full-fat almond milk would be lovely as well.

Please Pray

See these two beautiful girls? They are Sheila(left) and Lorna(right) Bernhoft, younger sisters of Iain Bernhoft, my friend who's getting married in Boston this Saturday. Lorna is in a coma after an accident early Tuesday morning. The Bernhoft family is responsible for introducing me to Aaron. It is no exaggeration to say that without them, my little family wouldn't be here. Aside from their role in my marital happiness, they are an amazing family. Iain and I have been friends for 15 years. His mom, Alison, is like a grandma to my children. This family means a lot to me. Alison sent the following update: lorna was relaxing with her friends from the quaker notes, her female a capella singing group, at a large, old house in philly. she sat on a piece of wood over a hole in the floor. under her tiny weight, the board broke; she fell 15 feet onto the stairs below. we arrived last night as she was coming out of a 6-hour surgery. they removed her forehead bone to allow the brain to swell. the bone is in the freezer and will be replaced in 4 - 6 weeks, when the swelling is down. her back surgery stabilized the spine: it looks as though there is significant damage to the spinal cord. our beautiful, brilliant, vibrant, loving daughter is broken. she's in a coma, on a breathing tube, her body cold to touch to reduce swelling, her face swollen so badly that only her nose is recognisable. will we ever get her back? will she be able to walk? will she still know the reams of poetry she loved to memorize? she was taking six courses, incl. organic chemistry, (last week she aced her midterm,) and was on a pace to graduate in three years from one of the nation's top 5 institutions. she would have done a year's internship with her extra year, before medical school. robin hoped she would eventually take over his ojai practice; she loved ojai so. this letter feels like an obituary. i don't know whether to use past or present tense; nobody knows if she will be herself if and when she comes back. we may not know for weeks, even months, even years. meanwhile, we have a wedding to celebrate in boston in 3 days: eldest son iain marries jiyoon, the love of his life. we struggle to see God's loving hand in this tragedy. Alison I remember the first time I met Lorna. She was four or five, and her family had come over for a day-after Thanksgiving party at my parents. She didn't say a single word to me the entire time, she just stared at me with her big blue eyes. She was wearing a little sailor dress that tied around the waist, and the bow had come undone. She held the ties in her little hands and slowly crept up to where I was sitting on a couch, then quietly placed the ties in my lap and continued staring, a silent plea. I tied her sash and she ran off without a word, but we understood each other. Some years later, when I was 17 and Lorna was 10 or so, we were in Rome together. There were a lot of fixed tours we were supposed to go on, but I remember the absolute best day as the one when Alison and Lorna decided to go on their own tour and invited me to come along. Lorna is in almost all of my pictures from Rome, a place that was made more alive by her being there. Please pray for healing for Lorna and peace for her family. If you'd like to follow her progress, go here: http://www.carepages.com/carepages/Bernhoft#

I am Getting Kind of Expensive

I have traditionally loathed shopping, but this weekend I did my fair share of it. A good friend is getting married in Boston this weekend, and we're going to the wedding(how else would they have a cake?). So on Saturday, full of faith and optimism, I set out to the mall to find myself a suitable dress. I own dresses. A few. But most are too short, too hot, too cold, too something to work for this semi-formal Boston wedding. I traversed the entire mall. I went to all the major stores, and several not-so-major ones. I tried on at least thirty dresses, no joke. Eventually I just got tired of taking my clothes off. I got very tired of not finding anything that worked. So after nearly six hours, I bought myself a pair of jeans which are exactly like a pair I already own, only without holes. I'm notoriously hard on my jeans, which is why I will probably never own a designer pair. If I can't feed my chickens in them, they don't really fit my life. Then, as I was striding purposefully out of Nordstrom, I spied this sweet little pair of moccasins. My feet were killing me. I'd also been looking for a pair of dress shoes that I could conceivably walk in, since there will be a lot of public transportation going on with this Boston wedding. There are none to be had. So I was kind of despairing and then, the moccasins. I don't really need a pair of casual shoes, but they called to me. I picked them up and smelled them, touched them, asked for a pair in my size. I put them on and felt- what was this strange sensation- could it be....comfort? Suddenly, I realized with utmost clarity that I was a moccasin kind of person. It shocked me that I'd failed to realize this before, but now I knew, knew with the sort of conviction that tells you when you're looking at your own baby in a sea of nursery newborns: these moccasins and I were meant to be together. There are a few spots on them already. From bacon. But otherwise, how would I know they were mine? I won't wear them to the wedding, but they are definitely coming with me to Boston and everywhere else I go for the rest of my life. I think I shall be Pocahontas now. Six hours of shopping, and only jeans and moccasins to show for it. I love my jeans and my moccasins, but neither of them really constitutes a dress. So I set out again with renewed vigor, and decided that if I wanted something beautiful I needed to be willing to pay for it. So I went to Anthropologie. And found. This. The skirt is all pleated like a lamp shade, which doesn't sound very becoming but it is. It's one of those dresses that you put on and suddenly you can see what your life would be like in another time. It was $228. But half off. Oh sweet day.

In other news, I made my first "professional" cake. This wasn't a gift for a friend, it was an actual job for a baby shower of someone I don't know. I was asked to make a cake to match these invitations. I'm not going to lie, it was stressful. With the weddings I was plenty stressed, but at least I knew I was saving my friends a whole lot of money by giving them the cake as a gift. This owl cake wasn't a gift, I was being paid to do it.

As usual, there was a huge learning curve. I learned to dye my own fondant custom colors, I learned all kinds of ways to sculpt and even more ways not to, I learned that no matter how many times I do this I will always get nervous, and I learned that in spite of all that I still really, really enjoy it. I think my favorite part is the problem-solving factor, like figuring out that the eyes I needed were the exact size of a drinking straw, and that I could make the pupils for the eyes by using the end of a lollipop stick dipped in edible dye as a stamp.

Plus, I could buy two pairs of moccasins for how I much I got paid to make this cake. Or one Anthropologie dress. Anyone else need a cake?