3 Songs

Eight Days to Christmas! Where has the year gone? I’ve been too busy lately to be online much but thought I’d pass along what’s currently in the queue for a little Sweet Thursday. May your holidays be blessed with laughter and your winter be warm as we head into a new year!

1) An amusing version of Baby, It’s Cold Outside by Tallulah Bankhead and Jack Carson courtesy My Inspiration Lounge.

2) Not Perfect by Tim Minchkin shared by Michelle.

3) And my favourite this time of year from White Christmas, Snow. I’ve always wanted to go to Vermont because of this movie, though no doubt it was shot entirely on a lot in Hollywood.

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Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people”...Note all people, no exceptions…“For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying: Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” ~Luke 2:10-15

Punkin’s Pie

My mom has made this recipe for pumpkin pie for decades and it’s always a hit with our family and friends. With the exception of the involved processes of preparing the pumpkin and making the dough, the filling is straight forward and delicious. I’ve found we can get 2 eight inch pies or 1 nine inch, deep dish pie plus a couple of tartles out of this recipe.

To prepare pumpkin: Scoop out seeds from top to bottom, cut pumpkin into long strips about 2 inches wide. Using a serrated knife, cut off the strings and mushy stuff on the inside and on the outside, carefully remove the rind. In a large, Dutch oven type pan cover the bottom with water, just enough to steam the pumpkin. Add slices, cover with a lid, and cook on low heat. Stir occasionally and cook until the pumpkin is translucent and tender. Drain off the water. Hot pumpkin will explode out of a blender, experience , so allow it to cool some before working in batches to process it on Purée in a blender. The resulting pulp can be kept frozen for up to one year.

Punkin’s Pie

Preheat oven to 425F

Line pans with dough and flute edges. There’s a good recipe for pâte brisée here that always comes out well. Prebake the pie shells 5 minutes on a cookie sheet and allow to cool while preparing the filling in a separate bowl. Growing up my mom always used extra dough to make cinnamon sugar crisps to share. I do this too, using a leaf cookie cutter, and additionally topping pies with one as decoration once they’re done cooking.

Mix until well blended:

2 cups of pumpkin pulp, preferably organic

1 and 1/2 cups of undiluted evaporated milk

1/4 cup of dark brown sugar

1/2 cup of white sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

2 slightly beaten eggs

1 Tablespoon of Allspice, the best you can find. Remember when cooked the spice taste dilutes so if you like pumpkin pie with a bit more oompf add extra.

Pour mixture into pie shells that are on a cookie sheet. Line the edges of the crust with aluminum foil strips to prevent burning, it’s definitely worth this extra step. Bake 15 minutes on 425F and then turn down the heat to 350F and bake for 40 to 45 more minutes. Pies are done when a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool, then slice, add real whipped cream and enjoy!

Category: Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian

Booklist Update

Murder at Longburn by Tracy Kiely. The Austen elements were good but not obnoxiously repetitive and hit the reader over the head with it. I liked it, it’s a story that stands on it’s own with multiple characters and a few plot twists. It was nice to tuck in nightly with and puzzle through, it felt like reading one of the myriad of Agatha Christie novels for the first time. This is Kiely’s first published novel and I look forward to more from her.

Story time reads recently included Mrs. McTats and Her Houseful of Cats, Pretzel, and Thanksgiving. Mrs. McTats is good for ABC’s and has a sweet ending. Pretzel by H.A. and Margaret Rey, who gave us Curious George, earned an Awww for it’s hero. And Thanksgiving is an introductory view of the holiday. It’s instructional but the addition of themed poetry helps round it out.

I’m currently rereading The Geography of Childhood. During my education capstone it was recommended to me while researching Montessori and I remember nodding a lot while reading it the first time. It’s been reaffirming to revisit why children need wild places. And indeed busy adults do too.

Yosemite Valley

Watching shadows change across the valley floor as the sun rises.

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Mystery Weather

Pre and post Halloween or Samhain always seems to be a settling in time with longer nights that are highlighted by the music of leaves dancing across the roads and laughter indoors where it’s warm and things that go bump in the night are selectively welcomed in. Usually it’s via annual viewings of Charlie Brown and Garfield specials (candy, candy, candy, candy…), a fun movie romp or maybe something more psychologically scary, and of course books of a certain genre that can run the spectrum from charming to nightmare rewarding. I lean towards historical, cozy, and British mysteries. Also childhood sleuth series. You’re never too old to enjoy red leather bound books inherited from your grandfather’s library when you were ten. Or randomly coming across more in a beloved series and then some at completely random used book stores. The bulk of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novels were bought in this way. A couple of weeks ago while traveling it took Resolve to not to leave here in Mariposa, California with an armload of used treasures. Damn baggage limits!

Recently I came upon this Mystery intro and it was like entering a time warp to the mid eighties on Thursday nights. I associate that night with PBS Mystery, As Time Goes By, Keeping Up Appearances, and my mom. I grew up in a home without cable so PBS was never buried among 125 flashy channels of… crap. Edward Gorey is why I’m very fond of pen and ink drawings no matter how macabre. There are a few Gorey inspired intros but that’s the favourite. It’s disturbingly amusing, especially with the two legs slipping into the pond at the end. Love it. And St. Louis native, Vincent Price, always had that intrigue of wicked eyebrows and a magnetic voice that draws the viewer in whether he was himself or a sinister character.

As a bonus to this post I’m including Mystery Wallpaper gleaned from an old computer before an upgrade. The past month my computer has been creaking and eerie footstep falling with every move in this almost forgotten, favourite theme. This is 400 x 300 but I’ve a 800 x 600 plus the full deal for sharing if anyone comes across this in search. The wallpaper is almost impossible to find, let alone the full theme. It’s a definite keeper.

Source: Microsoft Windows ‘98

Review: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Disclaimer: Possible Spoilers.

A few months ago I re watched I Capture the Castle with Romola Garai, Henry Thomas, Marc Blucas, Tara Fitzgerald, and Henry Cavill and decided it was a keeper. Additionally I was pleased to discover it is also a book! Ah fruit for the imagination!

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink begins 17 year old Cassandra Mortmain as an exercise to develop her skills by speed writing what she observes of her family, it’s bohemian eccentricities, and the decaying castle that is their home. This is possibly the most engaging opening line for a book, it’s certainly one of my favourites. It was published in the late 1940’s and is full of wit, humor, angst, and relationship nuances that wrestle in the mind of it’s narrator. Perhaps the draw to this is both it’s familiarity and it’s uniqueness. There are elements of both Austen and Bronte mixed in with Cassandra and Rose as sisters patiently waiting for something, anything to happen to change their mundane and poverty laced existence. It’s also familiar because Cassandra’s narration is one that draws us into living with her. Anyone who’s ever kept a journal would identify with this story completely. Putting things down in black and white, “capturing” a moment is just that but because life moves forward it can also contradict itself, revisit prior opinion, and form better second and third impressions based on the ability to compare. This is the case with the appearance of the Cotton brothers and their relations when everything is at first welcome and upbeat until Cassandra overhears Simon and Neil doing a run down of her family and her conscious naivete. It also doesn’t help how desperate Rose is to escape poverty and lays it on thick with the inheritor of the Scoatney estate, Simon. This changes with a ridiculous episode of foolishness and hilarity involving the sisters, mistaken identities at the Godsend train station, and when the Cotton brothers come to the rescue.

There is quite a bit of subtlety and what if’s in this novel as well with other characters such Stephen who is devoted to Cassandra. He actually becomes instrumental in coming to Cassandra’s rescue in London and eventually reveals a truth that changes everything for Cassandra, Rose, Simon, Neil, and their families. There is no sequel to this as there are nowadays for so many books and movies but Cassandra’s younger brother Thomas is spot on when he observes to her about Stephen, “One of these days you’re going to find out what you’ve missed.” The journal-novel concludes open ended with only one thing certain at that point and that is Cassandra’s unwavering feelings for Simon Cotton. First love is first love, whether it’s reciprocated or not it remains with us for life however it unfolds.

5 Things

1) No more hiding inside where the air conditioner is and pretending it’s not 33C/92F outside, at 9am. You know who you are. Time for a trek and to rejoice! Sweater worthy Autumn has not only officially arrived but also arguably the best month of the year, October.

2) Flip Mino in High Definition at a decent price. The anticipation of fall field trips and touring just jumped 1000%!

3) Pumpkin everything. Carving, candles, pie, lattes, ravioli, soup, cookies, scented oils, seeds! Especially toasted pumpkin seeds.

4) The arts. Local workshop theatres and coffee houses are cozy and very welcoming right now with the influx of energetic university population. And poetry feels… right at the moment either reading while tucked under a soft blanket or milling around in thought during long walks among golden leaves. Also re watching Dead Poets Society is in the queue, the scenes of New England autumn are gorgeous.

5) The moon, bonfires, and hot drinks. Life is good in these small, treasured moments.

By an Autumn Fire by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Now at our casement the wind is shrilling,
Poignant and keen
And all the great boughs of the pines between
It is harping a lone and hungering strain
To the eldritch weeping of the rain;
And then to the wild, wet valley flying
It is seeking, sighing,
Something lost in the summer olden.
When night was silver and day was golden;
But out on the shore the waves are moaning
With ancient and never fulfilled desire,
And the spirits of all the empty spaces,
Of all the dark and haunted places,
With the rain and the wind on their death-white faces,
Come to the lure of our leaping fire.

But we bar them out with this rose-red splendor
From our blithe domain,
And drown the whimper of wind and rain
With undaunted laughter, echoing long,
Cheery old tale and gay old song;
Ours is the joyance of ripe fruition,
Attained ambition.
Ours is the treasure of tested loving,
Friendship that needs no further proving;

No more of springtime hopes, sweet and uncertain,
Here we have largess of summer in fee­
Pile high the logs till the flame be leaping,
At bay the chill of the autumn keeping,
While pilgrim-wise, we may go a-reaping
In the fairest meadow of memory!

British TV: Jam and Jerusalem

I really love British telly so no doubt this will be the first of many mentions of admired shows from across the pond.

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Jam & Jerusalem is also known as Clatterford.  I don’t get the marketing and interchangeable titles but no bother when it’s coming from the pen of Jennifer Saunders and Abigail Wilson! Jen Saunders as in Absolutely Fabulous and French and Saunders. Yeah. Yeah! This isn’t AbFab or sketch comedy though, it’s a series akin to Dawn French’s Vicar of Dibley with focus on characters and storytelling in a rural setting. In Jam & Jerusalem Saunder’s plays a minor role and there are brief, disguised appearances from her AbFab partner in crime, Joanna Lumley. The ensemble is a collection of ladies with the lead being played wonderfully by Sue Johnston as the village nurse Sal. They start the series with Sal’s husband kicking off at work in the surgery aka doctors office and the ladies of the guild gather to support…and annoy her. I don’t know how they came to decide how many women they would write as being a part of Clatterford’s guild but gradually they take on individual characteristics. And some are unique straight off. Dawn French is memorably cast as sweet, cheese loving Rosie with her alter ego being Margaret, who’s a bit of a bully. What’s charming is that in Series 2 it shows clearly how much the majority of them just accept her and her split personalities and manage to successfully communicate with them both no matter what the situation is. Not in the woman’s group but always about is Sal’s daughter, Tash. She’s an aging free spirit, says ‘like’ every other sentence, and is the complete opposite of her dour brother James, who inherits his father’s practice.

This is a cuppa tea kind of show. It’s amusing with moments of humanity involving forgiveness, kindness, and sentiment about loss. When Tash marries Spike at the end of Series 2 Kate Rusby, who does the title song, performs with her band. Underneath the Stars especially stands out and sets the mood. It was such a pleasant surprise to come across this show and while it looks like it’s over after Series 3, one can hope that Saunders, French, Lumley and Co. will continue to entertain and bring us laughter well into the future.

Farewell Summer

Thank you for the ambient light during many long evenings of shared conversations while we sat and gently swayed on the yard swing.

3 Awesome Things

#1 Having a dream so sweet and vivid you wake up slowly ~with a smile.

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#2 The moment you print out a boarding pass to go see someone you love. Yay!!

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#3 When the weather is cool enough in late summer to put on a soft sweater. Mmm, lovely.

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