Despite still having both a lingering fear of flying and a pretty ~meh~ tan, I am home! For almost two weeks now! Who'da Thunkit?
It is a strange thing to come back to your life and have it very much as you left it. Walt is moving along as he always does. I am still jobless but now without car which should be incentive to use the public transportation that I'm always dissing here but as of yet I have not ventured very far. Today's got to be the day.
Christmas was very very nice. My parents and little brother came from the East and Walt's parents from the West. Both had to deal with heinous weather coming in and going out, but everyone's safe at home now. We had a fun caroling party on Christmas eve with my lovely cousins, some of their friends and some of our peeps from way back. It was a Christmas miracle because everyone wanted to sing and sing we did, for several hours, repeating songs!
On Christmas day we also went out to see Hennepin Falls and had a super crazy snowball fight and got to listen to "Santa's Got a Brand New Bag" which my dad sung the bass line and absentmindedly lurched the car in rhythm to on the way home. No Christmas would be complete without several musical interludes for me!
I didn't know what I was getting for Christmas. I got some wonderfully useless things (a beautiful textile piece from Walt's mom and Dad that will be going up very soon, some CDs I've never heard of from my brother that will have to become my new favorites in these following months. At least when you amp them up they get the blood flowing in a way that you could almost consider yourself warm...) I also got some books that will be wonderful, I can already tell. I am an amateur greenthumb and my mom got me The New Victory Garden by Bob Thompson, published in 1987. This book will help me plan my garden to the teeth and also pacify me when I realize "I can't grow asparagus this year? it takes 3 years to prepare it?!? WTF!"
My dad also got me a book that I don't think either of us knew I would like so much. It is called When French Women Cook: A Gastronomic Memoir by Madeleine Kamman published originally in 1976 but this is the 2002 reprint. Okay, here are 3 reasons why I'm obsessed already. 1) It's a vintage cookbook. This woman was a serious chef writing in the mid-70s making her a total french food purist which is really wonderful. She makes clear that french food and ingredients are superior to US food and ingredients. The only 'fusion' that she refers to are the ancient fusions of foods from regions of france that may have been influenced by the Vikings, the Germans, the Arabs. This old school aspect of it is wonderful. 2) This also makes it a great reference guide. She says that the recipe she has for veal stock is necessary for all French cooking. Period. And I believe her. Here it is the 28th, I got the book on the 25th and I already have 2 quarts of the stuff in my freezer. And it is good. 3) Here are some of the recipes you can find Zucchini and Lemon Pie (169,) Frogs Legs in Green and Pink Sauce (234) and Roast Pork Boar Style (291.) These recipes are strange, intriguing and sometimes a little funny sounding. Just how I like them.
All these things I say make M. Kammam sound like a snob but it ain't true! She is really humble in her recipes. She tells you how hard it is to make the food, how expensive it will be, what to swap ingredients for, etc.. She just really wants her reader to make good food. And the memoir aspect of the book is lovely as well. She dedicates a chapter to women cooks who influenced her in her life, all from a different region in France. In writing she recognizes that this old France she remembers is gone (was gone in 76 so I don't know where it is now!) and writes as an ode to that France of her child- and young adult-hood as well as to these amazing women from her life. And all the recipes have adequate to unbelievable amounts of fat and grease in them so. Need I say more?
In hindsight having survived the snowpocolypse, which never really made it here but effected all of our visitors, I am very pleased with Christmas. The only thing missing was Eliza. She Skyped with us several times but we were usually drunk and obnoxious. I wish she could have been drunk and obnoxious with us instead of having to be on the receiving end but that's life. Happy Holidays to all!
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