A Handful of Frugal Moments

Last week, Melissa Clark of the New York Times wrote an article on "How to Make No-Churn Salted Caramel Ice Cream" (also titled "The Easiest Salted Caramel Ice Cream Doesn’t Require a Machine"). I like Clark's writings and she did her usual excellent job of describing the process, the ingredients, and the results. 

However, this being the New York Times, the recipe was available only if you are subscribed to its special Cooking subscription, which is not included in a regular subscription. I believe the Cooking subscription is $1.25 a week.

A week. That is $65.00 a year. While I am quite willing to pay $20 every four weeks for a subscription to the Times (and yes, at $260 a year, I admit that this is both a privilege and a luxury), I am not willing to subscribe to an additional feature that I know I would use only sporadically. I know, I could subscribe for a week, spend a chunk of my time sifting through the recipes for gold, then cancel, but life is short. (This reminds me of when a friend, hearing me rave about Reservation Dogs when it premiered, said "Well, you could subscribe to Hulu for the new subscriber rate, binge watch, then cancel." Yeah, I could.)

So without access to the special Cooking subscription, I did what many of us do: I Googled "no-churn salted caramel ice cream." Within a few minutes, I found one that followed the spirit, ingredients, and process of the one Melissa Clark wrote about, and decided to follow it.

That was Frugal Moment #1: Coming up with an alternative recipe without paying for it.

The recipes called for three ingredients: heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, and caramel sauce. The first two went on the list for a very brief shopping trip Sunday morning.

The caramel sauce? 

Well, that was Frugal Moment #2. A number of years ago, at one of our monthly legal clinics, a dear friend who was also one of our regular volunteers came to me with a smile and something hidden behind her back. "I thought of you when I saw this," she said. 

It was a jar of caramel sauce. It has sat on a kitchen shelf ever since, just waiting for its moment in the spotlight. 

How long has it waited? Well, the lid has a best used date of...March, 2015. Knowing how items are dated, that jar and gift may date back to 2014. 

No problem. It was fresh and it poured as needed. 

The very patient caramel sauce
(Sounds like a children's book title, doesn't it?)

The recipe took less than 20 minutes to make, with cleanup taking another 10. And the result? 

Superb.

Taste testing! I think our two scoops per serving equal one scoop from a shop. 

I did a little math about this dessert. Since we had the caramel sauce already, that left the heavy cream ($2.89) and the sweetened condensed milk ($2.19) as the outlay for what filled a two-quart loaf pan. To put that quantity into perspective, a container of ice cream at the store is generally 1.5 quart, not 2 quarts (which would be a half gallon, the standard of my childhood). So for $5.08, we have a half gallon of heaven.

And to put that $5.08 into further perspective, I measured it against the places we go when we treat ourselves to ice cream. Downtown at Whit's, which is within easy walking distance, for two one-scoop servings? $8.00. Handmade incredible ice cream at Sticky Fingers in Kilbourne? Two single scoops at $3.95 each, or $7.90. Kilbourne is 6.5 miles, more or less, from Delaware, so add gas too for a 13-mile round trip. Midway Market in Ostrander, which carries delicious Hershey ice cream flavors? Two single scoops for $3.00 each, or $6.00 total, and that is a 16 miles round trip. (I am not comparing prices to soft-serve ice cream, because that really is a whole different food group, but I will just note that our favorite soft-serve stand, for very sentimental reasons, is in a little village called Prospect, which is 14 miles away. We usually spend somewhere from $5.00 to $6.00 for our combined orders.) 

It all adds up. And that was Frugal Moment #3: we beat the spread. By a long shot. Because we will be getting more than 2 scoops of deliciousness from this recipe. In fact, the next day I divided the ice cream into containers for later. (Of course, I saved some for now!)

Plenty left after our initial tasting! 

There are many other reasons for going out for ice cream. Spending time away with no interruptions of office or shop is one. This allows us, especially Warren, to set aside some of the daily stress and stressors. Giving ourselves a different space in which to talk is another. (This is sometimes related to setting aside stress, sometimes related to feeling we need to connect differently after a hard day.) Meeting up with friends coming in from another direction for an ice cream rendezvous is another great reason (yes, David, I mean you and Vinny). So I am not beating myself (or ourselves) up for taking those ice cream trips and I know they will continue. 

But this week, at least, we are enjoying our homemade, handmade, fancy-schmancy NYT knockoff salted caramel ice cream and savoring every single bite. And the frugality, goofy though it may sound at times, makes it all the sweeter. 

The Unexpected Thanksgiving

There was not going to be a Thanksgiving this year, at least not in the traditional sense of family members gathering to eat.

This November has been a hard month. My silence on this blog reflects that: I have been pulled and stretched too thin to find the quiet inner space in which to be still and write. November held two conferences out of town: one to Pittsburgh (mine), one to Indianapolis (Warren's). November also has been a bucket, filled to the brim and slopping over, of family and friends struggling: financial issues, health issues, hospitalizations, deaths.

Certain friends and I at particularly difficult stretches of life will say in passing, "So, other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

It's been a Mrs. Lincoln kind of month.

Two of those hospitalizations involved my dad, who just earlier this week was released from the hospital to a skilled nursing facility to regain his strength and independence. Throughout it, my siblings, our spouses, and I were all dealing with long hours at the hospital, irregular schedules, broken days, and lots of stress. We're not at our best as a result.

Originally, my and Warren's Thanksgiving was going to be at dad's house, where my youngest brother Mark and his wife now live too. After dad's well-being took a tumble, and after we wore ourselves out (Mark has a chronic, progressive illness which wears him out and I am into a decade and a half of my progressive, incurable cancer), my brother and I talked and agreed to cancel Thanksgiving. They were tired, we were tired. That worked for the four of us, and our other brother Mike had his own family to host, so his plans were already set.

Well, that was his plan until his wife Kate called me earlier this week. Could they join us for Thanksgiving? Please? There would be five of them. Warren and I talked. Okay. But wait! If we were eating at noon (our plan), that would eliminate two of them (son Mike Jr. and daughter-in-law Hannah who would not be coming this way until later that day). Okay. Then a granddaughter who didn't want to go to her stepdad's family was added. Okay. Six of us total. More plans were made: you bring this and that, we'll make that and that.

On Thanksgiving morning, their youngest son, Timon, driving down from Cleveland, showed up early. Per his mother's instructions, I put him to work helping pull chairs out, washing china, setting the table. Then I get a phone call from Mike Jr.: they were coming earlier after all. After I got over my shock (I ordered him to hang up and call his mother immediately), I recalculated. Okay, now we're up to eight. That meant reconfiguring the table settings, adding another table, washing more china. That's okay, though: I had help. So we all worked some more, although Timon said, as we rearranged things, "I bet you they don't make it in time. They'll be late."

My brother, sister-in-law, and their granddaughter arrived. The turkey was close to done; we may have had it out of the oven already. One of their phones rang: the travelers are turning back to switch cars because the check engine light came on. Sorry, they are still coming, but they will be late.

Timon pumped his fist in the air. "I told you I'd win that bet!"

We pulled down the folding table that had been added to the end of our kitchen table to fit eight. We hastily took up the extra place settings. Warren started cutting turkey and piling it on a platter. Food went into bowls, water glasses got filled, and we all sat down.

I anchored one end of the table, my brother Mike the other. He looked around the table, beamed, and said "It's good to be here at this table and to all be together."

Those were more than just casual words tossed out to make everyone feel good. Mike was the brother I was least close to, both when growing up and as an adult. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am the one who kept Mike at arm's length over the years; Mike did nothing to create that breach. When I was diagnosed with the myeloma in 2004, I apologized to Mike for how I had treated him by, frankly, not treating him at all. Mike just smiled and said, very gently, "It's okay, April."

Mike meant it. It was okay. And now here we were at the most improbable of Thanksgivings, a Thanksgiving that wasn't supposed to happen and surely in a million years would not have been spent with Mike and crew.

The meal was wonderful. We shared good food, good conversation, and laughter. Mike and I shared stories from our childhood of Thanksgivings (and Christmases). We passed the turkey, we passed the rolls, we passed the love.

The pies were delicious.

As Kate, Warren, and I started clearing plates and making containers of leftovers, the door opened and Hannah and Mike Jr. walked in. We made a clear spot at one end of the table, rescued the settings we had swept off the table earlier (I had just set them on a small couch in the study) and loaded them up with food. Warren started the dishes. Several of us grabbed dishtowels. Talk flowed through the kitchen; talked flowed in the living room.

And then it was over. Mike, Kate, their granddaughter, Timon, Mike Jr., and Hannah headed out to go see dad before going their own way. Hugs, thanks, "wait, Grandpa forgot his phone," goodbye waves.

And, like that, our unexpected Thanksgiving was over.

2019 marks my 64th Thanksgiving. There have been some great ones.

This was one of them.

Coming Full Circle

In this part of Ohio (smack dead center) when I was growing up (I started 1st grade in 1962), it was not unusual to hear a classmate announce "I'm part Indian" or "I'm part Cherokee" or something similar. (Maybe it still is, but I am talking about then, not now.) Everyone (well, at least four or five kids)  claimed Native American ancestry, often Cherokee, whenever indigenous peoples were talked about, which in school meant when we talked about "ancient" Ohio history—the Adena and Hopewell tribes, called "Mound Builders" by the dominant white colonial society—or around Thanksgiving.

Heck, my family even had an "We're part Indian" story that persisted into the 21st century. My

Grandma Skatzes: not Native American 

Grandmother Skatzes told stories, perhaps more than one, that we had a Native American ancestor in her family tree. It was a grandmother, three or four generations back, who would tie her children to the fence so that she could work in the garden. (My grandmother, a gentle-hearted soul, would tear up when she told this, saying "That was a cruel and terrible thing to do! Those little children would holler all day long!") There was never a name attached to this allegedly Native American ancestor, just the story of tying the children up so she could do her chores.

Another version which popped up once or twice was that we had a male ancestor, supposedly of the Apache tribe, somewhere back in the past. Seriously? Besides the fact that the historical lands of the Apache were in the southwestern part of this country, a part of the country we did not move to or come from, a narrative involving a relationship with a male Native American runs contrary to what the standard settler/Native interrelationships looked like: male settler, Native woman.

Trust me, it didn't happen.

Still, the stories persisted. As I grew older and learned more history of the colonization in this part of the country, I began to disbelieve the whole family myth of a Native American ancestor. Most of our maternal genealogical records, even without digging too deep, followed such traditional white trajectories that I could not begin to shoehorn a Native American ancestor into them. Rape or sexual assault somewhere in the past? Absolutely a possibility. But a marriage or domestic partnership? No way. It was white, white, white all the way.

With the advent of DNA testing for "heritage" purposes, one of my cousins on my maternal side took a test. She was excited waiting for the results, anticipating seeing threads of that Native American ancestor pop up in the results. I told her to be prepared: there won't be any Native American DNA identified. Yes, there will be, April! Just wait and see!

True to my prediction, there was no Native American DNA. Zero, nada, nothing. Unlike Elizabeth Warren, we couldn't even pretend to have any Native American lineage.

That story resurfaced when I went to Kentucky last month with my dad and brother and sister-in-law. While we were eating dinner at a Bob Evans, Mark brought up that we have Native American blood in the Strickler family line (our mom's maternal lineage).

"No, we don't. There might be some in the family, but it's not there."

Dad looked at me quizzically. "The Skatzes side?" (That would be Mom's paternal lineage.)

"Not there either," I said, explaining that our cousin (who has the same Skatzes/Strickler DNA that my brother and I do) had a DNA test and the results were negative for Native American DNA.

"Frankly, if there is any Native American blood, it'll be on your side, Dad."

I went on to point our that his family history, of which I know the bare bones narrative, was more likely to have Native American/settler interrelationships of the kind that would lead to marriage or a domestic partnership. Our ancestors were in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky very early in the dominant white colonial history of this country, and probably far enough in advance of "civilization" that tribes in the area would have been the only other humans around.

That's when I came to a complete stop in my mind.

Oh hell.

We, my family, did that. We were part of that wave of white settlers invaders, part of the white colonization mindset that it all belonged to us and those others—those indigenous people seen as lesser than, if seen as human at all—deserved to be pushed out of the way or slaughtered or both in the name of God, the King, the United States, the whatever.

We were those people and for all of my participation in circles on historical trauma and cultural and biological genocide and (gulp) restorative justice, it never hit me that I was a direct heir and beneficiary of that. All my law school clerk experience in the Native American law field, my championing of tribal law and the many Native sovereign nations: that was good work, but I was flying blind, in the fog, and upside down. I couldn't even coast by saying my family came to those parts of the United States (Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio) post-Civil War through Ellis Island after all the tribes had been exterminated or removed.

Oh, no, no, no, we were here from the very beginning and took part of that long, horrific history.

Oh hell. Talk about privilege. Talk about white dominant colonial culture bias.

Talk about feeling like a totally clueless goof.

If my child-in-law Alise, who is Anishinaabe, is reading this post, this is about the point where she is nodding her head and saying "uh huh, April, uh huh. Now you get it."

Better late than never.

But dang, that "late" was way late in coming.

Inch Fifty-Eight: A Place at the Table

Monday night I attended a seder, the Jewish ritual meal for Passover, at Ohio Wesleyan, our local college. It was not a traditional seder, nor even a full seder, but it had the structure of a seder and that was a good start. The OWU seder is offered in part for its very small Jewish student population and in part for non-Jewish members of the greater Delaware community who wish to experience a seder.

It was the first time I had been at a seder in 27 or 28 years.

The first person I met when I arrived was Jessica, the associate chaplain and rabbinic student, who was the driving force behind the event. We'd exchanged emails prior to the seder but nothing prepared me to come face to face with someone in my age bracket.

Students drifted in, along with a lot of adults from the community. None of the other adults were Jewish (I knew all but one, and I ended up sitting next to her at the seder, so got to know her religious beliefs early on). Of the students, I would estimate perhaps a third to half were Jewish, with the rest coming from the campus Interfaith House or just coming along out of curiosity or friendship.

It was so odd to be outnumbered at a seder by the non-Jews.

Since I last attended a seder, there have been new additions to the seder ceremony. (By "new," I mean changes that I had never experienced, although the changes date back almost 30 years themselves.) A seder table always has a filled wine cup for Elijah the Prophet. Our table also contained an empty wineglass for Miriam the Prophetess. The glass was passed along the table and each of us emptied a teaspoon of water into the glass to honor Miriam and her well, which miraculously accompanied the Jewish people during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. And the seder plate, which holds ritual objects (a roasted lamb shank, maror (bitter herbs), haroset, matzoh), also now holds an orange. The orange was introduced to recognize and include the Jewish LGBT community. Both of these changes resonated with me.

I had forgotten the flavors of a seder. There were bowls of haroset every three to four plates. Haroset is a mixture of chopped apples and chopped nuts, flavored with cinnamon and bound together with grape juice or, more traditionally, kosher grape (sweet) wine. Haroset symbolizes the mortar the Jews made bricks with when they were slaves in Egypt.  In the course of the seder, you not only eat the haroset, but you also eat a Hillel sandwich, which is haroset and maror (traditionally horseradish) between two pieces of matzoh.

I had forgotten the sting and sweetness of the Hillel sandwich. And I had forgotten how addicting haroset is. I wasn't the only one who felt that way. The young woman next to me and I kept returning to the haroset bowl, which she had moved to be between the two of us. "I love haroset," she said, smiling as she spooned some more onto her plate. "It's my favorite food at seder."

Passover is the festival of freedom. The intertwined issues of slavery and freedom have always played the key role in the haggadah, the text followed during the seder. Now issues of social justice—poverty, hunger, inequality, homelessness, modern slavery—also are part of the telling. We did not use printed haggadahs, but instead had readings that took us through the order of a seder.  As Jessica explained, Jews are supposed to tell the Passover story as if it is happening now, not just reciting something that happened long ago. I am eager to participate in a modern seder that contains this new overlay.

After the seder concluded, I talked with Jessica for several minutes, long enough for us to say we had to stay in touch. Her immediate recognition of the All-of-a-Kind Family books ("Of course I read them! I'm 50!") made for a quick bond, one which we hope to grow over coffee and conversation in the coming weeks.

Warren asked me when I came home if I had a good seder experience. "It was more of a seder outline," I said, but added that I was satisfied. For the first time back at the table, it was a sweet reunion.

You traditionally end a seder with the words "next year in Jerusalem," an element that was omitted Monday night. I already know what I want next year. Next year I want to attend a full blown seder or even host one myself. I want to make the haroset, I want to bring the desserts.

Next year in Jerusalem. Next year a seder. Next year a place at the table.

Inch Forty-One: The Tiniest Bit of Light

As I recently emailed one friend, as we tried to find a common date when we could all get together, it's that most wonderful time of the year...except when it is not. I'm in the midst of the "not" right now.

While the oral chemotherapy regimen continues to go well ("well" being a very relative term), a constant side effect of both it and ten years of myeloma is fatigue. Deep-in-the-bones fatigue. Fatigue way past something a short nap or a good night's sleep helps. Fatigue pretty much owns me.

That ownership, in turn, impacts what I am able to accomplish on any given day. Despite my best efforts, despite pacing myself, I still get to the late afternoon and start taking items off of my to-do list. For example, I had hoped after work to (a) visit Aunt Ginger (I was way overdue to check in on her, thanks to fatigue), (b) deliver a batch of cookies as a holiday gift to a friend, (c) bake another batch of biscotti (maybe two) for some other holiday gifts, (d) pack a box of items to ship to Alise for her agency's holiday gifting for the families they serve, and (e) finish peeling and slicing the culled apples (which have been on the floor of the percussion room since Sunday) so that I can get them bagged and frozen for National Pie Day in January.

I made it to Aunt Ginger's apartment for an upbeat visit and I got the box packed and ready to ship. It is just now eight p.m. and if I rouse myself from the couch, I may get the apples peeled, sliced, and in the freezer.

Or I may not.

I am still hoping to observe Hanukkah this year, although as I type these words, I lack a menorah and candles and am not sure I can easily find any at this late date. Hanukkah starts at nightfall on December 16. I already know I will not get any candles lit until later that evening because our last legal clinic of 2014 is that same evening.

The beauty of Hanukkah is that the half hour or so spent watching the candles burn down all but guarantees a small, distinctly carved island in time. You are forced, gently and with flickering lights, to slow down, to ease up, to rest. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner said it best: "At the darkest time of year, the tiniest bit of light reminds us that we are all whistling in the dark and hoping, by these rituals of miracles of candlelights and bulbs on evergreens, we remember the divine presence."

I'll be looking for that tiniest bit of light come December 16. I may have the fatigue of a shipwreck survivor by then, but I plan on being on that island, hugging the sand, grateful to be washed ashore.

Inch Thirty-One: New Year

Erev Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year and the High Holy Days, started at sunset last night. I sat through a Reform service livestreamed from a Cincinnati temple, Temple Sholom. It was the first New Year's service I have attended in over three decades. To my surprise, some of the prayers (I did not have a prayerbook, so I was lost at times) and many of the melodies came rushing back to me.

I once read a rabbi contrasting the American New Year and the Jewish New Year. We ring in the New Year in America (and, indeed, in many parts of the world) with partying, alcohol, and fireworks on New Year's Eve. On January 1, we come together to watch football games.

In contrast, the Jewish New Year begins with an evening of prayer and worship, and the first morning of the New Year is spent in more of the same.

Rosh Hashanah starts ten days of contemplation, atonement, and personal reflection that will not end until sunset on October 4 at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Sometimes that period is called the Days of Awe. It is a time of looking backward over the last year and of looking forward to the year to come. One of the rabbis last night reminded us that there is a continue pull between two extremes: "I am but dust and ashes" and "the world was created entirely for me."

The rabbi spoke at length about the latter statement. It is s statement not about ego ("look how special I am!") but about celebrating the uniqueness of every individual. For those of us who give constantly to others, she reminded us that we need to value ourselves and to make sure we also nurture our own lives.

The rabbi then quoted from a poem by Marianne Williamson: "it is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us." It is our obligation, she said, to see the Divine in every moment. Let your living be sacred in a way that reminds you of the beauty of the world.

This morning I rejoined the congregation for the Rosh Hashanah service. Rabbi Terlinchamp reminded us that Rosh Hashanah is a chance for renewal, to be a better person. Presenting a passionate, powerful sermon about marriage equality, truth, and justice, she alluded to Yom Kippur and the part of the service where we rap our chests over our hearts. That should not be seen as our beating ourselves in penance, the rabbi said, but rather as knocking our hearts to open them up to the wrongs of the world that it is our duty to try to correct.

Rosh Hashanah and the days that follow are a period that requires the Jew to look inward, to atone not only for everything that has been done in anger, hurt, or malice, but also for everything that was not done and should have been done.

These are Days of Awe indeed.

Bountiful Biscotti

I used to bake lots and lots and lots of cookies at Christmas. Cutout cookies, kisses cookies, macaroons, apricot jam crescents, crinkle cookies, snickerdoodles, cream cheese twists, peppermint sandwiches - cookies, cookies, cookies. Besides eating them "in house," I also gave away plates of cookies to friends and family.

I still bake lots of cookies at Christmas, but over the years I have reduced the types of cookies I make. Some of that is a function of age: it was a lot easier and more fun to make dozens of different types when I was younger and had more stamina. Some of it is a function of time passing: I'm not baking for my boys anymore, and they were a huge part of the fun of baking different types.

Some of it is the realization that I bake some types of cookies better than others.

What I bake now, almost but not quite exclusively, is biscotti. I always bake the same type: a plain pecan type spiced with cinnamon. I bake biscotti by the dozens and distribute it widely, leaving a trail of biscotti crumbs as I go. This year, I baked six or seven batches, or some 500 plus biscotti. They went out from coast to coast, with the heaviest concentration of them of them being sprinkled through the Midwest.

Over the years, friends and family have asked me for the recipe. I never hesitate to hand it out: it is not a secret family recipe, but rather one I probably found in either Family Circle or Woman's Day many years ago. This year, blogger friends Sharon and Ellen both asked for the recipe. In responding to Ellen, I wrote: I don't have a great story like the peanut brittle story to go along, other than one of friendship and good flavors (well, I guess that IS a great story!).

So here is the biscotti recipe. It is full of flavor and helps fortify friendships. Make some yourself, pass it around, and see if you agree.

BISCOTTI
1½ cups pecans*
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon**
5 eggs
2 cups sugar
½ cup melted butter***                   
1 ½ tablespoons grated orange rind****

Notes on ingredients
 *This recipe originally called for almonds. I prefer pecans; I have made it both ways.
**At a minimum. If I am using what I call OTC cinnamon (the regular, widely available stuff as opposed to more pungent specialty cinnamons), I usually use 3 to 4 teaspoons.
***Original recipes calls for unsalted. Salted will not kill the recipes. I have never made this with margarine or any other substitute, so I have no experience with using something else.
****Use it if you have it. Will not make or break the recipe. (I often omit this step because I rarely have grated orange rind available.)

Steps

1. Preheat over to 350°. Prepare 2 baking sheets: I use parchment paper, but you may coat lightly with vegetable spray or Crisco.
2. Chop (by hand or with food processor) ½ cup of pecans fine (like flour); set aside.
3. Coarse chop the remainder of the pecans and place in small bowl with flour, baking powder and cinnamon.
4. In large bowl, beat eggs on medium speed until fluffy. Add finely ground pecans (the ½ cup), sugar, butter, and orange peel. Beat until blended. Note: I use a mixer through this step. Stir in flour/pecan mixture to form dough. The dough should be fairly stiff and heavy, but not dry.
5. Divide dough into quarters. On well-floured work surface, roll and shape each quarter into a log approximately 12 inches long and 1-2 inches wide. It is like rolling "snakes" from clay; dust your hands with flour. Place 2 logs on each baking sheet and bake 25-30 minutes, until "firm in center" per the original recipe. There is no magic to this: 25 to 30 minutes in a stove at 350° will get the desired results. Note: you can bake both sheets (all 4 logs) at the same time, rotating top/bottom, front/back at 15 minutes. I used to do this, but now bake one sheet of logs at a time.
6. Let logs cool slightly: 10-15 minutes. While still warm, cut each log diagonally into ½ inch thick slices (or whatever other thickness you desire). Place slices face down on baking sheets (as opposed to on edge). Bake 7-8 minutes; turn slices and repeat on other side. Again, you can bake two sheets of biscotti at the same time; rotating top/bottom, front/back. Depending on your cutting and layout skills, you may get all biscotti cooked at the same time. They can be crowded together, as they do not spread. Cool on wire rack.
7. Makes up to 80 cookies, depending on how thick you cut the slices. I tend to get 20 cookies to a log.

This is a pretty sturdy recipe and allows for imprecision in the kitchen. The baking time on the slices is as much a function of personal preference as to crispiness of biscotti as it is the clock. In a pinch, you can even get away with not turning the biscotti over for the final baking, but just bake them longer on the same side. It all depends on your patience and tolerance for handling hot cookies.

Enjoy!

A Christmas That Fits

It is the day after Christmas. There are some occasional snowflakes coming down outside - more fretful than anything serious. The house is warm. Warren was on the couch, tapping away on his laptop, but now he is down in the basement, sorting out music. Xylophone music - a recording of virtuoso George Hamilton Green - rattles its way back up the steps to the kitchen. I was folding laundry; now I am baking biscotti. There is a quiet to the house and a peacefulness.

My thoughts have been all over the board today. I had an email this morning in which a good friend wrote: Yesterday was a total bust!  Spent most of the day on the couch.  Wasn't sick, just couldn't make myself do anything!  Mom & I wanted to go shopping but of course nothing was open!  With our family doing Christmas on Christmas Eve, and no other family to go to any more, Christmas Day is nothing!

I laughingly replied that one major way in which she and I differ greatly is any day of the year, no matter what, I would NOT want to go shopping. I then tried to answer her in a more serious vein, giving up for fear of sounding preach or goofy or both.

But a thread of thought about Christmas has tugged at my fingers and at my conscience all morning, so much so that I am sitting down to write it.

It has been a different Christmas for us this year. Let me start out by noting that for the five Christmases Warren and I have celebrated together, the hallmark of them all has been low key celebration, not free-for-all shopping sprees and wild extravaganzas of consumerism. Neither our budgets nor our personal tastes lean in those directions. But even by our standards, this year was very quiet.

The blogger at I am the working poor honored me by linking to an earlier post of mine in her Christmas Day post. I commented back that economic conditions are still grim (and in my opinion grimmer) than when I wrote the post a month ago. Our biggest holiday outlays this year were for family members whose budgets are way past tight. Some are struggling to keep food on the table or a roof overhead. Some have lost that roof; some are getting their groceries from food pantries. In those situations, even a "small" gift - $25, say - is enormous.

When faced with that kind of need, Christmas is simple.

I guess the real question for all of us to answer is "why do we celebrate Christmas and what do we expect it to be or feel like?" Your answer will differ from mine, and that's fine. It is when your answer differs from your celebration that you run into difficulties (or at least I do).

My answers have changed several times in my lifetime. As I look back, I seem to be constantly removing layers of expectations from my thoughts about Christmas, not unlike peeling an onion.

Christmas 2010 was very low key in terms of commercial consumption, yet rich in all the ways that count, starting with family. We breakfasted on vegan cinnamon rolls that Warren and his children had baked the night before. We then opened presents together, laughing and teasing. Warren's children moved on to Christmas with their grandmother and a small wave of my family moved in for lunch. It was a simple meal, a good one, and the flavor of the food was matched and exceeded only by the talk and the laughter around the table. Our "daughter" Amy showed up in the evening with her fiancé; I talked by phone with both of my sons. After everyone was gone, Warren and I cuddled together on the couch and watched "A Christmas Carol" with George C. Scott, one of my favorite holiday films.

And that was Christmas 2010. Other than wishing that Ben, Alise, and Sam were also joining us at the table, it was one of the better Christmases I have spent when it came to how I felt about the day. I have often found Christmas hard to deal with both from an emotional standpoint and also in terms the rampant consumerism. By choice and design, our Christmas was quiet and personal and frugal. It fit.

I hope yours did too.

Nothing Says "Christmas" Like…

Nothing says "Christmas" like...

…a dead mouse.

Well, to be accurate, an ornament with a dead mouse as an integral part of it.

Yesterday was the annual Shade & Shade Ornament Exchange and Luncheon. Shade & Shade is the law firm I worked at for almost a decade when I moved back home in late 1990. I don't remember when it happened, but somewhere along the way, someone, probably my dear friend Laurie, one of the secretaries there, organized an ornament exchange among the staff. We'd gather for lunch at the office, each bringing a wrapped ornament, eat together, and then draw numbers and pick an ornament from the wrapped pile. Over the years, some of the faces have changed, but the tradition rolls on. I left the firm in January, 2000, but have continued to participate in the Exchange every December.

While I don't remember every ornament I have received over the years, there are many I look at as I am decorating the tree and instantly think "ah, Shade & Shade."

This year's ornament will forever be first on that list.

Yesterday was fun. It always is. Of the eight of us in the room, most had worked together for over a decade, over two decades or more in some cases. (Laurie, who is a few years younger than I, started as a secretary there when she was 17; it is the only job she has ever held.) Dave Shade, who founded the firm and was a big influence on my becoming a lawyer, joined us for lunch and wry editorial commentary, at which he is excellent.While we ate, we talked and then got to telling stories from past years. Laughter and good feelings filled the room.

The big moment arrived: the Exchange began. We drew our numbers from a coffee cup. Laurie arranged the gift bags and boxes on the center of the conference table. I was six out of seven, so I watched while One through Five chose various bags. By the time my turn came, one of the two bags left came from the other remaining participant, so I chose that bag so Seven could get someone else's ornament.

A note about Number Seven: Matt was number Seven. Matt is an associate attorney who started there several years after I left. Matt has an excellent sense of humor, especially when it comes to quick comments with a deadpan look.

I thought Matt looked a little uncomfortable that I got "stuck" (his words) with his ornament. I soon found out why.

We opened our bags. "Oohs" and "ahhs" filled the room. There were glass ornaments, there were delicate metal ornaments, there were shimmering, gossamer ornaments. On either side of me and all around me,  Carly, Kelsey, Lindsay, Eileen, Laurie, and Matt were pulling these light, airy wonders out of their wrappings.

Mine came out of the bag with a tug. I looked at it and burst into loud laughter. Matt now looked extremely uncomfortable and started to turn red.

"April, what did you get?"

That was Laurie, who is one of the world's sweetest people.

"I got a dead mouse," I promptly replied and held it up for all to see.

Matt had bought a cat ornament. The cat is curled around a candy cane and looks very happy. Small wonder. It has a spring dangling off one paw, and at the end of the spring is a mouse. The mouse does not look happy. The mouse looks doomed. The cat is clearly toying with it, ready for the kill. The mouse, if not dead already, will soon be lunch.

Matt tried to explain. Of the seven of us exchanging ornaments, four are huge cat lovers. So Matt bought the cat ornament, assuming one of them would pick his. "What are the odds? What are the odds?" he kept asking.

Apparently not good enough.

Dave made the final dry comment. "Well, it looks like six of you got great ornaments…"

The Exchange ended with laughter and hugs and best holiday wishes. I came home and hung the cat ornament high on the tree, the mouse dangling in dread.

My friend Cindy and I exchanged emails this morning. Knowing I was at the Exchange yesterday, she wrote "Glad you got to do your ornament exchange. I remembered you do that every year. Tradition!  That is what helps make Christmas CHRISTMAS! Traditions!"

Cindy is right. Traditions are what makes our family and community life so rich. That's one of the reasons I continue to attend the Shade & Shade Ornament Exchange: it is a deeply embedded part of my holiday traditions.

And apparently those traditions now include one cat ornament, complete with dead mouse.

Flaming Christmas Robins

In Blogville, when another blogger leaves a comment on one of your posts, it is good form, if you have not yet "met" the blogger, to visit her blog and leave a comment of your own. I have met some wonderful friends that way. That is how I recently met Stacey, a young mother in England, who blogs at Stay at Home Mummy.

Yesterday, Stacey wrote about holiday traditions, listing some of her favorites. As I was skimming over her list this morning, one in particular caught my eye: "Hide the robin - buy a Christmas robin with wire feet and he hides around the room, children have to come into the dark room with a torch and find him - a tradition when we were little!" [Emphasis added.]

I thought about that for several minutes. A torch? Children in dark rooms with torches? I was thinking of a stick with cloth wrapped on the end and set on fire. It took me more than a few moments to realize Stacey was talking about the children using flashlights, not firebrands.

While I am now convinced that England is not at risk to go up in smoke from robin-seeking children (although the riots over tuition hikes may indicate that other problems are smoldering), the image of entering a dark room with a flaming stick to look for an ornament has stuck with me all morning.

When my boys were young, they regularly played a self-invented game, called, I believe, "Dark." It was a simple game: players gathered in Sam's room (which was big) at night, all the blinds were closed, all the stuffed animals in the house were heaped in piles in the room, Ben or Sam shut the door and turned off the lights, and everyone started firing pillows and animals while running around the room, leaping onto the beds (if the player was lucky enough to know the room layout) and crashing into furniture (if one was not so lucky). The game was played at breakneck speed, with lots of screaming and shouting. It went on until either (a) someone got hurt enough to call for a parent or (b) everyone agreed to a mutual truce and turned the lights back on.

[Note: For those of you who are wondering what I was thinking allowing them to play this game, realize I grew up with only brothers and had only sons. So this game made perfect sense to me. When they got much older, Ben and Sam played a variation of it, using air pellet guns instead of stuffed animals, in the empty second floor space in the downtown building in which we lived.]

So the notion of seeking robins with lit torches holds a peculiar charm and fascination for me. It is a tradition (my version, that is) that Ben and Sam would have wholeheartedly embraced when they were little. They probably still would, for that matter. It lends a whole new meaning to the French carol, "Un flambeau, Jeanette, Isabelle - Un flambeau!" 

I can see my boys now, torches in hand, running through the house, looking for the robin in the dark, calling out for Christmas.