Hope you have a wonderfully merry Christmas -- and keep a sense of wonder and delight just like grandson Capt. Adorable.
Christmas
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Tag Archives: holiday
Christmas
What says “holidays” better than food, family and friends — 
especially if that food includes all the Christmas cookies you ever wanted to eat? This year my cooking club, the Gingers (Girls In Need of Gourmet Experience Really Soon), came to my house for lunch and a cookie exchange. I went with red and white and borrowed my mom’s Christmas tableware (thanks, 
Mom!) for an easy meal of soup, cheese, crackers and muffins. (And, by the way, 
I have a great soup recipe: Find a caterer or restaurant who makes excellent soup and become a regular and valued customer. Works every time.) Then it was time to distribute our cookie choices. Yum!!! Just imagine having six people each give you a dozen of the most delicious Christmas cookies you’ve ever tasted — unbelievable. We all agreed this definitely will be an annual event for us. And in honor of the Gingers coming to my house, I put up a cooking table-top tree for them. It wasn’t difficult to find miniature decorations for it — for some reason, many of the ornaments I have for our big tree revolve around food and drink. Go figure. I had some vintage cooking utensils from my mom’s antiques shop and other leftovers from when the Gingers decorated a 15-footer for the annual Christmas-tree display at our local arts center a couple years ago, so the little cooking tree came together easily. The only downside is it makes me hungry every time I look at — but that’s not a problem when you have a practically endless supply of cookies in the house.
Christmas Decor
I am a lazy Christmas person. Don’t get me wrong — I love silver 
bells and starry nights and sugar cookies — but I’m not very good at the decking-the-halls part. Luckily, I know people who are — people who excel at Christmas. Like my friend Evelyn. I love the dinner table she set and the way she’s festived-up her living room with rich red and gold accents and a touch of green. This is how you do Christmas. I just light a lot of candles and hope the twinkle lights cover up the cat hair.
Thanksgiving
Food, friends and family -- what could be better? Hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.
Food
My husband and I were finishing our lunch at Ruby Tuesday today (And is it my imagination or does Ruby Tuesday change its menu, like, every three months?) when I noticed that, as usual, I’d left a good part of my salad-bar meal on the table. “I am such a messy eater,” I said, aggrieved, in that way we wives have of begging our husbands to please please please disagree with us, and my husband began to point out, as he usually does, that at least I didn’t leave a good part of my meal in my lap instead, when suddenly he leaned over the table toward me and my leftover mess and said, “Take a picture of that and then I’ll tell you why.” So because I never always do what my husband requests, I snapped a photo of the somehow artfully arranged lettuce and carrot pieces and turned the camera over to him. He zipped through the review menu, found the photo I’d just taken — this one — and gave the camera back to me, saying, “You need to post this on your blog and say, ‘In a California restaurant, this would be a $40 meal’.” So, I did. And the funny thing is that he’s probably right.
And in more food news, I thought I was being smart by doing my Thanksgiving grocery shopping today — surely the crowds wouldn’t start this early, right? Wrong, of course. Most crowded were the paper-goods aisles as people stood and debated the merits of foam over plastic plates and the dairy section, where people mostly just stood. In my way. So if you haven’t done your shopping yet, you may want to consider one of those 2 a.m. expeditions. I’m just saying.
Fall
I don’t want to sound all grumpy and old — I mean, I know who Monsters of Folk are, after all — but aren’t we rushing the holidays just a little bit? Look, it’s only early November, but I’ve already seen enough Christmas-shopping commercials and front-door Christmas wreaths to last me through December. And the thing is that I love the holidays. I am definitely a Christmas kind of girl. I believe you can never have enough wassail and frankincense and festive good cheer, not to mention yummy food, fun parties and presents for all. It’s just that I also am a fall kind of person. I love autumn leaves and pumpkins and brown and orange sweaters. I adore warm days and cool nights and those lovely 5 p.m. sunsets. And I know, I know — stores started selling Halloween merchandise in August so technically we’ve had enough time to celebrate fall. But, still, it’s the first week of November. I’m just not ready to flip the switch to Christmas yet — particularly since that means Thanksgiving gets sort of lost. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays — you get all the fun without any of the pressure. What’s not to like about that? This arrangement I saw in a Tupelo, Mississippi, hotel lobby this past week would make the perfect Thanksgiving decoration — although it’s probably gone by now and replaced by a Christmas tree. Sigh. And, really, why fight it? I have been thinking about going ahead and unearthing the holiday CDs that every year I put away so carefully so I can find them easily the next year, which never works, of course. It usually takes me a couple weeks to track them down, so that should be about right. Feliz Navidad!
Labor Day Weekend
Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend with family and friends ... and some ice cream! Grandson Capt. Adorable, 17 months, sure enjoys his.
Food
If you don’t have your Labor Day weekend menu planned
yet, consider these two quick, easy and extremely wonderful salads. My friend Sherry Campbell, director of the Shoals Commercial Culinary Center in Florence, Alabama, that’s part of the innovative business incubator Shoals Entrepreneurial Center, made these salads for us during a recent cooking class — and we all gobbled them down and asked for more. The class focused on end-of-the-summer fresh and local ingredients and simple recipes for entertaining. Her menu included chicken roasted with figs and port wine — yum! Check out the Culinary Center at http://www.shoalsec.com/.
End of Summer Supper Salad
Cook 1 pound unshelled raw jumbo shrimp* in 3 quarts boiling water until pink. Rinse shrimp in cold water, cool and shell. (If holding more than 10 minutes, chill in refrigerator.) Bring water back to boil and add 1 1/2 pounds trimmed green beans until tender-crisp, about 3-7 minutes. Drain, rinse with cold water and drain again. Meanwhile, whisk together 1/3 cup rice vinegar, salt and fresh pepper to taste, 1 tablespoon coarse or Dijon mustard and 2 minced large garlic cloves. Whisk in 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil until dressing is thick and add a thinly sliced half medium sweet onion. Toss shrimp and green beans with dressing. Arrange sliced tomatoes around edge of platter and mound salad in middle. Sprinkle with fresh basil, scallion slices and fresh lemon juice. Serves 4. *You could also use chicken or tofu in this recipe. You’d cook the chicken, of course, with your preferred method — the tofu can be used right out of the package.
Italian Panzanella
Whisk together 1/4 cup each red-wine vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil. Season with coarse salt and ground pepper. Add 2 cans rinsed and drained cannelloni beans, 3 cups cubed country bread, 1 pound plum tomatoes cut into smaller pieces, thin slices of English cucumber, thin slices of red onion and 4 ounces diced provolone cheese. Toss, cover and chill 2-8 hours. Just before serving, stir in fresh basil. Serves 4. Note: Sherry also used bell peppers and celery when she prepared this. “Just use up whatever fresh veggies you’ve got,” she said. “That’s the whole idea.”
Fall
The first sign of fall isn't football practice or back-to-school shopping -- it's the "seasonal" aisle at CVS changing from sunscreen and beach toys to pumpkins and scarecrows ... in the first week of August.
Memorial Day
Capt. Adorable's other grandparents, Sharlie and Buddy Behel, of Tuscumbia, Alabama. See? I can share!!!
The back porch of the Behels' log cabin
Were you lucky like me and got some good family time this Memorial Day? I count myself lucky — and blessed — because my daughter’s in-laws consider my husband and me bona-fide family and invite us to every holiday gathering. And that’s a good thing because I would hate to miss out on all the food and fun that results whenever two or more Behels gather together. Sharlie and Buddy Behel, my daughter’s in-laws, are some of the most generous and hospitable people I know. Their home is always open to family and friends — nobody’s a stranger. They sort of adopted me when my daughter first started dating their son — I was a single mom then without family nearby and with characteristic kindness they took me in right from the start. And since I’m only a year or so older than their oldest son (my son-in-law was their surprise third baby), Sharlie and I feel more like sisters than in-laws once removed. You can see from the picture how much I care about them — I don’t share Capt. Adorable with just anybody!
Coffee with Cathy 