I love the Solstice! I love it so much I can understand why folks of yore worshipped it. While it has been unusually warm this December, it is still dark. With less than nine hours of daylight, its hard to get anything done. Its hard to stay motivated. I look forward to the solstice because the steady march towards darkness becomes a steady march towards light. One of my complaints about deep winter is that I never know what time it is. I also don't like buying eggs. This time of year they don't lay enough eggs to keep Jimmy and I supplied, let alone have the surplus that we are used to. I had to buy eggs this week because DD and I had did some holiday baking. She came up for an overnight and we packed as much activity into the time as we could. Shopping, cooking, crafting and of course the chatter. And it IS chatter. Amongst the chatter on this visit we made fudge and several batches of cookies. Fortunately we were more concerned about the visiting than the baking because our cookies didn't turn out exactly like we expected. DD found a recipe online for cookies that looked like peppermint candies. I'm not really sure what we didn't do but they did not turn out like the picture. It took us all day to NOT make holiday cookies. Jimmy wandered in looking for cookies at one point and marveled that it had taken us 6 hours to make 12 cookies. If we had been trying to make your classic chocolate chip or classic sugar cookie , we would have been fine. But, we were going for high culinary art and a specific aesthetic. We wont be doing that again unless the daughter in law is present and in charge. We realized we needed her about 2 hours into it and greatly lamented her absence... for the rest of the day. But the fudge turned out great. DD's fudge was better than mine. Way better than mine. It was her first time making fudge and she nailed it. Hers was chocolate-y creamy goodness and mine was chocolate flavored sugar bricks...again (sigh). I just don't have the candy gene but, its seems DD does. She must have gotten it from her fathers side.
And we worked on our rugs. After the cookie fiasco, we sat around on the living room floor eating DD's delicious fudge and casually punching our rugs with even more chatter. DD has plans for a very elegant black and white entry rug as her next project. The girl's got class! My next project will enhance the 'under da sea' theme in the main bathroom. I'm planning giant pink seahorses on a purple background. They will match beautifully with Grannys 1950's plaster mold fish plaques. Yep, it was a wonderful visit.
We also talked about cheese. DD cant do cows milk products so we have been talking for sometime now about making our own goat cheese. I really need to pester Jimmy a little more about a second fridge. So many of the food projects that we want to do require aging in a temperature controlled environment that it is becoming imperative that we become those people with a second fridge in the basement. Of course most folks with a second fridge fill it with soda pop and beer , ours will be filled with things that ferment.
On the topic of fermenting..... The blackberry wine is still working away on what is sure to be one of the best batches of wine I have ever made. Jimmy and I finally got around to doing some wine tasting of the the stuff that's been in 5 gallon carboys ,in the basement , since we moved in. One batch was just plaing nasty and was dumped. a couple of others will get Jimmys special mash treatment and the 5 gallons of apple wine has been strained off and put in the 4 gallon crock jar with a Mother starter. In about 6 months we should have gallons of tasty apple cider vinegar for multipurposes.
That's about all the news for this week. Its actually quite a lot considering how desperate we are for daylight around here. But don't be surprised if my next entry consists solely of ... 'and I took a nap'.
And we worked on our rugs. After the cookie fiasco, we sat around on the living room floor eating DD's delicious fudge and casually punching our rugs with even more chatter. DD has plans for a very elegant black and white entry rug as her next project. The girl's got class! My next project will enhance the 'under da sea' theme in the main bathroom. I'm planning giant pink seahorses on a purple background. They will match beautifully with Grannys 1950's plaster mold fish plaques. Yep, it was a wonderful visit.
We also talked about cheese. DD cant do cows milk products so we have been talking for sometime now about making our own goat cheese. I really need to pester Jimmy a little more about a second fridge. So many of the food projects that we want to do require aging in a temperature controlled environment that it is becoming imperative that we become those people with a second fridge in the basement. Of course most folks with a second fridge fill it with soda pop and beer , ours will be filled with things that ferment.
On the topic of fermenting..... The blackberry wine is still working away on what is sure to be one of the best batches of wine I have ever made. Jimmy and I finally got around to doing some wine tasting of the the stuff that's been in 5 gallon carboys ,in the basement , since we moved in. One batch was just plaing nasty and was dumped. a couple of others will get Jimmys special mash treatment and the 5 gallons of apple wine has been strained off and put in the 4 gallon crock jar with a Mother starter. In about 6 months we should have gallons of tasty apple cider vinegar for multipurposes.
That's about all the news for this week. Its actually quite a lot considering how desperate we are for daylight around here. But don't be surprised if my next entry consists solely of ... 'and I took a nap'.
