From my Gift Shop - Bountiful Butterflies!

Birds are returning!

Just got back from a walk with Casey - and in the trees, you could hear the gorgeous, lilting song of the Song Sparrow! I guess they've returned from their winter sojourns - we started getting little grey Juncos at the feeder last week, so they're back too. Looks like Spring really is on its way!

If you're making pickled eggs for Easter, today's your day!

I had almost let it go too long! But I remembered this morning, that if I want to have some of Uncle Steve's pickled eggs on Easter, I had better get them made today, so they can "do their thing" and be ready to eat on the big day! :)

To get my uncle's recipe for pickled eggs, go here.

And, if you want lots more recipes for great Ukrainian Easter breads and dishes, check out the rest of my collection here. The highly symbolic dish of beets and horseradish is there too - the red of the beets symbolize the blood of Christ, and the horseradish symbolizes the bitterness of His Passion and death.

And (drumroll please) I am so excited, I hope it gets here before Easter (but even if it doesn't, I'll have it for the future!) - I got a lamb butter mold on eBay!! You mold the butter to be put in your Easter basket (we Ukrainians put all the food for Easter in a basket and have it blessed by a priest) in the shape of a lamb (Christ being called the Lamb of God). It is placed at the top of the basket to "watch over" the rest of the foods - pickled eggs, beets, and like 20 kinds of keilbasa (sausage) and ham. Oh yum! :D Anyway, I finally got hold of a butter mold, and I can't wait to use it! :)

I read somewhere that we have all these pickled and cured foods so that there isn't much preparation to do on the big day, and everyone can enjoy the feast! So I'm definitely cooking our pork roast on Holy Saturday, instead of waiting 'till Easter. Boy, this is making me hungry!! :D

BeanDreams 2007 - Beginning Plans

Time to start planning the garden for the upcoming growing season! As I did last year, I will be doing a detailed log on my BeanDreams page, and mini updates here in the blog of my gardening adventures. This is my second year of vegetable gardening - aside from personal mistakes made, we also had really lousy weather last year - BUT, things still went pretty well, I did get some produce out of it, and this year I'm looking forward to even more!

One big change I've made from last year is that all the crops I'm growing will mature in under 60 days - things with longer times, like the tomatoes, didn't get a chance to finish up outdoors last year, because the weather got too cold. I ended up starting to cover them in August, for goodness sake! (Tomatoes love the heat, and even though the weather was great, August was uncharacteristically cool at night - so I had to go out every night for weeks to cover my plants with plastic. Quite the hassle). With shorter maturity times, I'll be sure to have enough time for everything to come to fruition in the garden before the weather starts to get too nippy for more delicate, longer-season plants.

So, for more information and details on my growing garden here in Nova Scotia, check out my BeanDreams 2007 page. I'll be posting regular updates here too, all garden-related posts will be labeled BeanDreams 2007.

New Design at the Gift Shop Available Now!

Available on tons of colors, sizes & styles of fashionable tees (as well as framed tiles, teddy bears, and more!), this Japanese heraldry and Arabic inspired design is perfect for today's global villager! Bright red flower blossoms & beams of sunlight radiate from the center of my latest design. Get yours today!

Who had the worse flight?

Really, which of these two people get the award for worst flight ever?

You've got one guy who needed to pee REALLY badly after drinking too much before a 2 hour flight. The light wasn't working in the bathroom, so the flight crew told him he couldn't use the plane's facilities. Eventually his situation got bad enough that he had to urinate in an air sickness bag. No people, he wasn't kidding! He really did have to go! Can you imagine how demeaning that was?

Alternately, there was a man, who paid extra for the comforts of First Class, who awoke to discover he was sharing a row with the corpse of a woman who died in Economy. Apparently there aren't any contingencies for people who die during flight, and the only real option is to put the body in First Class, where there are less passengers. Good grief, I mean, I guess they didn't have any other options, but to wake up and see this corpse that keeps sliding out of the seat, AND getting to listen to the poor grieving daughter of the deceased crying for the next 5 hours, how awful. I understand it doesn't happen very often, but I can't see why they can't get an extra curtain (that's all that separates First Class from Economy in smaller planes anyway), and set it up at the front of First Class, to give the grieving and deceased some privacy. Yikes.

I bet these aren't even the worst though - in this great big world, I imagine there's plenty of horror stories for all sorts of mass transit...

Cleaning Mountains

Wow, I just heard about this guy, Ken Noguchi - he was the youngest person to climb the tallest mountains on all seven continents. But he's not just a mountain climber in it for the ego trip - he also wanted to enjoy the beauty and majesty of the scenery. Unfortunately, he would often find tonnes of garbage littering the slopes. He was so disappointed, he decided to do something about it - for Mt. Everest, after several expeditions, he and his team were able to remove EIGHT TONNES of garbage. 8 Tonnes!!! Shocking! But, it's really having an impact, and now he wants to do the same for his beloved Mt. Fuji, from his native Japan. He joined with a local environment club, and they have spent many, many hours cleaning up the rubbish from the mountainside. I mean, people had dumped tv sets there! Having participated in clean ups myself locally, it is often amazing at what some people will throw away in the woods, turning them from a nice bit of wilderness beauty to basically a trash dump. Pretty awful to look at.

So, hats off to Ken Noguchi, saving and protecting the beauty of one of the most famous peaks in the world! Read a little more about him here. His blog is here, but it's in Japanese (bien sûr!). Click here to get a rough translation of it.

HP sauce moving to the Netherlands?

Now, I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in Canada (and of course, Britain) HP sauce is the Gold Standard for steak sauce - we ALWAYS have a bottle in the fridge! A steak just wouldn't be a steak without it! :)

It's House of Parliament sauce - got a pic of the buildings on the bottle, and says "By appointment to her Majesty the Queen" on it. It's pretty much as British as it gets - but they're not going to manufacture it in Britain anymore...seems weird, really! I feel badly for them, it was really a pride thing for them, a real British icon - it would be like Coca Cola headquarters being moved from Atlanta to someplace outside America. Not something that would be easy to swallow!

Now, there's some concern that the flavor won't be the same - THAT, I'm not worried about. I'm sure they did test runs ahead of time to ensure the quality remains the same. But it's the principle of the thing, it just won't be the same.

I'll still probably buy it though - as I said, a steak wouldn't be a steak without it!

Read the story on the CBC here. There are several stories on the BBC regarding it, including this one , and this story about one of the protesters doing a short "roof sit-in". Apparently, even the Dutch workers who would be getting new jobs out of this thought the whole thing was handled badly!

(The worst part is, it was an American company, Heinz, that bought the rights to the sauce and made the decision to move... again everyone, imagine if Coke was bought by Germany or something, then made the decision to move the headquarters abroad. Ouch!)

Man, all this talk of HP sauce is making me hungry though...

More problems with the new American $1 coin...

More problems with the new American Dollar Coin - first, it was missing the motto "In God We Trust", now there's at least one coin that's missing a "heads" and a "tails"!

So, it's been a little slow getting everything set up properly, but don't worry Americans, it'll totally be worth it! Up here, we've had the "Loonie" (our $1 coin, named after the Loon on the tails) for decades now, and we don't know what we'd do without it! :)

Signs of Spring here in Nova Scotia

You can smell the brush fires burning. Here in the countryside (and even farther out from the city), people get burning permits. The permits last a few weeks, starting in the spring, from now to about May. They gather up dead brush and such from their properties and burn it in a pile (getting rid of the dead brush now helps prevent fires in the hot & dry summer months in the forests). There's also large controlled burns of fields and large country-sized lawns - you can see the people standing guard over the fire, smouldering throughout their large field/lawn. This removes the dead grass left over from last year, clearing the way for the fresh new grass to grow, and providing a little fertilizing ash too! It really seems to work well, too, their lawns always come back so fast and green! (In the city, with much smaller lawns and no burning permits allowed, you have to rake your lawn to get rid of the dead grass - not nearly as much fun). :) Always a sure sign of spring!

The hills are alive with the sound of - melting. Today it was so mild most of the remaining snow was melting, and there were several little mini streams of run-off going down the huge hill at the end of our road. It was funny, Casey was cocking her head to the side, wondering what the sound was (she couldn't see most of the water because it was running underneath the remaining snow piled on the sides of the road). It's such a peaceful little sound, a gentle little trickling... :)

Yay (beginning of) Spring!! (It'll still be too cold to plant anything until the end of May, but it's nice to see the beginning of the end of Winter!). :D

New Poppy Design!

Poppies are a beloved and subsequently common motif in Ukrainian folk art. With their bright coloring and delicately bobbing heads, they are a favorite of many. I've created a brand new poppy design for my gift shop, so you can enjoy poppies in your own home (or take them with you on one of our many styles and colors of tees now available!) Head on over and get one today!

Quick Weather Note

Today's windchill is -29 degrees C. How much is that in Fahrenheit? -- bloody flippin' cold! :D (This online converter says it's -20.2 F). It was so cold that when the wind made my eyes water (during my walk with Casey), the tears froze on my eyelashes - that makes it really hard to see! :D

Casey didn't seem at all affected by the temperatures, though - she was very enthusiastic during our entire walk. Oh well, as long as she had fun. :)

Another fun design for borscht lovers!

If you're like me, you really just can't get enough of borscht, the famous Ukrainian/Russian/Polish/etc. beet soup. It is SOOO good! (View family recipe here).

I've made another fun novelty borscht-related design in my gift shop that fellow borscht lovers are sure to enjoy! Powered by Borscht features a very cute little cartoon beet in the "o", paying homage to the most vital of borscht ingredients! Show the world what keeps your engine running, and pick up one of these great tees, in a variety of colors and styles, today!

(Check out my previous borscht offering "Borscht - it's the soup that can't be beet (beat)!" here!)

Frosted Storm Aftermath

A massive storm system came our way a couple of days ago - we got off really easy, compared to many other places (which was a little weird and a little disappointing - we're used to a lot of snow around here, but the last couple of winters especially haven't had much snow at all)...

It started with regular snow, but ended with a lot of freezing rain - this resulted in the little stream across the street having snow land on top of it that then crystalized like frost. It was really different, I haven't seen anything quite like it before.


Here's an overview shot of the stream, with lots of ice and snow on top.

Here's a closeup of the frost/crystal patterns - hard to see like this, though.

Here, I've cranked up the contrast on the photo so you can see the frost patterns - aren't they just gorgeous? It's so strange for snow to look crystalized like this. Very cool!

New Bird, and Blue Skies

We've had a new birdie at the feeder here the last few weeks, and I was finally able to get a pic today! It's a White-throated Sparrow, distinctive with the yellow streak near its eyes (why it's not called "The Yellow Streak Sparrow" or something like that, I'm not sure...the white throat is not really the first thing you notice about this little guy).

Today was a lovely day, with bright sunshine and clear skies - got a nice pic of the Quaking Aspens in the back field. Such a pretty blue sky!

I don't know whether to be excited or scared...

Check out this pic featured on Mainichi today - the horizontal line going across the photo is a human hair. Those little squares around it are MICROCHIPS!!! Can you believe they've gotten miniaturization THAT SMALL???? It's unbelievable!

Hitachi has created these chips (small enough to be embedded in a sheet of paper) to be used as product trackers relaying information wirelessly - I assume to help with computerized inventories, etc.

Shows what I know! Just SOME of the uses I found online for these chips, also called "Smart Tags", are:

• Hitachi uses them in its production processes to keep track of printed circuit boards that are compliant with the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive. Read

• For people who have to take a lot of medication: interactive blister packs of pills. "The pack is configured to alert the user when the medication is due to be taken. Removal of a pill from the blister triggers another alarm, which is disabled when the user answers a question printed onto the pack. The time of each operation and the answers are stored, to be uploaded later via the Internet to a secure site." Never forget your pills again! Read

• "Has the vaccine been overheated in transit?"
"Has the surgeon left something in the patient?"
"Has this single use catheter (or other one-time-only use item) been used already?"
The chip will let you know!
Read

There's tons more uses out there, check out this Google search for more.

It's very cool, but it's also a little scary! The thought of everything you come in contact with being tagged and potentially tracked and monitored by someone is a little spooky too. But the benefits look to be huge, so I guess it's just a matter of benefits outweighing risks - I wonder where the line will end up being drawn? Hard to say, but it should be interesting technology to watch!

Happy Lunar New Year!

Today's the first day of the Year of the Pig! Celebrated by Asian cultures, Lunar New Year is known generally in North America as Chinese New Year.

Wikipedia has tons of info on the celebrations, including lots of things to bring you good luck in the coming year.

AND, of course, as with most celebrations, FOOD is central to the fun! Check out some of the great recipes and info at AllRecipes.com for Lunar New Year!

We're going to make some Chinese food to celebrate tonight - not sure yet what's on the menu, but I'm sure it'll be delish! :D

Have fun everyone!

Baby Pandas!

I know, I know, ANOTHER batch of cute photos...but they're just so ADORABLE!!!!! :D

The BBC has a photo journal of the newly named baby pandas at China's Wolong Nature Reserve. Enjoy the babies! :D

Exciting Pysanky News!

I just found out that a BRAND-NEW pysanky design book has been released by the Ukrainian Gift Shop in Minnesota! This is the place that published the first Pysanky design books back in the '70s, and since then have published tons more, and have continued to be huge supporters & spreaders of Ukrainian culture in North America.

So, if you're a pysanky fan, check this new book out: Ukrainian Easter Egg Design Book 5! It's a limited edition hardcover, so order soon! :D (Yevshan in Canada is selling it too!)

Lovely evening, fading to dusk

A shot of the backyard this evening, with the setting sun tinging the trees orangey-pink - looks cold though! (And it is!) :)

I LOVE cute stories like these!

I'm such a sucker for this stuff...

A Rottweiler, not much more than a baby herself, has become mommy to some baby lambs that had a difficult birth.

Quote by Ms. Foster, the dog and lambs' owner: "The first 12 to 24 hours for a lamb are absolutely crucial and if Molly hadn't been doing what she was doing, I would have had to have been there rubbing the lambs through most of the night to keep their circulation going."

It is SO frickin' adorable! Read the rest here (there's more pics too!).

International Flavour

My latest designs, released last night, are perfect for today's internationally-minded global villager! Using Arabic design precepts for tiling designs, I've added motifs from Japanese heraldry and Ukrainian folk art to create something uniquely reflecting our modern multicultural society. I've really enjoyed this new branch of my work - check it out!

Robins Return!

I just came in from my walk with Casey, and I heard the strident tones of the first Robin of the year! They usually come back to this area sometime in January (sometimes as early as the third of the month), but this is the first time I've heard them this year. In the city, you usually don't see Robins until March or April, but they always come back early to the forests in the rural areas. So nice to hear them!

Photo Journal: Winter Woods Walk

Haven't had much opportunity to go back in the woods for a walk so far this winter, but Casey really wanted a break from the "discipline" of walking on the streets (having to walk on a leash, etc.), and since today was sunny (it hasn't been for a LONG time), it seemed like a good idea. :D

Here's some of the things we saw on our walk today:



Throughout the woods there are numerous wet patches, and some running water, catching the runoff from the nearby swamplands. Surface of the water freezes a bit, but some of it still runs underneath, creating some beautiful patterns in the thin crust of ice.



Here's some ring-necked pheasant prints - they come by regularly in our backyard, and obviously hang out near the woods, too.



Bunny!!! I LOVE bunnies! These rabbit prints show his two big back feet, a small spot between them where he rested his front legs, and the little round circle for his cute little cotton-tail at the back. So cute!!



Here we have 3 sets of prints - bunny (top right), pheasant (top left) and someone's kitty cat, at the bottom. Obviously, everyone wasn't there all at once! :D



And finally, what walk in the woods would be complete without having to avoid stepping on rabbit poo. It always looks disturbingly like dog kibble to me - glad Casey had enough brains to not eat it! :)

Casey and I both had a really good time!

C-c-c-c-c-cold....

I had a bout of insomnia last night...and after I got a third blanket to put on the bed, I could hear the wind just howling outside for hours...it sounded like the arctic tundra outside!

Man, I was cold! I felt bad taking that extra blanket, Molly was curled up on it having a snooze, but I really needed it! (She has a couple of other soft places she can choose from!).

Currently, if you look outside, the wind is just whipping over the little bit of snow we had the other day, and the sky is full of flakes zipping by. The temperature is -20 degrees Celsius, and with the windchill, it feels like -34 degrees C. (Want to know what that is in Fahrenheit? Check out this handy little converter, thanks to the Buffalo, NY Weather Service).

I REALLY don't want to take Casey out for her walk today...but she'll probably love it, she's always preferred the cold weather (can't stand the heat, poor thing, the sun makes her too hot with her black coat in the summertime) - winter's definitely her favorite time of year! :D

Well, this is at least more typical of the weather we should be getting in winter here in Nova Scotia...we always get a few days like this!

I think I'll set up some tea brewing for myself before I go outside, I'll need it when I get back in!! :)

Finally! This is what winter's SUPPOSED to be like!

January is supposed to be snowy and cold in these parts, but the weather's been all over the place so far this month. I've been able to go outside with only a zip-up fleece sweater on for warmth - that's just SO a-typical! But finally today we got a cold snap, and instead of rain (as we've had lots of this month) we finally got the shovel-able stuff.


I call this "Ode to a Green Cart in Winter" (early tomorrow morning is Green Cart (organic products) collection time, so we wheel the cart out the night before). And alone he stands, at the end of the driveway - a sentinel in the storm.



And it looks like the squirrel's been out and about - already the snow's filling in the prints, though. :)

Yay Snow!

Christmas Time Again!

Tonight is Christmas Eve, for me and the many other Byzantine Catholics and Orthodox Christians who celebrate Christmas using the old calendar.

When I was a child, we got a few works of this great artist named Yaroslava to hang in my room - I love them, they depict wonderful scenes of the everyday life of peasants in Ukraine. This is a great little scene of Christmas eve, and it features many of the elements of Sviat Vechir (what we call Christmas eve):

You see the children pointing out the window at the first star in the sky that night? Once the kids see the first star, dinner can begin! And on the table and surrounding areas you can see some of the traditional foods. It is a meatless and dairyless meal, consisting of kutia (the first thing you eat - wheat & poppy seeds in honey), potato or sauerkraut filled perogies, meatless borscht, and one or two preparations of fish, as well. It's traditional to have 12 dishes, to symbolize the 12 Apostles (but that's a lot of work if you only have a few people coming over, so many people just have some of the dishes). The father is bringing in the didukh, a big sheaf of wheat that sits in the corner, symbolizing our ancestors at the feast. The mother is holding an elaborately decorated bread. Ukrainians have decorated bread for EVERY OCCASION. VERY bread-oriented people. :) This one is called a kolach, and has a lighted candle in the centre. As you can see, Ukrainian Christmas is full of symbolism -- and lots of fun too! It just wouldn't be Christmas without a rousing rendition of the carol Boh Predvichnyi, which we always sang after grace, but before eating. :)

To read another person's fond memories of Ukrainian Christmas in Canada (a guy by the name of Ruslan Tracz), go here. (I'll have to post my own fond memories sometime!)

A great menu for Sviat Vechir with lots of recipes can be found here.

And there's a great little site showing more of Yaroslava's wonderful works here.

What a smart parrot!!!!

You gotta read this BBC story about a parrot named N'kisi that has a vocabulary of 950 words!! He can even invent new phrases when confronted with novel ideas, just like people! He has a sense of humor, to boot! Seems they're a lot smarter than we've been giving them credit for!

Christmas Holiday Menu Time!

Dave and I celebrate with our big feast and present exchange on Christmas Eve (leaving me free to have dinner with my parents on Christmas Day), so tomorrow is the big food work day for me. I'm very excited!

It's always important to plan ahead regarding the big dinner, whenever you serve it. You want things to go smoothly, of course, and so it is really useful to write out your whole menu (including things like dinner rolls and salad, etc.). Then write down the approximate cooking times for all of these dishes, so that on the big day, you can note what time you have to start each dish in order for everything to be done at dinnertime. Some people seem to have an innate ability to time everything perfectly, but I am not one of them. It's helped me a lot to write out the times, and best of all, if you make a complete list of all the dishes, you won't end up forgetting to serve anything! (We've forgotten dinner rolls, salad, cranberries & more over the years, that we've only found in the refrigerator AFTER dinner's over!)

This year, we're having:

• Sage, Rosemary & Thyme Turkey
• Mushrooms in beef gravy
• Green Bean and Chestnut casserole
• Mashed potatoes
• Turkey gravy

More on each dish below:

- - - - - - -

We got a nice looking turkey this year, and I'll be using home-grown sage in the seasoning this year. As to my choice of spices, just keep in mind Scarborough Fair: "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme". I usually omit the parsley, but the rest of the spices are just perfect for turkey or chicken (and full of medieval symbolic meaning). :) Need help with your turkey? Call the great people at Butterball Turkey if you have a turkey problem or question (phone help available to US and Canadian customers) - there's also lots of great info on the website, including video showing how to dress a turkey, etc. Very useful, I've used their info for many years, and it helped me get through my very first turkey several years ago. :)

- - - - - - -

The last couple of years I've added Ukrainian-style mushrooms in gravy to my Christmas dinner menu - they're really tasty, with a wine infused beef gravy (get the recipe here). I found several variations of this classic recipe on the web, but I put together the parts I liked best from each variation to come up with my own unique version.

- - - - - - -

I first made this recipe in '98, and have made it almost every year since then - Sugared Onions. If you like onions, you will LOVE this recipe. A great one from the Company's Coming recipe book series by Jean Pare (an iconic series of books that are hugely popular here in Canada - I think every household in the country has at least one in the series - I myself have several! They're full of easy to make recipes, delicious but using easy to find ingredients.)


Start by placing 4 large onions (prepared as described below) in large frying pan.

Peel your onions.


Cut the top off the onion (the part that the green tops grow from, the opposite end from the "hairy" rooty one)


VERY CAREFULLY, trim off the "hairy" root bits, still leaving the end intact. This will be the part that holds the onions together.


Cut the onion in half carefully, and then in half again. The root part of the onion will help hold the onion together when it's boiling. If they separate a bit though, it's okay, it's not the end of the world. :)

Add salted water, enough to cover bottom of the pan, about 1/4 inch deep. Cover. Simmer 20 minutes. Monitor the amount of water, if it gets low, add more.

Next, combine the following ingredients together in a bowl:

• 1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 2 tbsp cooking oil
• 1/2 tsp prepared mustard
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper


Pour over onions in the pan. Continue to cook covered. Baste often. Cook until liquid is almost gone. Transfer to serving platter. Spoon any remaining sauce over top. Serves 8.

If your onions are really strong, soak in lots of cold water for about 1/2 hour to an hour before cooking.

- - - - - - -

I'll also be having Stove Top dressing/stuffing. It's really tasty, and most important on a busy day, really quick and easy to prepare.

- - - - - - -

Mashed Potatoes, always a classic.

- - - - - - -

A wonderful side dish that was a hit last year, I'll be making again this year, is the Green Bean Chestnut Bake, again from Company's Coming.

10 oz. can of condensed cream of mushroom soup
5 oz water chestnuts, sliced
4 x 1 oz processed cheese slices, broken up (or 1 cup (250 ml) grated Cheddar cheese)
1/4 tsp hot pepper sauce, or to taste

French cut green beans, drained (2 x 14 oz)

3 oz Canned French fried onion rings for topping (I used dry chow mein noodles, it's the sort of casserole topper I grew up with and prefer - but if you like the onions, by all means use them!)

Heat first 4 ingredients in saucepan.

Stir in beans. Scoop out into 2 L (2 qt) casserole dish. Bake uncovered in 350 deg F oven until hot, about 20 - 30 minutes.

Cover with onion rings, or chow mein noodles, bake additional 5 minutes. Serves 6 - 8.

- - - - - - -

I'm so excited about tomorrow!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Christmas Earrings

Thought I'd share my small but ever growing collection of Christmas-themed earrings. I wear them all season long, I just love them! :) My most favorite are the sparkling Santa ho-ho-ho earrings, I wear them the most!

New Look at the Gift Shop

I've updated the look of Ann's Ukrainian Gifts - check it out! There's some intermittent connection difficulties on CafePress's side right now, but they should be cleared up soon!

Baby Boy and the Christmas Trees

As I mentioned earlier, we get our Christmas tree for free - this year, they brought us two trees to choose from, so we took them both - one's upstairs, and one's downstairs. The main tree is the upstairs one, but I love having a tree downstairs too, where my computer is - keeps up my holiday spirit! :D

Baby Boy has decided to treat the trees equally, as you can see below. He will not rest until any and all ornaments within his reach are batted at with this paws, and, he hopes, knocked down. Of course, I put the breakable ones away from places he can get to. :)

What a goofball...

Christmas Present Regifting...

Saw an interesting article on the CBC this morning, regarding regifting (giving a present that doesn't really suit you to someone you know who would love it). Apparently, a LOT of people do it! Will you do it this year? If you're considering it - and face it, you may not think you will now, but come December 26th, you might have changed your mind - there are some good general rules to keep in mind. Regiftable.com is a great little site where people share their horror stories regarding regifting (things to avoid doing!) and features a good checklist of dos and don'ts. So check it out, and avoid potentially embarrassing mistakes. Remember, it's about giving someone a present you KNOW they would love! That's the true spirit of giving! :)

If you want to read the original CBC article, it's here.

Santa Claus Around the World photo gallery

A fun Christmas photo spread put together by CBC, showing images of Santa Claus from around the world. Very cool, check it out!

Christmas at Aunt Dot's, and Cherry Walnut Cookies

This was one of the longest unbroken holiday traditions in my family: up until her death about 5 years ago, we would go to visit my aunt (actually my great-aunt) Dottie (short for Dorothy - her middle name was Clarissa, isn't that a pretty name?) in her old farmhouse on the outskirts of Sackville, Nova Scotia every Boxing Day (the day after Christmas). Aunt Dottie always greeted us with big smile, a "hello dear!", a hug and a kiss. She was very short, even shorter than me, so that by the time I reached full adult height, I was always stooping over her to hug her. She was the sweetest old lady, truly out of a storybook.

I loved her farmhouse too--it was over 100 years old, and had tons of character. It used to actually be a farm, but that was long before I was born, when Aunt Dottie was a young wife and mother.

The farmhouse was always chilly, so she had a space heater in the living room, but what you'd be struck by first when you entered the house from the cold closed-in porch, through to the kitchen (as most old houses in Nova Scotia do - the kitchen was the heart of the home, for meeting, greeting, and often entertaining) was the wonderful heat coming from the old wood stove that was used to both help heat the house, and to keep the perpetual tea kettle warm (another Nova Scotia tradition: you always have a tea kettle on in case company comes over). :)

There would always be a lot of snow outside, covering the nearby fields--really picturesque. This visit was our family's time to catch up on a branch of the family that we (not on purpose) just didn't get to see very much. She would tell us all the news of relatives we hadn't seen in years, and she would get news about us to transmit to the rest of the family. When I was small, I would bring coloring books and stuff to keep me occupied, but as I got older, I found the family talk more interesting, and paid more attention to it. :) Aunt Dottie's daughter and her husband, who lived next door, would come over after a few hours, and we'd get to talk to them, too. :)

To go with the aforementioned tea, she always had a huge array of snacks and sweets to serve company. Cheese and crackers, chips with dip (which was a rare treat for me), and cookies (more on that below), and chocolates! Tons and tons! When she was younger (in her 70s!) she'd make an elaborate beef roast dinner for us as well, and serve it on this gorgeous set of Apple Blossom china dishes she had. But when she was in her 80s, we felt bad about her going through all that effort, so we wouldn't announce we were coming until the morning of our trip, so she couldn't have time to prepare. :) The sweet old bird lived to her early 90s.

For a Christmas present, she always gave me a box of After Eights, because I enjoyed them best from the collection of chocolates she'd offer guests. As a kid, to get a whole box of chocolates, just for me, was incredible!

We'd stay the whole day, and leave once it got dark. As we drove back to the city, we could see all the pretty Christmas lights on the houses, and the beautiful lights of the city in the distance. A very quiet, peaceful way to spend a day. :)

As I mentioned above, Christmas cookies were a big part of the spread that Aunt Dottie laid out for us. It's always fun to go to other people's houses, and see what different kinds of cookies they have, compared to your own home. Even a standard like shortbreads can be made several different ways, and they all taste a little bit different. :) My favorite cookie that Aunt Dottie used to make was a shortbread type cookie, with cherries and nuts in it. I had forgotten about them, until I saw a recipe that was almost identical to them in the December 2005 issue of Canadian Living Magazine (recipe by Chef Anna Olsen). I was so happy to find it! I baked them last year, and really enjoyed them - I think I'll make them every year to honour Aunt Dottie's memory.

Cherry Walnut Cookies Recipe

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups candied red cherries, cut in half or thirds
1 cup walnuts, chopped

In bowl, beat butter with sugar until fluffy; beat in egg and vanilla. (Or use a food processor - spin the butter around, then add sugar and mix at medium setting until fluffy. You may have to scrape down the sides a couple of times. Then add egg and vanilla, mix again, and scrape down sides. Scoop out contents into bowl, and continue). Add flour and salt; stir until blended. Stir in cherries and walnuts. Divide into thirds; shape each into 10" (25 cm) long log. Wrap and chill until firm, at least 3 hours. You can use a glass on it's side to hold the cookies in, this will help keep their rounded shape, instead of getting squashed flat on one side.

Cut logs into 1/8th" or 3 mm thick rounds (I cut them about 1/4"), and place about 1 inch (2.5 cm) apart, on parchment lined baking sheets. Bake in top and bottom thirds of 325 deg F oven, rotating and switching pans halfway through, just until edges begin to colour, 8-10 minutes. Or you can do one sheet at a time, on a rack in the top third of the oven. These cookies brown even faster than shortbreads, so keep a close eye on them! I start checking early, and they're usually done around the 8 minute mark. You can see a proper amount of browning in my photo above, on the overturned cookie.

Let cool on pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and let cool completely (you have to let them completely cool before storing them, otherwise they'll get soggy). Store layered with waxed paper in airtight container for up to 2 weeks, or freeze for up to one month. Makes about 12 dozen cookies (less, of course, if you cut them a little thicker). :)

These are really delicious cookies, well worth the time it takes to make them!

Love you, Aunt Dottie!

Bringing in the Christmas tree

Dave's mom & her man-friend cut down the tree for the local church every year, and cut one down for our home at the same time. Since these are straight from a forest, and not from a tree farm (Note: tree farms have space between the trees, so that the trees are equally bushy on all sides, unlike a forest, where trees tend to grow in groups or clumps, and you'll end up with a tree that has bushy growth on one side, but thin growth on the side that was pressed up against the other trees in the group), we usually end up with a kinda Charlie Brown sort of tree. But you can't beat the price! And it's still green, and smells wonderfully like the forest.

I read somewhere that it's a good idea to put your tree out a couple of days before you decorate it, so that your pets can get used to it being there, and hopefully by the time you decorate it, they will be ignoring it. Now, I haven't found that to be exactly true, but putting it out early does prevent scenes like the one below:

Not in the house for 5 minutes, and already we have Baby Boy batting at the tree (you can also see from this shot that the tree is kinda lopsided, and has a curve in the trunk. The ornaments will take care of that - once decorated, it won't really be noticable.) :D

A week till Christmas eve - woo hoo!