Post-Christmas relaxation

Hope you had a nice Christmas and will have a good 2019.  Our day was very sunny, but very cold.  A good day to stay inside.  We had a relaxing Christmas day starting with brunch with Chris - bacon, apple French toast casserole (from our old B&B recipe), lots of chocolate, and a Dutch fruit cake that was, unfortunately, very dry.   Paul and I ate leftovers for dinner, which was easy and just fine.

Chris took some nice pictures of the "tree" he made for my New England Village which we've been collecting since he was a little guy.  My mom sent or two buildings a year until we had quite a few.  At some point, we added a brewery (in his teenage years) and a quilt shop to include both our interests.  I am thinking of making a quilted star for the top, but will wait til after Chris stains the whole thing a light maple.

Because the village now looks a little too roomy, I have been bidding on and buying a few more buildings on eBay this week.  A red covered bridge, a Victorian house, a toy shop, and another house are all going to be showing up this week.  eBay is fun and very addictive!

This week I've been working on the Bonnie Hunter mystery clues (I'm up to date), sewing a binding down one side at a time, and quilting the Nov. and Dec. sections of my Splendid Sampler quilt I started in July.  I like quilting each block differently to make it a true sampler, and mostly I'm using my walking foot.  I get too tense free motion quilting, and this is supposed to be a hobby!   Yesterday, I also tried several methods of stitching a fusible appliqued piece while quilting it.  I had to rip the first two partial tries out but had some success with a blind hem foot and a button hole stitch.  Today we're having freezing rain, so I intend to spend most of the day in the sewing room - not a bad place to be!

Christmas Eve!

Best wishes for a very Merry Christmas / Prettige Kerstfeest!  Today, after  Paul's post-surgery visit with the doctor, I'll be making a traditional French-Canadian tourtiere (meat pie) for dinner and a Dutch kersttulband for dessert.  The tulband is rich fruitcake that looks like a turban, but I'll use a bundt pan instead since that's the pan I have.  This will be my first try at this Dutch specialty.  I don't think we ever had one when I was growing up so it will be interesting to try.  

I have perfected the recipe for tourtiere over the years to approximate the pies I used to get from my former secretary, Mary.  She and her husband used to make them to sell every year, and after I requested a smaller size for me, they started making that size also.  After he passed away, the recipe was lost, so I tried a variety of spices before I got what I think is close to the original.

Tourtiere – French Canadian Meat Pie

A Barre classic, especially around the holidays.

Prepare a 2 pie crust and put the bottom crust into a pie pan.  I use refrigerated pie crusts and usually roll them out a little more before putting them into the pan.

In a skillet, break up 1 lb. ground pork (or a mix of beef and pork) and combine with:

            ½ c. water

            2/3 c. minced onion

            1 clove garlic, minced

            1 t. salt

            ½ t. thyme

            ¼ t. allspice

            ½ t. sage

            ¼ t. dry mustard

            ¼ t. ground cloves

            1/8 t. pepper

Bring all to a boil, reduce to medium low, and cook for about 25 min., stirring periodically.

Meanwhile, boil two small potatoes, skinned and chopped.   When cooked, mash and add to the meat.  There should be about a cup.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  

Place the meat mixture into the pie crust and top with the other layer of crust.  Crimp edges and cut a few slits in the top.   Beat an egg with 1 t. water to make an egg wash for the top of the pie.  At this point, you can freeze the whole thing, but defrost before baking.

Bake for about 45 min. or until crust is golden.  Serve with rolls and a salad.  

Christmas preparations

We assembled the Christmas tree Wednesday, and I decorated it yesterday.  It's finally beginning to look a lot like Christmas here!

I had a heck of a time taking a picture since it's right in front of the glass door.  Yesterday the glare from the sun on the snow outside washed it out, and this was taken this morning because it's raining and gloomy.  

Chris built two ladders hinged together at the top with shelves that come off for easy storage.  I cut white batting to fit the shelves and then set my Christmas village on it.   There are three shelves and a top shelf (12" x 12") which has my scary old Santa from the 1950s on it.   There's plenty of room for packages below on top of a piece of red fabric.  Next year I'll figure out a way to hide the cords along the back rails, but I just wanted to get the tree up and lit.  I will seek out a few more buildings for the Dept. 56 "New England Village," too.   Chris says this is "just" a prototype, but I like it.  He will stain the ladders a maple-ish color.

The stockings are hung, the Chex Mix has been made, and we have packages under the tree.  Bring on Christmas!  May yours be jolly and warm!

Favorite books of 2018

By my own count and that of goodreads.com, I didn't read as many books this year as last.  But I immersed myself in several of note.  Here's my list of favorites:

• Enchantress of numbers - Jennifer Chiaverini.  The life of Ada Byron who some felt should get credit for inventing the computer along with Charles Babbage.
• The watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley.   Confusing, engrossing Steampunk.
• The secret diary of Hendrik Groen, age 83 1/4 years old.  Groen is a nom de plume but his life in a government-run nursing home in N. Amsterdam is very funny as well as sad.
• Celine - Peter Heller.   Based on the author's mother, Celine is a 60+ private eye who finds lost people.  She and her steady, Maine native husband Pete set out to find a missing photographer who may have staged his own death.
• The aviator's wife - Melanie Benjamin.  Fictionalized biography of Anne Morrow Lindbergh with, I'm told, lots of mistakes and fiction.  Still, it's very involving and quite a contrast to Reeve Lindbergh's Two Lives which I thoroughly enjoyed, too.
• Tallgrass - Sandra Dallas.  This was a re-read for me and tells of life in and around the Amache Japanese Relocation Center outside Granada, CO, which we visited in the fall of 2017.  One of Dallas' best.
• Heart Spring Mountain - Robin MacArthur.  Finalist for the VT Book Award, poetically written, and very involving story of a daughter searching for her addict mother after a major hurricane.
• Lethal white - Robert Galbraith.  #4 in the Cormoran Strike series features Robin more than in the past in a long, complex story.  Excellent surprises throughout.
• Shell game - Sara Paretsky.  Equally complex and involving installment in the VI Warshawski series.
• The Kingdom of the blind - Louise Penny.  A completely different sort of story in the Armand Gamache series but just as fulfilling.  Penny's books are always well written and thoughtful, more about family and friendship than solving a mystery.
• The woman at the window - AJ Finn.  This was a commercial success so I didn't want to like it, but I was swept away from almost the first page.    It's creepy and sad, and I still am not sure who the villain really was!

I can't say which was my favorite, but The woman at the window was the most surprising.  I guess I would have to choose Celine if I absolutely had to.  Heller's The dog stars was a favorite several years ago.

A mystery of yesteryear

Back in 2011-12, someone in my local guild organized a mystery quilt which turned out to be Bonnie Hunter's "Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll."  I chose Christmas fabrics because I had a lot of them, and I like red and green together.  I mixed in non-holiday fabrics with the others, but as it progressed I really didn't like it.  Now I'm not sure if it was all the fiddly little pieces or the way it turned out.  The pieced border was the hardest part.  But now I get this quilt out every year at this time, and I like it.  That's my hope for this year's BH mystery, "Good Fortune," that I've been keeping up with.

Yesterday I finished the second clue which took me most of the day.  But what a feeling of accomplishment!  I bag up all of the finished pieces - last week's red and neutral four patches and this week's blue and neutral half-square triangles - and store them in a shoebox.  Hope I can say the same at this time next week.