and Polly's beauty shop car. The beauty shop is somehow in the trunk of the hot pink vehicle, complete with hairdryer, comb, brush and a tiny compact that opens.
Craig, Finlay, Iona and I went to church this morning to hear Mary sing in the choir.
(Ewan and Claire stayed home.) There is a tradition at Mary and Iain's people about their gifts, sort of talk-show style. So the first twenty minutes of the service I was trying to extricate the Polly Pocket car from its box, undoing twenty of those silver twisty ties, handling it quietly in spite of the crackly plastic box, and trying not to let any of the itty bitty high-heeled sandals get lost under the pews.
This was so Iona seatbelt.
rewards were that Mary and her choir sang very well! And at the end of the service was that really joyful organ piece, I think it's the Toccata, and it's the one that always makes me cry (v.
embarrassing).
are some differences between Christmas dinner here in Scotland and at home. One is that Mary makes small sausages that are served with the mains.
This year they're wrapped in bacon and boy, do I love sausage. Sausage wrapped in bacon? I love that even more.
Another thing is that they always have the roundy green sprouts from Brussels. I love those too. And after, there's Christmas pudding, a dark, sweet, fruit-filled, peel-filled, butter-filled, brandy-filled cake that has been steamed until it's just perfectly fluffy yet also chewy, and you top with brandy butter (which is brandy mixed with butter) or heavy cream or ice cream, or some other sort of delicious fat, and then you eat it.
We ate ours with pink champagne, which we all really needed at that point.
record, I've spilled wine and gin and wine again on the carpet since I've been here. And Ewan's also spilled red wine on the new white carpet, which trumps my spills.
But in spite of our gaffes our host and hostess have been nothing but lovely, graceful and amazing.
Addendum: There are also the post-main-meal chestnuts roasting on the open fire. Mary roasted them on long forks while everyone else sort of rolled their eyes and didn't join in the roasting wholeheartedly.
By the time they're speared on the end of a long fork and held over the coal fire the nuts have had all the big outer (conker) skins removed, and some of the inner skin which is brown and gets crispy is still on, and you have you have to peel it off before you bite in. They're sweet and mealy and crunchy and charred-tasting.
Addendum II: Mince pies are the shite.
We had them yesterday when we went visiting at the Richards'. Hot and small, with white, sugary crusts, they're delicious. The filling is dried fruit like (I suppose) raisins and prunes and orange peel and all the other stuff that goes into the other desserts here.
Warm. Crunchy and sugary outside and tart and soft on the inside. Served with hot tea with milk and sugar.
And me, I'm a gimme a drink already sort of gal, but I'll take this afternoon pick-me-up over a gin and tonic any day.
Addendum III: Because of a couple verbal comments I received regarding Addenum II above, I feel compelled to clarify my use of the shite. When I wrote mince pies are the shite I was making a joke combining two colloquialism expressions, one American (the shit) and one Scottish (shite).
I meant that I find mince pies delicious when I wrote that they were the shite.
The American slang expression, [Fill in noun here] is the shit! means, [Fill in noun here] is [really good or stylish or fun or delicious]!
Perhaps the only constant connotation that shit reliably carries is that the referent to which it applies holds some degree of emotional intensity for the speaker. Whether offense is taken at hearing the word varies greatly according to listener and situation, and is related to age and social class: elderly speakers and those of (or aspiring to) higher socioeconomic strata tend to use it more privately and selectively than younger and more blue-collar speakers. Moreover, in some colloquial speech, calling something or someone the shit is laudatory.
For instance, Dave's new car is the shit, suggests that Dave's new car is very good, or very cool. This meaning is also essentially a substitution for the term stuff, but is also similar to the vernacular usage of bad to mean dangerous and deserving of respect. Crap is unknown in such locutions.
Thanksgiving in our house, as it unfolds:
9:30
I just put the pumpkin pie in the oven, slopping some of it over the side. We'll see if the Organic Farmer's Market Pumpkin in a can makes as good a pie as my mom's Libby's. While I beat the pumpkin with the sweetened condensed milk (what is that stuff, anyway?
) Ewan called his parents (it's windy and wet in Helensburgh, they did their Christmas shopping already) and Iona stayed glued to Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Ewan and Iona are making syrup and breadcrumb pie (AKA treacle tart), which is a Scottish delicacy that only Ewan eats. He's modifying it by putting coconut in; that's just the kind of cook he is.
More later...
The pie is out.
The stuffing is done and in the bird. The turkey has been rubbed with olive oil, salt and paprika and has been in the oven for an hour.
Iona is bathed and throughout, in the background, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade marches endlessly on...
To be continued.
..
.and Iona and dog went to park.
Meanwhile, I managed to get a run in during the roasting of the Turkey -- and was greeted upon my return with this!
However, Ewan insisted upon watching football.
Don't worry about my fingers Mom; I can lick them.
Pie is better with Sauterne.
And for your lesson, children:
It's very late and I'm watching a movie by Nicole Holofcener. I'm eating cheese and oat cakes (oat cakes are a Scottish thing). Catherine Keener is getting rejected by a total loser (of course, he'll turn out to not be a loser or at least will have something redeeming about him so she is humbled even more than she is already as the underdog in this movie) but that would never happen, Catherine Keener being rejected by a video store attendant with big glasses, because she has great hair and coloring and a flat stomach even though she is wearing really horrible denim shorts and now you know how judgmental I am about horrible denim.
It's not that lucrative.
I have like a grand I've saved up.
(Mobile phone bleeps).
This is my best friend! DOUG! BLAINE!
Sarah, this is Sarah.
I'm sorry. Why did I just call you Doug?
I've got this job and I can't take time off. I live with my parents and it's full time and I can't take time off.
How'd you meet ol' Danny here?
Through my friend Nick.
Nick I met because I met him on the train. Nick lives on the fucking south side now.
I have their number. Him and Mo live in St. Charles now.
..I'm in Elgin right now, and I'm telling my school I live in the city.
It's a lot cheaper for me to lie about it.
How you doin' Man? Yeah I'm good.
I'm thinkin' maybe I'll go get my law degree.
Yeah, you could come to work for me if you wanna be my secretary.
It's a pretty big firm, it's got a USSL, Kid Rock is doing something something and something for us.
Well my birthday was late so I was held back.
I did sound for George Clinton.
Yeah, I get $500.
But I only work once a week. This is for filming music videos.
It's really hard to fold the clothes.
Yeah.
Trailers? When they're doing car scenes.
And Lenny Kravitz, and some girl who toured with Britney Spears.
Do you know Mister Blotto?
Dude, no.
Who are they?
They've been a pretty big band in Chicago.
R Kelly bought two of Chicago's old studios.
I'm going to be project manager, however, there is no artistic freedom. I would love to be somewhere else and I'd work my way up.
You should come over to my house, I have a studio.
Fuckin' heroin junkie. He like robbed some ol lady. He's in jail last I heard.
Allison Rodez? You ever know her?
Yeah, Lacie?
She was a piece of shit too.
This is the kind of thing we hear outside our open window every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in the summer. Most times it's a solo conversation between a party and their significant other on the phone, a fight.
Or someone saying, What is this? This place? It's kind of cool, with the ceiling tiles?
Um hmm. (We have a tin ceiling.) Some blessed someone has them smoking around the corner, far away from us, and not under our open window.
That's unbelievably good.
Walking and Talking is a pretty terrific movie. Put it on your Netflix.
Ewan is flat out on the floor and he is snoring, something I usually do. Not the flat-out part but the snoring.
Catherine Keener totally got her teeth fixed since this was filmed (doesn't that sound like someone outside the door said it?
), or they just made them look normal for for this movie, which was made in 1996. Guess what! Allison Janey is in this movie as a fellow cat-lover to Catherine Keener!
And you know what? Anne Heche? She isn't very good!
Or maybe she is good at being a really awful character, one who is not very likable. But Liev Schreiber is so believable and reminds me of my ex-fiance.
It is hot, sweaty weather, maybe 80 degrees and it's trickling down the sides of my face.
The music in the movie right now is joyful and rambunctious and fun. I think it's the Waterboys but I'm not sure. If it is, I get to jump up and down and yell, I win!
I win! But only the drunks standing outside my window will hear.
Damn.
It's not the Waterboys. It's Billy Bragg.
Also: the music coming out of the bar is rambunctious.
And it's time to get Ewan off the sofa (where he moved from the floor ten minutes ago) and upstairs to bed.
Iona and I made banana bread. I learned AGAIN that it's important to BE PATIENT with a not-quite-four-year-old when going through a process like, for instance, baking.
Detours included discussions of whether or not Scooby Doo sprinkles would enhance banana bread, and there was a near-miss of a finger near a rotating beater. Iona discovered that flour smelled really, really, REALLY good and vanilla extract smelled yucky. Bad.
And the feel of butter, ohh. Squishy betwen the fingers. Tasty.
After popping the pan in the oven I put her down for a nap, and myself too. Dishes to be washed? Timers to be watched?
Mmmm, sleepy time. Before she settled down Iona said, I want to give you a big squish hug.
8 tbsp butter
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 very ripe bananas, squished up
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 cup grated dried unsweetened coconut
350 degrees
Mix dry ingredients
Cream butter and beat in eggs and bananas
Combine dry and wet without overmixing
Stir in vanilla, nuts, coconut
Greased 9x5 inch loaf pan
45-60 minutes
Iona received an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas this year.
For those who did not receive your own thirty years ago, this toy is a plastic oven in which one bakes cakes and cookies over a hundred-watt lightbulb. It’s a cool toy, though I’m pretty sure the official Hasbro mixes are mostly petroleum. The sugar cookies Iona and I made today smell like the popcorn you get at the movie theater.
Mmm, flavored oil.
A short search revealed plenty of sites offering homemade, petroleum-free recipes for the EBO, along with when EBO turned forty. And to commemorate the birthday, writer and pop-culture maven David Hoffman came out with a celebrity chef recipe book that includes two of my favorites, and Included in the recipes are Deep Dish Truffle Lobster Pie and Roasted Quail Breast with Wild Mushrooms and Pomme Anna.
With those recipes in mind, let me give you an idea of how big the EBO pan is (shown here at actual size):
We finally took Iona’s EBO out of the box today. I had forgotten about the EBO because, with most objects, if I’m not tripping over it or desperately needing it RIGHT NOW, I will forget its existence. Out of nowhere, Ewan did his usual magic trick of making the EBO appear, after having made it disappear sometime after we returned from our Christmas travels.
I’m no longer amazed by the conjuring; it just infuriates me. Today I went for a pencil sharpener I bought Friday. Gone.
Poof. But since Ewan's going to be canonized after his death, I can't risk the wrath of the Almighty by calling him the names that come to mind when I can't find something I need desperately. Plus my whole family is on his side, so I would have to find a new family if I did.
The oven I had when I was a kid was avocado green and all modernist angles. Iona’s looks to me like a microwave oven, and who bakes in their microwave? Ewan says it’s supposed to be a toaster oven.
He’s probably right, because it has knobs. But still, shouldn’t it look like a range?
We got about twenty mixes as part of the kit, and Iona kept pointing to the elaborately pink-frosted, sparkly-sprinkled sugar cookies, all about three inches across, on the front of the box.
“Mom, I want to make those.” The pan you slide into the oven is three inches across, and the recipe calls for it to fit three cookies.
Iona poured the packaged powder in a bowl, I helped her measure a miniscule amount of water into it, and voila!
dough. I wonder if I’m imprinting stereotypical gender roles on my daughter with this activity.
It was pretty cozy rolling the fakey cookie dough into dime-sized supheers (Iona is learning three-dimensional shapes in school) with the radiators humming and sleet ticking against the windows.
I have only one memory of baking with my EBO, a chocolate cake. I wonder if my EBO is still in my parent’s storeroom.
We put the balls in the pan.
Iona ate much of the dough while we worked. After a dodgy moment where I slid the pan into the oven and the top halves of the three tiny supheers scraped off on an unreachable interior part of the mechanism we managed to successfully bake the first batch. I worried that she would be disappointed when the cookies came out plain, the size of her thumb-pad, but her delight wasn’t even dampened by the fact that the first two cookielets squished into sausage-shaped blobs when she tried to use the miniature hot pink spatula to remove them from the red-hot pan.
She ate the cookies all up.
I remember thinking that chocolate cake I made was the best I’d ever eaten.
I'm typing away in the Charleston.
I almost named my blog after this place. Next to my bathtub and a couple other places (a certain fancy Seattle restaurant, my parents' kitchen, as close as I can get to my in-laws' fireplace, the Drover's Inn outside Glasgow) this is my favorite space. It's dark and long, like many Chicago bars.
The bar is wood with a carved, rolled edge good for resting your forearms on, or your forehead. Behind the bar is a giant mirror topped with a pediment. In the triangular center of the pediment is a glittery gold cherub with a blankly benevolent stare.
The cherub presides over all manner of human activity: Drinking, pontificating, fighting, meeting, storytelling, loving and drinking. But no smoking. The Charleston is the only bar in Chicago that is 100% smoke-free.
Take a deep breath of the fresh air while you admire how the leftover holiday blue lights and felt icicles give the dark cave some sparkle.
Among other things, the Charleston is about altered states. Some I've experienced here:
- Childlessness (child-free-ness, that is)
- Drunkenness
- Belligerence
- Perspicacity (that one’s for you, Verna)
- Fury
- Reckless Joy
But, while in this place, I have never been this absorbed and introverted.
I've fallen into the screen. Some woman, a patron, obviously new, just asked brightly if I was a designer. All I could do was give her a bleary look and say “Lapsed.
” Then I got back to it. How can I tell her that I am busy losing my blog virginity? This is my first post.
I feel silly making a big deal when I have no readers. I'm going to have to force my husband to read this. But I'm excited; I can't help it.
This blog is a project, and the project is me.
Hello, world.
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