Advent Week 4: The End of Stollen Time
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
Our rooms were bugged, our phones were tapped, and our lawyer’s rooms were broken into and their files stolen. We finally had to hire armed guards with pistols to be able to maintain our records. It was hard to believe we weren’t in Russia.
— Jimmy Hoffa, Hoffa: The Real Story (1975)
While browsing for reading material related to stolen items, I ran across this excerpt. I’m adding the above book to my To Be Read list just because of that excerpt.
In retrospect, stealing documents seems very much a thing of a certain time – like the Pentagon Papers (1969-1971) and the attempted photocopying of DNC documents at the Watergate hotel (1972).
When were the Teamsters’ lawyers’ files stolen? Was it during the Kennedy admin during the prosecution of Hoffa, or the Nixon administration? I don’t recall much about organized labor history during that period having been just a kid at the time. When it came to news I was more preoccupied with the Vietnam war, civil rights, and space exploration. I feel now like I missed something important that shaped the psyche of Donald Trump and his cohort.
Donald’s father Fred Trump was eight years older than Jimmy Hoffa. Roger Stone, who is six years younger than Donald, cut his ratfucking teeth on Nixon’s campaign. It’s not far fetched to imagine Trump’s brain molded by the means, methods, and events used when he was in his twenties.
Should we have been surprised that Trump continued to use the same means and methods throughout his career like stealing classified documents when we’d long heard about his eavesdropping via phone systems in his condo and resort developments?
Perhaps the problem has been the reaction to his use of DARVO, chronically accusing the targets of his animus of that which he has done. Too much time and energy has been spent trying to defend against his accusations instead of taking those accusations as an indicator of Trump’s misdeeds. In other words,
Trump loudly claimed the election was stolen = Trump was stealing it.
Trump loudly claimed documents were his = Trump had stolen them.
Unfortunately the media isn’t conditioned to assume the reverse; instead the media parrots the false claims, amplifying them to the detriment of the ones most harmed by Trump’s theft/attempted theft.
The media still hasn’t digested the fact one of its own — Fox News — engaged in defamatory false news as part of Trump’s DARVO-driven model. If Fox News is reporting something about Trump as straight news, shouldn’t the rest of the media ratchet up their skepticism? Isn’t the dispersion of falsehoods news itself deserving coverage when it can shape an entire government, and not merely ignored because Fox is the competition?
Has common sense in journalism been stolen along with classified documents?
How should we the media consuming public address this as we head into another presidential election year? We have only days before the season begins in earnest.
~ ~ ~
I was reminded this week of Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong..
Guess who was exposed to COVID on December 21, four days before Christmas? Two days before a family gathering?
Before I could attempt another batch of stollen?
I’ve tested negative so far but I had to wear a mask during the gathering with family. Climate change was a blessing; it was warm enough for me to eat my dinner outside on the deck while the family ate indoors.
Perhaps I’ll be fortunate and not actually develop COVID. I got the latest vaccine the week before Thanksgiving and I’ve continued to wear an N95 mask whenever I’m out in shared public spaces.
But a friend I saw on Thursday had likewise been masked up as they traveled on Sunday December 17 and still got COVID.
More of you travelers need to wear masks, that’s all there is to it. One person alone in an airport the size of O’Hare can’t fend off the virus when everyone else refuses to take any precautions.
Anyhow, a test first thing tomorrow morning will dictate what happens the rest of Christmas Day. A visit with a family member who is alone and afflicted with cancer hinges on this test.
If Murphy wants to press the point about shit happening, tomorrow morning here will be the time and place.
Perhaps I didn’t need to go looking for material about things stolen. The holiday has been stolen from many of us thanks to the ongoing pandemic too many people want to pretend ended.
~ ~ ~
And now to things stollen.
This was not a raging success. It was close, but not quite. Somehow I missed the perfect time to add the alcohol-imbued dried fruits to the dough and they ended up drifting toward the outside of the loaf. Next time I’ll roll the dough out, sprinkle it with the fruits, roll up the dough as I would for cinnamon rolls, and let the fruit form a swirl. The technique was fine in the previous mango-pineapple version.
I also did a boo-boo and failed to remove the loaves when they reached 180F-185F degrees internal temperature, not 190F. My new digital thermometer might also be a little touchy and read a bit lower than the actual temp. Whatever the case, these loaves weren’t quite as moist as I would have liked.
Not a winner of the stollen election, but this entrant will make an excellent French toast on Christmas morning just hours from now. The mixture of cranberries, figs, apricots, and apples with the cardamom-scented bread will be tasty – no advance experimentation necessary to know.
~ ~ ~
Here we are, the advent season has now ended in Eastern and Central time zones; only a handful of hours separate all of us from the Christmas holiday.
We’ve already passed through the darkest night this past week – damn it, I just realized I was exposed to COVID on the winter solstice, how dark indeed. But days are now longer already, the dark of night shorter by minutes as each date passes.
What fruit-laden baked good won the stollen election in your opinion as we counted down the remaining days of the season? What did you bake or eat which made the holidays brighter for you and yours? Share in this open thread below.
Merry Christmas to you and yours, hope your holiday season is restful and restorative.
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Thank you.
Not sure I have it down pat, but Christmas continues in Hungary through the 6th of January? That’s when the Wise Men arrived at the manger? Budapest is the wife’s home, so I guess my response is not too late by this calendar. And we have Beigli at least through January! (not to be confused with “bigly”!)
(I grew up in a very Scandinavian county in the Midwest, with 4 Norwegian Lutheran churches and nary another steeple. So, I love, and miss, all the Norske recipes here.)
Kids and grandkids made a Greek feast yesterday, for Christmas, with a roasted lamb shank, Greek salad, roasted potatoes, tzatziki sauce, Tabouli and all kinds of other goodies. Kids are great!
I roasted a salmon and shrimps for Christmas Eve with black pasta and a cream sauce, roasted veggies, and salad. Deserts galore.
And both meals we delivered directly to my son’s and his wife’s doorstep who welcomed a new baby, their first, on the 22nd, and came home on the 24th. Born in a beautiful desert rain, came home to a full moon. Blessings abound.
Which makes me wish I’d seen this thread at the beginning of December for perhaps even more inspiration? Maybe I missed it, cuz there’s lots of great cooks sharing recipes all the time! Thanks for that. And, remember, Christmas runs through Jan 6 if you want it too.
Gonna try the clementine cake today I think. We have a half dozen types of citrus, as well as a dozen pomegranates, which I think would work well with modifications, but I think kumquats might be ideal for that cake? Just the right balance of tart and sweet, and the most, naturally, edible skin of all the citrus?
And most importantly, in praise of this wonderful meld of diverse traditions and erudite views that make this site uniquely special, there’s a movie we’ve added to our holiday rotation this Christmas, “Christmas As Usual”, (Netflix) which we can’t recommend enough! Beautiful message, based on true story, so says Katie, and has me tearing up just recalling it again.
Thanks for all you guys do. Carried away here? Sorrynotsorry. Thank you and Blessings all around.
Brevity and real paragraph breaks are your friend, and the friends of us and all readers here. Happy holidays to you too.
Rayne: to you and all of the EW gang – best wishes for the holidays and hope you all have great 2024.
Mahalo nui loa! Thanks for your continued readership and participation here in EW’s community.
I managed to avoid the dreaded lurgy for three years. Then it got me. First week, felt crap but able to function; second week. flat on my back, I wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t need a hospital, though, which is some sort of blessing. I hope you manage to stay free of it.
All the best to everybody here, whichever deity you may or may not choose to dignify with your belief.
Drink, dance, tell jokes, fornicate, be human :-)
(Christmas donation on the way.)
Thank you for your financial support which helps keep the spice flowing. Hope your holidays are good to you and yours.
Rayne, Merry Christmas. My 94 year old father came down with COVID. Christmas Eve was cancelled to be celebrated on Saturday instead. Actually, an unexpected gift with no fuss, no stress just rest.
The unexpected rest continues here as well — just me and a grand-dog, with occasional breaks outside in the unusually warm weather we’re having in Michigan. 55F degrees feels like a California winter.
Wish your elderly dad hadn’t had to get COVID, though. It just sucks we’re more than 3 years into this and haven’t had the political will or common sense to make it stop.
I’m in North Dakota. It was 61 on Dec 7. We had a dusting of snow yesterday, now freezing rain, just discovered how treacherous my sidewalk is–managed to take a step from the entryway across the sidewalk to the crunchy layer of snow and mud on the other side to make my way out and bring the dog in (she wanted out, she’s a malamute/husky and when I stuck my fingers down through her fur she was warm and dry–can’t even reach the skin through that undercoat. But she’s inside and napping. Right now it is 31 but set to warm through the evening into tomorrow so it will be just rain once that layer of ice melts.
It’s been a relief after a few nasty nasty winters (and the snow removal businesses making out like kings this year). Hopefully the subzero stuff is staying way of north where it is needed. GW effects on jet stream can make northern tier states damned cold while the people who rely on frozen rivers to travel in winter get stuck with slush.
Merry Christmas to all!
And to all, a good Day.
I made it through all the services yesterday, and slept in quite late this morning.
Today is definitely off to a good start.
I’ve been thinking about the holiday biscotti I used to make and should make again. I add orange zest and a little more vanilla than the recipe calls for and avoid the temptation of adding too much almond extract. (If you’ve ever eaten marzipan, a little goes a long way.). When the biscotti are out of the oven the second time and cooled, I dip them in melted dark chocolate. For a little flair, I mix cinnamon in with the dark chocolate.
With regard to the media and Trump, I hope they have learned something but I’ve not seen too much evidence of it. Trump’s outrageousness was such a novelty that the news media underestimated Trump and downplayed it, refused to believe that he meant what he said, interpreted it so that it would fit into their traditional narratives, or excused by saying he was a norm breaker. What I’ve learned is that Trump is ignorant about much but is a clever manipulator and should not be underestimated.
Season’s Greetings to all! I’ve been enjoying our version of stollen: Bolo Rei. The recipe is similar, the main difference being that it’s ring-shaped (supposedly to represent a crown).
Stealing/intercepting documents to gain insight into an adversary’s plans (or sell that insight to a buyer) is far from new. In the 16th century, Mary Queen of Scots, aware that her letters to supporters could be intercepted by agents of Queen Elizabeth I, devised a code, known only to herself and trusted friends. The code may’ve worked, but Mary’s quest for freedom from captivity didn’t: Elizabeth I had Mary executed in 1587.
It is to be hoped that SCOTUS doesn’t determine that ‘presidential immunity’ covers illegal acts committed during incumbency, or extends beyond the term of the tenure. The world’s eyes are on this.
It’s not that stolen documents were unique, but that in the late 1960s-early 1970s there were highly publicized scandals in which theft of documents played a prominent role, in a time period which may have shaped Trump’s beliefs about possession of documents.
SCOTUS should rely heavily on the unanimous decision United States v. Nixon (1974), in which SCOTUS found then-president Nixon did not have absolute presidential immunity with regard to materials sought by subpoena in a criminal investigation into illegal acts committed by the president.
Glad to hear you’re enjoying bolo rei this holiday — I will have to try making that some day.
I REALLY didn’t get around to baking (though I don’t yet have a date for dinner with the auntie in Dublin, which would add urgency).
I did make this cake, which folks likely know I rave about, with the added benefit it is gluten free.
https://www.nigella.com/recipes/clementine-cake
I missed virtually all of harvest season at the Milk Market this year, on account of my broken foot. But spouse and I went last week, which means we finally got baking apples from my cherished organic farmer, which I didn’t have for an apple pie for Thanksgiving. So tonight I’ll be making an apple pie, possibly with pear and cranberries thrown in for festive color (and because we have pears we need to use). The pie dough is chilling as we speak.
When I got home last night, Mrs Dr Peterr had just pulled an apple pie out of the oven.
This afternoon’s feast will definitely end well.
Hope things continue to progress well with the foot.
Yum — I love cranberries baked with apple and pears! They add tartness I think some apple varieties need.
The clementine cake sounds tasty; I’ve made something similar with a flaked coconut and almond flour. Big mistake: didn’t use sweetened coconut and that was the only source of sugar. Don’t know what I was thinking! Had to make a syrup with honey and lemon to pour over the cake to remedy.
Good to know you’re able to get to your market again, betting they’ve missed you!
I made that cake after Marcy raved about it the first time. I loved it, but the rest of the family was not as enthralled by it, so it hasn’t made a reappearance.
I’m not even an orange fan (except, as noted repeatedly, bitter orange). But you do have to be a citrus fan to like it.
Two things I would do with that particular recipe, if I were making it with clementines:
— Cook the fruit in a pressure cooker until tender but by putting the fruit in a covered bowl inside the cooker so that no water comes in direct contact with the fruits. I think boiling the fruits would dilute the flavor by boiling off the oils in the rind.
— Add the freshly grated rind of 1-2 more clementines when adding the pulped fruits to punch up the flavor.
Oh, and a third thing: make a glaze with confectioner’s sugar and Grand Marnier or triple sec or Ponche Caballero — some orange-flavored liqueur.
The skins should all go in. Admittedly, a better texture if you pressure cooked.
RE: Dressing it up. When I dress it up I add a dark chocolate ganache on top.
Unf. Dark chocolate is a winner.
have made this clementine cake many times. it is good without any modifications at all; but dark chocolate and citrus is a match made in heaven.
happiest of holidays to all the amazing voices at EW.
I didn’t get around to much of anything. I usually make lefse, and my lefse stick has sat untouched. I made a pan of pecan bars (shortbread crust and caramelized layer with loads of pecans. It burned. Ate it anyway.
But the most picture perfect pumpkin pie I have ever produced and a quiche are waiting for my son to come over (I am working today, IT support, got exactly 1 call in the last 7 hours, which of course came in exactly when I was clocking out for lunch, which is why I am fooling around on the internet). Assuming the ice on the streets melt, which I now expect it to as the rain continues here.
My family made lefse yesterday. I voted for tunnbrod, but I was outvoted.
Warm lefse and butter, mmm.
I’d go with making lefse only because I don’t have any barley flour in my pantry for tunnbröd.
Funny how different cooking choices are made even by folks in the same cultural/ethnic group; my spouse’s Swedish aunt would make a rye bread for the holidays — limpa — as well as ebelskivers. I assume her family must have had Danish influence.
Mele Kalikimaka!
Makemake ʻoe i kahi kau hoʻomaha hauʻoli!
We made Arancini (I made the risotto under close supervision by my wife) as our contribution to a pot luck family feast. They had to be gluten free due to a legitimate gluten intolerance of a particular family member.
They were deep fried, which is very unusual in our household. Gluten free panko crumbs, rice flower/potato flour blend and beaten egg coating. Served with a tomato, butter onion sauce.
The gluten intolerance sufferer had at least 3 (but who’s counting). They were delicious.
Merry Christmas to all!
Oh and to Rayne the San Marizano tomatoes were pretty good. Just not enough of them.
Spouse just convinced me to do Kung Pao rutabega (bc we didn’t have any at Thanksgiving) instead of doing plain butternut squash.
#TeamSpouse
Might you share recipe? I am great fan of rutabaga.
Yesterday I made Stella Parks’ “Overnight Cinnamon Rolls” to go into the fridge. Early this AM I baked then iced them. Recipe at seriouseats.com; search for that title.
To all the researchers and writers and commenters, have happy days however you celebrate them.
All I want for Christmas 2024 is TFG in jail.
I’d settle for a sincere apology and confession signed by TFG and all involved and repeated by Fox and right wing media 10 times during prime time every day for a year.
“Isn’t the dispersion of falsehoods news itself deserving coverage when it can shape an entire government, and not merely ignored because Fox is the competition?” I couldn’t agree more. Fox is a cancer on this country. They are pro-Russia/pro-Putin because Trump is. If he changed to a pro-Ukraine stance, that’s what they would do.
“I also did a boo-boo and failed to remove the loaves when they reached 180F-185F degrees internal temperature, not 190F.” That reminds me of the time I baked two pies. The apple pie went into the oven at something like 400*F. I was supposed to reduce the temp to 325* when I put the pecan pie in the oven but forgot to. The pecans looked like pieces of charcoal. Ugh!
I think the horse and the cart are mixed up in your analogy but they may be interchangeable. Trump couldn’t exist without a lackey press (Fox, Newsmax, etc.), but they probably wouldn’t be successful without a bombastard like trump. The common factor is controlling interests from within and outside of the US – all with a goal of destroying our democracy.
To keep on with the good cheer, I’ll put my plug in for chocolate ice-box cake (real lady fingers, home-made chocolate sauce, and real whipped cream.) Of course too much egg-nog is the stuff of legends (not all good.)
Most of the baking has been done by my family members this season. More julekake today, cinnamon rolls a few days ago with homemade candied orange in the glaze, and homemade pizza crust last night.
My contribution was a pear tatin, a caramelized pear tart. Recipe to follow when I’m off the small screen.
Eagerly awaiting it!
Pear Tatin, from Cuisine Economique by Jacques Pepin, my recipe notes in square brackets
For the caramel:
1/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp water
For the filling:
3 Bosc pears, peeled, sliced in half, and cored [Most any pear will work here]
2 Tbsp unsalted butter [salted is fine too]
2/3 cup water
2 Tbsp sliced almonds [I omitted because of allergies at the table]
2 Tbsp golden raisins [any dried fruits and nuts would work]
For the crust:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 Tbsp unsalted butter [again, salted is fine]
2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp milk
Preheat over to 400
Caramel: Place sugar and water in an ovenproof 10″ skillet. Cook over medium to high heat for about 5 minutes, until the mixture turns a light caramel color. Remove from heat and swirl to cover bottom of pan.
Filling: Arrange pears cut side up so the stem ends meet in the middle of the pan. Add butter and water to the pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook gently for 20 minutes until all the water has evaporated and the sugar caramelizes again. [I needed to uncover the pan and cook over medium-high heat to boil off the water].
Crust: [Do this while the pears are cooking, or do it before starting up the caramel] Add flour, butter, and sugar to a food processor. Process for 10 seconds. Add milk and process for another 10 seconds. [I just did this in a bowl with a pastry cutter. I needed a tiny bit more milk to make the dough come together.] Form into a ball of dough and roll out between two sheets of plastic wrap or parchment paper to make a circle about the same size as the skillet [or a little smaller if the pears don’t fill the skillet]. Refrigerate the dough to firm it up.
After the pears have cooked, fill the hollow centers with fruit and nuts. Remove the dough from the fridge, peel off one sheet of plastic or parchment, and put the dough over the pears. Peel off the remaining sheet [The pastry melted enough to make peeling off the second sheet hard for me, so you might want to free the pastry from both sheets before putting it on the pears.] Place skillet in preheated oven for about 30 minutes, until the top is golden brown.
Remove from oven and invert skillet over the serving dish. Scrape any caramel remaining in the pan over the pears. Slice into potions and serve. If you have let the pears cool enough that the caramel solidifies, you can reheat it on the stove over gentle heat until it melts enough to move in the pan when shaken.
A good cast iron skillet is the ideal vehicle for this dish. We are fortunate that my in-laws kept their cast iron when it went out of fashion in the 70’s. That means that we have an ancestral pan that dates from the late 1880’s, and is just as good now as it was when made. It likely came across the country on the railroad when my wife’s great-grandparents settled on land taken from the Lummi nation near Bellingham, WA. There are many stories about the homesteading life, but it’s important to remember the original caretakers of the land. My family is just as guilty, being colonists in Michigan (my mom’s side) and in Transylvania (trying to get the Roma to give up their nomadic lifestyle for farming) then North Dakota (both my dad’s side).
In other news, my daughter gave me cranberry-orange fudge for Christmas.
And many thanks to the entire EW crew for creating this site and community!
Jessica Tarlov is the lone voice of sanity on Fox. She calmly destroys Jesse Watters’ lies but the four Murdoch puppets interrupt or shout her down, plus MAGA viewers hate her for it. These MAGAs are not interested in facts and reasons and are therefore beyond help and hope. Anything that does not confirm their MAGA delusions is dismissed as a lie. Even with U.S. covid deaths totaling our 5 deadliest wars (and with covid being the leading killer of cops for 3 years) FoxMAGA is still pushing their antivax lies while pushing fear about the the MUCH lower risk of getting killed by “bad hombres” and terrorists.
Back in February I thought I caught covid but it was a bad reaction to my second shingles shot. I felt like crap for 2 weeks.
Happy holidays to all!
Rayne, I did get Covid the week before Xmas, which pushed our family gathering to this coming week. I’m making a lemon tart using David Lebovtiz’s recipe for the filling (very tart!) and Melissa Clark’s for the crust. Tried it at Thanksgiving and it was great.
https://www.davidlebovitz.com/tart-au-citron-french-lemon-tart/
Unf. I love lemon tarts, pies, bars, anything with lemon. The Lebovitz recipe sounds particularly rich with all the eggs in it! Envy everyone having a piece today.
Best to you and yours, glad the ‘rona is behind you today.
My mother’s mother had one for Lemon Cake Pie.
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter
2 lemons, rind and juice
2 eggs [separated!]
1 cup milk
Sift together sugar, flour, and salt.
Add melted butter, juice and grated rind, beaten egg yolks,milk, and egg whites beaten stiff.
Pour into pastry lined plate and bake in slow oven [300F].
(You can bake it in a casserole dish.)
I’ve seen several variations of this with more or less sugar/flour/eggs/milk. This one I may try because it has more lemon in it than most variations I’ve seen. Thinking if self-rising flour or Bisquick/Jiffy baking mix was used instead of flour, might be able to skip crust altogether though the custard bottom would be less custard-y.
Thanks, P J!
It’s sturdier than a chiffon pie or a custard pie, and very tasty. I think it’s for a 9-inch shell. (It’s that old, yeah. Grandmother died in 1943, young, from breast cancer. So all her recipes – and there aren’t many – are precious.)
Does anybody else feel like Christmas has been extra long this year? Saturday felt like Christmas Eve, yesterday felt like Christmas, and today feels like Boxing Day. Must be the alignment with the weekend.
With no grandchildren to spoil yet we kept it pretty modest and just exchanged gifts per couple with our adult kids and their spouses. Focus was on the table: champagne and foie gras, followed by pan roasted duck breast (with shallot and calvados reduction) and a butternut squash and roasted garlic purée. Accompanied by a very decent Nuits-Saint-George and a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir which held its own quite well. Desserts by our daughter-in-law, double dipping with a chocolate tart and a lemon curd olive oil bar that was just intense.
Rayne, I hope you avoided the Crunk. Somehow my wife and I have dodged it … so far.
Joyeux Noël à tous!
I had a negative test this morning, four days after exposure. I think I’m out of the woods but I’ll be convinced if I’m still clear tomorrow evening.
Can’t imagine losing my sense of smell and taste with a splendid feast in front of one like that you enjoyed! Quelle horreur!
Joyeuses fêtes à toi et ta famille!
Merci, et Backatcha!
I hope you’re clear in the morning. Just a caution. I didn’t test positive until day 5.
Negative test yesterday, zero symptoms today. Pretty sure I’m out of the woods; the case I got in February only had a 3-day incubation period assuming I got it from my kids and/or their dog (don’t ask).
Glad to hear. It would suck to go into the New Year sick. I did that with RSV last year.
Ugh. I think it was RSV I had in December 2020 for Christmas week. That sucked and we didn’t know if it was COVID when I first started coughing. You have my sympathies. I recommend chicken soup with lots of ginger and garlic in it — hot sour soup, too.
This is my go to broth for colds and coughs. Except I also add a lot of sliced onion. Ginger, garlic & onion all fight of the bugs from within. Feels good to get a little sweat on too.
Thanks for the ‘stollen’ posts this season, Rayne. Has been very satisfying to read when it seems the world is falling apart.
Check of support is in the mail, old school here. I’m a relative newby at posting but have been reading for a good while. Thanks to you, Marcy and all of the EW crew (official and unofficial). I continue to learn so much even if I don’t retain it all.
I wish I could hunt down the recipe I used a few times to chase off colds but I didn’t copy it from the internet and it’s lost to link rot. IIRC it was chicken broth, garlic, ginger, lemon, lemongrass, and tumeric but I can’t tell you how much of each. And yes, get your sweat on — big swirl of Lao Gan Ma chili crisp on noodles.
Thanks very much for your support and your continued readership. Wish you and yours a restful holiday season!
Christmas has been extra long for me, but I don’t think in the way you are speaking of it. After getting all the services planned out, we had to juggle some things when critical folks got sick or their family plans changed, then the organist decided “We should sing X instead of Y – is it too late to make that change?” Inside, I wanted to say “YES!” as I had built part of my sermon around X. I decided that I didn’t have the energy to fight the battle that would ensue, and it would be easier to rework that part of the sermon.
Meanwhile, had two folks head to the ICU last week, which put additional demands on both my time and energy. Both pulled through, and both families are relieved, but it meant that I went into the weekend already tired.
But now, all that is behind me. Got to sleep very late this morning, which is always nice. Sadly, the Chiefs loss to the Raiders put Mrs Dr Peterr in a deep funk, but she’ll pull out of it when the roast comes out of the oven, the 2015 Coppola Cabernet Sauvignon is poured, and we sit down with The Kid for our Christmas feast.
That’s a lot to juggle. Enjoy the R&R of the just!
Yeah, the Chefs looked like shit today. Their plays take way too long to develop, and the Raiders, even without blitzing much, were all over Mahomes. They better work the kinks out before the playoffs, or they are not going very far.
Merry Christmas all !! At the moment the Niners are causing an uptick in alcohol consumption. Protect the damn ball !! 8 month pregnant daughter has out done herself, I don’t know how she did it with a 19 month old too ! Baked goods were from the bakery this year but we made pomanders with oranges and cloves, and gingerbread caramels. Mercifully, Nashville is not 9 degrees this year as it was last year.
The Niners have not looked good on offense, not good at all.
They look terrible. And not a fun ending to Christmas day. Hopefully this will be educational for the remainder of the season
Yep, but that is a pretty bad egg to lay at home. Ugh.
Which brings us back to the Chefs . . .
It sure does.
My team, the Vikings, laid their own egg at home. Rayne, congratulations to the Lions for winning their first division title in a long time. I would enjoy seeing them to well in the playoffs.
To all the people involved in the EW community, thank you for your work here. I have learned a great deal from the writers and comments. Best wishes to you all for a peaceful and healthy 2024.
Shucks. Thinking I might have to watch the Lions in the playoffs but since I haven’t watched a single game this year I might jinx them if I do.
Let me know how they fare! LOL
Oh, you will know when it comes time!
Bay Area sports teams had two marquis games yesterday on national TV; did not get to watch either. The Warriors nipped at the heels of the superior Nuggets all game along but fell sort at the end. Call that an honorable defeat. Looks like the Niners laid a turd. Hope they can rebound.
You mean you were SPARED from watching.
The thing I will say about the Warriors, Jokic’ had 18 free throw attempts in the second half. To say the officiating was questionable is an understatement.
Lucky me I guess. Except for the part where mme. punaise just got Covid for the first time, meaning I’m next…
I can not more strongly recommend Paxlovid. Get if for Mme. asap, and for yourself once you are confirmed. It will save you both a world of hurt.
Done! (And it definitely is helping her). I’m still dodging it for now.
marquee games?
I did hesitate but went with the original “close enough” French version.
Niner fan now living in Ravens country.
Couldn’t watch all of the game. I think both teams are really good. I thought people were talking up Purdy as MVP way too soon. The rematch in the Super Bowl will be fun.
The gift box from my brother contained a slice of real Italian pan forte – it was delicious (and nearly as good as my sis-in-law’s fruitcake)!
Reading the label: Panpepardo – it has pepper and other spices in it.
Rayne:
Since it is hit-or-miss for Covid, it is best NOT to expose anyone until you are sure you are well for a week or more.
I was spared from covid for 3+ years (3 vaccinations) but after going to a Sunday street fair in September, my daughter became ill on Tuesday (2 days later) and I fell ill on Saturday, 6 days later). It was covid per antigen tests. She had had it before and was not terribly ill. Her hubby escaped. It hit me hard with fever and muscle aches, but no respiratory symptoms. The 3 of us had just walked the street for 2 hours, not breathing into any faces. We did not wear masks. You just can’t predict covid.
I hope you recover quickly. (Zei Gesunt-be well in yiddish as my family would say.)
PS. Is it possible to calibrated your thermometer? I checked mine (Boiling water) and it is off somewhat. My old thermometer was off, too. Boiling water temp? ice water temp?
Merry Christmas. We had a feast with friends. Melt in your mouth prime rib. Perfectly baked sweet potatoes.
Spinach salad with pomegranate seeds, Cranberry/lemon jello salad, And then a pumpkin cheesecake with whipped cream. Although I retrained, wine was liberally consumed by those in attendance.
House rules prevented political discussions, therefore I introduced the topic of artificial hair color changes.
Thanks to Dr Wheeler and all the moderators.
As for Christmas dinner at Casa de bmaz, we are having home made spaghetti with red sauce, meatballs and sausages. Mrs. bmaz is Italian and it is an old family recipe that she does completely by hand; it pretty much takes all day and is truly delicious. Nice soft French rolls are with its it too of course.
Have a great dinner everybody!
Cheese and green-chili tamales here. Wrapped in textured parchment paper, but still good.
That sounds good!
OMG why didn’t I think of parchment for wrapping tamales?? I’m such a fumble fingers with corn shucks, parchment would be a snap! Thanks for mentioning that!
I still would like to know where Hoffa is buried. Stealing documents, omg, that is funny. These days everyone keeps almost everything on their computer or some little stick thing. Back in the day can remember accessing documents which were under lock and key, but hey, who needs a key. Being able to “borrow” documents is a time honour tradition in some circles. Not ethical, but time honoured. It was the challenge.
Of course the Mine Workers Union had their own problems when a new President was elected and then he, his wife, and child were murdered.
Wire taps, once you know you’re being wire tapped you can have some great fun. They didn’t always want the information to use against you. They just wanted to know what you were up to. These days of course things are much different. Found out there was a company in town which sold equipment. The one I loved was the clock, that actually was a clock but had an itty bitty camera thing in it.
As I write this I do recall one of my friends referring to me as “ethically challenged”, but hey we were all young.
Stollen, love the stuff. Having grown up in Vancouver, lower mainland, there were a lot of German and Dutch delis and bakeries and you could get stollen there for Christmas along with other things. Itt was fabulous. Our mother always made Christmas cake and short bread cookies. As she aged, the sibling took over, then the sibling exited stage left and I never learned how to do any of that stuff. I depend upon “the kindness of strangers”. Most people don’t make christmas cake any more, but you need to find a very good bakery for one–next year.
This year did not get it together to travel to friends for Christmas dinner, but there will be Easter.
Some of the food described above, sounds wonderful, but as with these receipes and comments I’ve concluded a number of you know how to cook and bake and are good at it.
Got my fifth covid shot about 2 weeks ago. No COVID, but I don’t go out to malls unless necessary and then when its quiet wearing a mask. Once we were able to go out again, after being sent to our rooms when it broke out, I made it a polcy to not touch my face under any circumstances while out. Once in the vehicle, it was spray, gel, etc. then when unloading of groceries had been completed, did it again.
I really do not want that disease. Goal is to see how some of the political stuff is going to turn out here and other places in the world and to keep reading Empty Wheel.
Happy Holidays to all the good people here at Emptywheel.net, the admins who make it all possible, and the authors especially! Where would find so much light in times of trouble without one and all? Enjoy what respite you can, and may any storms your way be mild, with hot mulled beverage of choice of course.
I didn’t end up baking any sweet goodies, but I did make a big batch of Kimchi—my first ever. I used a large bunch of bok choy (napa cabbage is more traditional), a carrot, half a bunch of green onions, about an inch of ginger root and some dried seaweed, seasoned w/ 4 tbsp. garlic chile paste. Shredded the carrot, chopped the onion & garlic, crunched the seaweed sheets, and added to the bok choy, which had been salted & 2 hours, then rinsed & chopped.
It was ready on Christmas morning and came out well, albeit a bit salty. Gotta do a bit more rinsing after the salting step next time.
Happy Holidays, all! Get well soon, Rayne.
Congrats on your fist kimchi! Sorry to hear it was too salty — you could try making another batch which is less so, and then mix the two batches.
I learned a basic rule of thumb for pickling which has worked so far with kimchi: use a ratio of 1/4 cup pickling salt to 4 cups/1 quart filtered water. Pour over vegetables and let stand 8-12 hours stirring a few times and weighting down the vegetables to keep them submerged beneath the brine. Drain and then rinse the vegetables four times under clear running water before mixing with seasonings.
Good luck with your next batch!
Thanks, Rayne—maybe I’ll try brining next time instead of applying salt to each stalk directly, which was how my recipe instructed. That said, if you recommend rinsing 4x, I still should have rinsed more.
The first several times I made kimchi I followed this recipe at The Kitchn — the salt to water ratio ended up very close to 1/4 cup to 4 cups water. This isn’t the pretty stuffed napa cabbage version (poggi kimchi), just the chopped mak kimchi or baechu kimchi. Super easy.
I can’t find the reference I found to the 1/4 cup:4 cups water ratio now; it was in a resource about fermented foods and by someone well known for their fermented/pickled foods. After reading that I took pains to measure the amount of water needed to cover my vegetables; a batch using an average head of napa used 4 cups of water. Kind of amazing coincidence. Now I just stick with that ratio and I swag the other ingredients to my taste. The four times also came from learning; I learned to dump the brine, put the vegetables in a bowl of cold water and swish, then put them through a salad spinner. Repeat 3 more times, then season and jar.
Keep in mind other ingredients may add more sodium — fish sauce is amazingly salty, nearly supersaturated with salt if you notice the salt crystals forming in the bottom of many bottles. I don’t use just gochugaru pepper flakes in mine but some gochujang paste which also adds more salt along with umami flavor.
You might also consider looking at other vegetable pickles in other cultures, like Chinese pao cai, Japanese tsukemono, Vietnamese đồ chua, and different krauts from eastern Europe to see what will work for you in your own fermented vegetable dish.
For the record the one vegetable which turned me off in my experimentation was kale. Must be eaten as a fresh pickle, days old, no longer. Too mushy. My favorite is turnips — love them.
Thanks for all the tips, Rayne—much appreciated!
Looking forward to hearing about your next batch!
I’m ready to make another one, down to my last serving right now. I may also make a red cabbage and beet root pickle, have made this several times now. So good on a grilled cheese sandwich.
Maybe I’ll have to post an open thread on a weekend dedicated to all things fermented and pickled. Share about your next batch then!
Ended up using a recipe for pecan pie using maple syrup and it was a success. It came from Sallys Baking addiction website if anyone is interested.
That’d be me, I’m interested. Not a big fan of maple syrup but I am getting several quarts each year now through a new family member. I used it in a modified pecan pie recipe recently swapping almonds for pecans and it was pretty good. I’ll check out Sally’s Baking Addiction, thanks!
Hope all had a Merry Christmas and continue to have a blessed Epiphany! Incredibly thankful for the Emptywheel crew! Sorry about the covid exposure
Rayne.
We ended up finding out, with only a few days notice, that we were hosting a Christmas Dinner for 8.
No time for extended sweets baking for the meal. I had to do one show stopper. We have 4 with dairy allergies. Over the years I perfected my once dairy-filled New York style cheesecake to be non-dairy but with all the taste and texture of the original. For this last minute effort I ramped up the gram crust with walnuts and pistachios. Made a vegan chocolate ganache to top it and dipped strawberry slices in a pomegranate glaze to decorate the border of the cake. Sprinkled some ground pistachios along the bright strawberry border to add color and some buttery-nutty taste accent.
We also had gf orange cranberry bread and cranberry pistachio meringue stars as added mild sweets.
Rest of the meal was made with what we had on hand – minus a turkey we snagged last minute. Two stuffings, cranberry sauce, twice baked potatoes, roasted root vege mix tossed with balsamic glaze, a broccoli stir fry, red cabbage, fresh fruit cup, and for our daughter who developed a meat allergy from Lyme disease, we made a tofu ham – which I was skeptical about but it actually had great flavor and texture.
And Marcy, we preordered a heritage bird from a local farmer for Thanksgiving. It. Was. So. Good.
The quickly bought organic free range, not heritage bird we snagged for Christmas – just ok. The difference was quite shocking.
Happy Holidays!
Congrats on pulling off a meal for eight for Christmas on short notice, and with rather daunting restrictions!
Was looking for a recipie for pumpkin and peanut butter pie, and came across the Jimmy Carter dessert.
Didn’t make either cuz i was out of canned pumpkin, but saved the JCP recipie for next feast time.
A layered desert bar type cake with pudding? Very southern.
https://www.southernliving.com/jimmy-carter-dessert-8303276
Really liked the reasoning in this sidney blumenthal piece in the Gaurdian on the 14th and TFG.
another voice on the self-executing nature of the wording.
Will Trump provoke a crisis of legitimacy for the US supreme court?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/26/trump-us-supreme-court-crisis
Sports analyst Stephen A. Smith called Greg Abbott’s new law “racist” on his show. He is an obnoxious sports analyst, but he used his show to blast Abbott’s new law, which I think is great.“It’s a racist-ass thing to do,” Smith said. “Suspicion? Suspect? Suspected of entering the country illegally. How can you be suspected of entering the country illegally?”.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4368906-stephen-a-smith-slams-texas-immigration-law/
https://x.com/LobsterWayne/status/1739503209058586627
bmaz, I’ve already received your input on Twitter
You will get it again here: “Sports analyst Stephen A. Smith” is a loudmouth idiot.
The alien creature frowned briefly and consulted what appeared to be some species of clipboard that it was holding in its thin and spindly alien hand.
“Arthur Dent?” it said.
Arthur nodded helplessly.
“Arthur Philip Dent?” pursued the alien in a kind of efficient yap.
“Er … er … yes … er … er,” confirmed Arthur.
“You’re a jerk,” repeated the alien, “a complete kneebiter“
The spirit of Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged lives on.
Um, what?
It’s from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe. Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was an immortal. To give his life purpose, he decided to insult everybody in the universe. “…Individually, personally, one by one, and (this was the thing he really decided to grit his teeth over) in alphabetical order.”
“When people protested to him, as they sometimes had done, that the plan was not merely misguided but actually impossible because of the number of people being born and dying all the time, he would merely fix them with a steely look and say, ‘A man can dream, can’t he?’”
I’ll mention the courthouse elevator on Thurs resulted in a sore throat on Sat eve becoming a positive C19 test on Sunday.
Dinner at Christmas was not as planned with extended fam but on my lonesome – canned chicken-sausage gumbo and soda crackers (son stepped up and came in from IN to take his 85 y.o. g-mom to the party).
I’ve only really eaten canned soup and oranges – the sandwich and pecan pie I tried out didn’t do me so good.
On Sunday I described the ‘rona as a half-bad hangover which became a pretty bad hangover with the flu on Monday which is still there – I haven’t had ETOH since Friday which is … most unusual for me.
I am a go-to-bed at 2:00 AM, 4-6 hour/night sleeper but spent 10 hours in bed last night, altho’ I think I still only slept about 4-6 hours.
It’s midnight here and I’m about to crash for the first time after 11:00 PM since this shite started.
Aw jeez, that sucks. Hope you get better quickly.
So sorry to hear the ‘rona caught you. One report I read this week suggested gargling with salt water several times a day may reduce symptoms and improve outcome during the course of infection. Can’t hurt assuming you don’t have high blood pressure, might help with throat and nasal symptoms while it may knock down viral load on throat epithelial cells. Hope you’ll be feeling better soon!
Thanks!
A very weird disease:
Sunday was sinus, body aches, slight fever;
Monday was body aches, headaches and sore throat;
Tuesday was sore throat, body aches, post nasal and digestion;
Wednesday was digestion, post nasal, slight fevers, and cough;
today is post nasal and slight cough.
The main complaints (listed first for each day) kept changing.
After five days, I think I’m about 90% better except for a weird inability to immediately speak what I am thinking, and a touch of stutter, some fogginess.
But yeah, I gargled salt water (mom insisted ;-D ) a couple times a day, tried to rest and sleep, drank tea and water and apple cider, and basically lived on that and soup.
Thank dawg for the vaccines (I had ’em all)!
Ugh. The brain fog… hope yours clears up 100% soon. I’m just recovering from mine fullly—it’s been six plus months to clear up here.
If I can figure out how to find you, I will. Thanks to some interblog bullshit, that is not easy anymore.
Reply to LizzyMom’s comment which was off topic in another thread:
It should have occurred to you that a hundred or more years may have separated a tradition among German Americans from contemporary Germans, especially with two world wars in between. Many contemporary Germans can’t tell you about customs from the mid-1840s when their country was in political flux leading to waves of immigration abroad.
See https://www.southernliving.com/holidays-occasions/christmas/christmas-pickle-tradition for a most likely explanation.
Michigan is home to several German enclaves, one of which is mentioned in the article (Berrien Springs*); another is Frankenmuth which has relied on maintaining an old world appearance to the point that it racially steered persons away from its location. (Exhibit A: realtors wouldn’t show my family homes there in the 1970s because we weren’t of German heritage and my dad was not white.) The founders of this German enclave — Bavarian, more accurately — arrived in mid-1840s less than 10 years after the territory became a state. Persons familiar with Christmas ornaments may know of Bronner’s store which has sold a crazy number of glass ornaments in its +78 years in business.
The same region of mega-pickle-producer state Michigan in which Frankenmuth is located also grows pickles, many of which end up in fast food across the US. A large percentage of the farmers who raise them are of German heritage. Chances are very good Bronner’s was the nexus of the Christmas pickle ornament in the US because of German glass blowers’ marketing, Bronner’s business, and the region’s agri-business.
This cultural phenomenon isn’t unlike the extra birthday candle you don’t know about — the single candle molded into the number of birthdays celebrated is a marketing schtick which has supplanted another cultural practice. The extra candle may have been brought by other cultures which don’t mark birthdays the way the west does; some east Asian cultures consider children one year old on the day of their birth.
If one born in 1970 observed their birthday this past December, would they put a molded number candle 5 and 3 on their cake? or a 5 and 4? or a 5 and 3 plus a stray single candle? It may depend on the culture into which they were born as well as the marketing to which they’ve been exposed.
*This link features an explanation attributing the Christmas pickle to Berrien Springs but their ornaments probably came from Bronner’s since they only began their Christmas pickle promo in the mid-1990s.
I was born and raised in Lansing, so Bronners and Frankenmuth’s fake-o Bavarian ambiance is very familiar. My paternal grandparents left Germany (they always claimed East Prussia, but it’s more likely Pomerania) right after the First World War. My grandmother actually travelled to the US on a Polish passport, but I never knew until it was published in her obituary, because she was ashamed of it, insisting she was German.
So, I grew up with a German enclave, and I am more than familiar with all that. My grandparents attended German church services at one of the local Lutheran churches, belonged to the local Liederkranz, etc. My dad’s older siblings grew up speaking German until they went to school, as the youngest, and born in the early 1930s, my dad only spoke English due to the influence at home of his siblings (he was the only one to have “English” forenames). Most of the kids I went to school with had names like Schneider, Schmidt, Radke (northern German), Bauer, Mueller, etc. My folks lived for a while in a small town just east of Westphalia (north of Lansing), now I live in North Rhine-Westphalia.
So, yeah, I know a lot about the German communities in Michigan (and will ignore the somewhat condescending tone). While we are on it, the reason why Charlotte, MI is pronounced “char-LOT” instead of the English “CHAR-lot” as in NC), and that’s because it’s the German pronunciation of the female forename “Char-LOT-eh” and is an artifact of its first settlers.
My husband was born in the Ruhr Valley, and can trace his paternal lineage, unbroken, back to before 1500, and includes a couple of (German) Wikipedia entries in the German. We recently discovered a distant cousin across the Rhine from us, whose “branch” split off about 7 generations ago and who we see on a regular basis now. Long, long tradition there, with the more recent history coming from
Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Silesia.
Actually, you proved my point about the “German Christmas pickle” with the story about it likely coming from Berrien Springs — which was basically my point. When something is marketed as “German”, this implication is “Old Country” German and not “US immigrant German”. I want to thank you for that, as I could never figure it out (not that I spent any time on it, but still…).
My husband’s PhD is in Ethnology (Social Anthropolgy) and mine is in Applied Linguistics, and we are both fascinated by the appropriation of cultural and linguistic elements from one culture to another. There are very strange things that happen — I lived in Belgium for 11 years and one of the things that one often found on the menu in small bistros was “filet americain”, which was raw meat, mixed with egg and some spices and spread on toast (sort of like steak tartare but with raw egg). Something which would horrify most Americans. The only connection I could ever imagine was ground meat? The Germans call a sweater vest a “Pullunder” (as opposed to a “pullover”) and find it hard to believe that it is NOT an English word, but rather some German just made it up for marketing purposes…. Halloween is now a big thing here, but wasn’t until about 15 years ago, but now the kids even have a special poem that they recite instead of just yelling “trick or treat”.
I only checked into the supposed origins of the extra candle bit because I was curious as to which category of appropriation or invention it fell into. I think you answered that for me too 😆
With all that background it’s a wonder you couldn’t 1) find the source on line yourself re origins of pickle glass ornaments, and 2) don’t have a grasp on the effects of multiple waves of immigration into Michigan including multiple waves of persons who identify now as German heritage.
The pickle thing was a long time ago for me (pre-internet) and was never worth the time or energy to follow up then… 😂 Just found it a weird thing and a funny story to tell about cultural appropriation…which I used often in lectures about such things. (It’s rather akin to the discussion about whether much of the “Chinese food” can be considered “Chinese” or not, because it was developed by Chinese immigrants to take advantage of local produce that was new to them — you can’t find many dishes in China, because their origin is actually American…)
And, yes, I am fully aware of the waves — like I am also quite aware of the Texas Germans and the Pennsylvania Deutsch…. Geez.
On my mother’s side (English), we were the first settlers on a road in Howell, which carried our family name (I heard it’s been changed but found it again when checking on something with a cousin of mine). My grandparents later bought a farm west of Lansing and most of the roads around there were named after families of the old people who still lived there when I was a kid. My first husband (a Berliner) died when we were back living in MI for a short stint and he’s buried in the family plot there, next to my grandparents and among the graves of the settlers whose names are on the roads (my family has a street named there, but in a newer subdivision built later on the farm). At the back of the cemetery, which is on the banks of the Grand River, there’s an old Indian burial mound, which is why that particular piece of land was designated as a cemetery.
And, yes, I am quite aware of the waves of German immigrants, including teh Texas Germans and the PA Deutsch. Sheesh.
Best of the season to the entire EW team! I am so grateful I followed my nose one day from a comment on WaPo article. You bring the kind of intellectual company and challenge treasured by this shut-in expat American sometimes consumed by the front-row-seat-to-history moment we live in.
Some comment here recently said something about civility being overrated. I think it has been dumbed down. This forum demonstrates every day a kind of robust civility that values difference and strong minded argument, demands clarity, and doesn’t faint at conflict. I love it when I get annoyed because I learned long ago that my favourite people were annoying – and I most certainly am too!
Keep up the good work to all! Time to increase my donation.
My second holiday season as an immune compromised shut-in was quiet like last year because lots of diseases are thriving right now. But for the second year I enjoyed the lovely offerings of friends and neighbours delivering food: a turkey dinner with beautiful bread stuffing, a slice of delicious apple crisp pie from the Lions Club (a close second to last year’s mincemeat pie), and a great selection of cookies and squares! I used to be the one cooking and caring for others at holidays and other times. Now I am learning to receive care with humbleness and gratitude.
Thanks again for being such good company. Blessings to all as we bask in the dark and await the returning light.
Small contribution sent. Hope I got the email and name right.
Main point: For the past 4 or 5 days the RSS feed has not been working.
“Refresh feed ‘Blogs\emptywheel’ failed with error: hexadecimal value 0x15, is an invalid character. Line 550, position 16.”
It has been a Covid Christmas here, tested positive on the 25th, largely recovered now. Seems all those vaccinations helped. Wife and daughter about one day behind me with the virus.
Happy new year.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the same username and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. I believe you’ve used a different given name with the same family name on previous posts, unless you’re one of a family who has posted here before. Thanks also for the heads up about the RSS feed, I will look into it, hope it was just a temporary glitch with WordPress. /~Rayne]
Thanks for your support which keeps the site running. Your continued readership is appreciated.
Very sorry to hear you and your family got the bug. I hate to think how many of us would be much worse off had we not had the vaccines and boosters.