Christmas Rant

Christmas Rant?  Are you serious, Mayree?  Well…..  Yes.

And before anyone reads any farther to only get offended, this is a singular Christian perspective.  I’ve never professed to be anything but a member of the Presbyterian Church in America; far from perfect in all aspects of belief, but firmly staid in what I believe (which may or may not be exactly what the PCA stands for).  If you’re not a Christian, stop here. 

Where to start?  Elf on the Shelf.  He/she is as cute as the next holiday tradition but I’m kind of tired of Advent postings of a $29.95Target special making headlines on FB.  Parents have spent considerable amounts of imagination and time to make the elf appear someplace different every morning, usually with a bit of mischief in mind.  It’s to the point that demented Elf on the Shelf postings are enjoyed.  Far worse, though, what are parents teaching?  As a youngster, we studied the Children’s Catechism in Sunday School.  A question and answer ignored during rebellious years but remembered much better as an adult is “Can you see God?  Answer. No; I cannot see God, but he always sees me.”  So then, if a Christian is to train up a child in the way he should go (Proverbs 22: 6), what does it mean that God has been replaced by a cloth and stuffing image  during Christmas?  Let me rephrase that.  How comfortable are you providing an idol to your young child(ren) all for the sake of Christmas fun and tradition?  Ohhhh, Mayree!  It’s just a fun thing for the kids and parents!  Really?  Geez.  And here I thought Christmas was all about Christ and celebrating THE birth…

Next up?  Type A/Perfectionist behavior.  Let it GO already!  It took a very long time for this old gal to let go of perfectionist tendencies (a very long time), but I’m so thankful I did, especially here at Christmas.  But, Mayree!!!  Everything HAS to be perfect!  No.  It doesn’t.  So what if you didn’t get a perfect balance of starches and veggies on the menu!  **snicker** My menu is starch heavy and it’s almost irritating but the day with family and friends celebrating a Savior’s birth trumps perfectly presented victuals.  Oh!  Ran out of wrapping paper?  Tape?  Gift bags?  Nothing is open?  Have you forgotten the magic of Christmas is not in the gifts but in the giving?  What’s that?  You didn’t find/couldn’t afford the one thing your child asked for?  Me neither.  And you know what?  I’m blessed to have children that will love me despite of it.  What are you blessed with?  Whatever physical things are under the tree/on the table are enough.  The day is about sharing and showing gratitude to a God that loves us enough to give us heaven by the birth of His Son, fully God and fully man – and that’s not a thing that can be duplicated on the face of this earth.

Lastly.  The tree/Christmas decorations.  I don’t feel the least bit guilty about not having a tree put up this year.  Why?  First of all, there are no small children (woot! I’m so thankful to have successfully survived to have grown sons).  No one will be over to ooh and ah over perfect placement of lights and ornaments, halls bedecked with lights and greenery, Victorian Santa collection, or any of the other dozen boxes of decorations up in the cabinets.  “But, Mayree, how can you foster the Christmas spirit without having a tree?” you say.  I’ve seen folks agonizing over not getting a tree up until the last minutes, their Christmas villages hastily arranged in a last-ditch effort to ‘get’ the Christmas spirit.  I’d gently admonish the reader that, if it takes the tree/food/gifts/unattainable things to 'get' in the Christmas Spirit, something is amiss.  Something is not quite right.  What is it you want from Christmas?  And, more importantly, why?

I’m no Scrooge, I promise.  I love Christmas the way I love Easter.  The two are so connected that one can’t be thought of without the other.  Both are observances of Something so much larger than a human mind can comprehend, indelibly provided by an Almighty that loves us despite ourselves.  We ought to remember more thoroughly why it is we celebrate, not binding it to any other thing.

Christmas is about love.  It is about family and friends.  And giving.  Give Christmas heart.  Give Christmas your heart.

Christmas rant over!  Now y’all come on down to the Deep South.  It’s supposed to be cooler tomorrow night and there’s wood for a bon fire.  We’ll have hot buttered rums, left over starches, and burn an effigy of an elf!

Merry Christmas, y’all!

Not-Really-a-Bread-Pudding Recipe with Caramel/Sour Cream/Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur Sauce

It's all that was left!

Any given weekend there are almost always several gallon ziplock bags full of cake trimmings, i.e., the crowns sliced from cakes so they'll lay nice and flat when put together.  I do a couple of things with them:  layer them into a tub o'trimmings with the week's cake fillings, feed the deer out at Mama's (deer have a notorious sweet tooth also), or save them for bread pudding.  Yep.  Bread pudding made from cake trimmings!  That's what I did with this week's trimmings.  It was a pretty equal amount of chocolate cake and butter cake trimmings.  The amount of each one doesn't matter, though.  What matters is a very flavorful pudding, the likes of which has everyone asking for the recipe.  There really isn't one, you know, but since I've been asked for it, I'll do my best to recreate it.  

Pudding Ingredients:
8 to 10 cups of cake trimmings OR bread OR biscuits (I love bread pudding made with biscuits!)

4 eggs

1 cup milk

1 tablespoon vanilla
1 cup of sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter or margarine, melted

Crumble cake trimmings or bread into a large bowl.  Combine all other ingredients well and pour over crumbled cake, stirring everything together until cake or bread is thoroughly saturated.  Bake in large buttered casserole at 350 for as long as it takes for the center to be set, a little over an hour in my oven (but ovens vary so yours might not take as long to bake).

It was full Sunday morning!

Since I was making this for the Family Dinner Leakesville Presbyterian Church has the first Sunday of each month, I didn't particularly want to make a bourbon or a rum hard sauce.  Bread pudding just isn't bread pudding without a hard sauce though.  I had Kahlua (but it's quickly coming upon Kahlua and coffee season in the Deep South and I wanted to save it for decaf evenings on the front porch) and Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur.  MMMmmmm... Godiva...  I also didn't want to open a bag of confectioner's sugar to use and didn't want to go to the Pig to purchase a bag just for the hard sauce.  After all, my hair was already up in the hot rollers.  I got to thinking how nice a caramel flavor would be with the white chocolate.  Brown sugar would work.  I wanted something to make it creamy, too.  Sour cream was in the fridge.  I came up with this really quick recipe to satisfy all those prerequisites for a hard sauce suitable for Family Dinner.

Caramel/Sour Cream/Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur Hard Sauce 
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur or whatever is in the cabinet or not at all if you want a sauce without the 'hard'

Quickly cook brown sugar and butter in a skillet until it's the sugar is melted into the butter and it's all sizzly and buttery.  Take off heat and whisk in sour cream until smooth.  Whisk in vanilla and liqueur and serve with bread pudding.  I like to pour it all on top of the bread pudding.  My neighbor likes it spooned over individual servings.  It doesn't matter how its served - just make sure you serve it with the pudding.

Everybody loved the not-really-a-bread pudding and hard sauce.  This was all that was left to bring home: just enough to take a photo of.

Y'all give it a try sometime.  It's easy and tasty and I hope y'all love it!

Another Father's Day

I was having a difficult time concentrating in church Sunday evening.  Thomas has been leading us through the Westminster Confession of Faith, his Paulinian studies and understanding of grace enriching the wordy articles, bringing new meaning to a soul ever seeking to become better at seeing and living in The Big Picture (another story for another time).

It was Father's Day, always a distraction.  A child's memory saw the congregation from the family pew third from the back on the left side of the aisle facing the pulpit.  Daddy anchored the aisle, Mama sat at the opposite end, the five of us between them, scrubbed clean,  in starched and ironed clothes and spit shined shoes.

Baptism in the Presbyterian Church in America carries a charge to the congregation to raise a child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  We had many father-figures to look after us:  Matt Walley, Mr. Haddon, Sinkie McKay, Chris Graham, Pete Smith, Basil Basila, Evans Martin, H.E. McInnis, Ken McInnis, Sonny Rush, Uncle Sherman, George Cecil...  The charge isn't exclusive to Wednesdays and Sundays, it includes every moment of every day (and sleep if necessary).  I see their smiles, can hear them sing their favorite hymns, feel their encouragement, know the genuine love given to a child of their own in the scope of the universal family through Christ.

There's Daddy in the background.  I have no clue why he was toting 

a gun.  See the hat?  And the khakis?

The memory of our own daddy fills my heart;  the way his hat was always cocked to one side, bright flashing brown eyes, his small frame with the quick step constantly outfitted in khakis (probably why I despise ironing - he insisted on heavy starch), the smell of his shaving soap, the sound of him working down in the shop usually singing "I'm an old cowhand (from the Rio Grande)."

I miss him - especially as Father's Day winds down.  Did you have an excellent day with your daddy?  I'd like to think y'all have called them or fixed their favorite meals and desserts or gave them another tie or pair of houseshoes or Old Spice to let them know they were thought about and appreciated.  I pray that as you both get older you become more and more dear to each other.  And when the time comes to face Father's Day without them, I hope you've the fullness of memory to get through it like I've just done; wrapped in a hug from the past.

The Cake Pops That Never Were i.e., Betrayed by Thursday and Friday and OH! a Tornado

The electricity is off right now.  The cell phone, with only three bars of battery, tells me it's 9:23 p.m.  The flashing lights of the big power company trucks rolled by the street-side bedroom window a few moments ago.  I'm writing in longhand by candlelight, guessing at the lines.

Tomorrow our Women In the Church (WIC) is to host the Southern Region Meeting of Grace Presbytery WIC.  It's a full morning of snacking, singing, praying, devotions, fund-raising, accounting of church activities, more singing, more praying, and eating again.  The ladies of our small church have the reputation of being some of the finest cooks in the South.  The visitors will be expecting a fantastic spread.

It's a big to-do, hosting the Regional Meeting.  I've the responsibility of cooking the brisket; slow roasted, fork tender, and most juicy.  I'm making a fabulous dessert 'cause dessert is what I do best, riiiight?  I should have gone for something chocolate.

I was going to make the programs for the meeting Wednesday morning.  I didn't.  Microsoft Office/Word frustrates me to no end!  An hour of copy-paste-undo-edit of tortured existence was spent clackety-clacking on the keyboard of the archaic desk top computer.  I stared morosely at the screen, praying for enlightenment.  Noah came instead, requiring breakfast and other attentions. WOOT woot!  We've been potty training the last two weeks.  I say we:  recognizing his full-bladder body language is just as pertinent to potty training as his own awareness it's full.  It's a team effort.  I was glad to use Noah and the picture perfect weather as an excuse to procrastinate.  He ate, pottied, and we went outside.

This is where the week starts its downward spiral (pffffft!  If you knew the awful pun I'd just made you'd call me up and tell me Mama was right:  she does have four wonderful sons and then that gal).  I wanted to make an edible arrangement.  Nnnnno.  Not one of those pineapple-y, orange-y, melon-y things.  I did one of those only once and am content to let the good folks that enjoy doing that continue to enjoy them without any competition from me.  Ohhh no.  I was going to make these http://cindyeckhart.com/cutie-pie-cake-pops-are-sweeeet/, cake balls (or bonbons) on a stick.  I was going to cut construction paper petals to push up the stick, like I had seen a paper crafter do with the marshmallows, get leather leaf from Wade, and have the cutest awesome-est tastiest dessert ever.  These visiting ladies would remember it and me and the cakery's territory would expand.  It's what I get for thinking big and proud.  I should have known better.

Yesterday it was time to make the cake pops.  I wanted a peanut butter flavor to them so I added a big blop of my favorite generic brand to the pink icing.  Yep.  Pink butter cream icing left over from last week, just the right amount to mix with the also-left-over cake trimmings that had been put in the freezer.  The peanut butter butter cream icing is a nondescript color that doesn't appear in nature but it's ever so tasty and can be piped!

 Do you ever know something isn't going to work but just have to try it anyways?  I don't know why I bothered with the big measuring cup, knowing a larger bowl was required.  That's the start of messing up dishes for the next six hours or so.

This stuff is good!  Every one is going to love them.  I thought I'd use the melon scoop so each cake pop would be exactly the same size.  I'd still be scooping if I continued to use it.  It was abandoned after a dozen scoops.  Four minutes into the project and that's kitchen item number two used briefly and now occupying space in the dirty-dish side of the sink. 

All rolled out and thoroughly chilled, it was time to afix the lollipop sticks to the cake balls -- except there aren't any more lollipop sticks.  Not a problem;  I've plenty of bamboo skewers.  I can envision the arrangement - SO stinking cute!  Two small measuring cups later (one for the almond bark, one for the chocolate) the cake balls with bamboo skewers rigidly upright are back in the refrigerator chilling again.

If I'd served them uncoated with the petals and everything I wonder if the visiting PresWIC ladies would have know they were supposed to be any other way?  I didn't think to think like that, proceeding through actions that only frustrated more and more with each hour. 

The cake pops weren't meant to be.  As I tried to dip them in the melted almond bark, the skewers would either come completely out or would punch through the top.  I carefully rewarmed the almond bark with a bit of shortening to thin it out and that didn't work either.  Worse!!  I got distracted with two squares of the stuff in the microwave and did my own Chickasawhay River design in scorched-bark-medium inspired by McCarty's Pottery.   Another dirty dish.

Putting the almond bark in the squeeze bottle to get it on the cake pops was a two-part bad idea.  The first part of bad was thinking I could melt the bark in the bottle and stir it smooth.  The second part was thinking I could somehow get it to the underside of the cake pop where the skewer was attached without the cake ball falling off.  I reiterate:  two-part bad idea.  Now there's the cutting board, a knife, and a squeeze bottle dirty.  And half of the almond bark mostly on the counter and the floor, but not on the cake balls.

I decided to abandon the idea of cake pops and just make awesome cake balls.  I had plenty of pretty and petite paper muffin cups.  I could dip them in icing, drizzle with the last of the almond bark, sprinkle a few with pecans and the ladies would still ooh and ahhh.

A handful of times, I've warmed icing to make a drizzling/dipping medium.  I had plenty of other pink icings in the refrigerator left over from last week.  It's a ladies' meeting and ladies like pink.  I could use some of that!  Exasperation does bad things to your thought processes, like not allowing logic or something.  I didn't think to see which icings were what and pulled out cream cheese icing.  "Oh," I hear your thoughts, "why would that make any difference?"  I wouldn't have though it would have either but  I was beyond irritated and unable to think.  All that fat in the peanut butter butter cream filling caused all that fat in the very warm cream cheese icing to just roll on off.  Rechilling didn't help.   I was NOT dipping the cake balls in pink icing.

Trying to get to some point of accomplishment for the entire morning gone heading into the afternoon, I melted  the chocolate bark and dipped half the cake balls without incident, even managing to get on the sprinkles of toasted pecans or peanuts.

Forget the oohs and ahhs, remembered good impressions, and expanded cakery territory.   I want this OVER with.  The last two squares of almond bark are attended more carefully in their melting process than England's new princess-to-be.  The ugly things are dipped, their warped-by-now shape shoddily camouflaged with pecans and/or peanuts that were not originally planned for them.  They're done.  Ugly mistakes are 'disappeared' around here, the horrid ugly ones consumed by the children, parents, myself and the dog - a scant two dozen of them going for the ladies' meeting.

Friday I worked the entire morning on the meeting's program, managing to figure out all that was necessary with the word processing program.  MS Help really isn't any help at all when you're Microsoft Office Challenged.  Some marvelous kids' blog was more helpful than all the techno-babble from any hundred sites viewed trying to make the template for the program.  You could tell from his language that he was a youngster or maybe he's a counselor for the word-processing-programs disadvantaged folks like me.  Bless his heart, I understood him perfectly. The program was assembled, printed and copied.  I dropped those off at the church and did some last minute decorating, making it home around 6:30 this evening. 

The tornado siren has been sounding every few minutes the entire afternoon.  I don't pay it a lot of attention.  The wind picked up.  The neighbor called.  We were on the phone when the tornado came tearing through this small community in the very Deep South of Mississippi.  I watched its dark form occupy the view for several seconds out the parlor window.  There will be no Grace PresWIC Regional Meeting here tomorrow.  The cake balls very suddenly and forcibly have been put in their inconsequential place in the Big Scheme of Things.  But that's another story...