what we reap

Christ­mas — after all the plan­ning, choos­ing, trav­el­ling, envelope-licking, parcel-wrapping, food-shopping and antic­i­pa­tion –finally arrived.  ‘Twas the sea­son of unex­pected knocks on the door, vis­i­tors bring­ing presents on a rush of cold air, blue-flamed logs burn­ing in the fire­place, dozens of can­dles flick­er­ing, cars pulling up into the dri­ve­way and let­ting out the peo­ple we’ve waited months to see.  My beau­ti­ful mother, for example!

What a year she has had.  There has been the sad­ness and anx­i­ety over my father, her adjust­ing to being left alone to deal with the end­less prob­lems our child­hood home has pre­sented her with, and then, last month, a heart scare that brought unex­pected surgery and recov­ery.  My brother and sis­ter have been there to sup­port her through every­thing, but I have been able to see her only twice, wor­ry­ing from afar and feel­ing that awful tug of being very, very far away.  To be able to hug her and chat with her, gos­sip and eat together, made Christ­mas a real gift.  And noth­ing says daugh­ter love like… dev­illed eggs!  Her very favorite.

Mom’s Dev­illed Eggs

(makes 2 dozen)

12 eggs

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tsp curry powder

sea salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

paprika for dusting

Place eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water.  Bring to a rolling boil and then turn off heat, cov­er­ing the pan.  Leave eggs in boiled water for 15 min­utes, then drain water and place eggs in a bowl and cover with run­ning cold water for minute or two.  Peel eggs and cut in half length­wise, then remove yolks and place in a small bowl.  Mash with a potato masher and mix in all over ingre­di­ents except paprika.  Arrange egg whites on a plat­ter and spoon the yolk mix­ture into each.  Dust with paprika and serve.

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Christ­mas Eve saw all of us gath­ered around in the toasty holiday-ish house, my mother admir­ing the Christ­mas tree with its mass of orna­ments old and new, my mother in law tak­ing loads of pho­tos, John tor­ment­ing Jane (or was it the other way around)…

Between stir­ring things and set­ting the table, I man­aged to get Molly up against the “mea­sur­ing door.”  She’s such a tiny lit­tle sprout.

We ate.  My, how we ate!  Oys­ter stew (I had bought an entire GAL­LON of oys­ters, which sounds insane, but we ate every last one, eventually).

We also had four-cheese mac­a­roni and cheese for the kids, and as a nod to my child­hood tra­di­tions, a pile of rather dread­ful egg rolls.

And I suc­cess­fully lit the hydrangea tree can­dles, very lucky to have hit upon a nearly breeze­less night.

Avery indulged her new pas­sion for pho­tog­ra­phy, brav­ing the chilly night air.

Anne and David popped over to deliver Kate for a visit with her beloved chum Molly.  Their piano duet added a lot to the Christ­mas Eve festivities.

Christ­mas Day dawned cold and fair — no sign of snow this whole hol­i­day, as a direct result, I think, of John’s mom hav­ing given us all incred­i­bly cool snow­shoes for Christ­mas!  We stare at them long­ingly.  Under the tree were the per­fect presents for and from every­one.  Avery gave me this print.  So, so Avery.

I gave John eye­lashes.  Yes, eye­lashes, for our Fiat Cinque­cento in Lon­don.  Here’s how the reac­tion to that present went:

Me: “You don’t look thrilled.  Don’t you want the car to have eyelashes?”

John: “Well, it feels slightly… emasculating.”

Avery: “Daddy, you drive a Cinque­cento.  That ship has already sailed.”

There were the usual iPhoto books and reg­u­lar books — I gave John a first edi­tion of Vita Sackville-West’s his­tory of her ances­tral home, Knole.  Avery of course got a camera.

Or two cam­eras.  Or three, I for­get.  She and John and John’s mom share the obsession.

John gave me hats for my eggs, as befits a girl who gives her hus­band eye­lashes for his car.

We packed our­selves up and jumped in the car to go to Jill and Joel’s.  About five min­utes into the drive, Avery let out a blood-curdling scream.  “DON’T DO THAT WHEN I’M DRI­VING!” John screeched in return.  “I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m really sorry, but what just hap­pened was totally scream-worthy.  A MOUSE just jumped from the back­seat ONTO MY COL­LAR­BONE and ric­o­cheted off onto the floor!”

Every­one screamed.  We pulled off the road and jumped out of the car.  “Open all the doors!”  We stood around in the cold.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to get back in,” John said.  “We have to go; it’s Christmas.”

So we climbed gin­gerly back in and pulled into the road again.

“Awk­ward silence,” Avery said.

About ten min­utes later Rose­mary screamed.

“I didn’t think I would!” she apol­o­gized.  “I thought, ‘If it turns up again, there’s no ele­ment of sur­prise.  We know he’s here.  I won’t scream.’  But it appears to be a reflex!”

“How much longer is this drive?” Avery asked.

It was the longest 40 min­utes of our lives.

We arrived and leaped out of the car, leav­ing all the doors open and reveal­ing our story to our bewil­dered audi­ence.  “Put Snow­ball in the car and shut all the doors,” I sug­gested, refer­ring to their homi­ci­dal cat.  But it was deter­mined that a bet­ter plan was just to leave the doors open as long as pos­si­ble.  John dis­cov­ered a dis­gust­ing mouse nest in the first-aid kit area in the back and cleared it out.  “I think these are our air bags,” he said, ges­tur­ing to the pile of shred­ded nest material.

UGH.

The beauty of Jill’s dec­o­ra­tions washed away all the mou­si­ness, how­ever.  What a gor­geous house.

Christ­mas din­ner was sub­lime, and many more presents exchanged.  Among them my beau­ti­ful new mer­cury glass can­dle­sticks from my sis­ter, which graced our table on Box­ing Day.

We ate our­selves silly — Joel’s per­fect roasted turkey, my cheesy spinach and stuff­ing with fresh sage, sausage and cream, shred­ded pota­toes baked with cream cheese.  Then Jill brought out a pile of notes she’d found in her child­hood closet, writ­ten when she was Avery’s age, and she read them aloud.  Lists like “Things I hate about my life,” and then on the other side a much shorter list, “Things that are OK about my life,” and “Things to Do” which included goals like “Get Chris inter­ested in me” — with a check­mark next to it!  “Get super skinny,” “Be Vale­dic­to­rian” — another check­mark.  We laughed till we cried.

Finally home, on a beau­ti­ful moon­lit night, to see the house nes­tled in the cor­ner of the road, look­ing demure and cozy.

It has been the sort of time when we reap the ben­e­fits of all the rela­tion­ships we sow dur­ing the year.  Liv­ing so far away as we do, it some­times feels daunt­ing to stay close to all the peo­ple who “peo­ple” our life.  The next few days brought vis­its from our friends Mark and Lil­ian, who adopted the kitty Jes­sica two sum­mers ago, and Rol­lie and Judy who laughed till THEY cried over the story of the Car Ride With Santa Mouse.  We vis­ited Young Rol­l­lie and Tri­cia to meet their baby goats, and to see how much Even Younger Rol­lie has grown.

We drove into nearby Ridge­field to Luc’s Cafe to devour piles of frites and exchange Christ­mas greet­ings with our friends Shel­ley and Erik, Cas­san­dra and Rebecca.  Just look what Cas­san­dra made for us.

The most thought­ful gift I can ever imag­ine.  Thank you, Cassandra.

Through all the fes­tiv­i­ties, I looked from my mother to John’s mother, feel­ing ter­ri­bly grate­ful that with all they have been through, they are still here with us to cel­e­brate.  Look at the gor­geous pho­to­graph John’s mom took of the three gen­er­a­tions of my mom’s family.

Many beau­ti­ful images of our hol­i­day came from Avery’s new cam­era!  She has signed up for a pho­tog­ra­phy camp this sum­mer, although I can­not really see how she can learn much more.  She cap­tures so much.

Mom, Andy, Jill and I spent one after­noon together just hang­ing around their house with the two girls, watch­ing high­lights of the year in sports, play­ing board games the girls got for Christ­mas, prepar­ing a huge tray of scal­loped pota­toes to go with the ham I had brought, roast­ing in the oven.  John, his mom, Avery and Joel trooped off to the movies.  The per­fect way for all of us to spend the afternoon.

Finally with many hugs and kisses and “Merry Christ­mas” greet­ings, Mom and Andy went home.  To com­fort us from the sep­a­ra­tion, John and I cel­e­brated our 22nd wed­ding anniversary!

The best way to cel­e­brate was with a long walk across the preser­va­tion land, with our res­i­dent pho­tog­ra­pher on hand to doc­u­ment all the flora.

And to recover from all the Christ­mas food, we made the per­fect savoury dish.

Egg­plant Salsa

(serves 6)

4 tbsps olive oil

2 large egg­plants, peeled and diced

a large white onio, chopped

6 cloves gar­lic, minced

2 large cans whole plum tomatoes

large bunch flat-leaf pars­ley, chopped

sea salt and black pep­per to taste

1 1/2 cups bas­mati rice, steamed

grated Parme­san to sprinkle

Sim­ply saute the egg­plant, onion and gar­lic in the olive oil until soft.  Add toma­toes, squeez­ing them into pieces as you add them.  Sim­mer, stir­ring occa­sion­ally, for at least 1 hour.  At this point the salsa can sit until you want to heat it up to eat it.  The fla­vors improve over time.  When you are ready to eat, add the chopped pars­ley and sea­son to taste.  Serve over steamed rice and top with cheese.

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This is the per­fect anti­dote to all that stuff­ing and turkey!  And if you need another such idea, how about a mas­sive pot of spinach soup?

Spinach Soup

(serves at least 6)

2 tbsps butter

6 cloves gar­lic, chopped roughly

1 white onion, chopped roughly

2 lbs spinach leaves, washed

pinch fresh nutmeg

4 cups chicken (or duck) stock, or enough to cover about 2/3 of spinach in pot

1/2 cup light cream

Heat but­ter in a  heavy-bottomed pot.  Saute gar­lic and onion until soft, then add spinach and nut­meg and cover with stock.  Sim­mer until spinach is soft, then blitz with a hand blender and add cream.

New Year’s Eve came, and so did Anne and David and Katie, for cas­soulet and ice cream.  And the morn­ing brought an intense desire to turn the house from Christ­mas into New Year’s.  We flew about, pack­ing boxes, drag­ging trees and wreaths into the woods to join those from last year, and the year before that.  John hoovered, John’s mom and I cleaned the sil­ver and moved fur­ni­ture!  And all was tidy and fresh.

And so happy 2012 to all of you, dear read­ers.  May we all look back on 2011 with under­stand­ing and com­pas­sion for its pit­falls and losses, its joys and sor­rows.  I hope the New Year brings you all you wish for.