We have a winner! (+ Cranberries!)

Congrats to Barbicide43 of the blog SweetBee/43!!! you have won the book give-away! I just need your e-mail address so I can have the publisher contact you. THANKS to everyone who participated....

 I love to cook the Thanksgiving day meal..and this year I am preparing the turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, fresh baked onion rolls, and 2 kinds of cranberry sauce. I always make plain cranberry sauce---as a child in Alaska we always picked wild lingonberries for our cranberry sauce--so I prefer home made cranberry sauce. In addition to the traditional cranberry sauce I also make my own very own Ginger Orange Cranberry Sauce---which is always a hit.

Here is my recipe for:

Ginger Orange Cranberry Sauce

 4 cups fresh cranberries
1 orange
a handful of crystalized or candied ginger
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup sugar

Chop the candied ginger into small pieces. Grate the orange (make zest) and then peel the orange and chop the pulp. Put all ingredients into a pan and cook until the berries pop and everything is cooked together about 1/2 hour? ---taste and add more sugar if you like your sauce sweeter.

Sauce will still be somewhat runny but that is ok. Pour sauce into serving dish and chill and it will set up nicely. Serve with turkey and trimmings...yum!

optional: you can add raisens, chopped pecans, and spices like cinnamon and cloves, but I prefer the above combo ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving to ALL!

G is for Gratitude

Gratitude has been my theme this month---since it is the month we give thanks as a nation on Thanksgiving Day. (Giving thanks is a form of gratitude.) For years I have kept a journal--more a doodling and art ideas journal than a writing journal--but most days I do write a page of my "gratitudes" in my journal. I just list everything in my life I am grateful for and even if I have had a very bad day this process restores my sense of well-being.

I also have been trying to foster a new habit--when I feel grateful toward someone else --for whatever reason--I try to express it either verbally or by writing them a thank you note.
"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it"(---William Arthur Ward.) I have discovered the more I express my gratitude, the more grateful I feel.

I believe our mostly greedy culture here in America could benefit greatly from all of us forming the habit of exspressing our gratitudes on a daily basis. What are you grateful for?

Mom's extra good Holidaze (Egg)Nog

This is the best best eggnog ever--and the eggs are cooked in this eggnog--so no danger of the dreaded food poisoning. WARNING: if you make this eggnog you will never buy commercially made eggnog again!

Note** the "Mom" here is me. also--if you like your eggnog spiked, add some brandy or rum to your taste for that delicious holiday drink.....


This is my very first blog post from my new hometown of Portland, Oregon (AKA Stumptown)---created using my daughter's computer since it will be some time before I have my computer all set up and I am back online....more on the wonders of Portland to come in future blog posts.

Today's Quote: "Blessed be the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love."---Anon

Vacation plus Moving Time!

Dear Blog Readers,

Please Note:

I will be offline for about a week and half due to feasts, giving thanks, family, and physically moving all my household goods 695 miles from Oakland, California to Portland, Oregon. Pacific Northwest here I come!!!! HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

I published this true Thanksgiving story a few years ago here--however, since it is my very favorite Thanksgiving story --- I have decided to repeat it this year for all my new blog readers....

An ALASKAN HALIBUT THANKSGIVING

One year in the small Alaskan fishing town where I lived the turkeys and trimmings failed to arrive. Since we lacked a grocery store that sold meat of any kind (except canned) everyone in town had placed their Thanksgiving dinner order with the grocery store in the next larger town (Sitka) to arrive the Tuesday before Thanksgiving on the mailplane. That year a thick fog came up which lasted for days, preventing the mailplane--a small floatplane that navigated by sight---from arriving and delivering everyone's Thanksgiving dinner orders. Needless to say, this turn of events caused much disappointment around town--but you can't argue with Mother Nature who controlled the weather (and thus much of the time our lives.)

What were we to do? Everyone busily checked their pantries and hauled out the home canned salmon and some of the more enterprising folks went out hunting for deer ( but had no luck).

Later that day, an announcement came over the CB's (we all had CB radios in our homes--tuned to the same channel for inter-town communication, since we had no telephones at all)---"I just landed a 180 pound halibut--so just come on down to the dock and get your portion for your Thanksgiving dinner." Everyone in town converged on the dock--where the fisherman was cutting up huge chunks of fresh caught halibut to share with everyone; soon a bottle of rum appeared, then some beer, then some local smoked salmon and homemade bread and other food and we proceeded to have an impromptu before-Thanksgiving-day party on the dock as the fish was passed out. We toasted the fisherman, the ocean which provided our dinner, and each other.

So on that Thanksgiving day everyone in town sat down to a scrumptious halibut dinner and all gave proper thanks to the sea which provided our livelihood and our food, to the fisherman who caught our dinner, and to all our family and neighbors with whom we were sharing this meal in our community hall. After eating, we moved aside the tables, the musicians began to play some lively music and we had a Thanksgiving dance....then the party lasted until the wee hours.

Two days later the mailplane finally arrived and everyone cooked their turkey and trimmings and sat down to another Thanksgiving dinner---but the whole town agreed that the previous Halibut Thanksgiving was the best one the town ever had.




Quote for the Day:

[I give thanks....]

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Giving Thanks...

The year has turned its circle,
The seasons come and go.
The harvest all is gathered in
And chilly north winds blow.

Orchards have shared their treasures,
The fields, their yellow grain,
So open wide the doorway ---
Thanksgiving comes again!



THANKSGIVING
Count your blessings instead of your crosses;
Count your gains instead of your losses.
Count your joys instead of your woes;
Count your friends instead of your foes.
Count your smiles instead of your tears;
Count your courage instead of your fears.
Count your full years instead of your lean;
Count your kind deeds instead of your mean.
Count your health instead of your wealth;
Count on Spirit instead of yourself.

For me Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on the changes---to remember that we, too, grow and change from one season of life to another. Let us remember the true meaning of Thanksgiving and let us give thanks in our hearts.

Of Turkeys and Cranberries

I live in a (small) city--surrounded by more cities---Berkeley, California. There are hills---called the Oakland hills--on the edge of our neighborhood ---which are pretty much wild and overgrown. This past fall, a flock of wild turkeys wandered down from the hills and traversed our neighborhood for several weeks....yep, here in California we do have wild turkeys--but it was rather weird to see them in our city neighborhood....and they seemed rather nonplussed to find themselves on the cement sidewalk or street--"where is the brush?" you imagined them asking each other.

They were not really afraid of us humans, though---and we could approach fairly close to the flock. After awhile we got used to them, and would patiently stop our cars to let them cross a busy street, and hardly bat an eye when they invaded the sidewalk in front of the house. Then---after becoming part of the hood, no longer talked about much--just one of the crowd---one day they just disappeared---they went back up into the hills, we supposed.

Now--bear in mind, I was raised in Alaska in a hunting family---hunting for meat on the table was serious fall activity in my family. Also butchering and wrapping (for the freezer) the game you shot was a fall activity. So I just could not help myself--every time I saw those wild turkeys I thought, "There goes dinner!"

Another Alaskan fall and Thanksgiving memory for me involved visiting the local "wild cranberry" patch. Actually, I think they were lingonberries--but in Alaska we called them "low bush cranberries," and they grew in a bog or wet mossy area---termed the "muskeg." One crisp, cold blue sky fall day my Mom would get the berry picking pails, tell me to put on my rubber boots and off we would go to pick cranberries--so we could have fresh cranberry sauce/relish (to go with the wild goose my father had shot) on Thanksgiving Day.

Aurora's Cranberry Relish

4 cups fresh cranberries
2 cups sugar
1/2 to 1 cup fresh apple or orange juice
3 oranges
1/2 cup candied ginger
1 cup raisins

Put cranberries, sugar, juice, ginger, and raisins in a pan on the stove. Slice one orange and chop the slices in small pieces and add. Grate the skin of the other 2 oranges and add. Cook on medium heat until the cranberries pop ---stir frequently so is doesn't stick---simmer about an hour. Cool slightly and pour into a nice serving dish--best if refrigerated overnight so flavors may mingle.

Note: Any or all of these ingredients may vary--I usually make this with what I have on hand--sometimes I add other dried fruit if I don't have raisins, or a chopped fresh apple. Don't worry about this not being sweet enough--taste it---if it is too sour for your taste, just add more sugar.