Socks in Box - But Not a Sock's Box at Longe Christmas

Jessica, my son's girlfriend received the first gift to open at our family Christmas Eve celebration after we toasted with Veuve Clicquot bubbly. Immediately a question of where it was made in France arose but the answer wasn't on the bottle. Though out of sequence for the usual festivities, I handed her a package and told her that the answer would be found there. As she ripped off the first revealing strip of wrapping paper, her voice rose with excitement, "we have our own bottle!"

"In this household," I reminded her, "Don't ever trust a box." She found a nice pair of Smart Wool socks in the pretty orange box. The answer wasn't on the box, either.

We returned to the usual progression of events, first up - stockings. I'm pretty much the stocking keeper for our family. As adults we all contribute. I stuff my contribution that follows tradition of a little candy, maybe peanuts and small silly or practical items. This year two stockings had measuring spoons I'd picked up at a trade show in the original "Innovate IT" packaging, a peanut butter and chocolate bar for Alex, dark chocolate caramel's for Karen hair bands for Jess and other stuff I'd found and stashed over the year. When Jess and Alex arrived, he saw the stockings, told me not to look as he added to them. When Karen arrived, she told us not to peek and added more. Though no ritual for opening, we pretty much go round the room, watching one person at a time take something out and commenting. Two salts from Iceland were the first items I found - over the years I've realized it's good to have a world traveling stocking-stuffer family members.


Alex found a 3" rubber chicken. Not from me, obviously it came from his Aunt Karen, also the Icelandic traveler. She and I howled as she relayed the story of the big rubber chicken she'd given Alex in 96 or '97 when he was eleven or twelve years old. For years it was passed back and forth showing up at each other's birthdays, always at Christmas and best, inbetween the sheets, hanging by the neck in a closet or in one of their suitcases. The chicken went missing, probably in moves since college. The replica was a good digestive laugh to remember that silliness.

Gift giving in our family is a wonderful expression of tradition and  humor... like the  socks and the rubber chicken. As I get older, I hope Alex will soak this up and carry the silly traditions that our parents shared with us and came from their parents.  

With Alex in grad school now and his finances tight I'd covered the cost of some items he needed in the name of Christmas. He didn't  have the usual bounty of packages. Though, he opened a Dom Perignom box (it has buttons to unlock it!) where he found a bag of dried fruit and nuts with a note Remember the suit. Silly.

At one point, I ripped the paper off a DVD tax prep program from Alex. He seems to find thoughtful, practical gifts that relate to things we've talked about. "Look at it, Mom." Socks fell out. I'd fallen for my own joke. He does pay attention. They were especially funny Rosie the Riveter socks - not the usual muscle showing Rosie, more... well, an Italian arm gesture sock, that he'd found at the Sock Magic in Santa Fe. The socks in DVD cloaking also brought down the house with extra stories of our tradition of visits to places he's studied... France and Argentina his junior year of college and this year New Mexico while completing an investment bank internship. The photo shows Karen and Alex in front of the Sock Magic store.

Our champagne turned to espresso as we wound down to the end of the gifts. My last one was a fabulous set of plein air watercolor brushes the length of pencils that makes them perfect for tucking into a purse or pocket. Like I said, Alex finds the perfect presents. I just have to remember his diabolical side that he seemed to learn from me.

Karen opened her last gift, wrapped with ribbon and elegant white sparkly paper. Inside, protected by sheets of matching white tissue, the original rubber chicken from Alex. Still smiling from Christmas Eve.

ps. Veuve Clicquot is made in Reims France. 

Best Paleo Bread... So far

Finally! I've now tried at least 15 different recipes for bread with combinations of fruits and nuts.  This one turned out to be the tastiest as well as the best texture and it's the simplest to make. From the original recipe  it took my oven a little longer to bake, but that could be due to the ripeness (runniness) of the  bananas, the size of the eggs or my oven thermostat.  

I served this with a frittata (Alton Brown's Italian omelet), citrus fruit salad and champagne for a quick Christmas Eve brunch.. Easy, festive and tasty. I put honey and grass-fed cow butter (Kerrygold) on the table and noticed that guests tried both, but it doesn't need anything to sweeten or en-fatten it.

Directions, Preheat the oven at 350, line a loaf pan with parchment paper and schmear with coconut oil. 

2 Ripe bananas- ( Mine were yellow with some softening, but not blackening)

2 Eggs (I used large organic)

1/4 C Coconut Oil

2 C Almond flour

1 t Baking Powder

1/4 t salt

2 C Mix of dried fruits chopped I used (dried blueberries, cranberries, cherries and dates, all came from Trader Joes except the cherries that came from Door County, WI) BTW, Fresh fruit will not work.

2 C Mix of nuts (I used 1 C chopped walnuts, and mixed the second with pistachios, almond slices and pecans

2 T Flax seeds

Puree the bananas, add in the eggs (I used a food processor and swished the eggs a couple times and add coconut oil.  Switch to a bowl if you're using the food processor and mix in almond flour, baking powder and salt. Fold in the fruits, nuts and seeds to distribute throughout. 

Once you mix the ingredients pour into the prepared loaf pan and push into corners. It doesn't rise, so what you see is what you'll get. Bake for 40 minutes. Test with 3/4 into it with a knife to see if cooked through, it;s not if ingredients stick to the blade. If so, put in for a few more minutes. 

After cooling it, wrap in plastic and refrigerate. Cut with a serrated (rippled) knife. 

In several other recipes that I've tried, at this point the bread crumbles. Not this recipe. The consistency is firm and chewy, and not dry or a mouth workout. 

If you make it, let me know the combo of fruit and nuts you used and if you'd recommend them. 

Thanks. 

Longe Life Lesson 64,230 Following Directions

After cleaning up the honey from Longe Life Lesson 64,229, I noticed a sign just below the microwave buttons that reads, Remove Protective Film Before Use. Always compliant, I removed it immediately having used the oven since November 2011. 

Longe Life Lesson 64,229 Honey in the Microwave

When needing to liquify honey that's crystallized, do not place the container top down in the microwave and immediately open the pour-top. Who knew? Honey explodes stickiness.

Plane Air December

To Dallas                           To Tucson                   To Chicago

                   

Sketching Arizona

On my way to Tucson

Sunrise over the J W Marriott firepit. Not long after I sat down, last Sunday morning I organized my painting paraphernalia  and started to capture the stripes in the sky. A man in a ski jacket entered the circle and stood facing the same view directly in front of me. I made a snide comment, like, let me know if I get in your way. He placed a couple things on chairs nearby and mumbled something about the sunrise that I didn't quite hear or understand. Awhile later, as I finished the plein air sketch, a man dressed in Navajo garb came and stood directly in front of me again to block "my" view. A bit miffed, I took a breath his time and said nothing out of embarrassment that I said something before. Luckily... I realized it was the same man.  He placed sage on the fire and bowls of it around the pit. He pulled a flute from his bag and described an honoring song to all those who came before.. I put down my brush, closed my sketch book and relinquished "my" view. Like he said, "To all my relations." 

At Miraval - The hot tub and a view of Mt. lemon

A fireplace at the Westward Look Resort in Tucson.

A high contrasting room to Westward Look at the post modern Palomar in Phoenix.

Architectural Artifacts, Chicago and Painting Like Hemingway

When plein air is too cold in Chicago...

A couple Sundays back, I spent more than an hour wandering around Architectural Artifacts, an antiques warehouse on Chicago's north-side Ravenswood area (right by the El), where five-foot cheese burgers go to rest... on top of merry-go-round horses or counter from a jewelry store. Seriously, every few feet, I found myself reminded of grade school or the time we..... There are all kinds of items I said, what the hell? In one room, there were several high top tables standing at different heights - waste, neck sternum-tall with a round stainless surface on top of an industrial-sized slinky. You could press on it and it would go up or down - no hydraulics. They must have been used in some kind of manufacturing that a workman needed to maneuver from bottom to top on a big piece of something. If I only had room for one! (Gratefully, I don't.)

It took a lot of hunting to find a place where I could sit, lay out my brushes and paints where it would be convenient to me and out of the way of anyone else, and with a view I wanted to paint. Ok, that last point is moot - the place overwhelmed with possibility. What surprised me was the finding that once I sat still and narrowed my view, what I intended to paint went out of focus. Instead, saw angels - literally, angels on the bank work stand. Each of the four legs of the table held a different metal sculpture with opulent detail. I wonder how many people really saw them? I didn't until I sat nearly eye to eye with them, but they were at a stand up table. I wish I knew the thinking behind them... the interior designers consideration for telling the inner story of a bank... Here at the altar of commerce, I commend my money. The angel I looked at directly spread it's arms and wings, the one in the distance with flowing robes nearly took flight. The other two were behind lout of sight behind other furniture and artifacts.

To paint this, I sat on a black metal bench that had ridges creating a serpentine of Ss down the middle to outline where butts (small ones, by the way) should rest in a Brazilian ice cream parlor. Every two sections for seating, the designer placed a twelve-inch round on a pole to serve as a table. On one of those, I placed my watercolors and cup of water, and on my lap my Arches watercolor board.  (You know how every interest and hobby has it's efficiencies? For watercolor, Arches paper  company stacks high quality paper bound to a heavy hard cardboard - a rip-off note-pad of watercolor paper. The rubber binding in this case goes around all but an inch of the entire stack. No matter how much water one puts on the paper in the process of painting, the next page of the stack doesn't get wet. A miracle innovation! I carry a mini-Swiss army knife to gingerly remove a page from the deck to begin a new piece.)

You, as a reader, may already notice that I have trouble editing. I try to include too many thoughts, and too many words. This is a personality flaw and not confined to writing. My painting is the same. I wish I could include every hair, freckle, crack and dust-mite. I wish I could, but I also don't have the patience. There is way too much to say or paint. I want to paint like Hemingway's complete six-word story... "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn."  Bam! What a word picture. Right?

Unfortunately, I've also learned from writing that the brilliance isn't in the words you first lay down, it's about the editing. This painting is hugely edited. There were many more things on the walls, hanging from the ceiling and on the table tops in view between the angels and me. 

My guess is that when I go back again, the items will be sold or moved and I won't be able to attempt the same view again,  though I'd like to do so. I will remind myself, no matter what I find, to narrow my focus to see more.

BTW, Architectural Artifacts is also an event space where I want to be invited... maybe throw a party. There's info to the event planner at the link above.