New England Mamas

All I want for Christmas. . .

Yeah, yeah, I know. I should be wishing for world peace and a cure for diabetes and for no one to be hungry again and I do want those things, but wishing for those things is impractical. If I want world peace and a cure for diabetes and an end to hunger, I need to volunteer or contribute to organizations doing such work.

But what I really want for Christmas is something shiny.

Because Santa shouldn't be the only one getting cookies at Christmas

It's cookie-baking season!

One year, in a fit of temporary insanity, I made six different types of cookies. In one night.

This was one of the recipes I used, courtesy of Ina Garten. I love her. She obviously loves food and even though her show can be a bit precious, her recipes are dead on. This one is no exception.  They have the added bonus of impressing the pants off of whoever receives them, which could be a nice bonus, depending on the givee. I'm just sayin'....

Julia and Julia: how Julia Child helped me conquer rye

I love rye bread. Love, love, love it. Love the tang that it has, love how it tastes when it's toasted, love it when it has roast beef or ham or a Reuben (mmmmm, Reubens) on it. Love rye bread. However, I suck at baking it myself. 

Today I thought I'd attempt it once again. Usually, I modify a white bread recipe, which may be part of my problem. I can't leave well enough alone, I have to try to tweak other recipes. I took on a sacred cow today - Julia Child. *gulp* 

Here's Julia's original recipe, with my modifications in parentheses.

Pumpkin Bread

I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com. It's one of my go-to sites. Usually, the recipes are tasty and not too complicated to make. I figured, what with all this holiday folderol upon us, a recipe for a good pumpkin bread would be nice.

Here's what you need:

1 15 ounce can of pumpkin (unless, of course, you're very motivated and want to puree your own. If that's your thing, have at it. I'm lazy. I used canned.)
4 eggs
1 c vegetable oil (I used olive oil because it's the only oil I ever have in my house and I like to kid myself that it somehow makes desserts slightly less bad for me.)
2/3 c water
3 c sugar (I used 2 cups white and 1 cup of brown because that's what I had on hand.)
3-1/2 c flour (You could, I suppose, use half wheat flour. I didn't because, again with the lazy.)
2 t baking soda
1-1/2 t salt (I used kosher because I worship at the altar of Alton Brown and that's what he always uses. Lemming? Me? Pshaw.)
1 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg (Here is where I shall get all snobby on you and say that you really, really, really should use whole nutmeg and grate it yourself. It beats the pants off the powdered crap.)
1/2 t ground cloves (I didn't have any of these so I used pumpkin pie spice.)
1/4 t ginger

Heat the oven to 350.

- If you don't have one of those oven thermometers, I strongly suggest getting one. I found out today that I need one after this recipe took 25 minutes longer than suggested to bake. Guess what I'm buying tomorrow?

Grease and flour 3 7" x 3" loaf pans.

- I totally cheated and bought the throwaway aluminum ones. I don't bake enough to warrant buying three new pans.

Mix together the pumpkin, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended.

- This will look disgusting. But keep mixing.

Stir in the dry ingredients until just blended. Pour into pans, bake for 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

- Or, if your oven is like mine, keep adding 10 minutes until the skewer you used, which you had to use because your 5 year old dumped the toothpicks all over the porch, comes out clean.

- In a fit of must-try-to-make-this-different-itis, I stirred chocolate chips into one pan and dried cranberries into another. The third I left plain.

Now, I'd love to show you a gorgeous picture here, but while I was at work tonight, the above-mentioned 5 year old and her charming little sister stuck their grubby little mitts in each loaf.  So I'll just say that the bread is yummy. I liked the cranberry one the best, but they were all tasty.

Like A Kid At Christmas

In about 2 hours, the New Hampshire primary returns are going to start rolling in.  I've been pumped about this all day, checking the clock, clicking on CNN and MSNBC obsessively, leg jiggling, waiting, waiting, waiting for those numbers to start coming up on the screen. 

I was watching Hardball last night and heard Joe Scarborough invoke that K word in reference to Barack Obama - you know the one.  Kennedy.  Not Jack but Bobby.  Scarborough said that not since June 1969 have people been this hopeful about a candidate.  I wasn't around for the whole Kennedy era, so I don't know if this is true or not, but I have never felt this excited about a candidate.  Not even when Bill Clinton ran and I was pretty excited about him. 

The only thing I can chalk this up to is that people are really fucking sick of George W. Bush and his idiotic, ill-advised war, not to mention the litany of other issues - Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby, Alberto Gonzales, The Axis of Evil, the plummeting economy, the high unemployment rate...it really never ends.  For the longest time, I felt like I was one of a small minority of voices hollering into the howling void, demanding that something, anything, be done about King George and his minions.   

Slowly, slowly, things have started to change.  People are questioning, openly, sometimes loudly, what is going on in Washington.  People are sick of politicians, angry with Republicans and Democrats alike, and this energy and excitement that surrounds Barack Obama seems to be a direct answer to that anger.

So what is it about Obama that has people mesmerized?  He is charismatic, definitely.  He is not a Washington insider, which definitely is in his favour, considering how sick and tired the country seems to be of politics as usual.  Obama seems to breathe a hope that people haven't dared to feel until now, to exude some mysterious something that makes people really, honestly believe that he is The Guy. 

It's almost uncanny.  I have admired Obama since 2004, when he gave the keynote at the Democratic National Convention.  I thought his speech was inspirational without being grandiose. I thought his voting record in the Senate was pretty good and I thought he'd make an excellent candidate.  I never thought it would happen though and now that it has, I don't quite know what to do with myself.  I never back the front runner.  I'm a Red Sox fan, fer chrissake. 

But, y'know, the Red Sox have won the World Series.  Twice.  So maybe, just maybe, this is, once again, my year, and not only have I been cheering for a championship baseball team but I'm cheering for the future President Of The United States. 

It sends chills down my spine. 

Forgetfu...Oh, Look, Something Shiny!

So, yeah.  I'm supposed to post here on Thursdays.  And once again, I forgot.  I thought about it earlier in the day, but by the time I got to sit down at the computer again, it had completely slipped my mind.

This forgetfulness thing is really starting to get old.  I'm sure it's 99% related to being so. frigging. tired all the time, but still.  I feel like I need an assistant running around behind me, telling me what I need to do.  That could either be really handy or like having your mother breathing down your neck all the time.  *shudder*

The reason behind the total exhaustion, as opposed to the semi-exhaustion I operate under most of the time, is that both of the Shriek Sisters have The Crud.  Has The Crud hit your house yet?  It's been a fantastic couple of weeks around here, lemme tell you.  Two pukey, booger-nosed, wheezing toddlers.  Wheeee!   Thank god that Noggin is 24 hours a day now because kids that are up late at night?  Have no interest in watching Project Runway.   No, they wanted Blue's Clues and they wanted it now.  Wretched children.

I finally caved yesterday, after the second night of The Bug spending the hours between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. screaming her head off, and called the pediatrician.   Boo  was also up for a while during that time, coughing.  And let me just take a moment here to sing the praises of my pediatrician's office.  They stay open until 8 p.m. every single week night for sick kids.  They're open from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. on weekends (for sick kids, but still, how great is that??).  Anyone in the area should definitely be checking out Holyoke Pediatrics.  Fantastic place.

Anyway.  I took them last night and The Bug has a slight ear infection.  Not enough to require antibiotics but enough to make her shriek like a banshee at night.  Boo has a cold (duh) and is a bit wheezy, but again, not enough to require medication.   Steam, liquids and rest, the doctor said.  Ha.  Have you ever tried to get a couple of toddlers to rest when they don't want to?  That's not gonna happen.

And now I have to go - The Bug is blowing snot bubbles and Boo just sneezed boogers all over the cat.  The fun never ends....

I Am Developing An Intimate Relationship

...with my KitchenAid stand mixer.

Oh, sure, I've admired it from afar.  I've even gone so far as to caress its white enameled surface and playfully adjust its whisk.  But until tonight, I never really knew just what it could do for me.

Tonight, my lovely new darling mixed:
a batch of gingerbread cake
a batch of coconut macaroons (with parchment paper this time)
a batch of spoon cookies (a jam-filled sandie type cookie - I'm sort of meh about these.  More trouble than they're worth, in my opinion)
a batch of Alton Brown's no-fail sugar cookies (which kind of failed)
a batch of Toll House cookies
a double batch of pumpkin spice cookies
and a partridge in a pear tree

Why all this frenzied baking? 

I made the mistake of telling my daughter that I would be making cookies again this year for her teachers, for Christmas.  I know, I know, teachers are sick of cookies.  That's why I decided to do several different types of cookies, to be a bit different, to change things up a bit from the good, but predictable, chocolate chip or peanut butter.

And then the child informs me that she has ten teachers.  Ten.  TEN! 

That, ladies and jellyspoons, is a butt load of teachers. 

Which equals a butt load of cookies. 

So, with mixed success, none of which was the fault of the mixer, I am now the proud owner, albeit temporarily, of:
30 macaroons
30 spoon cookies
60 chocolate chip cookies
60 sugar cookies (iced, I might add, and with little sprinkley things on them)
32 pieces of gingerbread cake, dusted with icing sugar
60 pumpkin spice cookies, dusted with icing sugar
and that fucking partridge. 

Or maybe I hallucinated the partridge. 

Whatever.

I'm tired.  My feet hurt. My back hurts.  And I'm going to go have a beer and think kind and tender thoughts about my new love.  Tomorrow, my darling, you shall be wiped down with the softest of cloths and allowed to rest.

Until Sunday, when I get to do it all again.

The Opiate Of The Masses

Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, gave a speech in which he equated religion to freedom.   "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

Freedom requires religion?  Since when?  What do my religious beliefs, or lack thereof, have to do with my freedom?  Does this mean that all atheists and agnostics shouldn't be free?  Believe me, I am just as committed to freedom as anyone, be they religious or not.  I don't think the fact that I am not religious should have anything to do with my freedom.  Putting those two things together, as though they are required, makes me nervous. 

He also said, "Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It's as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America — the religion of secularism. They are wrong." 

I don't think I could disagree more.  Religion is a private affair.   If you choose to live your life based on one set of religious beliefs, that's fine, but for a presidential candidate to say that religion should be a public matter is absurd.  It would inevitably set one faith over another if a president were to live his religion publicly.  It would put that particular religion's beliefs over that of other faiths and over those who are not of any religion. 

There were things that Romney said that I agreed with:  "Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree."  Indeed.  I heartily concur.  But what about those of us with no faith?  Who don't hold any religious beliefs?  Is there tolerance for us in there?  Or would a Romney presidency exclude those of us who doubt or just plain old don't believe in anything?  Again, this concerns me.  It should concern anyone who believes that religious freedom doesn't just apply to those of faith, but to all people, regardless of faith. 

The thing that scared me the most in the Romney speech was this:  "Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests."

Yeah.  If that doesn't make you stop and think, you need to wake up and smell the agenda. 

Testing

Just to test the categories.