leder legends

  Yesterday’s sermon reminded us of that we should try to live “in the meantime”.  More about that later but he also reminded us of something that the former writer of the column “ Of Cabbages and Kings” said: Growing old is not for sissies !   For every generation, change is difficult but perhaps the year has topped it all - not just for older people— for EVERYONE!

I just made a gingerbread banana bread.  I saw it on Facebook and I thought it looked good.  It was in the oven for about 20 minutes and I decided to check how long it was supposed to bake.  Oops!!! I had forgotten to add the sugar!  I don’t think I have EVER done that.  So I took the required amount of sugar and stirred in the partially baked loaf.   https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a34319818/gingerbread-banana-bread-recipe/ Here’s hoping it will be a nice sugar bread!  Haha! Maybe I have invented something  We actually liked it...with some butter and sugar.  I don’t think I will make it like that again! THIS ONE IS A WINNER I still am going to frost it and sprinkle walnuts on top!  So good!

  I took this photo in Girdwood, Alaska eight years ago.  It is still one of my favorites! 9

  Tradition: our big feast is on Christmas Eve.   Tradition: we eat Puerto Rican food. Tradition survived!  Aaron, Julie and Asher came, as did Nathan and Ava. We opened gifts and ate great food.  It was lovely and chaotic!

  Taai taai is an old Dutch recipe for a chewy bar that is served on St Nicolas December 5. My sister gave me a recipe awhile back.  I prepared it with a light corn syrup and if was less than spectacular.  I then went on a hunt for dark corn syrup but there was none to be found everywhere I looked or called etc. Today I found “tafel stroop “ at the Dutch store. Tafel stroop ( translated: table syrup) was the perfect product for taai taai.  I also found my father’s recipe for taai taai. The combination was wonderful! It has great flavor and texture. It’s not beautiful but delicious!  A definite repeat for next year!

I love getting mail from Alaska. Sarah sent a Christmas gift.  As a small online business owner, she likes to support others.  Lots of goodies including a small tube of SPIT salt from the Homer Spit lol. The mandarin chutney and zucchini relish went so well with our homemade croquettes.

  When you are my age and you take a tumble it's scary. Fortunately, my old body is much more resilient than I thought it would be. I had the phone up to my ear with one hand and various other things in my other hand, and I was walking.  Fatal combination! My foot hit a footstool and threw me out of balance and down I went. The results were not pretty!  Fortunately all could be hidden underneath hair, clothing and makeup!  It made me think of those who abuse others and know just where to inflict the damage so that no one sees it!  My pride was hurt more than the resulting black and blue toe, bruised and very swollen knee, bruise on the arm and forehead --all on the right side of my body. Thinking back, I cannot even imagine how I went down and wished for a video of the event!  The knee was swollen for a day and that was it! My body, even as old as it is, bounced right back! When I was around 10 years old my 50 year old mother took a tumble do...

 The boxes are ready.  I got them free.  I also got a free roll of wrapping paper that had all the right colors. I spent the week baking and will fill the boxes with just a little bit of everything I made.  Chex mix, puppy chow, iced sugar cookies, shortbread trees, peanut butter blossoms, taai taai, 3 different brownies, jam bars, not sure what else but I will buy a couple of candy canes for each. 

  Croqueten.. it’s what’s for dinner.  We have a fry-daddy that holds just enough oil to fry two croquettes . We made these just after Thanksgiving and put them in the freezer.  They go straight from the freezer into the hot oil.  The fry-daddy maintains the oil at a perfect temperature to fry them to crispy perfection.   This year I used panko crumbs instead of homemade bread crumbs and they come out wonderfully crunchy .  Since this was the first time we did them with turkey, we are quite critical of them.  The flavor is okay but lacks salt and curry powder and will be improved next time. Here are a few photos now in the correct order.

Two brownie mixes resulted in two 9X 13 pans. While they baked, I filled 4 round pans with boterkoek.  Then I decided to ice the sugar cookies that I made two days ago.  I'm not good at that.  I suppose it would help if I did this more often.

  I just made taai-taai? What in the world? Right?  Well, translated from the Dutch, it says “tough-tough”😂!  It is a sweet baked-good - I hesitate to say pastry or cookie with a name like that! My father always baked it in the shape of dolls at Christmas time. Dutch children look forward to getting them in the shape “nuts” ( pepernoten”) around Dec 5. That’s the day St. Nicolaas comes to town with gifts for the good children.  My sister sent me a barebones recipe last night and it got me wanting some.  So I did it but the only thing I can say at the moment is that the house smells good haha!   We do think it needs more spices!

 We have an artificial tree , which sounds like it’s a second class tree! I heard recently that it is now called a “forever” tree! First class!

  Ava and I spent a few hours setting out all the nativity sets that I have collected over the years.  Most of them were bought in Latin America. One is the size of a thimble and    one has figurines that are a foot tall.   This o ne is very rustic because it was handmade in a remote Honduran village and is very charming...it even includes a pig- why not?    This one is on the fridge with magnets.