Oh Christmas Tree!

Here it stands in the living room, old, a little shabby, yet an amazing microcosm(sic) of my life. The collectible ornaments given to me as a young lass, still living at home; Baby's First Christmas, one a white teddy wearing a Miss America sash, the other a brass baby carriage; school bus; soccer players and baseball players in all shapes and sizes; kitchen utensils transformed into Christmas decorations; Styrofoam balls plastered with sequins and glitter; and finally, the snowmen that I love as a symbol of winter and Christmas. This year, Steve put up the tree and strung the lights. The next day, I hung up our history in ornaments. I think about doing a themed tree. Perhaps a little tree in the dining room, with kitchen-related ornaments. Or maybe a sports tree, with all those soccer players hanging their memories, like a lofting ball arcing toward the goal. Snowmen? No. None of those would have the charm of the Page family tree: 1979-2009, Styrofoam, snowmen, soccer and all!

But, why does my artificial tree lose needles???!!!

A Tale of Two Turkeys

Two. Turkeys. For eleven people. One was mesquite smoked on the grill on Wednesday; the other herb-roasted on Thanksgiving. Gavin took over the bread-making responsibility. There was herb-sausage stuffing, cranberry orange relish, succotash, mashed potatoes seasoned with Fox Point herb mix from Penzeys, and the orange-glazed sweet potatoes. For dessert, four pies, two pumpkin, one apple and a pecan. And now we have... leftovers!

Thirty seven pounds of turkey for eleven people, five of whom are young men between the ages of 17 and 27. Three of those young men lift weights and consume vast amounts of calories.

Dinner Party!

My sister-in-law called on Monday night, just to check in and talk about Thanksgiving plans. I was in the middle of prepping for a dinner that I was giving on Tuesday. I told Becky what I had been doing; cutting flank steak into cubes, 'Frenchifiing' half a pound of bacon by cutting it into dice and boiling it; slicing onions and carrots, and finally making a massive chocolate stout cake. With only two nine inch cake pans for a three layer cake, I had to turn out one layer, let the pan cool, add the remainder of the batter to the now empty pan, and bake. All this organization to make dinner on a school night for friends visiting from Brantford, Ontario! So, my chattering on about these preparations made Becky chuckle, "That's great, Li, but I have no idea what all that meant!" So funny!
I got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning, sauteed the bacon; browned the beef; sauteed the vegetables, and dumped the whole thing into a crock pot to cook during the day. I made Julia Child's recipe for beef burgundy, although Julia didn't have a crock pot and I'd have been raked over the coals for using cooking wine! My philosophy of wine: If it's decent wine, I'm going to drink it! Every time I've used 'drinking wine' in this recipe, it comes out insipid and tasteless. With cooking wine, the results are always predictable.
Our guests arrived at 5:00 with wine in hand. Bless them! The wine we opened was FANTASTIC! I would buy a case. Konzelmann 2008 Niagara Peninsula Shiraz. Jason and TiTi explained that all the Ontario wines were dry, but this one was perfect. Dry, without too many tannins (I hate that quality in wine that sucks the moisture out of your mouth. Ick). The primary tone in the wine was a peppery quality. I've never had a wine that tasted peppery! It was delish and went down far too easily.
We started with the wine and an assortment of cheese, wheat crackers and a selection of olives. For the main course, the afore-mentioned beef dish, garlic mashed potatoes, salad, and steamed broccoli with a squirt of lemon juice. For dessert, chocolate stout cake and coffee. There's nothing like a three layer cake made with beer! The evening; a triumph!

Change of Seasons

Last night we got our first hard frost. When I ventured out into the cold to get the paper, I could hear the frozen leaves hitting the ground in the hedgerow and in the woods.

Silent Listeners & Magical Moments

There is a moment, when you are telling a story or reading a book that you know your listeners are engaged. That magical moment when all fidgeting stops, the eyes are on you, and the kids are open to everything that you are sharing with them. I was reading The School is Not White by Doreen Rappaport and got that reaction.

Set in 1965, the Carter family decides to send their children to the white school. The night before school starts, shots are fired at their house. The family huddles together in fear, yet firm in their resolve to pursue a better education for the children. At school, the kids face derision, taunting and worse. They are shunned by both their fellow students and the teachers. And yet the Carter kids persevere, for they want a life beyond the cotton fields. Early in the book, Mama Carter listens to John F. Kennedy's speech on the availability of education for everyone. I used the exact clip of that speech, and rather than read it myself, had the students listen to the president speak. This lesson was powerful and compelling. Repeating the lesson for the lowest students in our school led to a lively discussion about race, and fairness, and kindness.

Brownies

I have been so restrained about baking for the staff at school, but this weekend, I fell off the wagon. I spent yesterday making... brownies. Covering them with ganache... Topping the ganache with peanut butter buttercream icing... and decorating them with unsalted roasted peanuts and chocolate drizzle. Yum. These are cut in very small pieces because they are so very rich. It's great to have one of your colleagues come in and say that they were having a bad day, but there were brownies and those treats made the day better. My apologies to all of those folks participating in the school's biggest loser competition. And I wish that I could style this photo so that it looked like those beautiful shots at Tastespotting. My next brownie experiment will include Grand Marnier and candied orange peel.

I love my job

I really have the best job in the world. Today, my third grade students worked at organizing information, using flashcards in various categories. My favorite category: things that you find under your bed! It's a quick lesson and fun for the kids and relates to the organization and classifying skills that are required of them.

Then, with my next class, I introduced Reader's Theater. We read through a script from Roald Dahl's Matilda, specifically, the scene in which Matilda hides a talking parrot in the chimney and convinces her family that the house is haunted. We talked about how the characters were feeling and the ways in which their voices can reflect those feelings. Next Friday, we'll break up the class into smaller groups and take different roles.

With my two fourth grade classes today, we worked first on finding information on people in the encyclopedia and on finding information on your own topic. This last exercise is called FIND FIVE FACTS. As part of their multi-genre research project, we will be finding five facts several times. There might be groaning and rolling of eyes. Oh well!