It's the holiday season and, no matter what you celebrate, I'm wishing the happiest one!
Also, I'm asking you which you prefer: peppermint or spearmint. If you lean towards spearmint, I just don't know if we can be friends.*
This is the time of year when peppermint makes a huge(r) appearance in all of the treats we eat plainly the rest of the year: hot chocolate, mochas, chocolate chocolate, candies, cookies, brownies...
Why do we tolerate year-round spearmint when peppermint is clearly the superior mint?
... and why did peppermint get designated red-stripe while spearmint is green-stripe? These are my holiday thoughts** as I wind down for a completely technology-free holiday ... I should really get out more.***
*I'm kidding, my friendship/client contract doesn't have anything about peppermint in it.
**Read below for a funny family tale.
***Not during this never-ending pandemic.
|
|
The last couple of weeks have been wildly busy getting everyone ready for their holiday promotions and gearing up to shut down. In between the seasonal rush of professional designs, I got to create a personal design for my kiddo's other family that was too funny and relatable not to share with everyone.
Don't worry, I got permission from his mom to share this with the world.
|
|
|
(Charlie is with me for the Christmas Holiday, so I'll be working half days and spending the second half of the day crafting and pretending we're elves.)
Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday, December 23, 24, & 25: OFF for more pie
Monday - Wednesday, December 28 - 30: 8:00am - 2:30pm
|
|
Ready for that funny family story? By nature I'm an over-sharer, despite how hard I try to keep this newsletter relatively "professional", so take this journey with me as it brings me great joy.
Growing up I had the opportunity to be in close proximity to my paternal great grandmother and grandmother. This side of my family is Italian-American and every year on Christmas Eve we gathered around for the Feast of the Seven Fishes.
Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like: at least seven different seafood dishes including items like fried eel, pulpo (octopus) salad, pasta with scungilli (conch) sauce, calamari... and cheesecake.
Don't worry, there was no seafood in the cheesecake; and one year, there was no cheesecake.
My grandmother had run out of vanilla extract and sent my great grandmother to the store to fetch some. Grandma Lena (short for Madelena) was notorious for driving fast, telling dirty jokes, and shopping recklessly. Within minutes she was back with the black bottle of sweetness and adding the liquid concoction to the oven-sized spring form pan.
The rush of the kitchen made for too many cooks that no one minded. The cheesecake was ready and the oven was open. The army-sized pan went in and slide and the door closed with a crash. Time to wait and prep the rest of the food-stuffs.
It only took minutes for the cheesecake smell to fill the house. First the buttery scent of the crust and then the overwhelming aroma of... peppermint. PEPPERMINT? Oh, yes. So much peppermint that our nostrils burned and our eyes watered.
Upon immediate inspection of the extract bottle we found that instead of vanilla, Lena had purchased PURE. PEPPERMINT. EXTRACT. Once we were all able to blink away the tears of pain and laughter, we thought we'd see how the cheesecake came out.
Peppermint is, after all, a holiday flavor.
Unbeknownst to any of us - who are not chemists - peppermint + cheesecake filling + high heat = expansion to the nth degree.
The fish feast on the table, the family gathering round to their designated seating (my grandfather at the head of the table, and me to the left of him) we were ready to mangiare (eat)! But only AFTER we investigated the why the oven was creaking.
Half of us arose from the table and entered the kitchen to a sight much like something from The Stuff (1985). The peppermint cheesecake had risen over and outside of the tank-sized spring pan. It filled the oven and pushed the door open, it was pouring - seething - out around the sides and through the interior racks. It's consistency was somewhere between marshmallow and baked meringue.
Stunned, and amused, we watched as the cheesecake became the oven and the smell of seafood succumbed to the only smell the kitchen would know for weeks: peppermint. My grandmother, in a slew of confused curses and exclamations of idiocy at us gawkers, ran to the rescue; turning the oven off, hauling the monster-sized spring pan from the encrusted racks with hulk like strength and dropping it onto the stove top.
My great grandmother, shrugged with her formidable "eh" and went back to her meal. We all followed suit. The Eve was not ruined - the food and the family were the same as always. Some of us even taste tested the monstrosity that was the failed, and now deflated, cheesecake. It was awful and inedible.
Don't worry, we didn't have cheesecake, but we had plenty of other sweets and treats... and this lasting memory of the cheesecake catastrophe.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We made a garland of tiny hats with bells.
|
|
|
|
The Christmas Witch is dressed.
|
|
|
|
|
Gnome for the holidays!
|
|
|
|
I painted a winter owl.
|
|
|
|
|
|
