Food! (And a Little Bit of Christmas)

As you are all probably aware, Daniel and I got to spend Christmas at home this year. What this meant was that we had ready access to a stove and a fridge, both of which we put to very good use.

To start with, there were fresh cinnamon rolls for breakfast...

Then, after a suitable and somewhat lengthy pause (we ate more of those than we probably should have), came Christmas Dinner. There were artichoke and green olive pies...

Ham, mashed potatoes and caramelised onions and beans...

And then Daniel surpassed himself with a bread and butter pudding full of sultanas and vanilla, with an apricot jam glaze. I take credit for the glaze! It was apricot jam that I made earlier this year.

Believe it or not, there was a bit more to Christmas than food. For instance, we did have a Christmas tree.

And we received some lovely gifts (thank you!), including some possums who can keep our kangaroo and koala decorations company.

We had a lovely, lazy day. And from what I've heard, you all had a lovely Christmas, too, although considerably more noisy!

The cats had varied approaches to the day. Maggie was very curious and playful...

Whereas Dobie followed our lead, and had a very laid back day. This is not unusual for Dobie - he is generally laid back for about 22 hours out of every 24.

And there you have it. Christmas at our house, 2009. Cheers!

First Snow of the Season

On December 7, we got our first "proper" snow of the season - which is to say that snow fell, fell some more, and then didn't immediately melt. Daniel took some photos in our yard for you to look at...

This is the crabapple tree we planted a few years ago when we first bought the house. Those wee little apples make a nice frozen treat for the squirrels.

This is a cypress or juniper or somesuch tree that's growing up in our fence line. I haven't had the heart to cut it down.

Here's our apricot tree... it really will come back in the spring!

And last, but not least, snow on our snowberry bush, which is a native shrub of this area. I hope you can see the individual snowflakes around the edges (they're the fuzzy-looking things). We don't often get fluffy snow, but it's a treat when we do.

A Tuba Christmas

So this last Saturday, December 5th, Daniel and I ventured to downtown Boise for A Tuba Christmas. Neither of us had ever heard about such a thing, but apparently there are about 200 of these events happening throughout the country on the given day.

Tuba, euphomium and sousaphone players from university bands, high schools bands, and even just those who like to play said tubas, euphoniums and sousaphones, gather somewhere public for a free performance of Christmas carols.

It was pretty cold (somwhere around freezing, I think), but the band and the crowd remained undaunted! Daniel and I were smart enough to grab some hot drinks on our way there. The warmth of those hot drinks lasted about, oh, two seconds, but nevertheless...

They played a selection of well-known carols for our entertainment, and it really was fun (if a little bloody cold).

Something I didn't know before Saturday is that a band of tubas warming up sounds like I imagine a herd of elephants might sound when they are waking up.

Did I happen to mention it was COLD?!

One of the best things about it, apart from the music, was the age range of the players; from this little guy, who couldn't even hold his instrument upright, right on through the spectrum.

They also played indoors at a church after this performance, but somehow I think the cold made it more worthwhile (now that I am inside where it's a bit warmer).

A Jar (Almost) Full of Ginger

Being a Johnston by nature, if no longer by name, you know I just LOVE preserved ginger. If the scarcity of said ginger is any indication, there are apparently NO Johnstons in North America. In all the years I've been here I've found it just once, and that was in such a wee little jar I'm sure you'd all feel embarrassed for it.

It's taken a few years (procrastination being another Johnston trait I have in abundance), but I finally got around to making my own. I got the recipe from Mum on one of my visits home, and it's been waiting hopefully for me to get organised ever since.

I was optimistically waiting until I came across some nice, young, pinkish ginger, which is what the recipe calls for. I finally gave up, and got some ginger that looked like it might at least be closer to middle age than fossilisation and gave it a bash.

The process takes several days of soaking and syrup making, but I am happy to report the effort was worth it. The ginger is a little tougher than I would like, but it tastes just fine with plenty of warmth and not too much sweetness. I have developed a habit of nibbling on a few pieces whenever I wander through the kitchen, which is exactly why the jar is almost full of ginger.

My Favourite American Holiday

How's that for a view from your back yard? That's exactly what we were fortunate enough to be faced with during the recent Thanksgiving holiday. We spent a couple of days of the four day weekend at a friend's parents place about three and a half hours northeast of Boise, and just north of a town called Riggins (if you happen to have a map handy).

The weather wasn't the most cooperative it's ever been, but I'm hoping you can at least get some idea of how the country looks from the photos I've posted. It's actually all very young, geologically speaking, and all the wrinkles and folds reminded me of a piece of fabric or a handkerchief left lying on a table. The area is at a much lower elevation than Boise, so it's actually a little milder in the winter, but it's still desert and still very brown most of the year. That green patch at the front of the photo that looks like it drops off suddenly? It does....

Our hosts, Nancy and Bruce, are a delightful couple. I think they would get on very well with Mum and Dad. They are mad keen keen collectors, and their house is full of family things and things they've come across over the years. Their interests run the gamut, from china and porcelain dolls, to books, toys, and glassware. Bruce has some nifty old tools - but it seems I remember a lot of them (like the brace and bit) from my childhood!

Nancy is a sculptor and has done some lovely figures, including a spitting image of their daughter, and our friend, Karen when she was a child (cheeky thing she was... and is). She has a large cast bronze piece in a park in a town called Lewiston, but we haven't seen it yet. Bruce was a forest service employee until he retired, which might explain why they have this in their yard...

It's an old fire lookout tower that they got from the forest service. The area still has a lot of them, apparently, and some are still in use. Others have been converted to accommodation for people to stay in.

Thanksgiving dinner was a cooperative effort. Starr, Karen's partner, baked a turkey and made a cranberry sauce I think she should become famous for - it has cranberries, a wee bit of sugar, lemon zest and mint in it. Most delicious, although Daniel, as our resident cranberry disliker, would probably disagree. Nancy made a rice and sausage meat stuffing and steamed some pumpkin from her garden, while I brought some salmon dip and cheese stuff to have for nibblies, and a green bean casserole (very traditional) for mains. There was probably other stuff, too, but I can't think of it right now. I think Daniel topped us all, though, with two delicious pies - one pecan and one apple. They were demolished in short order, let me tell you!

I love Thanksgiving!

The day after Thanksgiving, we drove to Pittsburg Landing, which is a boat launching area in Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America (deeper than the Grand Canyon). The weather still wasn't cooperating, but we wandered around a bit nonetheless and I saw enough to know that I'd like to go back when the wildflowers are in bloom.



We walked a couple of k's to take a look at some petroglyphs that were made by Native Americans somewhere between 2-7,000 years ago, although no-one's really sure. Unfortunately, it was nigh on dark when we got there, although Daniel did manage to get a photo of this particularly clear one.


Here's the view from the backyard on the Saturday morning before we made the trek back to Boise. Beautiful isn't it?
And I couldn't finish this post without introducing you to Sadie, the English laborador. She was absolutely delighted to see us, unlike the cat, a large ginger tabby called Herbert (short for Orange Sherbet), who manged to avoid us quite successfully. Sadie is a very perky girl, and very good at rolling over for a belly scratch!