photo by eclectica miami.
The gathering of the red and green!
They’re definitely great colors for book covers.
Would love to see what you’ve got! Post a pic or leave a comment with your red or green titles. ☺
photo by stephen.hughes56.
Happy Reading this holiday!
Copyright © 2009 Jama Rattigan of jama rattigan’s alphabet soup. All rights reserved.
I saw this adorable image at CakeSpy.com recently, and simply had to ask Head Spy, Jessie Oleson, for permission to post it here. It’s got to be one of the cleverest ways ever, to present a cookie!
Turns out she created the drawing for a guest post she was doing for Serious Eats (see it here), featuring the recipe for Berlinerkranser wreath cookies. I love to make these buttery wreaths flavored with orange zest, because they always look beautiful on a cookie tray and are totally scrumptious, melt-in-your-mouth heaven. In case you’re looking for a new cookie to impress your guests this holiday season, try Jessie’s recipe, or the one I’ve always made, from the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook:
CHRISTMAS WREATHS
(makes 54 cookies)
sugar
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup butter, softened
2 tsp. grated orange peel
2 egg yolks
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg white, beaten
red and green candied cherries, chopped
1. In large bowl, measure 1/2 cup sugar and next 5 ingredients. With mixer at low speed, beat ingredients until just mixed; increase speed to medium and beat 4 minutes, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula. (Mixture may look dry.)
2. Preheat oven to 400°F. Take a heaping teaspoon-ful of dough at a time and roll it into 6-inch rope. Place each dough rope on cookie sheet in a circle, crossing ends over.
3. Brush cookies with egg white and sprinkle on some sugar. Decorate with red and green cherries.
4. Bake 10-12 minutes until light golden. Allow wreaths to cool on cookie sheet. Store cookies in a tightly covered container.
—————————————-
*Bonus Recipe
Speaking of looking beautiful on a cookie tray, I also love these Neopolitan Cookies. They take a little more time, but are totally worth it. Nom nom all the way!
NEOPOLITAN COOKIES
(makes 72 cookies)
photo by mmwm.
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. almond extract
5 drops red food color
1 square unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1. With mixer at low speed, beat flour, sugar, butter, egg, baking powder, vanilla and salt until just mixed. At medium speed, beat 3 minutes.
2. Divide dough among 3 small bowls. Add almond extract and red food color to one portion; stir until thoroughly mixed.
3. In 1-quart saucepan over low heat, melt chocolate. Mix chocolate into second portion; mix walnuts with remainder.
4. Line 9″x5″ loaf pan with waxed paper and spread almond dough evenly in pan. Then spread walnut dough and finally, chocolate dough.
5. Cover layered dough in pan with waxed paper and place it in refrigerator until firm, about 4 hours.
6. Preheat oven to 350°F. Invert pan over board to turn out chilled dough and peel off waxed paper.
7. With sharp knife, cut dough lengthwise in half. Slice each half of dough crosswise into 1/4-inch slices.
8. Place slices on cookie sheet, 1 inch apart. Bake 10 to 12 minutes unti light brown. Remove to wire racks and cool.
♥ If you’ve yet to experience the unending deliciousness that is CakeSpy, make sure you click on through lickety split. Jessie and her fellow cake detectives have been posting all kinds of wonderful holiday recipes. Check the CakeSpy Online Shop for adorable Cuppie merchandise — cards, prints, t-shirts, accessories, etc. Yummy!
Whatever else be lost among the years,
Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing:
Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears,
Let us hold close one day, remembering
Its poignant meaning for the hearts of men.
Let us get back our childlike faith again.
~ Grace Noll Crowell
*Berlinerkranser image used by permission, copyright © 2009 Jessie Oleson. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 Jama Rattigan of jama rattigan’s alphabet soup. All rights reserved.
Victorian kitchen at Shugborough Hall, UK.
ALL YOU THAT TO FEASTING AND MIRTH ARE INCLINED
by Anonymous (English/Medieval)
All you that to feasting and mirth are inclined,
Come here is good news for to pleasure your mind,
Old Christmas is come for to keep open house,
He scorns to be guilty of starving a mouse:
Then come, boys, and welcome for diet the chief,
Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minced pies, and roast beef.
The holly and ivy about the walls wind
And show that we ought to our neighbors be kind,
Inviting each other for pastime and sport,
And where we best fare, there we most do resort;
We fail not of victuals, and that of the chief,
Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minced pies, and roast beef.
All travellers, as they do pass on their way,
At gentlemen’s halls are invited to stay,
Themselves to refresh, and their horses to rest,
Since that he must be Old Christmas’s guest;
Nay, the poor shall not want, but have for relief,
Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minced pies, and roast beef.
The countdown is in earnest — just one more week till Christmas!
Every year during the busy holiday season I look for a small space of quiet and reflection in the midst of all the jarring ho-ho-hos, fa la las, and pressures to buy buy buy.
The best place to find it is in the right book. Christmas Farm, by Mary Lyn Ray, illustrated by Barry Root (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), is a quiet, lyrical gem that sings of friendship, life cycles, and the immeasurable rewards of teamwork.
Kind hearted Wilma decides she is tired of growing petunias and sunflowers. She wants a different garden, a new beginning. She decides to plant trees after realizing that people without a back hill like hers might have trouble finding a good tree for Christmas.
So she orders 62 dozen balsam seedlings, and gathers up string, scissors, shovels, and her five-year-old friend, Parker. Together they measure out twenty-four rows with string, dig sixty-two dozen holes, and plant seven hundred and forty-four seedlings.
Over the course of five years, they nurture their charges and watch them grow, Parker telling the trees all about Christmas, both of them weeding around each plant. Each year they lose some trees to mice, deer, frost, or moose. But finally, when Parker is ten, they are able to build a stand and sell their trees. Then, it’s time to start all over again, ordering more seedlings, and waiting for new sprouts to emerge from the cut trees in the spring.
In this age of fast everything, I love Ray’s emphasis on patience. Things worth cultivating, whether Christmas trees or friendships, take time. Her telling is spare, and the pace is steady and measured, with luminous passages like this one:
Far away, too, in rooms they never saw, in places they never knew, five hundred and sixty-six trees that Wilma and Parker had grown wore lights and balls and tinsel in their branches — green balsam branches that smelled the sweet smell of Christmas.
Barry Root’s watercolor and gouache paintings alternate between the warm, sunny golds, browns and greens of spring and summer, and the deep blues and icy whites of winter. His landscapes depict the rich beauty of the hillside trees, through several seasonal cycles.
The trees grow as Parker grows. He and Wilma’s longstanding friendship is lovingly portrayed through carefully placed details, such as the plate of homemade doughnuts and milk waiting for Parker on Wilma’s table. Wilma’s rustic farmhouse, homey and inviting, is rendered in warm browns and wood textures.
When they first measure out the seedling rows, Parker is at one end of the field, Wilma at the other. But a long string connects them, and for the rest of the story, they are shown working towards a common purpose — trimming, cutting, and dragging their trees. This focus on human activity, set against a natural backdrop, will encourage young readers to keep turning the pages.
Ray, a conservationist who dreamed of living in New England when she was a child, graces this story with her love of and respect for the land and the riches it can yield. She includes an author’s note explaining how Christmas trees came to be cultivated in this country, emphasizing that they are an ancient symbol of life reborn.
Christmas Farm received a starred review from Kirkus, and can be enjoyed throughout the year; kids will appreciate Wilma and Parker’s unique friendship, as it is based on a fair and equal partnership. Joy and renewal abound in shared work regardless of age.
*For an excellent post featuring books about winter trees and Christmas trees, visit Wild Rose Reader.
*Interior spreads posted by permission, copyright © 2008 Barry Root, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 