Happy happy joy joy to yis all, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Satanists, pagans, atheists, agnostics, the lot.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla made it a very meowy Christmas about 12:45, blasting us both out of bed with her air-raid siren of a morning voice, a symptom of advancing age and p’raps a bit of related hearing loss. “Arise and serve Me!”
No matter. We fell back to sleep, arose at a more suitable hour, and for reasons known only to Herself — “Well, I had this pan, you see. …” we broke fast with strong coffee, mandarines, and aebleskiver, some delicious little balls of sugar, flour, and fat, fried in butter on the stovetop. Miss Mia got some cream. We don’t hold grudges.
My stepgrandfather, John Jensen, was a Dane, but I don’t recall either him or Grandma Maude making aebleskiver for us when we would visit them in Sioux City. When the blood kin were otherwise occupied John would sneak me hits off his cigar and sips of beer, though. Baby steps. You gotta start ’em young if they’re gonna stick it out.
As we noshed we gave ear to the traditional holiday musical fare — “Merry Christmas from the Family,” Robert Earl Keen; “The Bells of Dublin,” The Chieftains (and friends); ”The Christians and the Pagans,” Dar Williams; “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis,” Tom Waits — you know, the classics.
Then we unwrapped gifts — AirPods for Herself (she spends a lot of time on the iPhone/iPad, talking to friends, family and colleagues, listening to music or podcasts, watching “SNL,” Stephen Colbert, cute animal videos, etc. — and a couple graphic novels for Your Humble Narrator, among them the complete “Bodies” by the late Si Spencer, a time-traveling whodunit that got turned into a miniseries by Netflix.
Also, an official Guinness Extra Stout T-shirt in medium, because (a) I am no longer extra stout, and (2) a man of any gravity (or its opposite, comedy) can never have too many beer-related garments.
At some point there must be time for fat-burning exercise, because Santa knows we’ve been very, very bad, if only in a strict dietary sense. Also, I want to be able to wear that shirt.
So, go thou and do likewise. Mind the aebleskiver. Also, and too, the Guinness. Though I bet they make that T-shirt in an XXXL, too. Call it an inspired guess.
Mad Blog Media 
Bells of Dunlin and omit Nanci Griffith? Pagan
SL, Ms. Griffith is one of the many contributors on that Chieftains album, alongside Jackson Browne, Rickie Lee Jones, Elvis Costello, Anna and Kate McGarrigle, and Marianne Faithfull. They should’ve added Iris DeMent to the mix.
🎄🎄🎄 Big hugs from pagan Half Moon Bay
Back at you, Steelpersons. Half a moon is better than none, especially if there’s a bay attached. Jeez, I haven’t been there in forever.
S. Little (above) mentioned Nancy Griffith, not me. But, in our advanced decrepitude it’s easy to get confused. Merry, merry to you and Herself!
I have been on an Eva Casdidy kick this week. Damn, I wish I could have been in her audience at The Blues Alley in DC. Her cover of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” is, in my opinion, the greatest solo guitar and vocal performance ever. And, I don’t like the song. But her arrangement, melody changes, and chord progressions are magical. And the singing is so loaded with emotion, my tears start in the first line.
Alas, working the comments in the newfangled backend is not as intuitive as it was under the old regime. I hope the setup is working better for you folks.
I just gave Eva a listen. Killa dilla. Makes Judy Garland sound like Judy Canova.
PO’B y PO’G: Tried twice to reply and both never made the cut. Had to create a new password for WordPress and that one also didn’t make it into the food blender.
Trying again ….. had never heard of Eva, so listened to her “Over the Rainbow”. Wow! Quite the vocal and acoustic guitar talent! Thanks, PO’B!!
JD, the good news is, you finally managed to crawl over (or under) the wire and into the compound. I don’t know why the SPs didn’t just wave you on through. Seems like it’s always something around here. …
You are welcome JD. Herb was on to Eva earlier, but as usual, I came late to the party. I wonder where she would have gone in the music business. She sure had the chops. And she could go from classic to blues.
Was expecting the Holy Comment Box but had to hit “Leave a Reply” to get it. Let’s see if this all works.
Here is has been Handel’s Messiah and Vivaldi’s Gloria, Magnificat, and Dixit Dominus. At some point I’ll dig out the Cambridge Univ. King’s College Choir carols.
We do our big blowout dinner on Christmas Eve, so it was a Field Roast Celebration Roast with the usual trimmings (mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy, green beans sauteed in slivered almonds, home made cranberry sauce) and washed down with a Cruz Alta grand reserve Cabernet Sauvignon that I forgot was in the back room. Burp…and sleep.
Merry merry to all!
I cooked up an overlarge pot of this beef, beer and barley stew I hadn’t made for years. It’s an old “Cooking Light” recipe, from 2002. The recipe calls for simmering and skinning three beets to slice into wedges for serving but I skipped that process to save time/ass pain. Beets make an unholy mess of a kitchen.
The Boss added a pan of cornbread, a green salad, and a bunch of shortbread cookies. Our cul-de-sac has a casual tradition of passing around homemade cookies and candies come Christmas time. I think Doug and Donna on the corner hold the championship belt. Man, those are some aw-reet sweets.
Weird coincidence but I was looking for my standard posole recipe and saw I had this bookmarked:
We can complain into the abyss about how screwed up the latest *improvements* at WP are, and yet a 14 year old blog entry is still sitting there, fighting bit rot, hanging on for dear life and hoping no one trips over that server’s power cord.
FYI, it looks like the Santa Fe School of Cooking did a major reorg, went full Marie Kondō on their recipe pages. Nothing but 404s as far as the eye can see.
Isn’t that exasperating? I noticed a while back that they had minimized (as in “eliminated”) their online recipes. O, well … guess you can’t blame them for wanting to sell books and classes.
My go-to posole recipe is a basic model, so old I can’t remember where I got it:
Simple posole
Ingredients
1 32-oz. can Juanita’s Mexican Style hominy, drained and rinsed
1.5 lbs. boneless pork stew meat or chicken thighs, cut in 1-inch dice
2-4 dried red chile pods (cascabel or guajillo), stems and seeds removed
1 large yellow onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp. Mexican oregano
1 tsp. ground cumin
6 cups water
Salt to taste
Radishes, jalapeños, green onions, avocado, cilantro, and/or soft cheese (all chopped and served as garnishes for addition to the stew.
Preparation
I coarsely chop the onions and shred the chiles, then throw them and the garlic into a small food processor for a finer chop (you want about 2 cups of onion-chile-garlic mixture).
Throw everything in a 6-quart pot, bring to a boil, and simmer 2-3 hours. Add water as needed. It should look more like a stew than a soup.
Serve with garnishes and flour tortillas on the side.
My smarter half and I both retired in the last year-and-half we found enough time on our hands to bake. I made two of my late mother’s recipes that I haven’t looked at in well over a decade. Since I can’t eat even half a candy bar without gagging from the sugar, we gave em all away to neighbors and friends. Ms B Lester gave a box to our intrepid longtime postal carrier, and now Wanda is a new/old friend.
Happy Merry to all for the season and the year ahead.
Good on yis, the B Lesters. I myself am a savagely incompetent baker, as Jim Harrison once described himself. Herself is much more skilled and adventurous in that arena, so I stand by, providing immoral support and the occasional taste test.
I remember aebleskiver from a January 74 visit to NW Iowa near Minnesotav 2with a young lady of Danish heritage.. Being a young lad from Southern Colorado, I was familiar with tamales, Gnocchi, tortellini, ravioli, Potica, and Baclava. But aebleskiver were entirely new to me It was my first exposure to Danish, and Norwegian cooking styles as well as ice fishing and cars on frozen lakes. It was tasty even if the 90 % humidity and 10-degree temps attempted to drown my 6500 ft altitude lungs. Good times but later broken heart.
Unwrapping dog toys for the goldens and cleaning up eviscerated stuffed animals and Kevlar chew toys after the morning frenzy . After the movie” Boys in the Boat”, a good movie but a better book, we had Bacon-wrapped filets with melted potatoes, asparagus, and a nice Malbec. Temps around 25 degrees and the Pacific NW Fog. no snow but just hoar frost.
It was totally new to me, John. Ignorance didn’t stop me from gobbling up those tasty little balls of sugar and fat, though.
“Boys in the Boat” is getting a lot of attention among my people. We watched “The Holdovers” and thought that a decent bit of holiday fare.
Ending of the year on a bummer
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/entertainment/who-is-tom-smothers-the-legendary-comedian-made-sonoma-county-his-home-for/
Bummer indeed. I think the last time I saw the Beatles on TV it was on their show, doing “Hey Jude” in the round on a rotating stage. Man, did he ever have to go to war with the shitbirds at the network. It was a miracle he kept the show on the air as long as he did.
Kinda crazy, you hear about celebrities going broke all the time. But the SmoBros had a TV show for three years, then toured at their leisure, and somehow made the dough last for another 50+.
Did you enjoy “The Holdovers?”
I did. I always like watching Paul Giamatti, and thought Da’Vine Joy Randolph was top notch. The film avoided sloppy sentimentality, I thought — it could’ve easily slid into the sugar soup, but didn’t, and I was pleasantly surprised. The little revelations en route were not simply excuses for bad behavior. And it made me wonder what happened next to all these damaged people. I like coming out of a film with questions instead of all the answers.
I agree 100%. I wondered if their friendship continued and Mr. Hunham found a new job. You are a one paragraph film critic that I think most people would rather read than pages of toro poo poo. Well done!
I actually reviewed a flick or two Back in the Day®, if they tumbled into my twisted Areas of Expertise. Thus I weighed in on the first “Star Trek” movie and the first “Superman,” with Christopher Reeve. If we’re talking space operas and superheroes, I’m your man.