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A hand-written letter to each of my nieces and nephews is on my list of gifts to give this year at the holidays (or at least before the end of January – if any of my nieces and nephews are reading this).
Each of them gave me good stories growing up, and I’d like to give those back to them on paper, in my own hard-to-read handwriting.
This may not sound like much of a gift, but in the years since my mother has passed on, her letters have become true treasures to me. She never took on airs in her writing, and so reading her letters brings back her true voice.
Email doesn’t capture our voices in that way. My theory is that’s because people don’t usually take all that much time to compose an email, and time is the ingredient that makes the gift worthwhile.
Food is another gift that takes time … especially for me.
One of my memories of hanging out with my nieces and nephews involves making Christmas cookies at my mother’s house. (This was before the infamous “hot pad on fire” incident and my mom banning me from unsupervised use of the oven.)
Anyway, I’d come home for the holidays from newspaper reporting in North Dakota and decided to make cookies with my 4-year-old niece Shannon and 3-year-old nephew Greg. The recipe called for two sticks of butter. I pulled the wrappers half off the butter sticks and handed them to the kids to hold while I fetched the flour.
It should have occurred to me that sticks of butter look a lot like yellow Popsicles. By the time I got the flour container, Greg’s butter was missing down to the wrapper, and Shannon was seriously considering her options.
Despite this “help” and my lack of culinary ability, we managed to make cookies. (Family reading this should not panic. Of course we got an unlicked stick of butter for the cookies. Really, have a little faith.)
Food, friends and family is our theme for this issue – appropriate as we head into the holidays.
Food plays a big role on these pages, as you will see from the many recipes. I’ve tried a few myself … and gave the gift of a good laugh to my Lake Superior Magazine family when I explained my search for that rare spice “scant white pepper” used in the Danish Red Cabbage side dish winner in our Recipe Contest.
The story is this: I went to the grocery and scoured the spice shelves for “scant white pepper.” Finally, I got one of the grocery staff to help me solve three problems:
1) I couldn’t reach the bay leaves because the “B” spices are on the top shelf and my arms only extend to the second-from-the-top shelf;
2) I couldn’t find the lingonberry preserves;
3) I couldn’t find any “scant white pepper.”
The fellow brought down the bay leaves, walked me to the lingonberries in the “German” food section (who knew?), then helped to search for that special spice. Finally, he picked up a “white pepper” container and speculated, “Do you think ‘scant’ just means ‘Use a little?’”
Okay, I could buy that. In fact, I bought all three things. I suspect you will not have these complications when you try the recipes, but if you do, remember, you are not alone.
The other great gifts of time found on these pages are to yourself and your friends. I recently joined my dear friends for our first “girls’ getaway” and wondered why we hadn’t snuck away to a cabin on a lake sooner. So much fun, so much grown-up giggling plus a lot of food and beverage. You’ll enjoy reading about other such getaways in our Restaurant & Lodging Guide.
You’ll also warm to the season when you read about the Phillips family and their creation of the Wassail Concerts at their Rittenhouse Inn. It’s their gift of time – and food – to community and guests.
Food, friends and family – folded into the gift of your time – will always be a recipe to cherish. Nothing “scant” about that at all.