Rick and Liza and I all slept in until 9:30 and had a leisurely breakfast and coffee.  Devon and Jenny got over around 10:30 or so and we just took our time opening presents. Not tons of stuff this year, just important things, things that meant alot.

Each of my children gave me incredibly thoughtful gifts this year. I was very touched. Devon and Jenny compiled a notebook with all their favorite recipes. They are both great cooks and like healthy, fresh food. I will use it often. And Liza gave me a wonderful picture of my family that she took when she visited them at Thanksgiving. I will cherish both gifts.

During the afternoon, there was some napping or reading and then came the prep for our traditional Christmas dinner. It’s been the same for at least five or six years now. Vegetarian spring rolls, pork dumplings and szechuan green beans. This year we also added Rick’s fabulous hot and sour soup. Us girls have lots of fun sitting around the table doing all the wrapping.

It was a delicious, wonderful meal which our neighbor Jewel shared with us. Lots of warmth and laughter around the table. Ahhhhh…… Hope everyones holiday was great and I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Rick does all the cooking at our house and it’s my job to set the table. I love how the table looks when it’s all ready to go. There is that great feeling of anticipation of the meal to come.

Of course I also love it when all the food is on the table and you get to dig in. We had so many delicious things to eat this year. Del made rolls and his lovely bagettes. And Viv made the most gorgeous apple pie and homemade cranberry sauce with candied ginger in it. I could have eaten it by the spoonful.

There was also turkey and stuffing, mashed parsnips with sauted brussel sprouts, gravy, a potatoe/cabbage gratin and a salad.

I took this one picture of the food, but then I got so busy eating that I totally forgot to take anymore. The apple pie was so perfect that it really deserved it’s own picture. Oh well, that seems to happen alot with me and food. I do love to eat!

Rick took a few pictures of everyone relaxing after dinner and this is my favorite.

Devon contemplating Jasper. What a pair.

Basically what you do is bring water to a boil in a double boiler. Once the water boils, put the chocolate in the top and turn off the heat. Cover it and stir a few times. It only took about 5 – 10 minutes to melt. When the chocolate is totally, creamy melted, you carefully fill each mold. The chocolate is pretty dense so you could tap the mold on the counter to help the chocolate spread all the way out. Don’t overfill.

This is Susan filling the skull molds.

Me filling the mold with cats, owls and haunted houses.

Once you fill the molds, you put them in the freezer to set the chocolate. This didn’t take long either, maybe 10 – 20 minutes. I was surprised at how easy the process is. Somehow I thought it would take longer and be more complicated.

Heather has this edible gold powder that you brush on the candy after it is set. It gives the candies a bit of a sparkle and elegance.

Here is Susan and I looking pretty pleased with ourselves!

Here are some of the finished ones. The two color ones that you see on the left were futzy to do but looked really cool when they were done.

Many, many thanks to Heather for teaching us and for taking the pictures. You are a peach.

Janet made her special chocolate chip cookies. They are the best I’ve ever eaten.

I could not resist eating both. Delicious and pretty too.

Lynda has recently retired and she is on a crafting bender. I can’t believe how much she gets done. Lynda and Viv have gotten hooked on these knitted bracelets. I think they are terrific and I want to learn how to make them and I don’t want to learn how to make them all at the same time. I’ve got so many projects to finish and I just can’t afford to get hooked on something new.

Lynda made the purple necklace and bracelet to wear to a wedding and they look so nice. It is wonderful to hang out with such talented women.

I left South Carolina after my sophomore year of college and since then, our lives have gone down very different roads. We have kept up with each other all these years, but the only spent time together is when I’ve been back south to visit family.

This week Kitty came out to Portland for work and stayed an extra three days so we could hang out. It’s been just great. There is so much warmth and history between us and we’ve just picked up right where we left off.

When I asked Kitty what she wanted to do while she was in Portland, her response was “Eat and Hike” Request granted! Yesterday we went to Pok Pok for lunch. If you live here and haven’t been there, it’s a must. Pok Pok serves Thai food and was voted Portland’s restaurant of the year in 2007.

Delicious coconut cocktails! I mean, it’s vacation, right?!

Full and happy after a great lunch.

Today we headed out to the gorge to satisfy the hiking request. I decided on Eagle Creek because it’s the quintessential gorge hike. We got there early and had a perfect day.

After our hike, we headed back to Portland and stopped at Fleur De Lis for a sandwich. It’s one of the best bakeries in the city and it didn’t disappoint today. And tonight for dinner, the whole family was here and Ricked cooked a great dinner: green beans with heirloom tomatoes, fennel and apricot salad, roasted potatoes and grilled pork loin chops. Everything was locally sourced and delicious. We all sat around the table until well after dark chatting and laughing. Perfect ending to a great day.

Look at all this wonderful food.

Janet made the enchiladas and I must say they were divine. Susan made a great lemon cake with strawberries on top.

Friends, food and laughter, what more could one ask for? !

We’ve been looking for recipes and the Oregonian recently had an article about Olive Oil cakes in their food section. I tried the recipe by Danielle Pruett who is the pastry chef at Clyde Common. It turned out great. Very moist with a kind of sponge cake texture.

The cake needed something to complement it and with rhubarb in season, that was the obvious choice. Plus, I’m in love with rhubarb right now, just can’t get enough. To make the rhubarb compote, I chopped up 4 – 5 stalks into 1 inch pieces and put them in a saucepan with 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup of sugar. Bring the heat to simmering and cook for about 10 minutes. The rhubarb should become all mushy with no hard pieces remaining. This time I added some minced candied ginger which gave it a nice extra punch.

Now you can add some compote on top of the olive oil cake and YUM YUM! Maybe a scoop of vanilla ice cream too.

Today we had the annual New Year’s brunch with our SWIRL (Society for Wine Inbibing Radical Liberals) group. Ruth hosted the brunch and set a lovely table. Southern was the theme for the food this year, somehow due to the fact that I said I would bring my cheese grits casserole. (Thanks, mom!) Everyone else made delicious food to go with it. We had ham, black eyed peas, collard greens, broccoli rabe and fruit salad.

For dessert, Jewel made wonderful homemade cinnamon rolls and Gene and Katie made beignets. OMG! I ate so much. I managed to restrain myself to one cinnamon roll, but I had to eat two beignets. Yum.

Jewel found the “baby” in her beignet so she is Queen of the SWIRL for the year. There was lots of laughter, conversation and great food. I can’t wait for the next gathering.

They are beautiful to look at as well as amazingly delicious. I managed to restrain myself and only eat one right then. I’m just about to eat number two. Will I share? Maybe, maybe not.

Have a happy Thanksgiving tomorrow.

My friend Anne gave me a whole bag of fresh figs from her tree so I decided to make fig newtons. I found a recipe on line here, the only problem was that it called for dried figs. So I improvised. I cut up my figs into small pieces, put them in a saucepan with some water, grated orange peel, and sugar and cooked them on low for about an hour and a half until they were really cooked down and thick.  I followed the online recipe for the dough and it worked great. They taste terrific, just like store bought only better.

More baking was called for because it’s peach season and so time for a peach pie. I used a dough from a very old issue of Cook’s Illustrated that has a little sour cream in the dough. It’s a bit hardier than regular pie dough and so stands up to the juiciness of a peach pie. The filling is peaches, sugar, flour, a pinch of mace and some lemon juice. Yum Yum.

Fruit and dough equals breakfast don’t you think?