An Introduction to The Brownie List

I am honored and thrilled to be on The Brownie List! I am a cook and know there is a secret ingredient in them aside from the love. Would you consider a bribe for the recipe? ...... You can save the long newsy update this year, I think I know what's up, almost daily, lots of fun! With love to you, FAMBB    (Comment on this post, originally published 12/9/2009.  Reprinted here, slightly amended.)   

The Brownie List - A Jewish Girl Does Christmas

 
It started innocently enough. HDK & Zanner and TBG & I were celebrating our first holiday season as working adults and we gave them a pan of my brownies and they gave us fire place tools. You know what I'm talking about..... the big brass stand and the little broom and dust pan and the oversized tongs and the pokey thing that's the only piece you ever really use anyway so why are the rest of them there????

Well, dear reader, I was abashed. Obviously, there was a mysterious Christmas gift giving code to which I was not privy. TBG was able to laugh it off and I liked the fire place tools a lot so I didn't make too much of a fuss but you can be damn sure that the next year I took Zanner shopping with me for their gift.

But that was because she kept score by dollars spent. In their divorce, there was only one point on which both they and the judge agreed --- neither of them had a very healthy attitude toward money. I was used to TBG's family Christmases, which featured lots of socks and warm sweaters and candy. Chanukah was books and stationary and hand knit mittens and maybe a doll or a dump truck but mostly it was judging what the relatives sent and then eating latkes. So, I had presented the brownies with pride and love and a sense that they were absolutely the perfect present for our bestest friends. I even baked them in a beautiful pan, which they got to keep.

Obviously, this was her issue and not mine. I knew that people loved my brownies and were happy to be around when I was baking them and smiled when they arrived as a care package in the mail. I knew that I loved making them and gifting them and watching people eating them and once I put that all together with the fact that Christmas is all about love and sharing and memories and comfort and did I mention love ..... well, the plan just kind of created itself.

I went to the giant Ace Hardware at Clark and Broadway and Diversey and bought clear plastic containers with bright red and blue and green and white tops. I bought brand new baking pans and actually paid attention to exactly how long 4 of them in the oven took to cook perfectly. I attached big beautiful bows and gave them to my special people. And my special people understood what they were receiving.... and, of course, that was part of what made them special.

Friends moved and siblings left the parental abode and cousins married and started families of their own and we moved and old friends re-appeared and playgroup kids went off to college and suddenly I was mailing a dozen boxes... then twenty... thirty.... forty-some last year and each one a total smile... on both ends.

How can I be sure? Because the only rule associated with The Brownie List is that the recipient must acknowledge the package with a real thank you note/text/phone call. 

]

It's possible to blow off a printed signature on a photo Xmas card or an e-card greeting or a generic family newsletter; no one will judge you if you don't reply.  But if I've taken the trouble to bake and wrap and ship you brownies you cannot ignore me. Not if you want to stay on The Brownie List. Just ask the people who've wondered where their box was lurking.

Not because I'm keeping score; I'm bribing you with sweet treats to entice you to share a bit of yourself with me. Because I like you. And I miss you.... all year long but especially now when I want you to help me decorate the tree and eat latkes straight from the pan and take the middle brownie when it's hot right out of the oven.  And because you're on the list, you know you'd like to be here, too.  

Alas and alack, we've moved on from wherever we were at the time we were entwined in each other's lives, and there's nothing we can to to fix that.

Putting you on The Brownie List is my next best thing.  Sharing is caring and I care about you.

The Brownie List

I've gathered the ingredients on the countertop.  They'll live there until I'm done.

The pans are washed and ready to go, on top of the towels I inherited from Nannie.  The pot with the melting chocolate and butter was part of my mother's trousseau in 1950.  That's 75 years of oatmeal and melted butter.  

Just waiting for that chocolate.

I baked and packaged and wrote short notes to ten different sets of people who are in my life but live far far far oh just much too far away.  Everyone will reach out to thank me, not only because it's protocol for remaining on The List, but because it's been too long since we last touched base.

It's time consuming and messy and dealing with the USPS website is a nightmare and it's just about the best thing I do all year long.  Each box sparks a smile, a sigh, a wonderful warm hug around me heart.  I know so many wonderful people.  It's good to be reminded of that now and then.
 

Not Shopping

Dilatory means slow to act ..... and that's what happened this weekend.  I had every intention, really, of posting every day while we were in Indiana with the grandbabies.  But marathon UNO games; hide and seek in the basement; jumping at the trampoline park; and watching the snow fall... and fall... and fall, leaving more than ten inches to play with, and then hanging with the softest, snuggliest,  most loving puppy in the world,  

there was barely time to open my phone or computer to type.  

I'm assuming I'm forgiven.

By Saturday afternoon we were stir crazy.  Leaving Grandpa home to watch football, the rest of us piled into SIR's massive Ford and plowed our way through icy roads and piles of unplowed snow to the mall.  

FlapJilly loves the mall, even when there's nothng but pre-shopping to be done.  Her mom took photos of the things she liked while the boys wandered on their own .... until we came to this place.

Who knew there were this many flavors of chips in the world?

Apparently, I am among the minority.  I had no idea that Dubai Chocolate existed, let alone that it had gone viral.  

I understand green Life Savers; they and the orange ones are about the only candy I eat.  But this......

I have no idea what these are.

There were some items resembling real food.

This is a pickle party, meant to be shared.

I'm sorry.  Cotton candy comes on a paper cone at a ball game or the circus, not packaged with penguins.

And, in case you were thirsty, there were sorta kinda familiar bottles in one cooler,

fantastic cans in the other.

I will let you draw your own conclusions about the collection of delectable edibles we found;  I remain somewhere between bemused and appalled.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

You know the food is delicious when there's barely room for the turkey on the plate.  

After the feast,  we came home to this. 

Wishing you a happy and peaceful Thanksgiving weekend,  filled with local shopping (using cash) and lots of love.

Cccccold

FlapJilly didn't need a jacket because it was only 44 degrees outside. Her Cubs sweatshirt would be fine, if only she could find an umbrella. 

In Arizona, we'd be sending her to wait for the bus in not only a jacket but with a scarf, a hat, and mittens. 

The humidity is 98%, according to one of the many electronic listening and informing machines in my daughter's home.  The air is thick and almost visible. 

Back in Tucson,  it is also 44 degrees and 98% humidity. But it's warming up to the 70's and there's not a scintilla of rain in the forecast. 

But there's no puppy in Tucson, no grandkids or adult kids, no swarm of hugs or pleas to play hide and seek or follow a treasure map, no tween discussing algebra or the Revolutionary War. 

It seems like a fair trade. 

Traveling for the Holiday

We are flying from a small airport to a small airport, albeit that our pilots are protesting poor wages and benefits.

We are leaving sunny and 65 for overcast and 31.

The plane begins boarding 45 minutes before takeoff; considering the number of wheelchair passengers that usually travel this route that is a very brief window.

I paid an extra $32 for extra leg room, an extravagance once upon a time but now more of a necessity as old body parts require space.

We land mid-afternoon, late enough for Little Cuter to get us at the airport and early enough that the grandkids will be home from school and awake.  Given the bizarre flight schedules Allegiant Air creates, this is a highly unusual and thouroughly delightful situation.

If I am dilatory about posting, please forgive me this week.  There are a lot of hugs to be gotten and given. 

The American Revolution

Ken Burns is at it again.  

His PBS series was ten years in the making.  It's voiced by Josh Brolin and Meryl Streep and Michael Keaton and Amanda Gordon etc etc etc. reading letters home and Pennsylvania's Constitution and military communiques.  

Without photographs he relies on portraits and interpretations new and old; the project exists on many levels all at once - narration, background music, and the visuals.  It's hard to do anything but watch the screen; multi-tasking is not advised.

He brings you real people with real flaws.  Enslavers wrote about freedom and independence and liberty.  Personal slights, giant egos, recalcitrance and inaction on the field and in the Congress - some of it is really hard to watch.  

I found myself wishing for the story I learned in school.  I wanted ideals and courage and victories without any of the disturbing pieces shattering the illusion.  Too bad, that ship has sailed.  What I got was unvarnished pieces of information derived from the original sources.  

After only three episodes, TBG and I are wondering what the world would look like if Abigail Adams had been elected President.  I didn't know that Washington trounced the British at Trenton with only one third of the troops he expected.  I relived childhood vacations in upstate New York, racing around Fort Ticonderoga with very little consideration of its pivotal role as the British fleet floated down river.  

Ken Burns does his homework and he's happy to share.  

******

Here's a wonderful interview, if you want more.

A Lunch Date

It sprinkled and then it drizzled and then there was an outright downpour.  A gardener draped her jacket over my head because I don't want to see you be wet but it was all to no avail.  I was soaked and I was going home.

I checked to be sure it was possible, then met TBG at honme to share the plan.  Flu (extra strength) and COVID (Moderna) shots at Albertsons, then lunch. No appointment or prescription or co-pay needed,  just come on over.  

So,, we did.  

We filled out the paperwork so Medicare would accept it, waited for five minutes while it was processed and the vials were prepared, sat one after the other, and took our medicine like grown ups.... much to the amusement of the similarly aged couple on the two other chairs.

We laughed about what a lunch date looked like these days.  

Rememberinng the instructions from our first COVID vaccination. we kept our injected arms in motion as we drove and then ordered and ate.  Midway through, we took Advil.  All the way along, we shared our syptoms.  They were happening to each of us at the same time.  Throbbing and itching and heat and as the sensations moved along our arms it was obvious that we'd gotten the same ingredients and that we'd lived together for a very long time.

We finish each other's sentences, often knowing what the sentence will be before it's spoken aloud.  We know when the other is hungry and we usually have exactly the same food in mind.  We make the same assumptions and connections without exchanging a single word.  

All that, and yet we've never mimicked each other's symptoms.

It might mean something.  It might not.  But it's what's on my mind and I thought I'd share.  

A Day of Images

There were so many similarities and so many contradictions to the images.

There was friendship and solidarity and speechifying. 

It was the same and it was different.

Le Monde

Gulf News

The same but different.

My head hurts.

I Am Too Old For This World

Sixty or so years ago, TBG made this pump lamp at summer camp.

Today, the squiggly light bulb (which replaced the regular kind of light bulb we'd been using our entire lives) burned out.  

That's what we used to say when the filament in the regular kind became disengaged and discolored.  I don't know if the squiggly bulb has the same internal mechanism; its surface is opaque. I use burned out idiomatically these days,  I guess.

I went to the light bulb drawer in the garage and found this:

The pump lamp lives on TBG's nightstand so. a soft,  2700k output is perfect.  The Estimated Energy Cost of $0.96/ year made me smile.  So far, so good.  

I unscrewed the squiggly one and inserted the new one and unfolded the box to recycle it. As Big Cuter often reminds the world, if there are words, we will read them.  And so,  walking to the kitchen,  I read the verbiage. 

There were instructions.  

This was not a "how many old people does it take to change a lightbulb" joke.....or was it?  TBG postulated that it was a halogen bulb, but halogen's not a word on the box.  

Instead, I read "digital device" and I stopped in my tracks.  

The lightbulb, a concept that has been illuminating the indoors without much effort or interaction with its environment since 1879, now needs a manual and a decoder ring.  

Honestly, I am just too old for this world.

*****

I used AI for the first time today, opting for it to do its magic on the electric cord on the right edge of the photo.  The bottom left corner has a disclaimer.

A disclaimer.  

I am definitely too old.

 

A Modern American Feast

Brother surprised me with a phone call today.  Was he interrupting football?  Yes, thankfully.  

The first topic on his mind was Miss Stella, my precocious Garden Leader.  We laughed and loved about her and gardening and soil deliveries and nieces and daughters and fathers and mothers.  He's very good at connections.

We moved on to planning a visit while we are all in and around Chicago for Thanksgiving, and then he told me a story about his upcoming Thursday Spectacular Feast.

Turns out that his niece and her husband bought a beautiful four story brownstone right across the street from his daughter's coach house, without knowing that a cousin was right there already.  This is a happy coincidence.

So far everyone involved is still talking to one another, ans so the extended families will be celebrating together, in the new brownstone.

At the table there will be some Jews, a Muslim, and some of unknown affiliations.  There will be some who keep kosher and some who eat halal foods, some vegans, some vegetarians.  

Apparently, a turkey on the table will be acceptable.  The spiral ham, however, is not.  It will remain in the kitchen.  This is something on which everyone agreed.

Truly a modern American feast.  

Ouch

Advice for today - Do not get in the way of a football thrown by a 3rd grader.  

Better advice - Do not try to catch it when you are holding something in your dominant hand.

I share this advice from (p)ersonal ex(p)erience.  My (p)inkie took the brunt of the ball(')s im(p)act.

There aren(')t a lot of keys that use the (p), but the exit key is there at the end of every sentence.  After the first (p)eriod I ty(p)ed I realized that something had to give.  Hence, the (p)'s;  the brackets reflect the fact that I had to find an alternative method of entering that key.

And so, although there are emails and $500,000 rewards baked into the theoretically clean bill and so much more, I am going to give myself the night off.  Avoiding using my little finger is doable but no fun at all.   

I am going to soak my joint in ice water.

A Beautiful Day In The Garden

Once again, there was no running water in Grandma's Garden.  

This is some of the Bucket Brigade.

After several years, our Dollar Store watering cans are on their last legs.

This gardener figured out a way to save every drop .

Yes, he was very proud of himself.

Our produce is producing prodigiously this year, mostly because I didn't allow any tastes until the plants were settled and growing new leaves.  Now we have so much lettuce that there's a full leaf for anyone who wants a taste.  The butter lettuce was a big hit, but only one scholar wanted to eat the one big leaf on the who-knows-what lettuce hovering over the oregano.

 There were great differences of opinion on the garlic chives - spicy, awful, garlic-y, mmmmm good, NO!  The chocolate mint is a big hit, with easy to pick individual leaves spreading out in a tire masquerading as a flower bed.  

The onion bulbs are beginning to sprout scallions, both in the garden and in the cups the scholars took home a few weeks ago.  The radishes and carrots are sending up pretty little true leaves, the precursors to the greenery that will let us know that the veggie is growing nicely.

It's hot and it's dirty and I love every minute of it.