Wintry White

The beautiful, wintry white I’ve been waiting for finally arrived overnight. A silent, heavy snow fell blanketing Cape Cod.  My son had received a sled for Christmas, and a snowball maker, and he’s been anxious to try it out.

We headed to the golf course, where one parks at the top and sleds sown into the hollows. We brought the dog, Chloé, and she romped through the unfamiliar white stuff.  She’s a Southern gal, from Tennessee.  She raced behind the sleds, kissing us all over whn we dumped out of them at the bottom of the hill.

We stopped by the beach on the way back, as it’s an amazing sight with sky and snow and sand mingled into an indiscernible horizon. 

I’ve been thinking about spring, and a new garden. Seeds are bought, compost is cooking. But I so much want to spend June and part of July in France, to visit friends and welcome a new baby to one.  A garden here cannot go untended.  Many years ago I read French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France by Richard Goodman (1991). It has really stayed with me, the idea of working my own plot in France. And while I did do that for a bit in Montlaur, I left without seeing any final results.  On verra, indeed.  Planting French cultivars in Dennis is simply not the same at all.

There is much snow to be moved in the morning before I can head to church.  By Wednesday I will be far from it all, in California.

Books//Bouquinistes

Exhibition Program for Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Why not eat well while museum going? MFA

Cape Cod's Parnassus Bookst in Yarmouthport

Bouquinistes, Paris 2007

Spring in the Kitchen

Waiting

Christmas Eve on Cape Cod

My Garden Club project

Greetings from Cape Cod on Christmas Eve, 2011! A few lazy snowflakes are falling, the chickadees, tufted titmouse (titmice?) and red-headed woodpeckers have discovered the holiday treats put out for them.  The kids’ pageant practice is history and the big show goes on this afternoon at Our Lady of the Cape church in Brewster.  It’s a modern church, and I miss my centuries-old Church of St. Louis in Grenoble, but oddly enough it’s the same La Salette order.  My son will be, what else, a soldier in Herod’s army. A special merci beaucoup to all of the legions of volunteers at OLC who will feed 300 souls a complete Christmas dinner in their homes or at the church on Christmas Day. I was humbled to participate in their enormous effort.  

Chesnuts have been roasted for tomorrow’s duck dressing with chestnuts and cranberries, and I’m hoping to get some cookie baking in today. The champagne is chilling. It will be my first duck endeavor and I am relying heavily on Mrs. Julia Child, my favorite fellow Smith College alumna, for guidance.

The season has been punctuated by magical moments, from the wonderful Cape Cod Symphony Pops to the Chatham Chorale Gloria to caroling at a nursing facility with students. Our Village carol sing and living nativity always brings me to tears, and the welcoming hot refreshments following give an opportunity to wish neighbors a Merry Christmas.

Chatham Chorale Chamber Singers

I was hoping to spend the coming week in Paris but will not be able to, a new furnace takes priority after spending several days without heat last week and a stern warning from the plumber, once again, that a replacement is imminent.  So please send your own photos of the lights of Paris with your permission to post them!

My little family will be scattered far and wide this Christmas, and I always miss dear friends in far-flung locales, but we will all wake up tomorrow with the wide-eyed delight of little children or children at heart.  Merry Christmas to all,

Lisa

1 December

Thanksgiving Day has come and gone in the US, and here on Cape Cod it was incredibly mild. We went to the beach, ate copiously with friends, and this year broke out the tree a bit early.  My daughter was visiting from the West Coast and purely for her mother's own delight joined in decorating the house for the first time in many years.

Over in Paris, Audrey Tatou flipped the switch to illuminate the Champs Elysee, and now the shopping season is full-on where ever you are.

We are changing the focus of our celebrations a bit as our son gets older. I was asked yesterday whether or not I "believe" ( I do) and if so, does he bring video games and if so do the come from a store or are made by elves...

Today we will make and decorate a gingerbread house, parts purchased at IKEA.  I used to bake the whole thing, but after many crumbled roofs I figure it's the decorating that's the most fun.  Friday we will see the Cape Symphony Holiday Pops, Saturday is Breakfast with Santa.  Upcoming is the Dennis Holiday Stroll, Chatham Chorale, and Sandwich Holly Days house tour.  Dennis also has a candlelight living nativity, which I love.  I hope you see a pattern, more "doing" than "buying."

Were I in Paris, I would be visiting Place de la Madeleine  to see the  fronts of Fauchon and Hédiard, ogling the windows of the grands magazins, and seeing a ballet.  We would visit the Marché de Nöel.

No matter where you find yourself this advent season,  hope that you celebrate heartily and find even just one thing to do for those not as able to do so themselves.

c. LittleBrownPen  http://www.littlebrownpen.com to buy.

Getting Ready, Giving Thanks

This wild guy is on borrowed time.

Wampanoag woman prepares a meal, Plimoth

The weather has not been conducive for late November. The leaves still cling to the oak trees, folks are still sporting flip-flops.  I'll take it just fine, but I remember huge snowstorms to go to my Aunt Vivian's for the big feast. At the end of the evening, when the whiskey highballs came out, the kids watched The Wizard of Oz, as it was shown only once a year.  Those flying monkeys terrified me!  This year we are eating a turkey from a local farm, quite near us. We will dine with friends from "away," Rochester, NY and South Africa, and lobster tails will be included. Extravagant! Our puritan meal as kids always included turnips and parsnips. No crunchy onions, just the pearl ones. Plain stuffing with Bell’s seasoning (never a mushroom!).  No recipe was ever consulted, unless maybe the cookbook from 1947 (which I still have and use!). It was heavenly.  

All over facebook are questions about how expats will celebrate. The Americans closest to me haven’t had an American Thanksgiving in decades and won’t start “stuffing themselves silly” now.  My Thanksgiving in Grenoble was fun, and necessary act as I was away from my daughter, husband, sister and dying mother.  Many nationalities came to the true Yankee feast, complete with canned cranberry jelly from Cape Cod.  I looked strange carrying that huge bird, quills sticking up here and there, on the bus back home from the shopping center.  There was no Macy’s parade, no Wizard of Oz, but there were good wine and new friends.

Eldest Child

So this year is a mélange again.  My mom is gone for eight years now, but I will make her parsnips, and deviled eggs recipes.  My little boy wants the whole shooting match, ending with an Ice Age and a Charlie Brown TV extravaganza. Sunday we will march into the season of Advent, and we are ready with calendars and choirs and organ music to see.  But Friday morning my special girl will arrive on the red eye from the West Coast and help us with the tree.  For that I am truly grateful.