Arlene won’t be spending Christmas in our apartment building, as of this morning. And you wouldn’t exactly say she moved out. Our nemesis of so many years went feet first and in a body bag.
We thought for the holidays we'd pull out a couple of past favorites for you to make for your holiday baking--the Terrier Cake and Christmas Cookies! Recipes included.
Once a year during the summer I go camping in upstate New York, on property my daughter and her husband purchased with a friend. The area is known as Dunbar Hollow. It is a quiet place surrounded by rolling hills, wildflower meadows, acres of rambling blackberry bushes and it’s hard to imagine that a horrific crime once took place here.
My dad was crazy about chocolate covered cherries and every Valentines Day my sisters and I would go to the local drugstore and buy him a box of these sweet treats. Mom, a frail, delicate woman, favored milk chocolate with nuts or dark chocolate with coconut and we gave her Hershey or Mounds bars, all of which she ate sparingly, nibbling the bar as though she were a bird pecking at a treasured crust of bread. Nothing says “I Love You” like something made of chocolate.
This year will be the 87th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and it is the biggest annual event NYC has to offer. Millions of people line the streets to see this amazing display, while even more people view the parade on TV. It is a spectacular event that officially brings Santa Claus to town, and when the merchants begin to cry out to the public, “Let the shopping begin!”
My husband, Tony, and I took an early Sunday morning drive upstate. The fall foliage, usually vibrant in New York this time of the year—with uncountable shades of yellow, amber, gold, red and peach—was dull against the gun metal gray sky, the stark branches bared by an early frost and heavy winds the week before.
I don’t know of any fruit or vegetable that announces a changing season as does the pumpkin. When pumpkins show up in the market I know that Halloween is only weeks away and that soon there’ll be a range of festivities: family gatherings, friends coming together for food and drink, a time for gift giving, and then the year ends with champagne and an explosion of fireworks.
The most frequently asked question of a New Yorker is, “Where do you go for fun, entertainment and relaxation?” As if we kept a list of secret spots.
I’d like to tell them, “We wait until all the tourists go home and then we come out to play.” But, truthfully, no one can avoid the hordes of visitors and New Yorkers go about their business no matter how crowded the city becomes.
I’ve been able to catch some of the trials that determine who’ll be heading for London to the actual games and I am totally amazed at the skill of these athletes. Even those who don’t make the Olympic Teams stun me with their efforts to make it across that finish line, jump from the high diving board turning and twisting with thrilling un-human maneuvers. And those gymnasts!!! Now that’s not something the average person can even think about doing.
On my trip to Ireland several years ago we landed at the Dublin airport in weather that the Irish refer to as a soft day. By this they mean a rainy day. It was an early morning arrival and the dining hall in the hotel was closed. So, we fell onto our bed in the small but efficient room and took a nap.
