Christmas

When our Mother was diagnosed with cancer many years ago, once we regained our balance, my sister and I plotted and planned how we would make that Christmas, her last, be the best Christmas of her life. That being such a bold plan where else could we spend that bittersweet holiday but in the countryside of France and where else but in the festive Champagne region? This was our present to our Mother and we wanted it to be grand. The night before we were to leave Maine we opened up a bottle of her favorite Champagne and handed her a glass with an envelope. Tears poured down her cheeks as she viewed the tickets to Paris, her favorite destination in the whole world with her two daughters. We promised her that she would drink Champagne everyday, but that is all we revealed of our surprise dream Christmas together.

The next day we headed to Boston in a thick snow storm leaving behind our hopelessness and entering into a happy, magical fantasy for the next 10 days. No doctors, no treatments, no stress or sadness gnawing at our bones – just great food, champagne, and love in copious amounts. Having made the reservations so close to our departure the four of us were forced to sit in pairs. My mother and sister were seated ten rows ahead of me and my boyfriend. The noise level on the plane grew louder with laughter in the rows ahead of us. I mentioned to the flight attendant that she sure had a wild crowd to tend to that night. She laughed briefly and rolled her eyes. After an hour I headed up the aisle to check on my mother and sister, to my delight and horror they were the source of all the loud laughter fueled by too many glasses of Champagne. The plan for her to relax and enjoy herself again was working already.

From the L.A. Times

Considering everybody on your holiday gift list – friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, your kids' teachers – you might be needing a stimulus package before you even get to the big-ticket items this year. So why not take a page from your grandmother's playbook and make the smaller gifts yourself?

Not only are homemade gifts less expensive, they also capture the spirit of holiday giving in a way that purchased gifts simply can't. And if you consider the ubiquitous traffic and holiday crowds, a leisurely morning spent baking breadsticks or whipping up a batch of homemade marshmallows seems positively Zen-like by comparison.

Read article...

Here in Maine we await a "super storm" that is huge and rushing across the United States, or so they say. Six to twelve inches of snow, turning to freezing rain with high winds.  Sounds  like Winter weather in Maine, not too unusual. It isn't the size of the storm it's what you find to make it fun that counts and I have a plan to enjoy it!  In between plowing I will be making our Mother's tortiere pies and perhaps having a slice for lunch and another with a pot of hot tea in the afternoon to warm up.

What is tortiere pie? To my family it is a ground pork and beef pie flavored with chopped onions, spices and thickened with mashed Maine potatoes then put into a double butter crust. I said my family, the Gagne family, my Mother's recipe, made the same way for at least 5 generations. It isn't like the Belanger's who add no beef just pork, a totally different spice mixture and a Crisco crust or the Bourassa family that adds small chunks of pork instead of ground pork, they add no potatoes, quatre spice and a lard pastry crust.