Glory Basking, Old School

Kid #2 had been longing to bask in the glory that is the Palm Court of The Plaza Hotel.  We went for breakfast, when the menu was a little less tight.  

The Plaza is still highly decked out for Christmas--the Gatsby-inspired lobby tree still revolves.

There are places in New York where the waitstaff are old-school:  gracious middle aged men in suits with French accents.   This Palm Court is one of those places

We were on our best behavior--very un-Eloise-like and not as charming.  I only spilled a little.

The Plaza has a long and storied history.  The Stones have stayed there and the Beatles.   The Great Gatsby was made there.  Truman Capote had his '60s-era legendary black-and-white ball there.  (Look at Frank and Mia below.)

Lara, let's have tea in the Algonquin lobby when you come here next.  I can't, I can't believe it's been nearly a year since we had the idea for this blog.  More on this soon.

Speaking of Lara, ave you read Lara's fabulous vision board post below this one?

Frank and Mia, in cognito

Look at us being fancy.

The Plaza called for hot pink.

Searching for the End

Even after almost a year of consistent blogging, blogging hasn't become any easier.

I have no idea of what to say tonight.

Mostly, I'm tired . . . and sick.  As I type, my nose is running.  Throat hurts.  Coughing.

How boring.

What has made me happy today:

Making another phyllo-dough apple-thingy for a dinner party tonight.

Listening to (New Jersey's) WFMU streaming.

Listening to (Salt Lake City's) KRCL streaming.

Listening to the holiday Bach Fest on (New York City's)  WKCR streaming.

Finding out that the band of a good friend of ours was the download of the day pick on Rolling Stone's website.

Easting satsuma tangerines.

Buying a big plastic bear of New York state honey.

Buying marshmallows for the fondue I'm going to make on New Year's Eve.

Working on a story set on Christmas Eve inspired by a friend who was born on 12/12/66.  He died unexpectedly a few weeks after 9/11/01.

The downside is I didn't take a single photo today.

Here's a little indie Xmas song I found randomly in my search for a way to end this post:

list

holiday family & friends time:

georgia buchert made this beautiful crown for me.  i was so touched.  this pic doesn't do it justice.  i'll try to get a better one.

1) omg.  food.  out of control food.

2) prime rib & brussels sprout, nativity, very sketchy pick-up rendition (omg.  out of control melismas) of "for unto us a child is born,"  buche de noel, and christmas crackers on christmas eve.

3) matching swiss nightgowns for me and all the girls.

4) thoughtful "experience" gift certificates (dim sum, play lists, shopping expeditions, pedicures, thrifting and vintage store shopping), cool, creative gift-wrapping jobs & hand embroidered cards.

5) turkey dinner at bam's on christmas day.

6) christmas day migraine.

7) pitch perfect with my sis at the dollars.  yes!  see it.

8) boxing day locust salon featuring:  candy cane cake by ingrid, baked brie with fig and cranberry by kathryn, carrot-jicama salad AND hand made crown by georgia, cheese ball and last minute table arranging by bonnie, olives, cheese and nuts from the belnap-jensens, lots of baking and cleaning by amelia, magical drum solo by greg, stylophone virtuosity by steve, and prepared piano by christian.

el gallo giro is one of my favorite provo restaurants.  check out their molcajete.

9) over-the-top take out from el gallo giro for lunch today--handmade guacamole, molcajete, pollo with pickled pink onions, 29 handmade corn tortillas, nopales, mole rojo, sangria, and, yeah.

10) the hobbit--loved having moses' running commentary, as he sat on my lap for most of the movie, and obviously it was his favorite movie he'd ever seen since it looked exactly like a video game, but, dude, i hate cgi.  it seriously looks like a piece of crap.  sorry fans.

vintage

two rad 92 year-olds, grandma beth and grandpa woody on christmas day 2012.

a strand of thought that emerged over the holidays:

why are the 90-ish year-olds so cool?

i had the good fortune of spending time with a handful of ninety-plus year-olds in the past week, including my amazing grandma beth, and i always marvel at the special-ness of this particular demographic.  i don't think it's just generic wisdom obtained by a long life.  i do think there is something unique about that generation, and the economic hardships, the wars, the sea-change in technology, medicine, and nature that these people have witnessed.

there's a humanity, and a privileging of people over things, that seems especially present in my 90 year-old-ish family members and friends.

one of my aspirations this holiday season was to learn how to make the plum pudding i've heard so much about from my grandma beth's recipe box.  last night, aunt bonnie dug out her recipe box and found the crumbling newspaper clipping with the recipe.

i vow to make it before new year's, (i need to find citron and suet--will probably have to go to salt lake for it) and i vow, in 2013, to spend a lot more time with my favorite generation of people.

vintage plum pudding recipe:  cannon plum pudding

when served mrs. lewis telle cannon's famous plum pudding for dessert, guests are happy.  santa claus could do no more.  this is how:

4 lbs. raisins
3/4 lbs. citron
2 lbs. pecan meats
2 pints light molasses
2 pints ground suet
10 c. flour
2 level t. soda dissolved in 1/4 c. boiling water
1 T. salt
1 1/2 t. each of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg

add soda water to molasses.  gradually mix in suet, milk, flour, spices, and lastly fruit dredged in part of the flour.  steam 3 1/2 hours.  serve with lemon sauce.

many utah recipes stem from foreign lands, handed down from mother to daughter.  take sparkling mrs. effie evans of  665 e. 1st s., whose home is seventen miles north of edinburgh, in the village of kelty, over here on the exchange-teacher program.  

"i'm amazed," she said, "at the amount of salads americans eat and the size of the steaks.  and we have chicken only on very special occasions."

Let's Keep It Going for My Inner Child

It's still the Xmas season, yes?

 I keep trying to convince my melancholy kid of that:    It's not over! It's not over!

(But I relate:  I remember feeling quite melancholy on Christmas night as a kid--disconsolately watching tv in my visiting grandparents' motel room on the main drag in Yuma.)

So  you can still listen to holiday songs like "Christmas Unicorn!"

Dark and Fuzzy Xmas

Tights.

Just two dark and fuzzy images taken with my old Android camera.  (Does anyone know why these photos are much darker on Fb and hence, here than they were on my phone?)

Not enough sleep, although the children did not wake until almost 10:00 am.

Lots of paper and my recycled fabric ribbons.  I love tying up packages with fabric ribbons.

Too many frosted sugar cookies ingested.

And this afternoon--I worked with phyllo dough sheets--something I'd been afraid of handling for a very long time--for the very first time.  And it turned out . . . really well, Lara.

Our host's favorite carol is "O Holy Night" which A played on the uke.

Here's a nice Christmas song:

Brushes with (Holiday) Glamour

Kid #1 at the Plaza in front of The Great Gatsby-inspired tree.

 We spent the afternoon in midtown being tourists.

We went to Le Parker Meriden hotel where there was a gingerbread extravaganza.  Click here to see what we saw.

From there we headed to Bergdorf's museum quality windows.  For more, click here:

\

From there we went to the Plaza Hotel and looked longingly at gentry having tea in the Palm Courty.  A real live pianist played holiday tunes Liberace style.  

Where do you go after that but Tiffany's?  Kid #2 really wanted to go.  I don't think I'd ever gone in an leaned over the cases, but that's what we did and picked out our favorite jewels.  And then Kid #2 got too sad that this wasn't her real life.  So we left.

We arduously made our way down 5th Avenue.  Of course, it was getting very crowded.  Of course, we were silly to visit the weekend before Christmas, but we pressed on and got close to the Rock Center tree.

A lot of bickering in front of the iconic Rock Center tree.  Liz Lemon was mentioned.

I could have gone further.  I could have gone to Saks, then Lord and Taylor then over to Macy's but the kids wanted to go home.

We did have one more brush with glamor before repairing to our tight little tenement.  We stopped at the new shop Beurre & Sel, and examined the cookies Tiffany's style.

X-Mas Spread

Greetings from Eva and Lula, who wrapped and ribbonned diligently as our mother completed chore after chore to prepare for tomorrow's Christmas program, and the coming festivities.  I suppose it's no longer technically the correct day, in this time zone, but we promised to post, as our dear Mama wandered droopily off to bed.

So here are our Christmas Eve-eve-eve offerings:

Christmas Origami

Snugly Wrapped Presents under the Tree

the opening salvo

homemade yogurt

the asplunds have begun to arrive.  almost everyone is here now--we're just waiting for emily, adam, and new baby charlie to get here next week.  bammy assigned each family to do a dinner, and tonight's my night.  since i'm feeding 20 +, and many of them are vegetarian, i opted for the locust salon dal, rice, raita, and naan.

fresh ground spices are best, but if you're not up to the extra steps, just go with already ground.

today i went to bollywood market to pick up supplies, and a few new cooking tips.  here's the recipe i use for raita, that i've cobbled together from various trips to bollywood market.  i'm sure indian cooks would die at how i've bastardized it, but it still tastes good.

grapejuice from our garden

today was a super productive day:

1) finished grading final portfolios.  now i just have to tabulate and post grades.
2) finished christmas shopping.  i resolve to not step foot in a single store again between now and christmas.
3) made yogurt.
4) got neighborhood christmas treats--our homemade grape juice--ready to go.
5) made dal & raita for dinner.  just about to start the rice, with black cardamom, cinnamon stick, and cloves, as per bollywood market directive.

diced cucumbers.  love the colors.

here's how i make my raita.  tomorrow i'm going to try a tomato version.

lara's raita

32 oz. plain yogurt
1 english cucumber, peeled and diced
1-2 handfuls of cilantro, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely grated
1 t. cumin seeds, toasted on the stovetop and crushed in mortar & pestle (or just use some pre-ground cumin)
1 lemon, juiced
1 t. salt
cracked black pepper
1/4 t. sriracha (you can omit.  sometimes i like it a bit spicier, so i add the rooster sauce)

add cilantro on a sliding scale, according to taste.

mix ingredients a few hours ahead of serving and let sit, covered & refrigerated, so flavors can come together.  or obtain something eva and anna have dubbed "second day swag."

the final product.  resting in my fridge right now, waiting for guests to arrive.

tomorrow i hope to get my dal recipe posted, as i've had a few requests for it, but it's not written down yet.  so.  wait for it.

legwear:  black pointelle tights

inspiration:  bollywood market

looking forward to:  feasting with the family

Mother Christmas

Not much to say.

My day was filled with my last day at work for the semester, and then, immediately, child care.

Not that I'm not grateful to be able to do those things, especially the child care.  Especially in light of Newtown.

But I was pulled from a warm coffee shop where I was about to order a cafe latte and then sit down with it and write with it, only to then stand alone in a cold park, shivering and waiting, for 45 minutes.
Going out to dinner and holiday window watching was also canceled.  Which is JUST FINE!  See how mature I am?

So I had to cobble together an eat-at-home dinner.  I diced one onion and two sad looking sweet potatoes and made home fries, threw in some kale.  Fried some eggs.  That was dinner.

Then I took everything off the cluttered table and scrubbed the table, and only put about half of the stuff back on.  Threw out some cards from Xmas '10 and '11.  Maybe even '09.

During this, the child who had needed care earlier fell asleep--a rare spontaneous nap.  When she woke, she thought it was the next day, 7:00 am.  "I need breakfast," she said.  She got it.

Unsilence

Santacon tights

I just uploaded several images from my day into this post in no particular order.  But although I engaged in a myriad of holiday activities, one to which I forced a kid, another to which I was unable to force no one but myself, I almost burst into tears several times.  I'm so upset by what happened in CT--it has colored my day and why shouldn't it?--especially reading about the ages of most of the victims.  As a parent of children who were those ages not that long ago--my heart is wrenched.

As someone who grew up the daughter of a struggling school teacher and who loves teachers and school workers and believes that they are generally underpaid and under-appreciated, my heart is wrenched.

As someone who worries that Americans still won't take issues of mental health and gun control seriously even in the aftermath of this, my heart is wrenched.

Here you will find images from Unsilent Night--an annual event where individual boomboxes and MP3 players broadcast a different element of Phil Kline's composition.  Everyone presses play at once and we parade across town.  Lara, SLC's installment is happening on the 23rd.  Check the Fb page.  

Before that I went to the marathon reading of A Christmas Carol, and all around us, throughout the day, were hordes of bar-hopping Santacon revelers, dressed as yes, St. Nick, but also as Xmas trees, candy canes, elves, dreidels and most awesomely, a latke complete with applesauce and sour cream.  

Let us grateful for revelry, food and drink and happiness and Dickens and the opportunity to grow older to enjoy these things year after year.   

My only photo of the event doesn't begin to represent Santacon's critical mass.

Reading aloud aloft--Xmas Carol at Housing Works

Assembling for Unsilent Night

mockery

moses, doing his best to stay focused.

does anyone else have children who mock them constantly?

today my kids mocked/complimented my outfit and then mocked my blogging.

as in (in sarcastic voice) :

"here's mom's blog post today:  1)  took kids to christmas party.  2) went to smith's to get mo's haircut. . . ."

so, not wanting to disappoint them or anything, plus because i don't have anything super interesting for you today, here is "mom's cheesy blog post":

1) kids to church christmas brunch.  it was quite charming.  members of the congregation shared some pretty hilarious anecdotes from holidays past.  and the children sang.  there's moses, singing and wiggling, and wiggling some more.

2) picked up two boxes of apples from allred's.

3) picked up two gingerbread house kits, in the hopes that eva and anna will come to provo tomorrow and make them with us.  and also make sufganyinot with me.

4)  worked on seminar paper.

5) got car inspected, registered, and oil changed.

6) mo's haircut so he can look fabulous at hanukkah party tonight.

7) grocery shopped.

8) rearranged furniture.

9) ate 99 cent fish taco from del taco.  surprisingly good on account of super finely shredded cabbage & fresh lime.

10) picked up hostess gift for tonight.

cecily, chatting up santa.

still to do:

11)  make apple sauce and apple crisp for party tonight.

12) get kids dolled up for party.

13)  get lula to do my party bun and make-up.

i'm feeling manically festive today.  and i woke up with 5.30 a.m., unable to sleep any more, so i'm definitely in something like a manic moment right now.

gotta reign it in.

or enjoy it.

not sure which.

*

legwear:  pink tights

inspired by: stories, shopping, kids

looking forward: to party after party.

festive frocks

it's party season, and i'm ready for some celebration.

this weekend is a hanukkah party at anna's.  my first hanukkah event ever.

anna will be in full glitz, and wants me to do the same.

well, okay,

i guess i kinda want to go full glitz, too.

what is everyone wearing this season?

julie picked out this dress for me at h & m.

anna meanwhile is checking out the sugarhouse d.i. for something vintage for me.

and i, meanwhile, wonder if i can get just a teensy little $4,000.00 mortgage on my house for this

valentino cocktail dress.  it's just a solid investment, really:

so,

here's my  inspiration,  to you from me,  for the season:

go all out!

don't neglect the glitter & shine this year.

even if it's cheap and tawdry, come on!

it's dark out there!

you do anything you need in order to get a little more twinkle into it!



legwear:  black tights (when i wear black tights day after day, it means things are busy and tight.)

looking forward to:  hanukkah.

inspiration:  what julie said today about eva and anna--to paraphrase--that she was really touched by

how much effort they put into making life beautiful and fun even in difficult circumstances.  i concur.

Santa Bring the Funk

I'm super busy this week and into the weekend.

Super tired.  Feeling overwhelmed, and trying to shrug off the stress. Tightness, man. No time to gather gifts for my mama's Xmas box.

Tonight I rode my bike without lights home in the dark.

On the way, I saw a guy riding his bike in the dark down the Bowery in traffic, steering with one hand.  The other hand gripping the top of a little Xmas tree.  It was pretty adorable.

In light of the season, which I decided years ago just to embrace, I'm posting a medley which includes one of my favorite Xmas songs--which A. just happened to co-write with the singer in the white afro. It's called "Santa Bring the Funk," yo. Wait for it.

strife tree

tree trouble & definitely the best christmas movie ever.

for a few years now i've been threatening to get an artificial tree for christmas. we haven't had one year ever that the tree choosing and erecting didn't cause at least a modicum of drama.  the same with this year.

today we got our tree and put it up, and now that the drama's over, i can honestly say it's beautiful, all lit up, with one branch, decorated by moses, sporting 7 ornaments and a ten-inch skeleton.

does anyone find that the older you get, the more sappy you get about this kind of stuff?

but anyway, i swear, when the artificial trees go on clearance after the holidays this year, i'm getting a sparkling silver tinsel pre-lit tree, and i swear, no more tree drama ever again.

pictures of the tree will go up on the blog tomorrow.

legwear:  grey herringbone with silver thread, from julie

looking forward: to dinner at bam's tomorrow, saturday night live tonight.

inspiration:  my creative kids plus anna and d.j. with all their fancy holiday decorating.  thanks guys!

Season of Loose

As of now, I have no idea what to say.

This is the beginning of the season where we tend to forget about tight places--where we seem to be collectively allowed to be in a bubble for about a month and pretend we are rich in all ways.

We are loose this month, aren't we?  And open and giving?  Right?

We have license to be generous--and act like we have more than we do?

Am I right?

But to revert to tight, I have a strict policy about not playing any Christmas music 'til December 1st--and it's been annoying to walk into shops and hear it--but because I am on the cusp on this season and because I have to post SOMETHING decent tonight, I'm going go loose and give you one of my favorite seasonal tunes.

My favorite Christmas song is a song that never gets played (by a band in which two of the three members happen to be Mormon). Go ahead: sing.  Be loud!