Traditiooooooon! Tradition!

I really enjoy holiday traditions.  Like ornament exchanges, or cookie bake-offs or, something I recently discovered from a friend, pirate exchanges.  There are a few Christmas traditions in my family as well, but the greatest is a fantastic dish of pasta con nussa, which has traveled from our beloved Italia over the Atlantic and down the Eastern coast with my Brugnolotti family for at least a hundred years.  This cold lasagna-like pasta is made on Christmas Eve by a noted female chef and served on Christmas day, after being tested by myself, my grandfather, my uncle, and my aunts.  This year, my mother had the honor of creating this famous family dish, thus completing Christmas dinner.
As usual when I am in the kitchen with my mom, I hovered over her, watching carefully as she set up pots of boiling water, and all the ingredients: lasagna noodles, a loaf of white bread, walnuts, Parmesan, and garlic.  A lot of garlic.  (A note on pasta con nussa:  there is enough garlic to slay vampires in here.  Perhaps Buffy should have brought some with her on those many encounters with Druscilla.)
While I stood there, with my glass of Pinot Noir, I asked the obvious question: "How do you make this?"
Instead of giving me her usual answer, a run over of the directions, she looked at me with a slightly stressed upturn of her brow and answered, "I don't know, Rebecca.  There is no recipe."
Well this is just crazy.  I can understand not using a recipe when you've made something so many times you know it like the back of your hand.  (For the record: I do not make food this way because I would be too afraid of damaging someone's taste buds.  My mom, on the other had, makes the best pasta sauce in the world--yes, really--and I have never seen her use a recipe.  Ever.)  But with something you have never made?  That will be served to and judged by the rest of your family?  Please give me some notes!
Alas, there are no notes.  Not even scribblings on an old piece of crumpled brown paper.  Nothing.  Niente.  Only tradition.  And prayers.  Apparently there are a lot of prayers.
I watched with care, as she had done multiple times before, and marveled at the transformation of simple ingredients into a beautiful dish of creamy heaven.
And, Voila!  Pasta con Nussa in all it's delicious, nutty glory.  She did honors to a highly honorable dish.  We were all so proud as we devoured it.
As it is a family tradition, upon their first Brugnolotti Christmas, new members are lovingly offered a small slice of this holiday pasta, in hopes that they will let it melt in their mouth and ask for more.  And they do, every time, year after glorious year.

Saturday Blizzard

What to do on a Saturday when you are snowed in:

1. Wake up at 6am when your honey gets out of bed and help him get the snow off his car so he can start on his journey into the city.
2.  Go back to bed because you don't have to go to work today.
3.  Wake up again when your honey returns 40 minutes later because he only drove two miles in twenty minutes.
4.  Sleep in.  Wake up around 9am.
5.  Cancel all plans including a drive of more than 3 miles.  Even if you are excitedly looking forward to wine and cheese pairings with loved ones, or an annual tree-trimming party.  Not today.
6.  The three piles of laundry: start washing and enjoy the feeling of productivity.
7.  Decorate your Christmas tree (finally)
8.  Rejoice when the cable guy comes over (in his van with 4-wheel drive) and installs the cable.
9.  Add a vehicle with 4-wheel drive to your Christmas list.
10.  Go numb to the world by marveling at the realm of television and watching The Santa Claus.
11.  In an attempt to get away from the mind melting T.V, go adventuring to the grocery store.
12.  Ask your neighbors if you may borrow their shovel so you can get your car to the street, because you are not prepared for this kind of weather.
13.  Stop by Lowe's on your way home to get a shovel and snow salt.  Leave sans the shovel because they have sold out.
14.  Drive home slowly, wondering when the white stuff will stop falling out of the sky.
15.  Make lunch--soup and brie with crackers and fig jam. (mmmmmmmm)
16.  Get sucked into cable again and watch trashy t.v.: "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and "Jersey Shore"
17.  Finish making the recipe cards you're distributing to your family for Christmas.
18.  Walk to the kitchen to make something new.
19.  Look out the window and be impressed with the weather:  you can no longer see your car.
20.  Snuggle on the couch while you finish watching Blades of Glory.

Snowflakes

It is amazing the wonders you can find in a classroom.  I did a small project with my students the other day that consisted of a conversation, white stock paper and scissors.  We were having a discussion on the joys and shortcomings of life while folding paper and cutting holes into it.  When they were told they would be making snowflakes, the comments were questionable.  "I think I did this in second grade"  said one.  Of course, resistance in the form of questions if often found in a room of young teenagers, but I pushed onward. 
Curiosity began to arise when I demonstrated the how-to's of snowflake making:

Suddenly they wanted to know the secrets.  "Deep cuts" I told them.  The more space there is, the more intriguing the snowflake.  And as I guided my students, encouraging their daring and creativity in the unknown, it occurred to me how similar these teenagers are to the simple paper beauties they were unfolding. 
"It's interesting--they are all unique.  And no matter how many you make, there will never be an exact replica."
Ah.  How cheesy my metaphor was.  Looking back on the conversation, I wish I had taken the comparison further.  So that instead of simply leaving them with something they already know--that we are all different--something they knew at the age of nine, I would have left them with the certainty that, just like paper snowflakes, we have our own collection of cuts acquired through our years of living, and while it may at times occur to us that we are broken, or that there is a piece of us missing, we are not only complete as we are, but we are beautiful as well.
Whole while filled with holes.  Interesting.

Falling in Love With Soup

I have recently discovered that, among other things, I truly enjoy the art of cooking and love to test my culinary skills as often as possible.  I grab hold of recipes that spark my interest and sound delicious and worth the time it takes to cook them (of course, why would I make something unappealing?).  My latest masterpiece was my uncle's cheesecake, which I made for Thanksgiving, with remains still safely stored in my fridge.   Oh-Em-Gee.  This thing was freggin' HUGE.  And creamy.  And full of goodness and all that is divine.

Now I've got to figure out how to do that chocolate ganache on top.

But I'm not writing about cheesecake tonight.  I'm here to tell you about soup.  Usually, soup for me comes out of a can, the contents of which are poured into a small pot, and placed on a burner.  However, during my two-day Thanksgiving-fest last week, I came across a lovely recipe for Spicy Pumpkin Soup, courtesy of my lovely aunt and Rachael Ray.  Of course, feel free to check out the plain and simple directions via the Food Network.  My rendition may get complicated...we shall see.

You begin this oh-so-yummy soup by finely chopping up a medium sized yellow onion and two ribs of celery.  If you have a food processor, it makes the chopping easy.  And if you inherited it from your uncle, you can think about him while you cook.
Don't forget to wash the celery before going at it with the knife.  You don't want dirt in your soup.
In a large pot twirl some extra virgin olive oil around in the bottom (I did two spins, Rachael says just one turn of the pan) and add 2 tablespoons of butter (again, I was generous).  Put the burner on medium high heat.  Watch the butter melt and savor the scent.  When you can no longer distinguish the butter from the oil, add your chopped veggies, plus a fresh bay leaf.  Add some salt and pepper, too.

It begins...

Let your veggies cook a bit, until they are soft and the onion is translucent.  Add three tablespoons of flour, two teaspoons of ground thyme, and a few shakes of hot sauce.  (I like it a bit hot, so I was generous again.  You may add to your own taste.)  Mix--it will be a bit clumpy, this is okay.  Cook for about three minutes.
Next, add 6 cups of chicken broth (a 48-ounce can) and whisk merrily as your concoction starts to look like soup and smell like Thanksgiving.  Let it come to a happy bubble.
Open a can of Pumpkin puree.  Smile, and, with a big ole' spoon, scoop the pumpkin into the broth mixture, whisking it together in between scoops.

Your soup will thicken and turn a rustic shade of orange.  Inhale and smile.

Let this sit and marry for about ten minutes on medium low heat.

While the soup is sitting ceremoniously over the burner, begin your relish.
Grab an apple.

Cut it up.
If you are still rejoicing over your food processor, shred the apple along with a quarter of an onion.  Otherwise, love your knife.  Rachael calls for a red onion.  My red onion was questionable, so after disposing of it, I used a white one.
Take your bits of apple and onion and place them in a bowl together.  Add two table spoons of lemon juice.

I like fresh stuff, so I just squeezed half of a lemon over the bowl.
The recipe calls for dried sweetened cranberries, which I did not have.  But I did have pomegranate seeds.  I took a handful and squeezed those out over the bowl, too.  (My relish was a bit juicy).  Add a teaspoon of chili powder (I used ground Cayenne pepper), a generous drizzle of honey, and a half teaspoon of ground cinnamon.

Oh, my.

Mix it up.

The end result looks a bit unappealing, but smells divine.

Go back to your soup.  Add two cups of heavy cream, keeping in mind that generosity is key this holiday season.  Whisk with a happy face and watch your soup turn a light amber.

When the soup has a consistent color, it is ready to serve.  Of course, you may put the burner on low and wait for your honey to come home.

Or not.

When you are ready to dine, ladle the soup in to a shallow bowl and add a scoop of relish.  Enjoy, while giving thanks for such fabulous recipes and the joy of making your own soup.