Happy 2008!

Rick and I spent a quiet holiday this year puttering around the house and spending what we jokingly refer to as “Pirate Time” – you know “ARRR and ARRR”. It’s been bitterly cold and snowy but we’ve been snug as can be in our own little bungalow.

On Christmas we made our traditional Aebleskiver Christmas Breakfast. When we married we found that between us we have four Aebleskiver pans-including one from his Danish great-grandmother. My Danish great-great-grandmother didn’t pass one on to me but I managed to find a couple of lovely cast iron ones along the way. Aebleskiver are little round pancakes that resemble a large doughnut hole. They can be filled with jam or applesauce or left plain and simply rolled in powdered sugar whilst they are warm.

Aebleskivers

• 2-3/4 cups all purpose flour, sifted
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1-1/2 cups half and half
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup melted butter

Sift flour before measuring, mix with baking powder and salt. Beat eggs until light, beat in sugar. Stir in half and half, vanilla and melted butter. Make a well in dry ingredients and add liquid ingredients to well and mix well. Place aebleskiver pan over low-medium heat, add a little butter to each indentation. Fill 2/3 full with batter by using two tablespoons. Cook until golden brown turning with a fork (or traditionally a knitting needle) to cook all sides. You can fill these with a little jam or applesauce by placing a little batter then a teaspoon or so of filling, then more batter in each indentation. Cook until well puffed and golden, remove from pan and roll each ball in powdered sugar. Serve immediately.

Every day of our holiday we enjoyed a lovely breakfast hour (or two) spent playing Upwords complete with delicious food and lattes. In the afternoons we relaxed with a tea time and on a few evenings Rick mixed up a new cocktail (or two) that he invented.

Rick is building two Waco UPF7 biplanes at present and so he has commandeered the office for the winter. We spent many a happy afternoon in adjoining rooms while he turned seemingly unfathomable plans into wooden parts and I cooked, read, knitted or drooled over seed catalogs while making long greedy lists of plants for spring planting.

We spent a quiet New Year’s Eve and got up fairly early for the first meal of the new year. This is an Eggs Benedict sort of dish- Sourdough toast with ham, fried eggs, avocado and a Mornay Sauce.  The house breakfast special of a sort.

Since we had not been out to a party the night before- we felt entitled to a bit of the bubbly for breakfast- enjoy a Bellini -fill a champagne flute bottom with a few tablespoons of peach puree and top off with Champagne or Asti Spumante!

This year I am not making any resolutions other than “not to make any resolutions” and although I understand that this somewhat makes a Moebius Ring of logic- I’m okay with it.

I know that every day is a new year’s day and that for me change is best accomplished through small movements rather than through grand gestures- so I refuse to “resolve.” I am intent on “evolving” to enjoy my life more, to be at peace, to value the contentment of quiet moments. I value what I have now- and if it can be improved I am certain that I will get there eventually in the cha-cha-cha-one step forward one step back- gyrations that seem to set the pace of my life.

This life is not the life I led last year nor the year before-each year brings its own opportunities and obstacles. Each year I live, life’s tidal current sets me a little farther along the beach of experience and I am increasingly humbled by the extended view.

Right now I am grateful for a love which enfolds and secures me and for the generosity of friends whose hearts are huge, open and wide. I am grateful for a place to express optimism and enthusiasm without embarrassment or hesitation. I am grateful for good food, good hearth and another season to grow. From this place I send to you all my best wishes for health, happiness and all good things in 2008.