Christmas Eve in Ohio
'High on the ends and round in the middle.'
Yes, sometimes people from Ohio actually say that, at least where I am from. I am back from my drive out into amish country to get a ham from Sugar Valley Meats. My dad went with me and we took my car which has four wheel drive.
Has anyone ever seen the movie 'The Ice Storm' by Ang Lee? That is what it looks like out there, only with trees and fields and barns and fences. The roads there are always bad; very twisty and hilly, except in the really touristy parts, where the main county road was expanded and straightened out for tour buses to get through. Droves of elderly people come out to eat at authentic amish resturants ( basic meat and potatoes, but always with the obligitory salad bar that seems to be a part of any tourist destination) and to buy handmade furniture and quilts. I have a lovely one from the 30s that was restored by a group of amish women who work together in a little shop behind their house. It is off the beaten path though- my dad drills water wells and has been working and driving out here for years and so the touristy areas are not really our thing. Its nice enough, but REALLY commercialized now.
But if you go way 'out in the county' the roads are still narrow and none of the farms have electricity- although the ice was so bad last night that the entire county lost power. My dad's partner who is now retired and housebound lives out there and we had to drive out last night at 2 am and hook up a generator for him.
But the view was more than worth the drive out and the icy roads. As we came around a hairpin curve, the huge masses of grey clouds parted and solid rays of sunlight that looked like sticks of butter came through and struck on a grove of icebound trees on the crest of the hillside. It was as if someone had lit up a thousand spears of ice from inside, gleaming and sharp and lovely. It was so beautiful it didn't even look real- one of nature's better homemade special effects. :)
Some of the trees were so weighted at their crowns with ice that they were bent nearly over to the ground with it, the trunks curved like bows with glittering bouquets of ice at their ends, touching the crusted snow on the fields.
Despite all of this, we actually have very little snow here in the Tuscaruwus River Valley. Unlike the area just to the south of us, the main block of the storms seems to have missed us, although we do have flurries going on.
The house is warm and the tree is lit and the presents are almost all wrapped. Soon I am starting dinner, which is going to be: pork roast with cranberry fool marinade and sauce, crusted with crushed pecans, red pepper fettucini with a little cream and some herbs, spinach salad with goat cheese and walnuts and bacon dressing, caluflower and broccoli baked with some toasted bread crumbs and for dessert, baked apples with vanilla bean ice cream. Yum.
While I'm cooking I think I will watch a christmas movie. My mother is addicted to Turner Classics and has a small tv in the kitchen, which I have to admit is convenient for long projects. I will watch 'Christmas in Conneticuit' with Barbara Stanwyck or maybe 'The Bishop's Wife' with Irene Dunn and Cary Grant.
Heh, this is getting all domestic and Women's Day- like, isnt it? Next thing you know I will be giving you all an esy recipie for gilding plastic cups with edible sugar and making them into angels for your kids to eat, all totally LO FAT, or something like that. ;)
Nawww.... I wouldnt do that to you.
Its just that I seldom have an oppurtunity to exercise my fearsomely capable domestic talents of late, so I am actually having FUN doing all this and driving my mom around with her broken arm etc. I have always liked the holidays and seldom stress about them specifically.
In case I dont talk to you all for a day or so, have a merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate. If you are not at all religious, then simply have a happy ANYTHING anyway. Go outside and look at the wonderful beauty of the cold and ice and think northernly thoughts. There is a tremendous clarity in the ice and cold- I think it is good for us to be exposed to it once in a while.
xxxooo, bakerygirl
Yes, sometimes people from Ohio actually say that, at least where I am from. I am back from my drive out into amish country to get a ham from Sugar Valley Meats. My dad went with me and we took my car which has four wheel drive.
Has anyone ever seen the movie 'The Ice Storm' by Ang Lee? That is what it looks like out there, only with trees and fields and barns and fences. The roads there are always bad; very twisty and hilly, except in the really touristy parts, where the main county road was expanded and straightened out for tour buses to get through. Droves of elderly people come out to eat at authentic amish resturants ( basic meat and potatoes, but always with the obligitory salad bar that seems to be a part of any tourist destination) and to buy handmade furniture and quilts. I have a lovely one from the 30s that was restored by a group of amish women who work together in a little shop behind their house. It is off the beaten path though- my dad drills water wells and has been working and driving out here for years and so the touristy areas are not really our thing. Its nice enough, but REALLY commercialized now.
But if you go way 'out in the county' the roads are still narrow and none of the farms have electricity- although the ice was so bad last night that the entire county lost power. My dad's partner who is now retired and housebound lives out there and we had to drive out last night at 2 am and hook up a generator for him.
But the view was more than worth the drive out and the icy roads. As we came around a hairpin curve, the huge masses of grey clouds parted and solid rays of sunlight that looked like sticks of butter came through and struck on a grove of icebound trees on the crest of the hillside. It was as if someone had lit up a thousand spears of ice from inside, gleaming and sharp and lovely. It was so beautiful it didn't even look real- one of nature's better homemade special effects. :)
Some of the trees were so weighted at their crowns with ice that they were bent nearly over to the ground with it, the trunks curved like bows with glittering bouquets of ice at their ends, touching the crusted snow on the fields.
Despite all of this, we actually have very little snow here in the Tuscaruwus River Valley. Unlike the area just to the south of us, the main block of the storms seems to have missed us, although we do have flurries going on.
The house is warm and the tree is lit and the presents are almost all wrapped. Soon I am starting dinner, which is going to be: pork roast with cranberry fool marinade and sauce, crusted with crushed pecans, red pepper fettucini with a little cream and some herbs, spinach salad with goat cheese and walnuts and bacon dressing, caluflower and broccoli baked with some toasted bread crumbs and for dessert, baked apples with vanilla bean ice cream. Yum.
While I'm cooking I think I will watch a christmas movie. My mother is addicted to Turner Classics and has a small tv in the kitchen, which I have to admit is convenient for long projects. I will watch 'Christmas in Conneticuit' with Barbara Stanwyck or maybe 'The Bishop's Wife' with Irene Dunn and Cary Grant.
Heh, this is getting all domestic and Women's Day- like, isnt it? Next thing you know I will be giving you all an esy recipie for gilding plastic cups with edible sugar and making them into angels for your kids to eat, all totally LO FAT, or something like that. ;)
Nawww.... I wouldnt do that to you.
Its just that I seldom have an oppurtunity to exercise my fearsomely capable domestic talents of late, so I am actually having FUN doing all this and driving my mom around with her broken arm etc. I have always liked the holidays and seldom stress about them specifically.
In case I dont talk to you all for a day or so, have a merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate. If you are not at all religious, then simply have a happy ANYTHING anyway. Go outside and look at the wonderful beauty of the cold and ice and think northernly thoughts. There is a tremendous clarity in the ice and cold- I think it is good for us to be exposed to it once in a while.
xxxooo, bakerygirl
posted by ReesieKitty at 2:23 PM
3 Comments:
Updates! Where are my friggin' UDATES???
Was there a tragic bakery accident? One of the Dakota freaks finally snapped, didn't they? Where have you been?
Remember: If you don't start blogging again, the terrorists will have won!
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