Merry Merry, Happy Happy

In the blink of an eye, another Christmas come and gone.  Our Christmas was filled with the normal suspects: food; family; fun.  On Friday we ventured up Chinook Pass to spend the day and share a meal with Jay's Dad, Aunt and Uncle, Brother and Wife.  Curled on the couch, sipping hot buttered rum, watching the snow fall, listening to Jay's Dad tell stories of practical jokes he used to play on his buddy helped make Christmas Eve 2010 one of the best to date.  And it was informative!  Did you know the best way to get a pig to go where you want it to is put a bucket on its head and back it up?  Me neither.  If you want to pull a fast one though, tell your friend he can lead two 250 pound pigs with just a rope around their neck.  Then sit back and watch as 500 pounds worth of ham on legs pull said friend all over God's green Earth.  Don't be at home when he comes over to call you on it.  After your friend has forgotten this stunt and you happen to stop by his house when he is asleep on the couch, rub bacon grease all over his glasses.  Didn't wake him up?  Sprinkle pepper in his mustache.  Still nothing?! Place his hand in a pan of warm water so that .... well you know.  Then when your friend finally wakes up he thinks he is blind due to the thick smear of bacon grease all over his glasses.  This is your cue to run like hell.  John didn't tell us the pranks his buddy pulled on him, but I imagine they were some doozies if this is how he got back at him.  We laughed until we cried.  I also hope it burned some calories.  Aunt Dell made enough food to feed us for a week.  Ham, turkey, AND prime rib plus all the sides.  I was disappointed I couldn't eat anymore.

The Deason Men left to right: Doyel, John, Jay, Clint

Dell in the middle of making our feast.

Fonzi! Yes, part wolf.

"And then I rubbed bacon grease on his glasses..."

Clint and Kathleen got Doyel and John remote control helicopters. So fun!

Now how does this thing work? John, Jay, Clint, Kathleen.

We came home Friday night since we were hoping to sleep in and then head to my parents for Christmas Day afternoon/evening.  I made a big breakfast, Jay made Bloody Mary's and we let Chloe open our presents.  I didn't get any pictures, but it was quite entertaining.  I was ready to head to my parents and couldn't find Jay.  He was already taking a nap!  Christmas sure is hard work.  Or maybe it was the Bloody Marys.

We continued the eating, I may have eaten one plateful too many of tortellacci and I paid for it later.  During the eating, however, it was totally worth it.  Before the food coma we did some pyramiding, opened gifts, and Gina held her first ever annual auction.  She was raising money for the Humane Society and auctioned off gifts a.k.a. stuff from her room she didn't want anymore.  In her defense, though, most of it was unused.  For example, a photo album my Mom gave her previously.  My Dad bought it back.  I walked away with a banana holder, banana included, a hat, and a set of martini glasses w/ shaker.  All for $11.25!  What a bargain.  I probably could have gotten off cheaper if I didn't keep outbidding myself.  What can I say?  I got caught up in the moment.  For her first time as auctioneer Gina did quite well.  Even is she could never remember what the bid was.  She usually just went with the price she wanted to get.

Peta is here from London and a fantastic addition to our festivities.  Air France lost her luggage so she doesn't have her inhaler or any clothes, but she packed our gifts in her carry-on.  Can you believe it?! What a sweetheart.  Hopefully her luggage shows soon.  They should also give her a free flight since they are taking so long to fix their error.  Moral of the story: don't fly Air France.
For all the stress I let myself get caught up in at Christmas, this one turned out swell.  I decided to take my sis-in-law's advice: eat a lot; drink a lot; sleep a lot.  Well put Traci, this is my new recipe for success.

Family Pyramid 2010

Sara, Jay, Carla = Base layer.
Gina, Mom = Middle.
Peta = Rockin' the top.

Peta and Gina

Pops so happy he got smoked salmon and brick cheese.

Mom thrilled with her new spoons even though I spilled the beans as she was opening them.  Oops.

Carla and Jay/myself got six packs of wine. Gina got rootbeer and summer sausage...it's a long story.

The "kids".

Family.

Family plus Peta.

Chloe made a new friend.

The auctioneer at work.

Me and the hubs.  Looking thrilled as usual to have his photo taken.

The finale! Zuppenglaza!  yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.



That's Farmer Jay and Goat Herder Sara To You

It's signed, recorded and official.  Jay and I own 15.86 acres 5 miles up Nahahum Canyon.  Whoa folks.  That's a lotta land!  Our lives will be changing over the course of the next year.  The loose plan is to put our house on the market in the spring and hope it sells.  Then move up the canyon and live in our shop.  I know what you are thinking: girl is crazy.  What can I say? My parents did it so it must be in my blood.  And Jay has promised to build a nice apartment in the shop for us.  I trust him and I know he does good work.  The shop already has a bathroom so the plumbing and electrical is installed.  That makes things a bit easier.  Assuming of course the cold winter and the fire last summer didn't destroy things so badly we have a lot of repair work to do.  The fire also destroyed the manufactured home that was on the property.  The way we look at it that is a bonus.  Now the building site for our future home is open and ready.  Nahahum Canyon has had forest fires the past two summers I believe.  What are you going to do though?  Our property is open without thick stands of trees and we will be prepared.  It is what it is.

We have much to think about and decide.  We are looking forward to this new chapter in our lives and can't wait to live out of town again.  We both grew up like this and feel we are heading back to our roots.  Bring on the goats and the ducks!

Jay and Chloe heading up our driveway...all .8 miles of it.

Looking up at the house where will eventually be.  Just to the left of the hill on the right.

See that shop? Yep, home sweet home.

Standing on the future home site.

"I Think I Ate Too Much"

Thanks for sending the picture Jason, poor Ty Ty!

Tortellacci

We are Italian right? Italians don't eat turkey or ham for Christmas.  Just kidding, they might, I don't really know.  These Italians, however, don't.  We eat tortellacci and lots of it.  What is tortellacci?  I suppose the best way to describe it is like tortellini.  Except bigger and filled with a mixture of cheeses and spinach.  And pretty much the best pasta dish ever.  It is twice as good in Italy where they can get ricotta cheese made of goat's milk. We haven't been able to find that here so the flavor is a bit different, but just as yummy.  Maybe when I have my own goats I can start making my own goat's milk ricotta...

Anyway, I digress.  We normally only have tortellacci once a year for Christmas, mainly because it is labor intensive.  A labor of love, but labor none the less.  If we are lucky, my Mom will make them twice a year.  Nonna (my Dad's Mom) taught my Mom how to make tortellacci.  I doubt Nonna ever followed a recipe, but my mom has one in this old Italian cook book.  The pages are all falling out and there are lots of notes written in it like, 1994: Fred ate 40 tortellacci, Claudia ate 20, the girls ate 15 each... I remember standing at the counter on a stool when Nonna came to visit so I could help fold tortellacci.  I am sure we didn't actually fold many, we probably just played with the dough.  Or made "lunch boxes", dough with the filling folded into squares rather than the correct shape.  Nonna lived in Illinois and we didn't get to see her as often as any of us would have liked and I will always treasure these memories.  I only wish I had realized before she passed away how much I would love to have picked her brain for her recipes.  I do have a few of them and they say things like "10 soup spoons of water".  These recipes will take a bit of trial and error for me.  What if her soup spoons were bigger than my soup spoons?

Wow, another tangent.  But really it is all part of the back story.  Why we have tortellacci for Christmas.  Why folding tortellacci has special memories for me.  Growing up my Mom bore the brunt of the labor.  Not this year though.  Gina was there helping of course.  She doesn't have a car so she really didn't have a choice.... I came up, Carla showed up after work and our friend Laurie was there too.  She even made her own dough and filling so she could take some to her family. Maybe we have helped inspire a new tradition for others?  This year involved a new step, throwing the tortellacci in a pot of boiling water just until they rise to the surface.  Apparently this is supposed to prevent them from splitting open in the pot later after you have frozen them.  Maria taught my Mom this in Italy while they were visiting.  We hope it works, it is always sad to lose a tortellacci to splitting.  There was plenty of wine, I mean, work for everyone and we had wonderful afternoon.  Bon appetit!

Laurie and Mom whipping up a batch of dough.

Mom rolling out the dough.

Gina filling the squares.  Surprisingly enough she wasn't eating one at the moment.

Hard at work.

Ready to fold up a tasty morsel.

Nonna would be proud.

Don't screw up Carla! 

Carani Girls.  All in one place at one time!

Gina Makes Brazilian Black Bean Stew

Gina is home and she is quite the chef.  As far as I can remember she has always liked to be in the kitchen.  I think maybe her time in Antarctica solidified that, especially when she was the baker's assistant. When she offered to come down and make dinner for Jay and I, I did not hesitate to say yes.  Then I decided I might as well take the whole day off to spend time with her.  She leaves again January 8 or maby it is the 9...for Nicaragua for three months of volunteer work.

The original plan was to make fish curry, since as you may remember Jay and I have an amazing amount of fish.  But then we weren't sure if fish curry would be good with salmon and she couldn't find the curry paste she likes.  We even tried the little oriental market here in Wenatchee.  And I mean little.  Has anyone been in there?  It is on Mission Street across from The Wild Huckleberry.  The owner was there, a little old lady, who was beyond cute.  She talked the whole time we were there, but we were never quite sure if she was talking to us. The trip ended with her telling us how to make Thai food and laughing that we were going to experiment with a Brazilian food instead. 

So instead of curry, Gina decided to make Brazilian Black Bean Stew.  As it turns out it is more of a yam stew, the beans actually play a very small part.  It is spicy, hearty, and delicious.  Paired with a spinach salad and finished off with chocolate torte, the meal was a success!  Gina's friend Kyle joined us and I was able to send him home with half the pot because the recipe made so much.

The next day Gina hung out at the house until I could take her to the bus stop to head back to Leavenworth.  She cleaned the kitchen and left us with a batch of Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies.  Also delicious.  You can visit any time sister!  I am glad we were able to spend time together. I love you.

All good chefs have Bloody Marys.

  

Chop, chop, chop.  The makings of a feast!

 Chorizo sausage...Gina had just told me what is in it.

Gina making decorations for the chocolate torte.

 

Hmmmm, how is this for a center piece?! LOL.

 

Brazilian Stew and salad.

 Chocolate torte.

Gina, Jay, me.

Wild Horses Couldn't Keep Me Away

On Friday Jay and I got to go to Issaquah and see our new nephew.  FINALLY, in my opinion.  Little man was slightly over a month early so his first 10 days were spent in the hospital gaining weight.  He is just about 5 pounds now and 16 inches.  I knew he was going to be small, but I had never held a baby his size.  Don't be fooled by his tiny stature, however, Ty has muscles!  He has crazy good head control and I struggled putting on his diapers because he often decided to arch his back and stiffen all his limbs.  Dude is a fighter. :-)

It was great to see Traci and Jason, who as first time parents, appear to have settled into their new routine seamlessly.  Jay and I are stoked to have this precious new addition to our family.  Someday maybe they will live in our neck of the woods, but for now they are only a couple hours away.  Can't wait to go back!

 Ty the tiny peanut.

 Well hello there.

 Mama and son.

 Completely smitten.

So tiny Ty!

Uncle Jay and Ty

Little doll face.

Finished Floors

The floors are all done!  Good work Jay.

This & That

First of all, Mr. Friendly got a home! Hooray!  I got a call on Saturday from a lady whose friend had sent her a text message about the posters I put up at the hospital.  She had lost her orange tabby, who she adopted after somone tried to throw him off the bridge, a couple weeks ago.  Side note: how can people do that to animals?! Sad. Anyway, she wasn't sure if Mr. Friendly was her missing kitty or not, but was so excited to have another orange tabby regardless that it was a perfect ending.

He did like visiting at work on Friday while I was trying to find him a home.

Second, Jay finished the floors!  We feel like we are living in a completely different house.  It only took us a year from buying the flooring to actually getting it laid.... It looks great, but watch out, it is slippery. I have already lost count of the times I have almost fallen down.

Hmmm, I guess I don't have a picture  of the finished product yet.  Stay tuned.

 

Third, the animals have Jay wrapped around their paw.

Fourth, we get to go see this little man on Friday.  I. Cannot. Wait.  He will be two weeks old tomorrow and high time we meet him.  He is at home now waking his mama up every 2.5 hours to eat, which is good.  He needs to fatten up!

Auntie Sara is coming Ty!  Be prepared. :-)