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T’s mother used to make greens every New Year’s day. Occasionally she even made black-eyed peas. These were the foods she’d eaten every New Year’s Day as a child, because her mother followed that strangest of Southern traditions, and made her children something called “hoppin’ john.” Southerners eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day to attract luck, and they eat greens, so that money will come in the New Year.

Obviously, this worked for T’s family. That — or continuing to go to work — ensured that they have never yet gone bankrupt and become destitute and homeless.

T., however, is not a huge proponent of the New Year’s Day scenario. First, she knows that D. really hates cooked veg, especially greens — and while she loves them, a.) most of them don’t love her, seeing as they’re high in oxalic acid, and b.) there’s not much point cooking anything for one person that the other won’t eat. Another reason for avoidance is, if T. stays up ’til midnight, her body figures it’s time to eat again — and she’s just not eating greens at midnight, no matter how tasty they might be. A New Year’s Day celebration meal that comes in the middle of the night calls for pancakes. Silver dollar pancakes, to be sure — for the money attractant aspect of things. And syrup — a lovely bitter orange syrup made of the leftover simple syrup from candying oranges — makes the perfect representative food of love.

So, we expect love and money in the New Year. And, you know, to still be trying to be healthy, since that’s obviously what the puddle of earnest and healthful margarine represents. (It’d be a whole ‘nother story if that were butter.)

But what, you ask, about the black-eyed peas?

Welllll, D. kind of hates those, too. Or, rather, he did. And actually, T. wasn’t so fond of the dried kind — until she remembered — or misremembered? — a dish of them she enjoyed in childhood, made by some Jamaican friends. T. did a little experimenting, and came up with a good first try at the dish, and we both actually enjoyed it — which is a good thing. Black-eyed peas are cheap (thus explaining the frugal Southerners serving them), and fiber-full, which is probably a good thing the usual meal of four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves and a neighborhood of gingerbread houses that most people eat for Christmas dinner, and continue to snack on throughout the week between the 25th and New Year’s Day. Not to mention the fudge…

This is a rough guess at what we did to make this dish — and keep in mind, it’s a work in progress!

Misremembered Peas & Rice

• 2 c. black-eyed peas – sorted and soaked
• About 8 C. water
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 spring onions, bruised and 2 Tbsp. onion powder
• 1 tsp. salt, and of freshly ground black pepper
• 2 fresh sprigs of thyme, bruised, or 2 tsp. dried
• 1/4 tsp. paprika, and ginger
• 1 C. rice
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 whole hot pepper, like Scotch Bonnet or a Thai chile, optional

First, sort your beans — this is imperative. This time of year, the only black-eyed peas you’ll find are dried and harvested peas, and the harvesting process inevitably brings along little rocks. Measure out your two cups, pour them a bit at a time on a flat surface, and pick through them. It’s a chore myriad Southern children spent many an evening doing…
Soak your beans in water in a covered pot overnight. For some people, black-eyed peas cause more gastrointestinal distress than other beans, and soaking them overnight and tossing out the water helps with that. If you haven’t time for a whole overnight thing, pour your beans into boiling water, boil for two minutes, and then allow to sit for one hour. Discard the water, and Bob’s your uncle. And Bob might not have a gassy stomach, which would benefit your familial relationship greatly.

Next, smash your garlic cloves with the flat of your knife, into a paste, and add to the 8 cups of boiling water. Add the drained beans and simmer for an hour to an hour and a half, depending on how old your beans were to begin with, and how high of an altitude you’re at — beans can be tricky, but most of them give up the ghost after an hour. Simply do a “squish test” against the lid of the pot. You want your black-eyed peas to have give, but not be completely mush, so do check on that simmer at the hour mark!
Then, add your coconut milk, rice, salt, black pepper, onion powder, paprika, ginger, and spring onions (or scallions) and thyme to the mix. Please note that the aromatics are beaten and bruised with the flat of your knife, not chopped, according to the visual of the finished dish that T. retains from when her friends made it. (Mind you, T. never lets anything like the way one is supposed to do things stop her, and she chopped a plain old onion into hers, but she practically made a paste of it, and sweated it before she added it to the beans, so it was invisible — but then, she has a THING about adding onions to savory foods. Ignore her. Carry on.) At this time, if you’d like your dish to be slightly spicy, toss in your whole hot pepper – don’t chop it! Simply boiling it in the coconut milk and the juices from the beans will impart a “glow” to the dish that non-pepper lovers will even enjoy.

The rice should be cooked through in forty minutes — keep an eye on the dish at this stage, and don’t hesitate to add a teensy bit more water (no more than a quarter cup), if your bean juice is quite thick and you feel there’s not enough liquid to adequately cook the rice. Remove your bedraggled veg matter – pepper, thyme and onions — and serve with a dusting of thyme and pepper to taste.

The reason this is called Misremembered Peas & Rice — is because the dish actually calls for kidney beans! T. swears she had it with black-eyed peas, but she may have recalled one of her mother’s experiments and not Mrs. Shand’s dish. Either way – it’s a creamy, tasty, yummy dish, with just a hint of coconut scent, and a subtle fire — and a good way to get down those black-eyed peas, even if you’re not fond of them.

And why should you be trying so hard to eat them? Because 1 cup (172g) plain cooked black-eyed peas is only 199 calories, 35g of carbohydrate (11% of the American recommended daily allowance), 11g of fiber (44% RDA) and 13g of protein, which is rare in beans (And ½ cup of cooked black-eyed peas counts as 1 oz. of lean meat from the Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs, And Nuts Group of the Food Guide Pyramid.). Plus, they’re pretty tasty. Even if they’re not the bean you were supposed to use.

…you drive up to your house and see a fire truck,

…your neighbors are standing around in freezing temps in their shirtsleeves, looking unhappy,

…and, the firemen are turning off the water to the high-pressure fire sprinklers in the ceiling of all the flats.

Welcome home! Your flat has flooded. Again.

This time it’s not our fault – it appears that we should have coordinated being away with the neighbors. We all left for at least three consecutive days. Big mistake. Even leaving a trickle of water running didn’t work – the pipes have frozen, and we all have a room flooded – Lesley’s kitchen lights are out and they’re filled with water, Steven downstairs has water seeping through the ceiling and the sprinklers in his flat burst, and we haven’t heard from upstairs yet.

We have sopping wet bathroom rugs. Oh. And the $@%$*%&!# mushroom is growing under the toilet again in a big nest of mold.

Don’t laugh. (Jama-J, I’m looking at you.) The mushroom is dead, and there will be no pictures. And THIS TIME at least we know that it grew because of water seeping through the sandstone, carrying with it whatever little nasties from outside. It has nothing to do with our housekeeping, or lack of it. …despite what we’re tempted to think as we’re down there sluicing the floor with boiling water and bleach…

::sigh:: Welcome home, indeed. Still, we are grateful to have had a great flight (even with the fifty minute stop in Manchester) and a restful time, and will have energy to deal with this next mess…eh, maybe tomorrow.

Greetings, this 19°F/-4°C day. The house is awash in books as T. is approaching the end of her reading session for the Cybils awards, our concerts are over for the year and our house is a disaster and our wits are disordered. (Oh, right, you can say “as usual” if you want to, but just know the ice you’re standing on is very, very thin.) Speaking of ice — it is maddening. For now, the snow has covered the worst of the black ice, but cabs still can’t get up our hill, and we’ve taken to getting into our place around the back. D. took a really bad tumble the other day and we believe that he’s cracked a few ribs. Nevertheless, this didn’t stop him from deciding that he wanted to show T. the fountain with all the ice on it on the way to the museum this weekend. Against her better judgment, T. went along, and we crept, slid, and slithered our way to the park.

A trip which should have taken fifteen minutes took us a solid hour. It is NOT the time to go gallivanting about, unless one has a well-padded backside, and/or the wherewithal to land well and laugh. The city is full of the veritable walking wounded; a choir acquaintance had to have a music stand at our last concert because her arm was encased in a temporary cast, and she couldn’t hold her folder or turn pages. One of our acquaintances who is an adjunct professor at the University fell flat on his back crossing the street, and was up and smiling ruefully moments later. Ten days on, however, he’s still feeling twinges, and is cranky at his much-reduced mobility. The clinics are simply looking people over and sending them on (sans painkillers, our choir friend complained), admitting that they are full up with a rash of bonked heads and bruised elbows. We are grateful that D. didn’t hit harder — really grateful. Hot tubs are sounding pretty good about now, we only hope, with the forecast ramping up for ridiculous weather again, that we can make it on our magical mystery tour.

As previously reported, Sunday night was our final concert for the year, and it was an unqualified success, to our surprise. Christmas songs are tricky to do well at any time; the old standards and favorites turn into either a nostalgic mush or the new ones are so jarring as to be unpleasant, and in a concert, there’s the chance that the audience will be bored out of their gourds, or unhappy that classics aren’t being represented. We had a good mix of old and not normally sung and, oddly, movie music, but we belted out Rutter’s arrangement of The Twelve Days of Christmas and the theme song for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace with equal aplomb.

The second half of the concert was sheer silliness as the orchestra and chorus donned strobing headgear — Christmas tree hats, fluffy marabou halos, blinky bow ties, strings of garland, reindeer horns, and the works, and encouraged lots of audience participation in caroling, and the uniquely British tradition of pulling crackers. T. felt a tiny bit stupid backstage as she was handed a cracker and two “party poppers.” “Okay, what am I supposed to do with these?” she blankly asked her section leader, who smacked herself in the forehead in apology, and showed T. how they worked. T. waited politely through the explanation — she knew that much; since they’re sold for the 4th of July and New Year’s in the U.S. — but her question was WHY do we have noisemakers, and what are we doing with them in the middle of the concert?! This was never sufficiently answered, so she just popped off her popper when everyone else was making noise, and shrugged.

Sadly, D. had to sit out the second half of the fun, as he almost took a swan dive offstage when his blood pressure bottomed out. As his FIRST fall had only been the previous day, he figured it was the better part of valor to sit down until he could escape.

T. made a rare visit to the kitchen and baked sugar cookies (or butter biscuits, as she heard them called) for her section, waking at six to bake and chill and pipe away. They were accepted with surprise, and though T. is a well-known curmudgeon and Bah Humbug aficionado, her section briefly thought she was of cheerful and sweet disposition. Little do they know.

The cold is bringing out an host of unique creatures… squirrels, which run across frozen ponds, begging, pigeons, which run toward people in the park, again, begging, and the most disgusting, fattest, shiniest, largest palmetto-bug sized COCKROACH we had EVER seen, at the pool. Possibly begging, though it looked to just be kickin’ it poolside.

Months ago, when T. crossed several lanes to escape a floating spider, her friend Val said dryly, “Wait til y’see the roaches.” Neither of us really understood… and now we do. And are properly grossed out.

And on that note…HAPPY HOLIDAYS! ::snicker::

December

by Gary Johnson

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here—and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
And are there angels singing overhead? Hark.

In need of a little light in the dark and cold? (This pic was snapped when it was SEVEN DEGREES, which is just a bit MUCH for the wimpy Californians in the room.) Sick of rain, snow, sleet, or gloom of night? (Or, gloom of morning, as the case may be.) Then, you need the December Lights Project. The December Lights project was started by Northern authors living in Wales, Ireland and the great Northern reaches of the UK where it is dark and c-c-cold, and is a bundle of short stories, each one posted a day in December, each with a happy ending.

Happy, lighthearted short stories. That’s the December Light Project.

The stories are FREE (and no donation button even appears on the site), and are written by well-known and highly regarded young adult and children’s authors including Tiffany Trent, Sherwood Smith, Stephanie Burgis, Sarah Prineas, Leah Cypress, Patrick Samphire, Karen Healey, and many more.

Consider it a little Hanukkah, Solstice, Christmas, Kwaanza gift, and enjoy a little light reading.

Oy. Vey. We THOUGHT that the Met Office was wrong about the two weeks of snow – they’re so rarely right about anything at all that we were prepared to blithely ignore them as usual. We had two days of brilliant sun over the weekend in which the temps soared — soared, we say — to the low thirties/-3°C, and we thought surely that the snow would begin to melt. And it didn’t. It sat there. And looked smug.

Slowly, people begin to venture from their homes, armed with metal dust pans, and began scraping the snow from steps and walks… and last night, when we went to bed, the sky was clear. We expected more of the same this morning. Or, you know, rain. This IS Glasgow, after all.

Surprise. It’s snowing so hard everyone got sent home from D’s office today at ten to noon, the buses are not really running (we saw one towed downtown, and another slid into the curb right in front of the chiropractic office), and rather than waiting for elusive buses or cabs we walked home from downtown (T. slipped twice, but fortunately, just post-chiropractic appointment, managed to simply do the splits twice and keep walking. This freaks D. out to watch, for some odd reason, and there is much muttering about stubborn people who walk too fast.) with our umbrellas up, and still arrived home soaked to skin. It was a SLOG. Our appointment was at 10:30, and both of us get a fifteen minute adjustement. We left at ten ’til eleven, and though it was only two miles home or so, we got there after noon.

The most common sound in the otherwise silent city are car alarms, as the heavy snow shifts and slides, and the vROOOOOOOOOm, vROOOOOOOOOOOM! as vehicles spin their wheels, trying to back out of parking places and get up hills. It’s not happening. We saw a poor bride dressed in full champagne-colored finery WALKING UP THE HILL IN HEELS, together with her bridal party, all in scarlet sheath dresses, the four of them protected only by the flimsiest of umbrellas. We cannot frankly believe that they didn’t at least have boots in the car. (Or a coat, hello!? The gowns were sleeveless.) Their little satin shoes were utterly ruined within two steps from the car, and we’re pretty sure the bride was leaking sequins.

What a day to get married.

What a day, period. New snow factoid no one ever tells you: after a point, the stuff gets heavy. Also, it is possible to sweat and freeze at the same time without having the ‘flu.

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Speaking of the ‘flu and all other creeping cruds, we’ve remained remarkably well so far, still making it to the pool most days. Aside from D’s bum-bruising fall last week, nothing much too bad has happened to us, so we made applesauce cake to celebrate that. As far as T. remembers, the cake contained: 3 c. AP flour, 1 c. brown sugar, packed, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1 Tbsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. each freshly ground cinnamon, cloves, ginger; 1/4 c. plain yogurt, 3 Tbsp. oil, 2 c. chunky homemade applesauce (Ours is made with one Granny Smith and a bunch of Braeburns, so it tends toward tart).

She combined the dry ingredients, whipped together the yogurt and oil and added them to the flour mix, then turned in the chunky applesauce. We baked ours in a springform pan, but any 9″ round baking pan will do, or even a loaf pan.

Bake at 350°F/175ºC for forty-five minutes, and you’ll have a moist, dense spice cake that has all the best flavors of autumn. It is REALLY tasty. If you’re taking it somewhere and not simply devouring it at home, cut out an intricate paper snowflake, set it on the cake and sift powdered sugar on top. Instant company food.

Today’s soup is butternut coconut curry, or it will be, as soon as the squash is slaughtered. What are you making?

We woke up to Day 2 of the snow:

(Okay, some of us sound a little over-excited about the snow. It’ll pass.)

Yeah, that shopping trip? Simply not going to happen, not with cabs sliding precariously through the ice and people slithering along on inappropriate shoes on sidewalks all over the city. For the most part, the snow is still powdery, and the slush is gray and nasty — largely drivable, if one is careful. Cabbies aren’t always careful — and if we can’t get to where we want to go on foot, we’re just not going. Lots of books to read, lots of work to do, so there’s not much need yet to go out. Fortunately.

We enjoyed our little castle-ing (really, it was more of a stately home, not much of a castle) trip this weekend with so many Malaysian classmates — many of whom had never seen snow. It was a hoot to watch them as they shivered and squealed — and many of the kids got so wet they’re probably home sick right now — but they seemed to have so much fun. One little daredevil was leapfrogging rocks over a frozen pond in the Japanese garden. We were positive THAT wouldn’t end well – but it did.

We did a little hiking through a graveyard — one of the sillier things we’ve done, as it was up steep stairs that aren’t well-maintained, and it was icy in Edinburgh this weekend. We carefully picked our way through the gates, up the hill and onto the grounds of the Old Calton Burial Grounds, gripping railings and walls and handholds. We found the grave of philosopher David Hume, which was a coup for D. with his recent Master’s in Philosophy. We also found a large statue of Abraham Lincoln. And no, he’s not buried there, so we weren’t sure what was up with that, but the plaque (what we could read of it beneath the caked snow) claimed that the memorial was raised in honor of Scottish soldiers fighting in the Civil War… and on the stairs sprawled beneath Lincoln’s upstanding form was the image of a slave. Hm. The Emancipation Monument was erected in 1893. We’ll have to get a different shot of it on a day when we’re not risking life and limb to get closer.

We’ll close our brief picture post with the most gorgeous tree in Edinburgh. Since it wasn’t snowing as heavily in Edinburgh, this tree took the opportunity to continue having autumn. As of this post writing, it’s snowing again, so the trees in Glasgow don’t have this choice, but the colors against the backdrop of that washed-out blue sky were a treat to see, and made our walk through the park even better. It reminds us that no matter how cold it is, or how many carols we hear, it’s still autumn, and we don’t have to rush to the next Big Thing unless we want to!

O, the weather outside is frightful…

Odd, isn’t it, how those who extol the virtues of snow never make reference to how it strips the moisture from your skin, your sinuses, and your hair, nor do they discuss the painful ache in your fingers when they are SO. COLD., nor the unattractive shades of puce, blue, and lobster your face will turn after a few hours in -5°C (23°F) with a bit of a wind driving you on. They never mention how badly cold leaches you of energy or the ability to take a full breath, and how your muscles get a bit more tired than usual. Nope. They never say a thing about that. It’s all about the pretty. ::sigh::

We wakened yesterday with the first snow of the season laid down and pristine. It was gorgeous, and we saw both fox and goose prints in the two inches or so. (We also saw Mr. Fox, but all our photos of him were blurry. And the geese! Who knew they walked around so much on foot? Either that, or it’s really big crows, but they have more than three toes…) We were dubious about our trip, but we figured that since it was only a light snow, it was no longer snowing actively, and the salt trucks and all were out, things would be good. And we were fine. The bus had a few brief skidding moments before we hit the freeway, and we saw a few more accidents than usual, but all was well.

We arrived in Edinburgh with our group and just walked the city, ducking into doorways to photograph the Christmas Market fair, full of flashing lights and what must have been the coldest slide known to man (the workers were sweeping the snow off of it — I doubt they got many takers). The Ferris wheel rose above the city and from down below, the castle looked like a brooding white fortress. (As opposed to the brooding black fortress it normally looks.)

We walked for five hours in Edinburgh yesterday, chugging through the big city park, rambling through a graveyard, St. John’s Cathedral and then a castle outside of the city. While it was beautiful — and we have tons of lovely photographs to share with you soon — with the breezes blowing, it was ridiculous out. We hate it when we get housebound and don’t do anything in the dark gray days, but after heading toward Edinburgh and realizing it was snowing HARDER in Glasgow than it was there, and that clouds were building in Edinburgh … we realized we might have made a mistake in leaving the house.

That was T’s opinion before we even got started, of course. D. was hoping to do tons of photography, but T. knew it would be both cold and crowded in Edinburgh (her two FAVORITE things), and threatened to whine all day and call for copious mugs of hot chocolate as bribes (she surprised herself by doing neither) for having to be on a bus at 8:30 a.m. on a weekend morning. When we made it home at six o’clock, exhausted and tracking snow on our soaking wet cuffs and boots, we both groaned as the heat needled our cheeks. T. remarked, “I don’t mind the cold, but I just HATE being cold!”

There’s a fine line of distinction, you see. As long as it’s just snowing prettily through the window, see, it’s all good. When you’re foolish enough to be slogging through it (and in Edinburgh, as always, everyone and his dog are shopping, and it’s even worse with the Christmas Market going — thus the park and the graveyard, which were more lightly [live] peopled) dodging road traffic, foot traffic and just sheer aggravation — it’s miles worse.

And today is Day 2 of The Great Snow. It was snowing when we wakened. It has been snowing all day, off and on, and promises to continue to snow off and on, according to the Met Office, for two weeks. We are at eight inches now, and counting. Glasgow, a city where one can always find someone running down the street bellowing, singing tunelessly in front of the pub, puking behind the garbage cans, or pelting something at the seagulls, is remarkably, eerily quiet. We figure the partiers will come out when they run out of booze or get cabin fever. We expect that any hour now.

Meanwhile, we’re contemplating taking out the trash and making a dash across the street to pick up emergency rations from the gas station market (hopefully there’s anything left — although we doubt people really are in dire need of vegetables, so we’ll be fine). We were supposed to run to the Asian market this morning, but … thought we’d wait until the sun came out and the snow melted a bit. Yeah. Still waiting for that.

But we’re so grateful that the boiler is holding out. It’s wimpy, but it’s on, and, together with lighting all of the candles in the living room, we can get whole rooms warm!

Ah, the fourteen-foot ceiling. It seemed a good idea, at the time…

Pictures to come. Stay warm!

… it IS called Thanksgiving for a reason, too. Hope you find your family and friends – and a day off, if you have one — something for which to be truly thankful.