Something More to Read?

Posted on November 15, 2011 by sbranch

WILLARD started going out to everyone’s email boxes today; it takes two days for the whole list to go, and even though you might have just read yourself practically silly, you know there could be a surprise for you here, and of course, there is! ♥  But perhaps we need a little mood music?  Here’s a song to dance you down the page; great soundtrack from the movie French Kiss . . .

This is a photo of my heart-shaped Lemon Pepper Tea Biscuits, just out of the oven, still warm, ready for someone to slather them with butter and Cranberry-Orange Marmalade.  They are one of the recipes featured in a new cookbook I’m very excited about — it’s from Where Women Cook Magazine, and it’s called CELEBRATE!

I am one of the twenty-eight women featured in this book; honored to be included with such luminaries of the food world as Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman), Angie Dudley (Bakerella) and Molly Wizenberg (Orangette).  One of the special things about this book, besides the obvious, is that each woman is pictured doing her thing in her own kitchen; there are tons of wonderful photographs, sixty recipes, and lots of tips for celebrating life, with cooking as the magical ingredient.  My chapter is called “Kitchen Table Tea.” The kind of everyday celebration we have in the kitchen with our girlfriends. ♥  Each contributor chose a different theme to focus on.

(Do I like tea, really, or is it just the dishes?  That’s the question!)  Anyway, I have the first copy (still warm off the press) of CELEBRATIONS that was sent to me here on the island.  I’m going to sign it and send it to one of YOU as a Thanksgiving present!  Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post, and on Friday we’ll let the RNG (Random Number Generator) pull a name out of our hat and see in what corner of the world this book ends up.  But for all of you, my girlfriends, scroll to the bottom of this post, and I’ll give you the recipe for the Lemon Pepper Tea Biscuits. ♫ Do I love you, Oh yes I love you  . . . ♪

For me, the Thanksgiving countdown has begun . . . I started making my shopping list this morning . . .

Taking center stage is my grandma’s stuffing, which requires real bread that has to be air-dried for three days. Two days won’t do it. Don’t even think about putting it in the oven to dry.  Those are the rules.  So, I need to be ready.  My ironing board does double duty as drying rack for the bread, spread out on cookie sheets in the pantry.

Plus, right now is gravy-making time; I need it for dinner, but I also need it for leftovers, so I start early and make extra.  I learned to make gravy when I was very young, but still tweak it a little bit every year; a little of this a little of that; vermouth?  Red wine?  Plain this year? Joe always has his family’s 2¢ to add to the pot; sometimes requiring a restraining hand on his pouring arm.  Shall we have sage?  A teeny bit of cloves perhaps?  Perfect gravy is the mark of distinction in our family — no one can describe exactly what makes it perfect, but we sure know it when we taste it!

I’m already done making the butters:

One for each biscuit plate (the baking powder kind).  Yum.

I use leaves for place cards at Thanksgiving (as long as there isn’t snow on them!).  I made these from rhododendron leaves, which are the perfect size, especially if you have a “Marjorie” coming to dinner, because her whole name fits on one!  Plus they’re smooth and flat and don’t break too easily. I pick the leaves the day before and keep them in the fridge so they stay fresh, then write the names on as big as possible with a correction pen (after first practicing on a paper towel!).

OK, so would you like to go to the grocery store with us?  This was yesterday!

We’re almost there, I kept thinking the leaf would jump off, but apparently it really wanted to get to the supermarket parking lot, and wasn’t going to give up until we were there!

OK, that’s enough of that.  It’s been a red letter week for me, a feature in a new book, and another really nice article in the winter issue of Cape Cod Home Magazine.  ♥ You guys must be spreading the word, something crazy is going on; so much to be grateful for.  Plus, we have best friends coming from England next week!  And to top it off, I already figured out what I’m giving you for Christmas! And I’m excited because I think you’ll like it!

 So I am off to the City (that’s Domesticity City of course); I’m taking the day off to play with my house, nurk around in the guest room, organize the pantry, play ball with the new Kitty, hug Girl, kiss Joe, watch old movies, nap, and so on.  But before I go, I want to give you that recipe and remind you to leave a comment to enter the drawing for the book — tell us the strangest, most quirky, or favorite thing you ever had at Thanksgiving — for me it’s always the same, Rainbow Jell-O, not very strange, but definitely quirky, and also a favorite.  How about you?

LEMON PEPPER TEA BISCUITS

If you want your biscuits to be heart–shaped you will need a miniature muffin pan with hearts!  I have this cast-iron one and I love it. This easy quick recipe makes one dozen delectable biscuits.

  • 1-3oz pkg. cream cheese, softened
  • 1/4 c. butter, softened
  • grated zest of one lemon
  • 1/2 c. sour cream
  • 1 c. self-rising flour, sifted
  • 1/3 c. either chopped dried cranberries or currants
  • coarsely ground black pepper
  • sanding sugar (opt.)

Preheat oven to 400°F. In a deep, medium-sized bowl, beat cream cheese, butter and zest with mixer on med speed until smooth.  Scrape down bowl.  Stir in sour cream.  Gradually beat in flour until well blended.  Stir in cranberries or currants.  Put a heaping tsp. of dough into each cup of an ungreased miniature muffin pan, filling the space completely and leveling the surface of the dough. Grind pepper over the top.  Sprinkle with sanding sugar (if desired).  Bake for 15 min. or until light brown.  Pop out muffins into a basket lined with a tea towel; cover to keep warm. ♥

Guess what?  A foghorn is blowing, I can hear it sounding out up from the water.  Later gators.  ♥ have a wonderful day! xoxo

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Margot Datz

Posted on November 12, 2011 by sbranch

 Friends, they are kind to each others hopes, they cherish each others dreams.♥

I want to tell you a story about my artist girlfriend Margot Datz (that’s her cute self), but first, so that this story makes sense, I have to tell you about a strange thing between Joe and me.  Not scary strange, just normal strange.  I’m telling you, but don’t tell anyone, OK?  I wouldn’t want people to get the right idea about us. ♥

It’s just that we have certain words; and when we say them, we look intently into each other’s eyes in total concentration.  They are not words of love, they actually make no sense at all and have nothing to do with anything.  They just attract us somehow; there’s something about how these words feel coming out our lips or from the back of our throats; we like the sound of them.  One of them is “pork.” See? I told you, nothing to do with anything. But we say it with a Boston accent, poahk.  We say it, both at the same time, like a round of Row-Row-Row Your Boat, hearing the p; then the oa, then the k; ’til we’re sick of it, which luckily, doesn’t take long.  We do it because that word, the way we say it, sounds funny and makes us laugh.

 Family humor always sounds strange to the outside world, but it’s a kind of love-glue to the family who thinks it’s funny. ♥  A little club.

The other thing we like to say is “Kicking Bird,” which comes from the movie Dances with Wolves.  Kicking Bird was the medicine man who was step-father to Stands with a Fist, the character played by Mary McDonnell, who was raised by the Sioux, remember?

The way she said “Kicking Bird,” sort of stuttering when trying to remember a language she hadn’t used for a long time, just stuck in our brain (we only have one brain between us, as this little story is proving).  We came out of the movie theater, repeating “kicking bird” all the way home. We tried to say it the way she did, so the “k’s”s kind of stick in the throat; we pronounce “bird” with our tongues up to the roof of our mouths, so it comes out as “buurd.”  So it’s kick, kickkk, kicking burrrd.  Try it.  See what I mean?

These words come up in our conversation every so often, particularly when we’re out on our walk; and when I say, “What do you want for dinner?” Joe will answer, “Poahk,” and off we go to the land of poahk; from there, it’s an easy slide into Kicking Buurd.

One afternoon, over tea at our kitchen table, I mentioned this story to my girlfriend Margot, and pretty soon she was into it.  “Poahk,” she said, over and over, and “Kick. king. buurrd.  k-k-kicking burrrd.”  She got it, we laughed.  And that was pretty much it; as you can imagine, it wasn’t mentioned again, not being a subject that comes up a lot.

Many months after telling Margot about this, she and I had a plan to go together to an Island-Artist’s meeting, downtown at Five Corners, where the old Ocean Club restaurant

Margot at work

used to be; an open room, with high ceilings, a row of tall, many-paned windows on two long walls, like on an old sun porch.

The wooden floor was set up with rows of folding chairs in a half circle, facing the windows, with a small table in the middle for the speaker; she’s speaking when we arrive, without a microphone; each chair has an island artist in it; everyone is quiet and listening intently.

I know some of these people, but not all; a serious meeting about artists’ interests is taking place; we are late, of course.  We tiptoe to two chairs in the back, as unobtrusively as possible, conscious of every chair scrape and creaking-metal seat noise we make.

Settling in, getting quiet, looking around the circle, I see lots of people I know, and some I think I recognize, but can’t remember from where — in particular, across the room, there’s a woman who is so familiar to me, I feel like I know her, but I can’t figure out who she is.  It’s driving me crazy, I can’t remember.

  I lean in, and working my way through Margot’s hair, I put my mouth up directly to her ear, and whisper very quietly so as not to disturb anyone, “See the girl over there?”  I nod in the direction of this person.  “Who is she?”

Margot glances across the room, then gets back around to my ear and whispers, “Which one?”

“The one next to Jenna, with the long feather thing in her hair.”

Margot’s eyes cut across the room in the stranger’s direction, she ponders for a moment, and leans back toward me, nodding.  She knows!

I’m relieved, thank goodness for Margot; I won’t have to think about this anymore, she’s my hero!

Her lips come to my ear; she whispers, barely audible, “Her name is  . . . (wait for it) . . . K-kick-ing Burrrd.”

Well, that does it for me.  I burst out laughing, she does too, and we can’t stop, we are crying with laughter.  I try to gain control, but instead, I’m shaking in my chair, making snorting noises, which sends Margot off; we can’t even look at each other; we realize quickly that we have to leave.

Yes, we had definitely delighted them long enough; we had no choice but to miss this meeting, but I’m pretty sure that the meeting did not miss us!

This is Margot last week, when I dropped in to see her at work on her newest project,  a mural she’s doing at the Steamship Authority in Oak Bluffs.  She is an artist and author beloved by her community, beloved by her friends, and beloved by her many readers.  You may recognize her from her wonderful book, A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids. (I don’t know how many of these we have left, but if you are going to want one, just let me know and we’ll order more!)

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was very sad and lonely, and Margot came in, almost on a white horse, and rescued me.  I will never forget it.

I am a very lucky person. I am blessed with amazingly talented, smart, generous, creative, and loving girlfriends, sisters of the heart, kindred spirits, who I love very much. ♥

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