In honor of the conjunction of Thanksgiving with the start of Hanukkah—an event we haven’t seen since 1888 and won’t see again for (by some estimates) 79,000 years—I made turkey-shaped challah for today’s feast, using the recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Happy holidays, everyone.
Anne Clair
The family Jack-O-Lanterns for 2013: Wildcat, Star Trek/Wars, Cat Eyes, and Autumn Leaves. Our trick-or-treaters speculate on who did which pumpkin, and they are usually correct.
This year my daughter is in 9th grade, and at her school it is, according to custom, the 9th grade girls who, garbed in long gowns and flower crowns, will tame the fierce dragon at the school’s Michaelmas festival this week. In honor of this event, I made for the first time a bread maiden to accompany our dragon bread. Perhaps it will become a new household tradition.
If you would like to make your own, here is the recipe I use (on last September’s post). I used 1-1/2 times the recipe for the two figures, which are about 14″ high. Happy Michaelmas, everyone!
Dad
For the autumn equinox today, a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and a painting.
Márgarét, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins
Our household isn’t Jewish, but who can resist the triple attraction of challah, honey-dipped apples, and the seasonal call to work hard at becoming a better person? This year I attempted to follow Smitten Kitchen’s nice clear instructions for braiding the lovely six-strand loaf; however, mine still turned out disappointingly non-round…But my family ate it anyway. L’Shanah Tovah!
On Saturday I’ll be a participant in the Chevy Chase Art and Craft Fair, showing some of my small paintings and (for smaller budgets) notecards that have been made from them. At the fair will be over 30 local artists and craftspeople with their paintings and prints, jewelry, glassware, clothing, and painted furniture. I hope I will have a chance to leave my own table and look around at the others!
My son with two of his life-long (though not exclusive) interests.
Devin
Before Christmas my daughter had a group of girls over to decorate gingerbread houses, and using the same materials (candy, frosting, marshmallows, nuts, cereal, and pretzels) they created an amazing variety of architectural ornamentation. The guests took their houses home, and my son and daughter nibbled periodically on theirs, but mine finally made its way, uneaten, to the garden on a sunny day for a winter squirrel/bird fest. Unless a tiny Norman elf moves into it first.
(the other sketches are doodles from the Christmas Revels)
Jan & Al
