Let the Force be With You this Holiday Season!

Yes, it's Princess Leia in gingerbread.

Let me explain.  It is that time of year, when I spend a good deal of time focusing on a major art project, knowing that the results will all be eaten within a little more than a week's time.  I broke out the cookie cutters (I even bought a couple of new ones), got out my husband's mother's gingerbread recipe, and turned our kitchen into a gingerbread cookie factory. After more than 7 hours of decorating over 7 dozen cookies, the cookies are done.  Before baking, I cut some windows out of some of the houses.  I didn't know what to do with the leftover teeny hunks of dough, so I baked them.  When the cookies had baked, it was obvious that a couple of the hunks of dough looked just like Princess Leia's hairdo, so with a little royal icing, Leia became a gingerbread reality!  Another lump became the blond beehive (below right) and a weird-shaped piece became my favorite, the crazy orange hairdo on the left.

The windows were cut out of some of these houses and also out of the train locomotive.  It's hard to see in the photos, but crunched up Life Savers were baked into the openings, and they melt and harden into little stained glass windows!

The train, by the way, is made from some new cookie cutters that I purchased on a whim.  It's my first time using the cutters and I rather like the result. 

My other new cookie cutter is a snowflake.  I went gung-ho with blue and white icing and sugar sprinkles, and they are so very elegant-looking next to the ridiculousness of most of my other cookie decorations. (Note below, with the snowflakes, a couple of little green alien men and what we fondly call the "diaper-babies".) 

I also used the snowflake cutter a week ago while making Hanukkah cookies.

I have a giant gingerbread man cookie cutter I used to make the three dudes below.

Below are the more 'usual' size gingerbread menfolk.  Note the kid with the curly red hair - his hair is also an add-on of an extra hunk of dough.  The shape of the dough could also have become an awesome football helmet, now that I think about it.  Oh well, maybe next year I'll decorate with professions - football players, doctors, ballerinas, explorers, teachers, artists, pirates, firemen...  Ooh I really like this idea!

And here's all the womenfolk.  The white bun on the gal in the bottom row is also a dough add-on. 

My small 'boy' cutter can be turned upside down for cute reindeer faces, as well as the little boys.  By the time I got to decorating the boys, I was out of patience and time.  I have no idea why the baby on the upper left appears to be wearing a diaper made out of a double-ended carrot.  It definitely wasn't intentional!

Below are a few more houses, a couple of feet, and hands posed in the Vulcan salute. (We need to be sure to give equal exposure to both Star Wars and Star Trek!)

Let the Force be With You, and Live Long and Prosper!  

 Thanks for stopping for a visit.  I hope you have some artsy things planned for this holiday season!  If you would like to see last year's gingerbread ridiculousness, including a gal in a polka dot bikini, you can check out the last year's post about them, HERE.

Another year, another beach sand sculpture!

We recently returned from our annual visit to Maine.  My son and his girlfriend joined us for the weekend, and helped build the annual beach sand sculpture!  We are not sophisticated sand sculptors; we bring a couple of shovels and try to do something large and silly.  That's it!

 Last year, my son wasn't feeling well, and without his help, the project was a big flop.  We needed to redeem ourselves this year!  So we built this rather large silly fish named Gladys.  As you can see in the photo below, she had a barrier moat surrounding her, which protected her from the incoming tide.

My son, his girlfriend, and my husband did all the digging, while I took a walk on the beach (and found kelp for her lips!).  Then, when the pile of sand was big enough, I began the structure.  My son and girlfriend helped a lot at this point, too,especially in shaping they eyes and tail, and cleaning the area around her.  It is definitely a collaborative effort each year! 

 When we left the beach, some kids were climbing on it.  I was sure between the kids and the tide, there would be nothing left the next day.  We did return the next day, and the moat was gone, the logs had moved, but there was still a large pile of sand, where kids played throughout the day!!

I have other photos from the trip to Maine I'd love to share, but I'll save them for another post!  If you'd like to see some prior beach sculptures, check out these posts from 2014, from 2013, from 2012, and from 2011.   And here we are, below, the whole low-tech beach sculpture team!

Sculpture on the beach

 Every August, we head to Maine, for a dose of the ocean.  

That's my husband, below, at Drake's Island Beach at Wells Preserve.

 I always post some photos of the sculpture we build out of beach sand on Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport.  In the past, I've shared Crazy Hary the Octopus, a big cat,a dragonfly, Melvin the Snail, a dragon, and  there have been more that weren't photographed.  My husband and adult son dig a huge pile of moist sand for me, I shape the sculpture, and my son lends a hand, particularly in the smoothing of the sand around the sculpture.  This is important in creating clean shadows so that you can really see the sculpture in the bright sunlight.

This year, my son's girlfriend joined us as well.  But they both had been ultra-busy with jobs and more, and were totally exhausted.  My son just didn't have the muscle power to do the work of previous years, and I could see he needed to rest more than anything.  Above, we all are sitting on the porch of a favorite Kennebunkport B&B, the Maine Stay.

Anyhow, back to the sculpture:  My husband and I dug a pile of sand, but it was not as big as previous years.  I've been watching spiders this summer, so I thought I'd build a big spider.  I shaped the spider, but with the hot sun and limited assistance, and smaller-than-intended size, it was mediocre.  Plus, the tide was coming in rather than going out, so the sand didn't have the moisture I would have liked, making it harder to shape.  I decided to put seaweed on the legs to make them look hairy, but  then the body looked awful.  The girlfriend collected a bunch of seaweed and suggested I use it to cover the whole body, so that's what I did.  It was a hot day, and I ran out of steam when it came time to clean up and smooth the sand around the sculpture (and I decided swimming in the ocean was a better choice), so the spider just doesn't have the planned impact.  For the first time ever, we weren't swarmed with kids asking to help.  People didn't stop to look at it or snap a photo.  I'm almost embarrassed to share the photos with you!

 

Meanwhile, the next day, while taking a walk at the beautiful and pristine Drake's Island Beach at the Wells Preserve, my husband and I encountered a sculpture on the beach.  It made me think of Robinson Crusoe, and I love that someone put so much time and thoughtfulness into building this incredible structure.  It was above the tide line, so it will probably be there for a while!  Here are several views of the sculpture. 

Another sunny day, another beach...  I love sun-bleached wood, and I came a rather large piece of 'driftwood'  in the tidal marshland area at Parson's Beach (below).  My husband has learned to ignore me when I ask him if we can bring home something like this...

or this beauty below, also at Parson's Beach. 

Below, incoming tide, at all three beaches

 

The Thanksgiving that Almost Wasn't

 

 My little family has established a lovely tradition over the last 10 or so years.  There was a time when the holiday was a struggle to figure out, with no grandparents, and just one child, and we tried various alternatives to make it special.  But then came the big idea, that has become the best of traditions.

Our dock.  Time to get it out of the water!

 If you've read this blog a while, you know we own what we call a 'camp', the Adirondack terminology for a vacation retreat, a cottage, a cabin, usually in the woods, or by a lake (or both, like ours).  And the wonderful tradition that we've developed is holding our Thanksgiving dinner at the camp.  We have to crank up the heat, turn the fridge back on, because otherwise we've essentially put the camp to sleep for the winter.  But it's worth it.  We've got no TV (not a problem, since we are not football watchers), and no internet.  But we have public radio, a record player and lots of old vinyl, plenty of board games and puzzles.  And family. 

Oops.  Our kayaks weren't expecting snow.

So, in the past few years, the routine has settled into this:  my husband heads up to the camp (40 minutes from home, and just maybe 5 miles from the school where I taught) on Wednesday, gets the camp ready, and spends the night alone.  I send all the dinner ingredients that do not need to be refrigerated with him.

Looking across our lake.

Thursday morning, bright and early, my (now adult) son and I pack the car with the turkey and any other refrigerated ingredients.  As soon as we arrive at the camp, I stuff the turkey and get it in the oven, and we have the rest of the day for everything else.  My stepdaughter, her husband, and her two young boys join us in the late afternoon.  The boys especially love my son 'Uncle Ben'.  After dinner, and dessert, and some board games and the annual silly family photos, they eventually go home, my son and I play a competitive game of Bananagrams or Scrabble, my husband relaxes and stokes the fire, and we all get a good night's sleep.  On Friday we  usually head back home, though in some years past, my son's best friend would join him for a hike in the Adirondacks.   Some years the weather has even been nice enough to take the kayaks out on the lake. 

Yet another view.

So this year, the basic plan was unchanged.  The weather called for snow, but this doesn't faze us.  Remember, I drove that road to work back and forth every day for 27 years, in every kind of weather imaginable!  Snow doesn't bother me or my car.  Hubby went off to camp, and all seemed fine.  That is, it was fine until he called me, at about 9pm, to tell me that the private road that leads to our camp (down a rather steep hill) had not been plowed.  And there was a foot of fresh snow, and he could no longer get the car up the hill.  He was stranded.  And alone.  And he had the stuffing ingredients, the roasting pan, the sweet potatoes, the boxes of chocolate pudding and the vanilla wafers. (I'm quite sure that chocolate pudding pie with a vanilla wafer crust was served by the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving.  Don't argue.)  And he had the wine.

Panic set in.  We devised a plan.  My son would drive up in the morning in my trusty Subaru to rescue my husband and the food.  He'd have to walk the 1/2 mile or so down the snowy hill and would then walk back out with my husband and the food, which would be dragged on a sled I suppose.  (Of course there was the problem that my son had left his boots home in Boston, but hey, he's an eagle scout, he'd figure it out somehow.)  Meanwhile, at home, I'd pace and worry, and start frantically cleaning, figuring we'd have to have the dinner there.  They'd come home in my car, leaving my husband's car behind to rescue in a day or two.  And when they got home, I'd have to frantically start cooking.  It just didn't seem right to any of us.  The Loon Lake Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday.

The picnic table.  Perhaps we should have eaten Thanksgiving dinner on it?

The kitchen door

The plowed road!

But we didn't need to worry.  At 8am my husband called to tell me the road had just been plowed.  Yay!!!  I woke my son and he shoveled out our home while I packed the cooler and fed, watered, and scooped the cat.   We got to the camp quite a bit later than planned, and I hustled to get the turkey stuffed and in the oven.  I cranked the oven up higher than recommended and prayed it wouldn't ruin the turkey.  And you know what?  It was the moistest, most delicious turkey, ever!!  And once it was in the oven, I got to put on my boots and tromp around outside taking the photos you see on this post, which are NOT black and white photos.  I swear.  Look in them to find hints of color! 

 

 We had the loveliest of Thanksgivings, and I hope that you did, too!

My footsteps on our camp driveway, Black Friday (a little more fresh snow).  No shopping. 

  Below, the annual ridiculous family photos, all taken by my photographer son.  That's him in black.

 Yeah, we had to get one 'serious' one.  Here it is, below. 

From my family to you and your family, best wishes for a delightful holiday season! 

Thanksgiving, Chanukah, and latke trophies!

A belated happy Thanksgiving, and a Happy Chanukah, from my crazy family to you all!

Here's my hubby and son on midday Thanksgiving day, at our Adirondack 'camp' on Loon Lake; it was bitter cold and the lake surface was churning with the whipping icy wind.  We (hubby, son, and myself) were outside for, like maybe 2 minutes before we gave up! Hubs looks cold doesn't he?  But son's new hat was really warm! Here's our partially set mismatched Thanksgiving table, with a Chanukah menorah on it too!

After dinner and family fun, and after the company (stepdaughter, her husband, and two young boys) had left, the three of us spent the night at the lake, and when we woke in the morning, the lake looked like this: 

 

The whole lake had frozen over during the cold night!  But what is the strange message written in the ice?  We have no idea where it came from, but it is frozen into the ice.  Crazy, huh?

 My husband used the kayak as a sled and rode down to the lake!!

The photo of my son below was taken through the window, from the warmth of the camp.

Today was LatkeFest, a fun, lighthearted cooking competition and fundraiser.  There were 8 people who had signed on as latke chefs, each with totally unique recipes, and attendees got to taste-test them all and vote on their favorite!  The winner receives the Golden Latke trophy, which is made by... drumroll please... ME!  And there's a klezmer band, and dancing, and a dreidel competition for the kids, and more.  Fun day!!  Here's this year's trophy:

And here I am with all my creations:

 Above are the previous two years' creations, and below is the one I made for this year.  I already have a plan for next years' trophy!

So, tomorrow I plan to get back to posting about last week's wonderful conference, and another couple of workshops I taught.  Till then, Happy Chanukah!  And may your latkes always be golden!