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New Years resolutions: playground for optimists.

I might be superstitious, but on the first maybe I should cook some blackeyed peas with ham for luck and fix Ro-tel cabbage salad for money.

The best to you and yours in 2006 and always.

Love,
MJ

Verse copyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

Tracks, Cracks and Facts

It’s a fact gravity causes things to fall down not up. Rocks and a bolt fell and bounced into our windshield. We have the nicks and cracks to prove it. Last night the windshield was playground for something with four muddy feet. No, there wasn’t anything to eat in the car. The raccoon walked up the windshield and slid down, what fun!

It’s a fact Hoov’s a darn good cook. He cut a deer back strap into thin slices, dipped each in a wash of egg and water, dredged each in a mix of flour, seasoned salt, black pepper, leaf thyme, granulated garlic, and fried them in hot oil. Delicious. A smidge of Dietz & Watson’s Wasabi Mustard added a flash of fire reminding me of homegrown horseradish Mom caught me eating by the tablespoon full when I was a kid. My sister wouldn’t eat it at all. She said, “It smells like dirty jeans.”

Inside we microwaved mashed potatoes, their favorite green bean casserole, cornbread and oyster stuffing. Skipper brought his famous bean and ham hock soup. The radio station played Christmas music. Coyotes howled in the distance. We stood around the enclosed barrel stove in heavy cloths enjoying our feast. Wildlife watched and waited to dine on our leftovers after we went to bed.

Life in the deep woods: one afternoon a bobcat strolled through camp; a hunter videoed a brown bear not far from us, possibly on its way over the levee to visit the beehives; a pair of eagles return each year to nest; and every time we see a cardinal we make a secret wish.

Deer, turkey and wild hog are hunted. The trapper’s lament: nothing walked the road. The rack on the back of my Bravada once held a 250-pound tusked boar handcuffed cross-legged and bungee corded to the rack. That wasn’t the best part. I thought it was dead, and leaned close to have my picture taken. It wasn’t! Woofed! And I leaped away! That’s a fact!!!

Copyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

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Fit for a feast. Here in the South, tables are set and left like this, even when no one is expected. It does make for an inviting image of great things to come.

2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

Holiday Feasts

From Thanksgiving to Christmas there’s a feeling of goodwill toward all. I want to do more than I have time. Who doesn’t? I’m sipping a cup of hot tea savoring a piece of dark chocolate biscotti with Ghiradelli buttons (chips), cinnamon, and Frangelico. I’ll add a smidge of cayenne to the next batch.

Memories: highlights of the past. Mom made enough divinity candy to cover the dining room table. I swiped samples all around the edge, the mint green ones were best. My girls swiped the refrigerator cookies of coconut, butter, and powdered sugar wrapped around a candied cherry … a confession of late.

Baking for family, friends and all who served blessed us twice: when the aroma filled our home, and when we shared our sweet dough tea rings, breads, cookies, candies and more.

Lillian, our dear Bohemian neighbor, taught me how to make houska: braided sweet dough with white raisins, almond slivers and bits of citron. Lithuanian friends shared a huge, scrumptious Napolean of apricot and custard between layers of wafers. I’ve always wondered about figgy pudding.

Papa laid pieces of fresh pine boughs on the basement space heater. They released their scent mingling with the baking aromas. Happy times. We sipped eggnog with fresh grated nutmeg from our silver Jefferson cups.

The nut cake was a family affair shelling mixed nuts to fill an angel food cake pan. A thin batter bound them and a few pieces of candied cherries and citron. Out of this world delicious, heavy, rich, and dense.

Our Swedish relatives liked rye bread, pickled herring, hard tack, Swedish brown beans, meatballs, cream sausage with cranberry sauce, apples cooked with cinnamon redhots, creamed onions, rice pudding with lingonberries, and plum pudding. The lutefisk cooked in cheesecloth smelled terrible. I thought it was tasteless, and needed the mustard sauce to make it edible. I must have missed the point.

Czech relatives prepared duck or turkey with liver dumplings. I loved pretzel salad with strawberries in jell-o and cream cheese mixed with whipped cream for topping. A hazelnut jellyroll with rum flavored whipped cream filling is one of my favorite desserts. Christmas Eve was oyster stew or chili. Cousin George loved oyster stew, but fed the oysters to the dog.

Pork chops and onions in red wine with heavy cream, mashed celeriac root, and chocolate mousse prepared the Suzanne Somers way made a satisfying, attractive meal on our Pistoulet dishes.

No matter what the menu, it was plentiful and a production. Grandma declared it might be the last Christmas we’d be together. True. That generation is gone. What do they eat in the hereafter?

We expanded our table with the leaves stored under the davenport. The white linen cloth was ironed, and the table set with the ivied Christmas dishes, the good silver, and goblets for Papa’s homemade wine. Henry, the three-legged cat, was reminded he was not the centerpiece.

Just when we thought we couldn’t be surprised, someone gave us a gift we hadn’t thought of but could use. Goodwill plus surprises equals Christmas.

We ate with gusto, laughed, reminisced, commented on the year past holding on to the best moments. What was to come no one knew. My silent prayer: that we’d all be together next year, same time, same place.

Copyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

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The Christ in Christmas

2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

The Magic of Oberndorf

Imagine preparing for Christmas Eve church services and discovering that morning that the pipe organ didn't work. What a dilemma for Pastor Joseph Mohr in 1818 at the Church of Saint Nicholas in Oberndorf, Austria.

According to Historian Bill Egan he walked to Choirmaster Franz Gruber’s home. Pastor Mohr had written a poem some years earlier, and asked Gruber to set it to music for the evening service. He did, and the rest is history. Their combined efforts blessed the world with Stille Nacht (Silent Night).

My sister and I visited the small octagonal Memorial Chapel on its mound. Climbing red roses grew up the sides of the Chapel. The inside might seat twenty-five people. Eight German Frauleins on a bike break, each holding a green apple, sang Stille Nacht acapella. We smiled thinking of the joy of Christ’s birth.

The Frauleins left. We heard music again we recognized. Two others from a different country did also. We four went out. Each in our own language, we sang together Amazing Grace. There’s still magic in Oberndorf.

Copyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

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After dark the Munich, Germany, Christmas market was lit by candles. The air smelled of gingerbread. Church choir music drifted to the streets reminding the true meaning of Christmas is still about the Christ Child's birth.

2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

Marienplatz

The first Friday after the first Sunday of Advent the Lord Mayor of Munich, Germany, opens the outdoor Christmas Market at 5 pm in the Marienplatz, which means town center. In the cold darkness the near 100 foot tree is lit with 2,500 candles. Hot spiced wine, Gluehwein, scents the air. The Glockenspeil chimes and the magic of Christmas takes off in 140 stalls of candles, ceramics, ornaments, toys, clothes, foods, and much more, a tradition since the 14th century.

We arrived the first week of December. Right after a hearty German breakfast buffet, we set off for the market dressed in warm clothes and comfortable shoes- there were no chairs or benches. Clutching our large mesh shopping bags we joined the throng of shoppers. After we had been walking for a while, like so many of the other shoppers, we each bought a paper cone full of carmelized nuts to nibble on while we shopped and bags full of nuts to take home. We felt like we belonged.

When we got cold, we stopped at a hot milk stall flavored with honey, almond or other spices. All day we walked. In one stall we saw dried fruit figures. These were little people made of dried prunes, raisins, apricots, apples, and any other fruit that would dry - a whole fruit salad rolled into one so cute we didn't want to eat it.

For Christmas postmarks, there's a stall for mail from Christkindl, Austria. The Crib Market is the largest display in Germany of everything needed for a Nativity scene. One woman said, "I've come every year for ten to buy a piece for my collection." We watched shoppers reverently handle the pieces that felt reverently carved. If seeing is believing, and believing is seeing, holding the Holy Family anchors the meaning of Christmas.

We sampled Christmas cookies and gingerbread. The hot milk had worn off and we were cold again. It was dark. All day we could smell the Gluehwein, which translates as 'glow wine'. It made us warm and silly. I could just see the dancing cinnamon stick wrapped with a skirt of clove-studded orange peel, chunk ginger at the feet and star anise on the crown. My sister said I'd had enough.

The market closes on Christmas Eve. Angel hair will drift through the city for days hinting at the magic put away until next year.

We will light the pine incense in my Santa smoker, sip hot chocolate and dream of a return trip.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

copyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

My love coat

This jacket caught my eye in a boutique window in Innsbruck Austria. Of red, boiled wool, the hearts are stitched with a continuous thread. If I could see love, this is what I think it would look like. After buying it, I traced the thread with my fingertip cementing the truth that whether my loved ones are beside me or away, even out of skin, we are still connected; love is not lost. With us through good and bad, love is all that lasts - forever. Love is all there is.

Copyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

Neuchwanstein - New Swan Rock

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What would the shy, reclusive, dreamy, fairy-tale, Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria think if he knew that over 50 million people have visited his hide away since he passed away? He was so far ahead of his time, he's an inspiration to think outside the box. His castle is the inspiration for the Disney logo.


Neuschwanstein is a romantic banquet for the senses: the Alps, lake, carved woodwork ceilings and furniture. Richard Wagner's operas are depicted on the walls and on linen in brilliant colors nourishing the soul and fueling imagination.

Fairy-tale King Ludwig II of Bavaria lived here in the mid 1880's. Not only did he bring fantasy to life in his surroundings, the castle was technologically advanced with hot and cold running water in the kitchen and a swan head faucet (I can just imagine the delicious fragrances of roasting game.), hot air central heating, flush toilets, lifts, and electricity. And plenty of help to keep track of his socks.

Nestled in the Alps, the castle approach is steep. Bundled in our winter coats and fur hats, Audrey and Sophia, we opted to ride the carriage up. The slow pace would give us time to fantasize our own Prince Charming whisking us away to the land of "no problems." But the horse drawing our carriage had a problem that sorely strained our dreaming. It passed more stinky gas than a whole campfire of bean-eating cowboys.
Holding our noses we vowed to not let reality steal our dreams.


verse copyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

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It's not just snow, it's magic.
It fell fairy-tale slow in Munich.

verse coyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

December 6th is Saint Nicholas Day. Put your shoes out the night before with treats in them for him. If you've been good, he'll leave you fruit and nuts. If not, it's sticks or coal.

This is the beginning of the outdoor Christmas Markets in Europe. Lighting the incense in my snowman smoker, I’m reminded of the magic of slow falling snow in Munich, and mingling with people bundled in heavy coats, fur hats, and boots to experience tradition and test the universality of a smile.

Amidst scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice we looked over hand-crafted Nativity scenes and ornaments, tasted gingerbread, roasted chestnuts, carmelized almonds in paper cones, marzipan hearts dipped in chocolate, cutout cookies, Pfeffernusse and stollen. Carolers sang from balconies. The Glockenspiel chimed. Hot chocolate and hot Gluewhein were drunk standing up, and we kept the commemorative mug.

The Munich Philharmonic Mozart Concert was wonderful. Not at all tired, we stopped at a corner Bistro. A gentleman offered to order for us,"They need something to calm them up." We were served Chamomile tea with hot milk.

Alles gut.

copyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series

ARKANSAS: Bullets & Bay Leaves

We were invited to Arkansas for opening week of deer season. It was a warm, carefree, Huck Finn weekend fishing for trout in the clear, cold White River, and hiking the bank looking for deer tracks, trails, and scrapes. We found an old, abandoned still with clear glass bottles strewn around, observed wild hen turkeys, sneaked a peak at two gobblers secure in the brush, and witnessed a blitz cross our vision that was a roadrunner. Where was the coyote?

"Come on, you've got to see this," Hoov urged stepping out of the boat into the water. I followed filling my boots with goo. In the cove he brushed aside the leaves with his foot and said, "Listen." We heard bubbling, the earth giving up fresh water.

Hoov's camp is a testimony to taxidermy: large-mouth and striped bass; a ring-tail cat; pheasants, and a Razorback hog head in the bathroom ringed with a pink flower lei. He cooked nonstop, and I took notes. We loved his seafood gumbo, New England clam chowder, and potato salad with chopped dill pickle. I'd brought fresh rosemary, but not bay leaves. I should have listened to my instinct, Hoov needed some and it was sixteen curvy miles to town.

The deer were nowhere to be seen, except on the road at night. But the camp was lively. Two new dogs: Pointers, and sisters had to be named. After much hilarity they were dubbed Bonnie and Clyde. A magic marker was used to write their name on their collar and on each of their owner's faces. We all left before a storm put his deck on top of the house.

copyright 2005 Red Convertible Travel Series