Beautiful blue, with just enough clouds to give it character. The best thing of all was that it cooled off a bit, finally. It was actually cold enough last night that the heater came on. It was really nice. Of course, once I started cooking, the house warmed up considerably, but it wasn't sweltering like it has been.
This little dishcloth actually took quite a bit of time to finish. It was my first attempt at garterlac knitting, and it just may be my last. It takes an awful lot of knitting to make this 8" x 8" cloth, even though it looks really cool. Yeah, I can see all my gaps and stuff, but once I start using it, those will probably close up, especially after it goes through the dryer a couple of times.
Fruitcake--the holiday bane of some, joy to others. My daddy loved fruitcake, and baking them as a family was one of our holiday traditions when I was growing up. We always made them the day after Thanksgiving instead of fighting the crowds at the stores. The fun part was mixing all the fruit, raisins, dates, and nuts with the flour. You had to do that, make sure each piece of fruit was coated with flour so that they wouldn't all clump up in the cake. In the course of the mixing, we all had to taste each different piece of fruit. I'm not sure what all they put into those little tubs of fruitcake fruit, but they sure were fun to try.
Dad, one year, got the idea that the boys should mix the fruit with the flour, while the girls made up the cake batter. I was very hurt and confused that year when he wouldn't let me mix the fruit. He just sent me into the kitchen to help with the batter. I couldn't understand what I had done wrong--why he was excluding me by not letting me help with the fruit. I didn't want to do the batter. That wasn't any fun. Doing the fruit was the fun part. I wasn't but 5 or 6, and I thought I was being punished for something. Luckily for me, my mother is not the type who likes having anyone in the kitchen with her, especially not children. She sent me back out to help dad...
He never tried that again.
After the fruit was all mixed, the batter added, and the cakes poured in to the loaf pans (funny how that recipe always managed to just fill four loaf pans), each of us four kids got some whole cherries and pecans to decorate the tops of our cakes with. We always used pecans because my Mammaw had 6 or 7 huge pecan trees in her yard, and every fall we picked up bushels of pecans.
Once they were baked came the hard part--they had to be put back to ripen for two weeks. But finally, they were ripe and we could eat them. Of course, we all had to eat them as a family. We would gather round the table with our little slice of fruitcake and glass of coke--also a treat when I was young--and eat. My younger brother Scott was the only one who didn't like fruitcake, so he usually just drank his coke.
Now I'm grown, and don't make fruitcakes any more. I did for a long time, only I moved the date I made them up to mid-November so that they would be ready as soon as the Christmas season started. That date just happens to coincide with my birthday weekend, so that was like a birthday tradition with me for a while. I stopped making fruitcakes a couple of years ago, because Cody doesn't like them, and I don't need to be eating that much all by myself.
So I switched to another old traditional family Christmas treat--fruitcake cookies:
This is my Mammaw's recipe. She made these every year, and though Cody won't eat them, I make them every year as well. Between the family get togethers on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve, they mostly get eaten up.
Now, to those who don't like fruitcake, let me say this. I couldn't understand how anyone could not like fruitcake until I was in the Navy. I was overseas and decided to buy a fruitcake that year. It was terrible. I ended up throwing most of it away. If all you've ever had is store bought fruitcake, I understand why you don't like them.
But there's nothing so Christmassy as a good old, home made fruitcake.
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2 comments:
Ah...fruitcake. A great Southern tradition. My greatgrandmother used to do ours, and she did them in two batches, one with brandy, one without. No matter where we were in the world when I was a kid, we always got our fruitcakes in the mail, usually the week before Christmas. The ones "without" were given away, the ones "with" were consumed with gusto. And I really mean that. They were great!
I have had some good fruit cake, but it is not my favorite. How can something that looks so good, be so bad (sometimes)?
Have a great Christmas, Becky and Cody!
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