Day One, Twenty Ten
This is just about as good as it gets! Two dear friends, Don and John, for a New Years Eve dinner and slumber party….I can’t imagine a better way to see out the old and celebrate the new! We were, three (unwashed) adults, four dogs (three of which were Pugs!), great food, Apricot Egg Nog, and twenty two years of back issues of The World of Interiors! Now, first I must tell you, these issues have traveled from attic to attic with me, all tapped up in their own boxes…just waiting for a snowy night and enough Egg Nog to see us all through the stacks. Here is the deal…we have become critical and maybe a tiny bit jaded…the old issues are not all we had dreamed them to be…not that they will be placed curb side, for next weeks trash pickup, any time soon….they were savored, with a somewhat clear eye, then placed back into their boxes, carried into the attic, put way over in the far corner, under the eves. These boxes will be shifted around for, most likely, another 22 years!
Apricot Egg Nog
10 eggs separated
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream (which you will whip)
46 ounces of Apricot nector
1 cup Rum (you could use Brandy)
1/4 cup Cointreau
fresh grated Nutmeg
In double boiler, mix egg yokes with 1/2 cup of sugar, salt and the milk…cook, over gently boiling water, until thickened…about 15 minutes. Cool
Beat egg whites until frothy, add the balance of sugar then beat until stiff…pour cooled custard over the beaten egg whites…fold in gently…add whipped cream…fold in gently. Add nectar, Rum and Cointreau. Mix to blend, cover and chill over night…Stir with wire whip, when about to serve, sprinkle each serving with fresh grated Nutmeg. Enjoy! I cut this recipe in half, for the three of us, and could easily have treated the whole neighborhood…were we willing to share!
Christmas Eve by Candlelight
What a night! I had so hoped to capture this evening but all photos were pathetic! You must believe me when I tell you that, for a bit over an hour, I was surrounded by magic in this truly amazing sanctuary on Bedford Road in Lincoln, MA. In this exquisite little church, lit only by candlelight, with its twelve over twelve windows, its creamy white walls, graceful altar, and pews which had small gates at each end, no center isle, and side ‘boxes’ with seats and these too had wee gates…the snow covering all but the walkways, the sky pitch black with the half wedge of a moon and the night filled with stars! For a non church goer, this alone could convert me! Add to that a choir and grand music and some readings that were relevant to the madness of this world…this was a perfect Christmas Eve!
The store ended its Holiday season nearly nude of goods and for that I am grateful! For each of you who stopped by for the Port or some chocolates or a cookie or to visit or, lastly, to shop…to you I am grateful! These weeks of December are long and delicious with visits and wrapping and chatter…I won’t even mention the pounds of cookies or bottles of Port we went through. Tonight’s Candle Light service had a line in one of the opening hymns….’joy’s a gift you cannot buy.’ What I sell to you is the product. What you give back to me is joy. Thank you!
May you have a happy, healthy 2010
Splendid Advice
Well darlings…last I checked, it is still December, colder than one could imagine, the store is getting raided…gone is the candy (well, mostly gone) gone are the books (many of them anyway), those Lisa B socks are walking out the door (so to speak)…we are gift wrapping, pouring Port for ourselves and others, laughing some, and having a reasonably good time as shop keepers do at this time of year! With all that, there are still so many wonderful things left, so hurry on in before the store closes for our annual winter break – December 25th until January 7th.
Waiting for me, in my Florida Room/Sun Room is a delicious stack of unread books…I swear the week between Christmas and New Year I won’t move from the chaise lounge, until I have read every last book…I might have a cup or two of sweet black tea with milk and once the light goes South, I might sip a glass of red wine. I will wear some dreadful, but warm, frock…some of my own Lisa B socks and there will be no makeup and no hair products on this weary shopkeeper! Yipee!
The books I am about to read…
“The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls….”Bittersweet” by Matt McAllester…”Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” by Dai Sijie….”The Canal Bridge” by Tom Phelan…and, if the week and the wine and the hot tea holds out, I will read, once again, “The Power of One” by Bryce Courtenay this is an all time favorite and a must read for anyone!
December is the month I wish the store to be a thousand feet bigger than it is…it is the month when goods arrive, by the truck load, and I wonder… did I buy the right mix, will it all sell, why didn’t I buy more, why didn’t I buy less and was I smoking my shorts when I bought this! It is the time when the slightest insecurity (not that I have any insecurity!) comes charging forth. But then my wonderful clients come in and we laugh and talk, they buy, I thank them for their support of this wacky little store. At night, when the lights go out and the alarm comes on I think to myself…this is great fun and then I think why not open another store, heck…get a whole franchise going, why stop at one store! I can only tell you that December does silly things to those of us brave enough to be merchants…we navigate the month with joy and self doubt, we wonder about our choices! Some of us wonder why we didn’t stay married or even get married…or become folks with a tiny bit more security. Most of us love the joy of it all, the people who believe in our stores, those who shop locally. We are a lucky bunch…talk to me in January!
