Yggdrasil Ice Medallion

It appeared on a dining room window yesterday morning... 

A frost patch that made me think of  Yggdrasil, the World Tree of Old Norse mythology...

Yggdrasil, a huge ash tree, is a meeting place of the gods. It is the tree upon which Odin hung for nine days, pierced by a spear, to learn the wisdom of the nine worlds.  Yggdrasil's branches reach  far into the sky and its three roots spread wide to a spring and two wells.   Creatures live within the great tree - among them a dragon, an eagle, and four stags. . .

I think I see them . . .

Cold Crow

Bread Pudding Nostalgia

I had one of these little toy electric ovens back at the end of the Forties -- before litigation took the fun out of toys.  No wimpy light bulb cooking and packaged mixes here.   This baby came with metal pots and pans and a recipe booklet.  It plugged in and heated up like nobody's business.  I was about six and it was my favorite toy. I could make bread pudding all by myself -- buttered white bread, milk and sugar and eggs and raisins -- into the Little Chef and, voila, kitchen magic!

I suspect this was the beginning of a lifetime of cooking. . . and eating

It's been a long time since I made bread pudding and I thought I'd give it a go once again -- with a sophisticated twist. We had the end of a loaf of delicious chocolate/cardamon bread that Claui had given us for Christmas that I thought might be a good candidate for an updated bread pudding.   

 

INGREDIENTS:

6 slices day-old bread 2 tablespoons butter, melted 1/2 cup dried cranberries 4 eggs, beaten

2 cups milk 1/2 cup white sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon dark rum

DIRECTIONS:

	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
	Break bread into small pieces into an 8 inch square baking pan. Drizzle melted butter or margarine over bread. Sprinkle with dried cranberries.
	In a medium mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Beat until well mixed. Pour over bread, and lightly push down with a fork until bread is covered and soaking up the egg mixture.
	Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly tapped.

Super easy and really delicious hot.  Not bad cold the next day.

Now I'm thinking of other variations -- maybe I need to bake some pumpkin bread to try in this recipe. Pecans would have been nice for an added crunch . . .  What about a savory bread pudding made with rye and/or pumpernickel? And where's the recipe for the savory French bread, wild mushroom pudding I made some Christmas past?

This could turn into an obsession . . .  

 

Still More Snow Pictures

 

 

 

 

 

It WAS the First Snow of the Year...

Alas for the Florida cousins who'd hoped to see snow during their visit -- they left just a tad too soon

Not an especially heavy snow but pretty, as always.

And really cold, so it's not melting very fast.

NCMountainwoman, over at Mountain Musings commented that she didn't see any barefootprints in the snow in my pictures yesterday... and it WAS the first snow of the year, wasn't it, she asked, somewhat rhetorically. . .

 

Hmmm. I did the barefoot thing back in November (first snow of the season) hoping to ensure health in the coming year. I'd not thought about the first snow of the year . . .

 

Better safe than sorry ... brrr ... did I mention that it was really cold?

 

A Little Night Snow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Books!

This gorgeous picture of a blooming artichoke is one of 365 plates  in The Flower Garden -- based on original hand-colored copper plate engravings in the Hortus Eystettensis (ca. 1620,) one of the great treasures of botanical literature.

I love this book -- a veritable feast of flowers!

Also on my wish list were some books by Barbara Pym. 

Pym is a 20th century Jane Austen and one of the standards I turn to for a comfort read. These four books did not disappoint with their quietly witty studies of ordinary people leading quiet lives.

 

One of my students asked me what I thought about The Silent Wife.  She said:

To be very frank, I thought it was weird.  It does not follow the guidelines that you and others provide for writing a murder novel.  The murder does not take place until the very end of the book.  ...  Nor did it contain more action than narrative.  In fact, the majority of the book is narrative, such as the constant musing of the two main characters, particularly the female.  The actions of the two main characters seem completely contradictory to what we are told about their personalities and their life together. 

All of which is true...but I really enjoyed the book and read far into the night to find out what happened.  It's not at all your standard murder mystery  -- it's  more of an in depth character study of two people, told from alternating points of view. I'd classify this one as literary.

And this last book -- a Young Adult ( translated from the Italian)  -- is the story of a young girl living in Venice whose fiercely independent grandmother slowly turns into a tortoise. 

It's complicated... but strangely charming.

Did you get books for the holidays? Tell us about them!

 

Not a Resolution but a Question ...

That question has been echoing in my mind for some time.  It comes from Mary Oliver's beautiful poem "The Summer Day"...

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean --

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?