If You Take a Man to Napa

(in the spirit of Laura Numeroff's book, "If you give a Mouse a Cookie.")

If you take a man to Napa,
He's going to buy some wine.
When he gets home with the wine,
He'll want a eurocave to store it.
Waiting for the eurocave's arrival will require
four hours (and No Tennis!) waiting for the delivery men.
When the delivery men arrive, you'll have to text the man.
He'll rush home from his meeting to help set up the eurocave.
Setting up the eurocave will remind him
that he'd like to return to Napa.
And if he returns to Napa,
chances are... he's going to buy some wine.

Holiday buffet graze

This year I thought I'd try a twist on the traditional sit-down Christmas dinner: an easy-going, grazing Holiday buffet. My husband and mother-in-law were slightly shocked to say the least. They are conservative and prefer their traditions. The extra guests I'd invited thought that was a terrific spin.

Here's the menu with recipe links if applicable:

Deep-fried Cajun turkey

Cornbread Stuffing with sausage (oven-baked, not turkey stuffed).

Green Bean and Fingerling Potato salad
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Green-Bean-and-Fingerling-Potato-Salad-10194

Sweet potatoes with Cranberries, Pecans and Goat Cheese
http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/11/sweet-potatoes-with-pecans-and-goat-cheese/

Roasted vegetables (asparagus, red onion, acorn squash, button mushrooms seasoned with Good Seasons Italian dressing packet and olive oil)

Cheesy mashed potatoes

Pears with bananas, kiwis and pomegranate seeds

Green salad with cranberries, pomegranates

Numerous sugar cookies, petit fours, two caramel apple pies, one cherry pie, one peach pie and one home-made angel food cake.

And last but not least, the wines served were:

Highflyer Aviator, William Hill Chardonnay, Four Vines Naked Chardonnay and started all with an Italian Lambrusco.

And everybody still wound up sitting down at the tables for dinner. Oh Well! Can't change tradition, but you can shake it a bit.

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama (link to: http://bit.ly/tmwishlist) and GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family?
Peace and love.

2. What is your Christmas morning / Hanukkah Nightly tradition?
One person, dressed in Santa hat, passes out the gifts from under the tree. We open gifts, open our stockings and have a leisurely breakfast.

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be?
A custom-built cabinet/chest, with pull-out drawers, that would hold all my piano and violin sheet music.

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money?
We'll get in the car and drive around town looking at the Holiday decorations while listening to Holiday music. We spend time together playing games and being with one another. This year, we'll Skype the family members we cannot be with.

5. What games did you play with your family growing up?
My grandfather would buy the family one big game and we'd play it Christmas day/evening. We played a lot of games - anything with cards.

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood?
One game every year. Since we always had large family gatherings and I do not always see my family on Christmas, I try to invite friends over to celebrate the day with us.

7. Where would you go for a Christmas/Hanukkah-away-from-home trip?
A ski trip.

8. Check out GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year?
Wii games: Epic Mickey, Just Dance 2 and Rock Band 3.

Wanderlust or Fernweh

I'm happy traveling. Journeying some place new gives me inner peace. Sometimes definined as Wanderlust, a German word which translates to a "strong desire for or impulse to wander," or in the modern definition, meaning "to travel and to explore the world." Wikipedia suggests a "more contemporary equivalent word" would be "Fernweh." It's literally translated as "an ache for the distance" or "far-sickness."

Many years ago, my father gave me a sweatshirt that had these words on it -

"Lured by the thrill of adventure,
modern day wanderers such as I are
driven by an inexplicable
force to roam. Restless at heart
and curious of mind,
we ramble about, forever
in search of new lands that open our eyes to
strange sights and our minds to the ways
of the world. Wanderlust as we know
it, is not meant to be understood
but to be experienced."

Kevin Pang dishes up Anthony Bourdain

Kevin Pang, Chicago Trib's dining reporter, has a delicious interview with Anthony Bourdain. I love Bourdain and his Travel Channel Show, "No Reservations." Bourdain is beyond cool. (Though I must admit I don't always agree with some of his personal views.)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-100420-anthony-bourdain-chicago-interview,0,2803455,full.story

Don't buy this in 2010 (link provided)

Interesting...

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/108504/10-things-not-to-buy-in-2010

Wine Time

Hurray! The vino's arrived. I'll pick it up while the little one's playing tennis. Will try & update/correct the dinner review later.