St. Nicklaus Day
In Germany, where we have lived, off and on, many years, December 6th is the day that St. Nicklaus comes, not Christmas. Saint Nicklaus, as opposed to Santa Clause, wears a long red robe with white trim, more like a coat, and it comes down past his knees. He often has a shepherd’s crook in one hand, and is sometimes pictured riding on a horse.
I got this wonderful print – one of many from The St. Nicholas Center where you can find many beautiful old postcards portraying the old European precursor to the modern Santa Claus.
Children put out their shoes, and hope that St. Nicholas will come by and fill them with candy, oranges, small goodies, and not with branches (to be used as switches) and coal, which are for bad children. Germans have such a sense of humor that you can also find branches with candies tied to them, and candies that are wrapped to look like coal. Kind of a mixed message, I guess.
The original St. Nicholas, so the legend goes, was a Bishop in Myra, then in Greece, now a part of Turkey near Demre. He threw bags of gold through the window of a poor family with three daughters, who would not marry without dowry. This is the bare bones of the St. Nicholas legend – I learned a lot more from the same site where I got the photo Who Is Saint Nicholas? You can learn so much more by clicking there. He is, to me, so much more lovable than Santa Claus, who commits house invasion on a grand scale once a year!
In the tiny village where we lived in Germany, I would get up early in the morning and put small cakes and candies on the doorsteps of the three women who were particularly good to me. Oh! The looks on their faces later when they spoke to me.
The grandmother would say “What? you think we are children, that St. Nicholas comes to us?” but you could see from the grin that it tickled her.
Aren’t we all still children, deep inside, thrilled when some unexpected blessing comes our way? Isn’t it always fun, child or not, to be surprised by something good?
The Kuwait Beauty Sisterhood
We love the Kuwait Airport. I love it that you can get a cup of coffee and just sit and wait for your arrivals to make that long long walk as you exit customs and head toward the exit. We love watching the families so excited to see one another. We make up stories for ourselves to explain what we are seeing. Sometimes, we cry, too, because it is so moving. We love it when the women ululate on seeing a new arrival, when brides arrive with their husbands, when Moms come back from Hajj.
A few nights ago, my husband was meeting late arrivals at the airport and he saw something we have NEVER seen before. He saw four women, all with identical bandages over their noses. He figures they must have gone somewhere for plastic surgery. All four at the same time? We figure they must be sisters, or cousins, or very very good friends, all having their noses trimmed at the same time. He said they weren’t at all self-conscious about it, rather they were grinning with pride. I think when there are four of you with the same big bandage, it must take the self-conscious factor WAAAAAYYYYY out.
We’re always laughing at what we call “buying hope in a bottle.” For me, it might be the next luxury face cream that promises me “visible results in 7 days”. For my husband, it is always the next super camera. For some, it is the hot motorcycle, or the next hot car. For some, it is the hottest new computer, or the tiniest, biggest gigabyte iPod with all the bells and whistles. We’re all looking for a little hope. It just gives me a big grin thinking of those four brave girls going under the knife together for better noses.
Alhamdallah for the Thorns
1001 Kuwait Nights and I have been exploring parallel lines of thought – thanking God/Allah for problems as well as blessings . . . even the idea that problems, too, are blessings, or a conduit to blessings . . .
A friend sent this today. I hadn’t seen it before, but it continues the exploration of the theme. . .
Thorns
Sandra felt as low as the heels of her shoes as she pushed against a November gust and the florist shop door.
Her life had been easy, like a spring breeze. Then in the fourth month of her second pregnancy, a minor automobile accident stole that from her.
During this Thanksgiving week she would have delivered a son. She grieved over her loss. As if that weren’t enough, her husband’s company threatened a transfer. Then her sister, whose holiday visit she coveted, called saying she could not come for the holiday.
Then Sandra’s friend infuriated her by suggesting her grief was a God-given path to maturity that would allow her to empathize with others who suffer. She has no idea what I’m feeling, thought Sandra with a shudder.
Thanksgiving? Thankful for what? She wondered. For a careless driver whose truck was hardly scratched when he rear-ended her? For an airbag that saved her life but took that of her child?
“Good afternoon, can I help you?” The shop clerk’s approach startled her.
“I….I need an arrangement,” stammered Sandra.
“For Thanksgiving? Do you want beautiful but ordinary, or would you like to challenge the day with a customer favorite I call the Thanksgiving “Special?” asked the shop clerk. “I’m convinced that flowers tell stories,” she continued. “Are you looking for something that conveys ‘gratitude’ this thanksgiving?”
“Not exactly!” Sandra blurted out. “In the last five months, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.”
Sandra regretted her outburst, and was surprised when the shop clerk said, “I have the perfect arrangement for you.”
Just then the shop door’s small bell rang, and the shop clerk said, “Hi, Barbara…let me get your order.” She politely excused herself and walked toward a small workroom, then quickly reappeared, carrying an arrangement of greenery, bows, and long-stemmed thorny roses. Except the ends of the rose stems were neatly snipped: there were no flowers.
“Want this in a box?” asked the clerk.
Sandra watched for the customer’s response. Was this a joke? Who would want rose stems with no flowers! She waited for laughter, but neither woman laughed.
“Yes, please,” Barbara, replied with an appreciative smile. “You’d think after three years of getting the special, I wouldn’t be so moved by its significance, but I can feel it right here, all over again,” she said as she gently tapped her chest. And she left with her order.
“Uh,” stammered Sandra, “that lady just left with, uh….she just left with no flowers!
“Right, said the clerk, “I cut off the flowers. That’s the Special. I call it the Thanksgiving Thorns Bouquet.”
“Oh, come on, you can’t tell me someone is willing to pay for that!” exclaimed Sandra.
“Barbara came into the shop three years ago feeling much like you feel today,” explained the clerk. “She thought she had very little to be thankful for. She had lost her father to cancer, the family business was failing, her son was into drugs, and she was facing major surgery.”
“That same year I had lost my husband,” continued the clerk, “and for the first time in my life, had just spent the holidays alone. I had no children, no husband, no family nearby, and too great a debt to allow any travel.”
“So what did you do?” asked Sandra.
“I learned to be thankful for thorns,” answered the clerk quietly. “I’ve always thanked God for the good things in my life and never questioned the good things that happened to me, but when bad stuff hit, did I ever ask questions! It took time for me to learn that dark times are important. I have always enjoyed the ‘flowers’ of life, but it took thorns to show me the beauty of God’s comfort. You know, the Bible says that God comforts us when we’re afflicted, and from His consolation we learn to comfort others.”
Sandra sucked in her breath as she thought about the very thing her friend had tried to tell her. “I guess the truth is I don’t want comfort. I’ve lost a baby and I’m angry with God.”
Just then someone else walked in the shop. “Hey, Phil!” shouted the clerk to the balding, rotund man.
“My wife sent me in to get our usual Thanksgiving Special….12 thorny, long-stemmed stems!” laughed Phil as the clerk handed him a tissue-wrapped arrangement from the refrigerator.
“Those are for your wife?” asked Sandra incredulously. “Do you mind me asking why she wants something that looks like that?”
“No…I’m glad you asked,” Phil replied. “Four years ago my wife and I nearly divorced. After forty years, we were in a real mess, but with the Lord’s grace and guidance, we slogged through problem after problem. He rescued our marriage. Jenny here (the clerk) told me she kept a vase of rose stems to remind her of what she learned from “thorny” times, and that was good enough for me. I took home some of those stems. My wife and I decided to label each one for a specific “problem” and give thanks for what that problem taught us.”
As Phil paid the clerk, he said to Sandra, “I highly recommend the Special!”
“I don’t know if I can be thankful for the thorns in my life.” Sandra said. “It’s all too…fresh.”
“Well,” the clerk replied carefully, “my experience has shown me that thorns make roses more precious. We treasure God’s providential care more during trouble than at any other time. Remember, it was a crown of thorns that Jesus wore so we might know His love. Don’t resent the thorns.”
Tears rolled down Sandra’s cheeks. For the first time since the accident, she loosened her grip on resentment. “I’ll take those twelve long-stemmed thorns, please,” she managed to choke out.
“I hoped you would,” said the clerk gently. “I’ll have them ready in a minute.”
“Thank you. What do I owe you?”
“Nothing. Nothing but a promise to allow God to heal your heart. The first year’s arrangement is always on me.” The clerk smiled and handed a card to Sandra. “I’ll attach this card to your arrangement, but maybe you would like to read it first.”
It read: “My God, I have never thanked You for my thorns. I have thanked You a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my thorns. Teach me the glory of the cross I bear; teach me the value of my thorns. Show me that I have climbed closer to You along the path of pain. Show me that, through my tears, the colors of Your rainbow look much more brilliant.”
Praise Him for your roses; thank him for your thorns!
Extra Credit Christmas Cookies: Rosettes
OK, good on ya, you’ve done your shopping and the cupboards are bulging. You’re already planning how to knock out those basic cookies, but now – now we get to think about trying something a little more challenging.
I will admit, this is not such a challenge to me. I grew up watching these made every year, it’s a Swedish thing. Now I make them every year, continuing the tradition. So I am going to share all the secrets with you, and you are going to do just fine.
First, a little theory. The rosettes I make every year use a sweet, lemon flavored mixture. Twice I have made savory timbales – you use a different batter. Those timbales are used to serve vegetables or something like lobster newburg when you have a lot of time and you want something to look very elegant, but the truth is, it’s a lot of work.
Meanwhile, rosette cookies for Christmas are also a lot of work, but you make a big batch at once, they last for up to six weeks in an airtight container, and they look very very cool and take up a lot of space on a cookie tray. And everyone thinks you are amazing, because they look so hard, but really, they’re not that hard.
Basic Rosette Lemon Batter
Beat 2 eggs
add 1 cup milk
Sift 1 cup flour
with a pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
Add to above and mix all together. It should look like thick cream. Add:
2 teaspoons of lemon extract, stir in.
Then you let the batter stand at least an hour. I often make it the night before and let it stand in the refrigerator overnight, then pull it out when I get up so that it warms up to room temperature. If you don’t let it stand, it doesn’t blend the right way.
You can do this in a pan on the stove . . .I did it that way for many years. But there is this wonderful machine called a deep fryer . . . if you have one, you are home free. I use something called a Fry Daddy, which is just the right size.
You will need a LOT of oil. I use a very mild vegetable oil like safflower oil or corn oil, something that doesn’t have a strong flavor on its own.
Warm the oil to 375 F/180 C.
Put out several sheets of paper towel. When the hot rosette comes out of the oil, you will pry it off the mold with the tines of a fork and let it rest upside down on the papertowel to absorb any of the excess oil.
Have a fork handy.
Choose the rosette wheel you want to use – most kits come with two or three. The most classic is a wheel shaped, but I also use a star and occasionally have used a butterfly. The timbale shape is also wheel shaped, but without all the divisions. Attach the form you choose firmly to the iron.
Get a comfortable chair, and sit by the hot oil. Have your bowl of batter right next to you, and paper towels nearby. Please, this isn’t something to do with children around, not when you are working with 3 – 4 cups of sizzling oil.
Dip the rosette iron in the hot oil, maybe five seconds, so it gets hot. (A hot iron is the secret to being able to get the rosette off easily when it is finished cooking.) Pull it out, tap it against the side of the pan to knock off excess oil.
Dip it quickly into the batter, it will hiss as the hot oil hits the cooler batter. Hissing is good, it means the iron is hot enough.
But dip into the batter only up to the top edge, not over the top edge! If the batter goes over the top edge, you will not be able to get the rosette off when it finished cooking.
So now you have a hot iron with batter on it, just right.
Plunge it into the hot oil. It will really hiss and bubble, that is what it is supposed to do, that means it is cooking. It will only hiss and bubble for maybe 30 seconds, then the hissing and bubbling will slacken. Somewhere between 45 seconds and 1 minute, pull the rosette out and see if it looks crisp and golden. Turn it upside down, tap excess oil back into the hot oil.
Over the paper toweling, use your fork to gently pry the rosette away from the mold in a couple places, and using gentle pressure, push the rosette off the mold. Place it upside down on the toweling so that it drains. One down!
At first, take it one at a time until you feel comfortable that you’ve got the hang of it. Then – you can actually do two irons at once. You let one iron heat while you are cooking the other rosette, then switch back and forth.
From time to time, maybe every ten rosettes, stir the batter again, because it can get oily and needs to be stirred.
If you do this with a pan on the stove, it is harder to maintain a steady temperature, and you will need a hot oil thermometer to keep track of it. When the oil gets too cool, the rosettes turn out too light and too floppy. If they get overcooked, they get too brown and they are hard to get off the iron. The deep fat fryer is your best bet for maintaining an even temperature.
This is also something more fun to do with a sister or a friend. My Mother and her best friend did it every year together; it was their special tradition.
OK, when you are finished with all your rosettes, and they have cooled, store them in a large tupperware container, WITHOUT CROWDING. These are so fragile, and they break easily.
Sift Powdered Sugar over Rosettes
When you want to take a tray of rosettes somewhere, you need to sift powdered sugar over the top, with the empty side up (the way they were when they were cooking) so that the powdered sugar goes down into the crevasses.
Some people use a sifter, but my preference is to use a small basket seive/strainer with a handle, put powdered sugar in it and tap it on the side with a fork. It controls where the sugar falls a little better, and gives more control over how much sugar you put on each rosette. Put them on the platter empty side up, so that they look all snowy and sugary and crisp.
WARNING! Do not attempt to eat one of these wearing a black dress! They are crisp, and they crumble, and sometimes powdered sugar goes everywhere, and it is a (mess) to get off.
As the cook, you get to eat the mistakes as you go along. At the end, you won’t want to eat any more. They aren’t so sweet, but they are mostly FAT! You will get other recipes for rosettes with your iron.
Have fun.
I found this photo at About housewares and it is a good photo, but to my way of thinking, the rosettes are upside down. I serve them the other way.
2011 Update: I used a Fry Daddy this year and every single rosette turned out perfectly. 🙂
How Thanksgiving Really Went . . .
The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally a HUGE shopping day in the U.S. Stores have sales that start at 7 a.m. in the morning, some even reward customers who get there at 6 a.m. People start putting up their Christmas decorations. Almost everyone is in calorie overload – no matter how much you tell yourself you are going to go light, you end up eating more than you intended.
The really good news is that leftover turkey and cranberry sauce make dynamite sandwiches. Pies are great the second day.
I didn’t do the pecan pie. When I went to make it, I didn’t have any Karo syrup, and you can’t make a pecan pie without corn syrup. We made an early trip to the Sultan Center, where they DID have those gorgeous huge Kuwaiti shrimp, (they were yummy) and I bought some corn syrup, but by the time I got home, I needed to focus on other things and didn’t have time to make another pie. I had made a plum pie the day before when I discovered I didn’t have corn syrup, and that would have to do. As it turned out, my friend had made THREE pies, two stunningly beautiful pumpkin pies with little leaves of pastry crust on them, and a cranberry/lemon pie that was a tart surprise, and a welcome change from all the sweet stuff. She also baked three kinds of bread – she is one talented lady. She made it all look so easy. Whew!
Pumpkin Pie with Autumn Leaves
My friend did the turkey, and it was PERFECT. She also did the gravy, and it, too, was perfect. I will have to learn her secret. She also made a smokey black bean soup that was to die for.
Balsamic Sweet Potatoes
Mom’s Roquefort dressing was a big hit, the cranberry jello was great, all the side dishes were great – something for everyone.
But I have to get the recipe for that smokey bean soup from my friend. . . WOW.
Best of all – good conversation with good friends, people you can be comfortable with.
My parents are doing OK, and were baking a turkey when I called and would be sharing Thanksgiving Dinner with my youngest sister and her husband. I give thanks they still have the drive to do their own Thanksgiving.
Enough of the Thanksgiving. . . time to move on. I want to thank all of you who had fun with this meal, who tried making even one dish – you inspired me. And I guess there is a need for easy recipes, because once I had put those recipes online, I was getting huge hits every day – the day before Thanksgiving, I had almost 700 hits. . . it was a huge shock.
I especially want to thank 1001 Kuwaiti Nights for her inspiration, and her questions. I don’t even know what I know, until I know what you don’t know! See her first Thanksgiving dinner at that link. What courage! To try a Feast and to bring it off! I especially love the after photo of her first Pecan Pie! Woooo Hooooooo, 1001!
Still Learning – Alhamdallah
Another Side of Thanksgiving . . .
My friend asked about my father, and when I told her he was slipping away, losing a little more every day, she said “Alhamdallah!”
I was caught up short. Her face was smiling. I had just told her my father is dying and she says “Thanks be to God?”
I know this woman like my own sister. Her daughters are my own daughters. I am welcome in every corner of her house, I pray for every one of her children, and being in her home is like being in my own home, we are all so comfortable together.
“No,” I said, “You’ve misunderstood what I said!” and she hugged me and said “I understood, but no matter what happens, we say ‘alhamdallah’. If you father is dying, we say ‘alhamdallah’. If Hurricane Katrina strikes, we say ‘alhamdallah’. All things come from Allah, and He knows all things. It is his will, so we say ‘alhamdallah’.”
We are both religious women. My faith says the same thing, to give thanks in all things. In my daily life, I sometimes forget. Truly, in my culture, you would never say “thanks be to God” if someone had just told you something very sad.
Being exposed to the Islamic world has complemented my own faith. No, I don’t need to be a Muslim; I think the differences between us are much smaller than the similarities. But truly, I thank God for all that I learn about my own faith by living is Moslem countries.
I love the call to prayer; nothing wrong with being reminded during the day – and night – to love and honor God. I love living among people who give thanks to God so many times a day, even for Hurricane Katrina, even for my failing father. I love watching the fathers and sons headed to the mosque on Fridays. There’s even a very gentle station with Moslem films in English that I watch from time to time because it is so peaceful, and tolerant and sweetly loving.
My friend took time from her very busy life and made a special trip to the bookstore to buy me a book called Don’t Be Sad. It’s a wonderful book by ‘Aaidh ibn Abdullah al-Qarni with chapters like “How to deal with bitter criticism,” “Do Not Carry the Weight of the Globe on Your Shoulders,” Do Not be Shaken by Hardships'” “Jealousy is Not Something New” and one of my favorites – “Do Not Be Sad – Do Good to Others.” This book is helpful to me in so many ways, including giving me good sura that are very similar to writings in our own book. This helps me clarify to others in my culture how alike we are, and how similar our faith is. My friend loves me, and I know she wants only the best for me. I give thanks to have her as a friend.
Every now and then, I come across something that shakes me – like when my friend said “alhamdallah” about my Father . . . but in the end, I learn something and my understanding broadens. Alhamdallah!
“I’m Not Japanese Anymore”
she said, and we dissolved into gales of giggles. We struggled to regain control over ourselves. She was the Japanese ambassador’s wife, my dear friend, and we would hide out and have coffee together whenever our busy schedules would allow. We always sought out the quietest time of day, the most remote tables, so we could have complete and utter privacy as we shared our week, our worries about our kids, our lives.
Our topic was a recurring one in our conversations – that once you have left your native country and lived elsewhere, you aren’t the same anymore. Your eyes change, and you see things differently, your taste buds change and the unfamiliar becomes familiar. Unacceptable color combinations become acceptable, the cacaphonous and discordant become music to your ears. Once you have lived in a foreign country, you can never be truly the person you were before you left.
“I’m not so patient with ceremony any more,” she continued, and we dissolved into laugher again, because her life was full of endless ceremonial events. The great blessing in all this for both of us, is that we are both married to men who are at the same time traditional and ceremonial, and secret iconoclasts. Every now and then we could even get together, all four of us, and share an evening of relaxation and laughter, mostly laughing at ourselves and the difference between how others perceived us, and how we really are.
We treasure these friends. They are the kind that could call us late in the day and say “We are unexpectedly free tonight – can you meet us?” and if there was any way we could, we would. They were our playmates; when we were together we were free to be totally ourselves.
Sometimes in life we are handed roles to play, and if we are honorable people, we play them as best we can. The secret is to keep a very clear idea of where the role ends and we begin. We show respect where respect is due, we carry out the rituals that give richness and tradition to our lives, and heritage to our children.
But glory and honors are transient. Roles and job titles come and go. Good friends and those who keep your worst secrets – they are worth more than gold and diamonds.
Stunned Silence
Five sets of eyes were looking at me with horrified fascination. The silence seems to last a millenium.
“No marriage contract?” gasped Latifa. “How can this be? We have met your parents! You are from a good family, a religious family! How could you have no marriage contract to protect you?”
It isn’t often that I am at a loss for words, even though we are all speaking in French, often times a comical method of communication, as I normally speak English and they normally speak a Berber Arabic. Words sometimes elude us, and now, words are very elusive.
Fortunately, they all started talking at once.
“Don’t you know, dear one, that a man’s heart is not always constant!”
“You must make him give you gold, and property, to protect yourself and your children!”
“You must be investing for hard times to come!”
One by one, they shared stories of how women had been left by fickle men, or widowed, and how only by the grace of material wealth gathered from dowry, from wedding gifts, from gifts on anniversaries, from gifts when babies were born were they able to maintain themselves, and to provide education for their children.
“But none of you are divorced!” I cried out. “You have faithful husbands.”
Warning glances, barely perceptible, were exchanged, and their voices turned soothing . . .”Yes, dear one, for now. But we all protect ourselves against a future that only Allah knows . . .”
I was barely thirty years old, with a very young child, and these kind women surrounded me in my villa in suburban Tunis. We had worked very hard to develop a relationship, all of us, in spite of early discouraging events.
This was my first time living in an Islamic culture. They would send dishes of food to my house, to make me welcome in the neighborhood, and I would wait until a decent hour – maybe 10 a.m. – to call on them to return the dishes, only to find that not even the servants were up when I rang the bell. They would call on me at 5:30, as I was in my bathrobe, drying my hair for some event at the embassy that night.
Thank God we didn’t give up on one another! Finally, one time they called on me, the mother, the grandmother, two college aged daughters and a small child, one afternoon when my husband was out of town and I didn’t have any engagements that evening. After all our meetings, with the sense of failure to communicate, this time they called when my maid had gone home and I knew I had to serve tea, and something to eat. But that would mean leaving them alone in the salon . . .what to do?
After visiting for ten or fifteen minutes, I confessed I wanted to make them tea, but also didn’t want to leave them. Would they like to come into my kitchen and keep me company?
Who knew that such a simple, desperate request would be the key to unlocking the friendship we had all been seeking? They came into my kitchen, but instead of sitting around the small table while I fixed tea, they began looking into all my cupboards, pulling things out, exclaiming, asking questions. We were suddenly all fluent enough, no longer so self-conscious.
Things were never the same after that. They enjoyed dragging me along, pretending to others I was some long lost cousin from southern France, covering me in their sefsari’s, taking me with them to weddings. My husband objected to the “maquillage” and I told them that because we were religious, I could not wear so much make-up, and they relented. At Eid, I was allowed to peel and crush the garlic, while they cleaned and prepared the slaughtered lambs. Their friendship turned an isolated and intimidating experience into a warm, laughter filled time in my life.
I know they influenced me, changed me in subtle ways, some of which I probably don’t even know. I think it’s like CSI, where they say the primary forensic law is that in every interaction, you leave something behind and take something with you. My husband and I started seriously investing, and if today we are comfortable, I smile and think of those sweet women, and their horror that I would be unprotected by having no marriage contract.
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