Tag Archives: holidays

Over the River and Through the Woods …

Posted on November 22, 2012 by AnnieRie

… one thing I don’t miss these days. The long trips over the holidays. On clogged highways. My husband’s family lived out of state. It always meant traveling in the winter on snow covered roads. We tried avoiding bad weather, following forecasts and working our schedules around the best travel days.

I-70 at noon Wednesday

One Easter we got trapped by a late ice storm and didn’t get home to get back to work. Having relatives in the highlands of northeastern PA meant treacherous trips on I-81 and I-83. I feel for those who have those same dilemmas and who face the clogged roads to make it home to visit. But, I would be happy to have his family still with us, and take those trips to see them. We miss our families most during the holidays. My mom is still active and we cherish the years we have by sharing holidays with her.

Today we get to leisurely drive about 30 miles to share Thanksgiving with my brother and his extended family. Since the 1990’s he has always sponsored midshipmen at his home, first in Catonsville and now south of Annapolis. It means quite a bit to the families of these young men that they have a safe place to come and share a day or two, or a meal or two, with someone who looks out for them. Many of them still keep in touch.

We go to his home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and Fourth of July, usually. Plus, birthdays, weddings, graduations, Mother’s Day, and just sometimes to see old friends, having a base for get togethers is comforting and familiar. It does mean we have made our own personal traditions, that dovetail with the family visits.

I don’t know how many years we never had a Christmas tree. Lately, we do get one since we are home on Christmas day. The first few times we got one when we married more than 30 years ago, they would dry out and drop needles all over the place, since we went to PA for four or five days. I have yet to succumb and buy an artificial tree. We now buy ours locally at either TLV or Pine Valley

Around our current home, all the trees grouped by the driveway were former Christmas trees from the previous owner. Bought with the root ball, they were planted and some of them are 25 years old. If we were younger, we would do that, but at least we recycle our tree into mulch with the county. I do love the grouping of trees at our home, though. They make me think of the memories of the family whose children grew up here 20 years ago.

Today I will eat my brother’s turkey and fixings. He cooks most of the dinner, just as my dad loved to cook. We will come home tonight and brine our turkey and have our dinner tomorrow or Saturday. This is also a big radio contest weekend, and luckily, my husband now contests from home. It means we can have that dinner, and make our own memories in our home. Now, off to find the brining supplies for the turkey and put together the cooler to take to my brother’s.

Then, I need to figure out where I am putting the tree, and go up in the attic and get the Christmas lights out. And, do Christmas cookies and cards. Ah, the beginning of the busy season. Don’t forget about Small Business Saturday! Go out and buy something, presents, food, trees, whatever, from the small local businesses in Howard County.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Posted in Commentary, Community, Day Trips, Family, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, Travel, Weather, West HoCo and tagged commentary, community, cooking, day trips, family, Food, foodie, hoco loco, holidays, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, traditions, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

The End of the Season

Posted on November 17, 2012 by AnnieRie

Planning for Thanksgiving? You still have one more chance to get in on local goodness supporting our farmers. Oakland Mills market Sunday morning from 9 am until 12:30 pm. The final day of the market until the spring.

I hit Glenwood today. Four of the Glenwood vendors will be at Oakland Mills tomorrow morning. If you do nothing else, getting apples from the customer appreciation sale by Lewis Orchards is worth the trip. Ten dollars for half a bushel and you can mix two types. I like Fuji because they are good eating apples and will work for applesauce and pies.

Half bushel Fuji apples

I got some fresh cider from them also. They were doing a brisk business today, as you can see by the stack of upturned 1/2 bushel baskets. I was in line about five deep when I first got there to get the apples. It was good to see each vendor doing a decent business with cars coming in. I was there before 10 am. When I left the cars were still pretty constant coming in.

I got eggs and a ham hock from TLV. I know I can continue to get them out at the farm. Honey from Breezy Willow. And, a pecan pie for one of the desserts I will take to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner, from Stone House. The eggs are for my Christmas baking, which I will be starting the weekend after Thanksgiving.

TLV, Stone House, Cosmic Bean and Lewis will be at Oakland Mills. I don’t know about the produce vendors there, or whether Great Harvest will be there. Zahradka and Breezy Willow were doing a brisk business today, with people getting veggies for their holiday meals. Lots of broccoli and cauliflower. Squashes. Brussels sprouts on the stalk.

Stone House will be around for a while at TLV, during Christmas tree cutting season. Check their site to see which days. I got my pecan pie today that just needs a quick heat up in the oven. All sorts of pies, cakes, cookies, cupcakes and breads. I have two loaves of their specialty breads in my freezer to heat up with soups.

A big thanks to all our local vendors and farmers, who have given us almost seven months of markets here in the county. I know I appreciate them being here, and hope to see them all next spring.

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Posted in Community, Farmer's Markets, Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Locavore, West HoCo and tagged community, cooking, farmer's markets, Food, holidays, Howard County, local businesses, Locavore, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

Almost Forgot It Was Halloween

Posted on October 31, 2012 by AnnieRie

With all that was happening I completely forgot about Halloween. Not that we get any trick or treaters. In all the time we have been here, we can count on one hand the number of children who showed up at our door.

Way out here, driving miles to hit a handful of houses isn’t appealing, and there is no way you can walk from house to house. We buy a bag of candy but end up taking it to work or the conservancy, usually full.

Since we had pumpkin hummus left, we celebrated with an appetizer of really decent falafel chips bought at Roots last week, and the last of the hummus.

Hoping we get a CSA delivery tomorrow, as that means our farmers did OK after the storm. It is the first week of our fall CSA.

Happy Halloween!

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Posted in Food, Howard County, Locavore, West HoCo and tagged Food, holidays, Locavore, West HoCo. Bookmark the permalink.

I Am My Mother’s Daughter

Posted on May 13, 2012 by AnnieRie

Looking through old photos, I came across this one of my mom gardening at my grandparent’s home in Baltimore. Now, I know where I got the gardening bug.

Whenever I see pics of my mom when she was young, the resemblance to me at her age is uncanny. I know I inherited lots of her genetic traits, but seeing her in a place she loved, brings back memories.

My grandparents’ home was in the city, but it was a large property. Lots of room in the house and yard. Even a garage. I assume that the garden was a victory garden as my mom was a teenager during WW II, and it seems like everyone was gardening if they had any space to do so.

When I was a child and my grandfather passed away, we lived there a short time until my parents bought their home just a few miles down the road. I remember good times as a toddler and pre-schooler playing in that yard. A luxury in the city, and probably the reason why I always wanted to buy a place with enough land to garden.

On Mother’s Day, this connection to my mom is even more important for me. I remember all those carefree times as a family and cherish the time we have together and the phone conversations that go all over the place. The memories, the plans, the family, what is happening in her neighborhood. Little things that keep that connection alive.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, in my family and yours!

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Posted in Family, Gardening, People, Remember When and tagged family, holidays, traditions. Bookmark the permalink.

Wine and Chocolate

Posted on February 16, 2012 by AnnieRie

Valentine’s Day is an interesting holiday. The cynical side of me considers it a Hallmark holiday, where much money is spent on cards. We don’t do cards. Just like the advent of digital cameras impacted film, and the progression to ebooks is affecting book stores, and newspapers and magazines fall one after another, it is only a matter of time until cards in the mail disappear as well.

But the point of this post is “What did we do for Valentine’s Day?”

Wine and chocolate.

More of the first and less of the last. I try to limit the amount of chocolate in the house, so just a taste is what I want. Not a box full of empty calories.

This fit the bill. Just enough to enjoy, and the wine lasted two nights. 15.9% alcohol will make it last more than one sitting. I have to thank Les Amis du Vin, the predecessor of Taster’s Guild, for introducing us to Biale Zins. Big Zins. With interesting names like Black Chicken. For a trip down memory lane, we reminisced about Yogi Barrett and the wine tastings at the old Chez Fernand, where we first tasted Biale wines. A piece of HoCo loco trivia. The names of the restaurants where Fernand worked. Where was Papillon? Chez Fernand? It also had us to trying to remember the name of the restaurant when he was in Baltimore after the fire in Ellicott City. Then returning to Ellicott City with Tersiquels.

This wine is from 2002. It is a Lodi appellation, from Spenker Vineyard. High in alcohol yet not with that burn that high alcohol wines sometimes contain. Perfect with a chili infused dark chocolate.

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Posted in Food, Howard County, Local Businesses, Restaurants, Wine and tagged Food, hoco loco, holidays, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Dark Days Challenge Week Five Christmas Dinner

Posted on December 27, 2011 by AnnieRie

I suppose I subscribe to the philosophy when I accept a challenge to go big or go home. Being somewhat crazy, I decided to make Christmas dinner be our dark days meal for the fifth week of the challenge. I am leaving the easier dinners for when I am really running out of vegetables. Besides, I can’t believe the lovely romanesco cauliflower that was in our first Zahradka Farm CSA delivery last week. All ready to roast, it looks just like a Christmas tree, doesn’t it?

Dinner ended up being:
Roasted Cauliflower
Hydroponic tomatoes with goat cheese and basil and balsamic
Stuffed butternut squash
Virginia country ham on sweet potato biscuits
Linden Hardscrabble Chardonnay

The biscuits and ham came home with us from my brother’s house, so I do know that the biscuits were made using regular flour, one of the few non-local items in the meal. I just warmed them up in the oven.

The squash were stuffed with a honeycrisp apple, squash I roasted earlier in the week, local black walnuts, local honey, and local butter. The squash were from the Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA that just finished before Christmas.

The tomatoes came from the nearest grocery store, but Hummingbird Farms on the Eastern shore of Maryland grows lovely flavorful tomatoes year round in their greenhouses, hydroponically. The cheese was the end of the Firefly Farms chevre log. The basil from Mock’s Greenhouses in Berkeley Springs, WV.

The balsamic is not local, but bought from St. Helena Olive Oil Co., when we went there in 2006, I brought back three bottles of their aged balsamic. This is the last bottle. I need to order their oil and vinegar again, while it is cool enough for them to be shipped without damage. I buy their Napa Valley olive oils by the half gallon.

The wine is one of my absolute favorites from Virginia, Linden Hardscrabble Chardonnay. This was the 2008 vintage, the second year of our hot dry summers, and this wine is big and beautiful. It is made in the Burgundian style. Jim Law is a master of terroir, and his wines show his love of the land. If you meet him, he will tell you he is first and foremost a farmer, who happens to grow some of the most amazing grapes on his land that borders the Appalachian Trail near Shenandoah National Park.

Dinner doesn’t need to be fancy. Just flavorful. The wine, the salad, the roasted veggies, and the salty tang of country ham, all came together to make a lovely Christmas dinner for me and my husband. We do cherish the quiet times, far from the rat race we lived through in our journey to retirement. Our first Christmas since he retired, and it was a special one.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Posted in Dark Days, Family, Food, Locavore, Retirement, Wine and tagged Dark Days Challenge, Food, holidays, Locavore, wine. Bookmark the permalink.

Christmas at Home

Posted on December 26, 2011 by AnnieRie

For years, we traveled at Christmas. Not so local relatives, and the trips on snowy highways made us more frantic and less relaxed that we often didn’t enjoy the season totally.

Now, we have slowed down the pace and stay home more. This year I chose to replace the traditional tree with lots of greens, and some special older items not usually displayed. It made it much more relaxed and I had time to bake, and to make gifts for the family. I baked three kinds of cookies this year. Cocoa flavored butter cookies. Coconut butter cookies. Chocolate peanut butter oatmeal bars.

I also deliberately chose local items as much as possible, or failing that, small business produced gifts for the children at my brother’s house. We do a traditional Christmas Eve dinner there with family and friends. He lives about 40 miles away so it is easy to drive down and back the same day.

I really do need to learn how to make my mom’s sugar cookies. They are so thin and crisp. I don’t know how she gets them that way. I never try to make and give these to family as they don’t look or taste as good as hers. Here are her cookies. I didn’t even try this year to do sugar cookies.

I also took the time to find my better half’s favorite holiday treat. Homemade ice cream from Baugher’s. Holiday flavors like candy cane and pumpkin roll. It doesn’t get any better than local foods, friends, family, traditions and Christmas at Home.