I mentioned in my first Little Women post that Jo celebrates Christmas while living away from home for the very first time. She loves New York but is a little homesick…until a box of homemade gifts arrives from home, delicious bits of crunchy gingerbread among them! This recipe from Taste of Home is jut the sort of sweet, fragrant, gently spicy cookie that would warm my heart and lift my spirits if I were Jo March. And to make them even more in keeping with our Little Women theme, I decided to decorate my cookies to look like the March sisters!
No fruit or vegetable appears more often in Little Women than apples. They’re Jo’s go-to reading snack, and the final chapter is even set in the Bhaers’ apple orchard. In honor of Jo’s apples, I decided to make my own interpretation of baked apples, which pairs well with our turkey roulade and has enough sweet-savory balance to work as a side dish or dessert. Plus, it’s got those cozy, subtle spice flavors that fit so well in a Christmas menu!
Today is my 2nd wedding anniversary! Last year on my anniversary, I posted about the origin of my wedding ring. Since it’s still one of my most popular posts, I decided to do another anniversary post, this time about my bouquet. Enjoy!
When I was a little girl, I didn’t have big plans for my wedding. I had no idea what kind of dress I wanted to wear or how many tiers the cake should have. In fact, I very much doubted I’d get married at all, since I wasn’t exactly the go-out-and-meet-new-people type. I was more the stay-inside-reading-all-by-myself type.
But when I was in middle school, I came across a poem (an old Irish folk song by Thomas Moore) that made me sure of one thing: the kind of flower I wanted in my wedding bouquet. The song is called “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms” and it goes a little something like this:
As a 6th grader, I hadn’t read a lot of love poems, but I’d read enough to know that they almost always fixate on the youth and beauty of the beloved. This one was different. It was about how those qualities will fade, but the lover only sees it as an opportunity to show how deep their love really goes. I realized this was what I wanted to find some day. And that’s what sunflowers came to mean for me: constancy, devotion through time
When the Mister and I decided to get married, I knew I’d found someone I was excited to get old with. I still wasn’t that worried about the dress and the cake, but now I knew why: the wedding day is just a single day. Yet, it’s the beginning of a marriage, which goes on for the whole rest of your life. Weddings aren’t about being young and beautiful. They’re about creating something that will still be there when youth and beauty are gone.
Legend has it Moore wrote the song for his wife, after she contracted smallpox and locked herself away from the world, ashamed of her scars. It’s said he sang it to her outside her door, and it gave her the strength to face the world again.
I still have the flowers in the picture, but they’re not fresh and young anymore. My mom dried them for me, and I keep them in a mason jar on our bookcase. They’re frail and withered, and they fade a little more each year.
Here’s my last Beautiful Books linkup for National Novel Writing Month! I got all the way to 50k words with my first draft, so I’m feeling super accomplished. Now comes editing! This linkup focuses on my plans in that arena. If you’d like to see which other NaNo writers have joined the linkup, swing by Paper Fury and take a look! Plus, read some of Cait’s posts while you’re there, because she’s hilarious and awesome. 🙂
As you may recall, we made roasted turkey legs for our Christmas Carol menu this time last year. However, the Marchs’ Christmas turkey features so prominently in Little Women that I decided to pay turkey another visit. This elegant turkey breast roulade (a variation on one I found at The Cozy Apron) is very different from last year’s simplistic recipe. The bread, apples, nuts, and sage are ingredients that the impoverished Marchs could have grown or gathered themselves. When paired with a small amount of luxurious dried cranberries and cider glaze, the dish is elevated to something truly special…and it stretches a simple turkey breast a long way, something a large family like the Marchs would have no doubt appreciated!
December is here, and with it all the trappings of Christmas. Since I moved in early November and didn’t get a chance to decorate for Halloween, I was determined not to let that happen for Christmas. On the first night of Advent, I set the lights low, turned on a CD of Christmas hymns, and finished almost all my decorating in one night (I saved the tree for the next day). I was so ready for it, and it was actually really relaxing. I even found that it has been a lot easier to remember the “reason for the season,” I guess because it gave me a chance to think about why I was decorating. I know I won’t always get that, so I was grateful to have it this year.
Happy December, folks! How was your Thanksgiving? I was home sick from mine 🙁 , but I was able to send the Mister with a batch of homemade applesauce I froze a few weeks beforehand. Yay!
In much more pleasant news, I FINISHED MY NOVEL FOR NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH! Not gonna lie, I spent almost 20 minutes last night dancing around and singing. I’m extra excited because this was my very first time doing NaNo. It was tough, but I made it!!! I definitely want to try it again next year. I already have an idea for the book I want to write! 😀
Of course, since we’ve come to the end of our November menu, we also have a new tea blend available through Adagio Teas. In honor of our Divergent menu, I created Tori’s Peppermint Tea. It’s the perfect blend of peppermint, spearmint, and lemongrass with a lemon balm and marigold inclusion: refreshing and full-flavored without the menthol sensation being too overpowering. I love it both hot and iced. In fact, it’s been one of my few comforts while I’ve been sick (nothing like mint tea with a touch of honey to soothe a sore throat). Totally my new favorite green tea!
What have we got planned for our December Book of the Month? Here’s a hint:
All the items in this picture play important roles in our new Book of the Month (some of you may remember this picture from a guest post I published on another blog. If you can figure out which one, you’ll know the new book right away!).
If you’ve read Divergent, you know there is one dish that stands out above all the others, put on a pedestal by all who taste it: Dauntless Chocolate Cake. It’s so remarkable, Tris’ mother remembers it after years of living in Abnegation.
What kind of cake could merit that level of notoriety? I like to imagine it was a rich, moist dark chocolate cake topped with fluffy cinnamon frosting with just a little bourbon kick (the frosting I use here was originally developed by Eats Well With Others). It’s a good thing they don’t let you taste it until after choosing your faction…otherwise everyone would be in Dauntless!
In Divergent, Tris associates two foods with her home faction of Abnegation: plain peas and chicken breast. When she’s feeling homesick, she finds herself drawn to these foods in the Dauntless lunchroom. She doesn’t realize it at the time, but the reasons Tris feels so torn between Abnegation and Dauntless is because she’s a blend of the two. Today, we’re paying tribute to Tris’ Divergent nature with a side dish fit for both factions: Abnegation Pea Pod Fries, simple roasted peas-in-the-pod with just a little Dauntless cayenne kick, inspired by a recipe by The Smart Cookie Cook. A fitting side dish for our Dauntless Burger!
