Monkling's Blog

Why haven’t I been blogging??

Well it’s like this. I’m on Christmas vacation. Things in Monklingland have been very busy since Christmas Eve and, unlike last year, in a good way. Today is cleaning, laundry, packing day as we get ready to go off to visit my boy.

I probably won’t be around here for a bit but when I do come back, I will have lots of stories so hopefully the wait will be worth it.

Carry on & Happy New Year!

What? Most people don’t talk about bugs on Christmas Eve??

I have been busy baking so I haven’t had time to blog. I have decided to try my hand at strufoli. I never made them before. They were always my parents’ thing. (Thus, the strufoli story a few days ago.) No, Janet, I am not putting poppy seeds in them, mostly because I didn’t have any and there’s no way I’m setting foot into a store today.

So there I was, kneading the dough & wrapping it all up in plastic because it’s supposed to sit for 20 minutes. Then I pick up the silicone mat I was using to knead it on. I swear to you, tiny specks of dough jumped off it and hit me in the face. Jumped, I tell you. Didn’t roll, didn’t fall off but literally leaped off that damn mat like some many lords on the 10th day of Christmas. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought they were bugs all flying at my face at once.

If the strufoli come out decent, I may be back to post a photo. If they flop or if I’m too busy to get back -
Everyone have a wonderful Christmas!

It turns out, they didn’t come out all that bad:

This is what we have accomplished so far:

We are not done yet. Still in the lineup are the Holly Wreaths and the Neopolitan Rainbow Cookies. Then there is the experiment cookie I’m going to make. Or, make up. We’ll see how that one turns out. If it’s good, it may be another family tradition.

Many of these cookies are tradition. My mom used to make many of them & therefore, they must make an appearance at Christmas. Are there any cookies that are a must have at your house for Christmas; special holiday cookies that are required under the penalty of banishment into a corner with only stale cookie crumbs to eat as punishment if the cookies are missing?

I decided to come back and identify the cookies. Starting in the upper, left – gingerbread men (yeah, self evident). Then we have the chocolate swirls. Next are snickerdoodles (Neala’s recipe) but instead of cinnamon/sugar, we went for colored Christmas color sugar. Then something new: pignoli nut cookies. (They are NOT pine nuts. Not in this house!) In the middle we have Virginia’s oatmeal cookies. Then thumbprint cookies. The Christmas tree cookies are one my mom always used to make. The white ones are mom’s crescent cookies except I have reshaped them and they are now called snowball cookies. Last are the candy canes.

Today we began The 12 Day of Christmas (Cookies). Well, I began it, anyway. The anticipated goal is to make 12 different kinds of Christmas cookies. I’m not sure we will reach that goal but I can tell you we are, theoretically at least, halfway there.

Why theoretically? Because currently sitting in my refrigerator, there are 6 batches of cookie dough. Since they are not baked, they cannot be called cookies. Therefore, technically, I have not made any cookies yet.

Normally Fridays is my official house cleaning day. I do my cleaning on Fridays so that I can sit on my butt for the entire weekend and do absolutely nothing. This weekend, however, Theresa and I are planning a baking marathon so the cleaning went out the window. My house is a mess but hey, who cares? We’re doing way more important things here. We’re doing cookies.

Now let me get to the whole ‘red’ part. One of the cookies that has become a holiday tradition around here are candy cane cookies. They consist of 2 bands of dough (red & white) twisted together and shaped like… yes! You guessed it! Candy canes.

Today I learned something about coloring cookie dough with food coloring. If it doesn’t seem to be mixing well with a spoon, you probably don’t want to put your hands in it and knead it. The good part is, at least red is a naturally occurring color. Better to have a red streak on my palm than oh, say a blue or green one.

I’m not sure if everyone knows what strufoli are so first off, I had best explain. When we were kids, we used to call them Honey Balls. They are little balls of dough (made with flour and egg) that are deep fried. Then they are covered with honey and piled into a triangular mound sort of like a Christmas tree & covered with colored round sprinkles. You must use the round type. Nothing else is allowed.

You can see a picture of them here. The recipe that goes with the photo, however, is not how we used to make them.

Strufoli are only made at Christmas time. In our family, it was one of the traditional Christmas cookies (although I’m not really sure you can call them ‘cookies’) and they were made every single year. It just wasn’t Christmas without them. I recall my grandmother making them also but they weren’t as good as ours.

For all the other cookies, mostly it was my mom who baked them. I’d help or I’d take over making some but my father never got involved in the cookie baking. Except for the strufoli. That was an annual tradition. Big Al & mom would make the strufoli together. Always.

A few years before my mom died, she was in the hospital for 4 months. It’s a long story but the short version is, she went in for surgery for a brain tumor, developed every complication under the sun, had several more brain surgeries plus assorted others & we didn’t think she’d ever come home. But, through some miracle, she did come home – right before Christmas.

After being in a hospital bed for 4 months, she needed to use a walker and she certainly wasn’t up to cooking or going out. We were, however, going to have Christmas. My siblings & I decorated the house before she arrived home. We were all ready to have Christmas with Mom, something we never thought we’d be doing only a month prior to that.

I don’t remember the details of who cooked what. My dad may have cooked Christmas dinner that year or we may have all brought something. Those details are gone into the black hole of my mind. What I do remember is my dad made strufoli.

After dinner, the desserts came out. All the cookies, the cakes, the pies and my father proudly put down the platter of strufoli because, after all, it wouldn’t be Christmas without them. I can’t remember who took the first one.

“What are those black things in there? Did you put something different in the dough?”

“No,” my dad said. “I made them the same as we always do.” We passed them around, examining them.

“Uh, Dad. These don’t look right. I think they’re bugs.”

My mom looks at them and agrees. “Didn’t you see there were bugs in the flour?”

Big Al replies, “I thought it was supposed to look that way.” He pops the strufoli into his mouth. “I think they taste better like this!”

Frank tries one, as well, because… well he’s just strange. “They taste fine to me!” And if that wasn’t bad enough, being married to someone who has no problem with eating bugs, it seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Stephen ate some, too. Theresa remembers one of my brothers eating them, too, but we can’t remember which one.

This year we’re having Christmas Eve over my father & his wife’s house. I’m thinking of making strufoli. I will, however, be checking the flour for insects.

Today must be some sort of rainbow holiday where everyone is supposed to wear colorful pants. It’s a good thing participation isn’t mandatory because I don’t have any brightly colored rainbow pants.

What? You don’t believe today is some sort of Dress Like A Rainbow holiday? Well then how do you explain this?

Think about the last time you saw more people wearing colorful pants rather than jeans or some dull color. I’m betting you haven’t seen a group like this. Therefore, the only logical explanation about the clothes is it has to be a holiday. And if it’s not, I think it should be.

Yes, you read it right. Not “Holiday Tree” lighting. Christmas tree – because that’s what is in my house. And guess what? If any of my Jewish friends or any other non-Christian friends were to walk into my house, they wouldn’t be offended by the fact that I am calling it a Christmas tree. This is because I don’t hang around with politically correct word police. So there.

Oh, no. Now if anyone wandered onto my blog, they will think I am being non inclusive and they won’t ever come back here again. Bahahahahaha!!!! My evil plan is working. I have evicted all the Christmas hating fanatics from my blog. Hmmm… come to think of it, I don’t think I have any of those people reading my blog so I guess I didn’t lose anyone this time around.

Getting back to the grand lighting. Yes, we did it just like in Rockefeller Center. All the lights were draped around the tree and then we had a count down. No, wait. There was an episode first. Theresa informed me that the star was crooked.

“Not to worry!” I exclaimed. “I will fix it!” I climbed up on the step stool and took hold of the crooked star. It then exploded in my hands. Well it didn’t exactly explode but that sounds so much more dramatic than simply saying it fell apart. “Oops. I don’t think it was supposed to do that.”

“Lucky thing I got it all on video,” Theresa informs me. No doubt she’ll be uploading it to Facebook, the evil child. That’s what I get for letting her use my camera.

I managed to fix the star because there was no way I was going to head out to the store to buy a new one. If I need to scotch tape a damn flashlight to it, we’d be using that star.

After carefully putting the crooked star back, I jumped down. “Okay, now count down!” I ordered Frank & Theresa. They just looked at me. “Hey, I’m not lighting the tree without a proper count down.” Reluctantly, they started counting down. At the proper moment, I hit the switch and then clapped wildly. They joined in, swayed by my enthusiasm. All this and I didn’t even drink any alcoholic beverages while all this was going on. Somehow I didn’t think it would be wise to drink spiked eggnog while climbing on step stools.

Keeping a scorecard on what foods are good for you, which are bad for you and which ones bounce back and forth between the 2 can make you feel like you’re watching a ping pong match close up. “Chocolate is good for you. No, wait. It’s bad.” or “Coffee may be good for you but it may not be.” Seems they can’t make up their minds on much of anything and there’s always some new study coming out.

One item on their list has been red wine. One glass a day is supposed to be good for you. My great grandfather used to make wine in his basement and, from what I hear, enjoyed drinking it quite a lot. He lived to be 74. Ditto for Frank’s grandfather with the wine in the basement & he was 86 when he died. Seems to me there’s something to be said in favor of drinking the vino. Apparently there is a spa where they carry that one step further.

In Manhattan, there’s this spa, Delluva. Not only do they think drinking wine is good for you. They believe it’s also good on the outside of you. They have wine barrel soaks, all sorts of treatments that all involve grapes – grape seed scrubs, grape seed oil.

On the news tonight, they showed someone getting a massage with that stuff. All I could think of was, “Gee, I wonder if they let them take a shower, afterwards.” Sure looked kind of messy to me.

It’s supposed to make you younger looking. Now I’m wondering. You know those stories of people stomping grapes with their feet (like in that I Love Lucy episode)? Does that mean they all had very young looking legs & feet? If they had known about the whole ‘grape fountain of youth’ stuff, would they have crushed the grapes with their faces instead?

Last night I was lazy. I didn’t feel like cooking anything complicated. Instead, I decided I’d just stick a burger under the broiler. If the man likes burgers and fries when we’re out, then why wouldn’t he like them at home, right?

After a few minutes, I heard noises. Noises that you’re not supposed to hear coming from your oven. A wood burning stove, maybe, but not that broiler inside my oven. I turned around and noticed the oven was unusually bright. Yep, that would be due to the flames shooting up. Is this what they mean by “Flame Broiled”?

When I opened the oven door, flames shot out of it. It’s amazing the knobs weren’t completely melted off. That would have been a much better photo but I was a bit busy at the time.

As a result of the little fire, there was also a bit of smoke to accompany the flames. Well, more than a bit. Enough to set off the fire alert thingie. It was then that I discovered 2 things:

1. My dog isn’t completely deaf.
2. If there is ever a real fire and I need to be saved by my dog, well we’d be burnt to a crisp before that would happen.

My dog, the one who is not afraid of thunder or fireworks was terrified of the alarm. He had an accident. I sent him outside to clean up. Afterwards, we attempted to get him to come back inside. “No way,” he said, “I’m not coming back in there. That’s where the bad, scary noise was.”

Yep, if the house was on fire, we wouldn’t have Lassie to drag us out of the house and save us. Nicky would probably behave like my parents’ dog, Sammy, who was afraid of thunder. He’d run into the bathroom and hide in the tub.

Yep – a new way to find Jesus. Literally. You’d think this was a new church movement for people; yet another way to find religion. It’s not really quite how it sounds. You see, at this time of the year it seems people steal baby Jesus and assorted other figures from creches. Some of the figures are life size and none of them are cheap. If people keep running off with your wise men, it can run into quite a bit of money having to replace them every year. So they are installing GPS locators into Jesus, the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph and probably a few camels.

It’s kind of pathetic, in my opinion, that people would steal from churches but that’s another story altogether.

Speaking of Christmas, the other night Frank & I came home and were completely shocked. You know our neighbors? The loud ones with the cars they park in the backyard? They have lived next door for at least 17 years. In all that time, they have never, ever had any sort of Christmas decoration up. They’ve never had any decoration for any holiday up. No pumpkins, no flowered Spring wreaths on the door. Nothing. Not in the entire time they have lived in that house. There hasn’t been as much as a red bow. Well there, smack in the middle of the lawn was a Christmas tree with lights. The lights have been on night & day. The extension cord is draped out of their dining room window and makes it’s way to the front of the house.

If it was in front of anyone else’s house, it would seem perfectly natural. But in front of theirs? It just seems a wee bit strange. I wonder what else is in store…