Happy Haulidays from Chronicle Books: Cookbooks!

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I don't know about you, but I LOVE a good book. The down time during the holidays is one of my favorite times to dig into a great read. In general, I've disciplined myself into becoming more of a public library kind of girl: when funds are tight, apart from what we spend on our kid's curriculum, books I'd enjoy purchasing for my own reading pleasure tend to get a lower priority ranking when we look at the family finances.

But when it comes to cookbooks? I love borrowing new cookbooks to try out from the library, but when I find a great one, it can be AGONY to part with it, and have to return it to the library.

I've been making a wish-list of cookbooks this morning that I'd love to read, from the website of Chronicle Books. And WHY, you might ask, did I compile this list?

Chronicle Books is sponsoring a giveaway called Happy Haulidays, where they will give away up to $500.00 worth of books to one lucky blogger AND another $500. 00 worth of books TO ONE OF THAT BLOGGER'S COMMENTERS! (That could be YOU!)

But, wait, it gets even better: not only will the blogger AND the commenter win, but the winning blogger also gets to choose a charity to receive up to $500.00 worth of books from Chronicle Books. And in case I win, I'm choosing the Davidson County Public Library, of Nashville, Tennessee (with  love and gratitude, for all the joy they have offered my family through the years, by loaning me that very precious commodity: books!).

By creating my own wish-list, of all the books I would LOVE to own, I'm entered to win!

There are two ways for YOU to win:
1) You can create your own wish-list, and publish your own blog post. And here's a link to their rules.

2) You can leave a comment here, and you'll win my exact wish list (no research required on your part!).

And you can increase your chances of winning by tweeting about the contest using the hashtag #happyhaulidays, and get one extra entry per day for each day you do a tweet.

So here's my wish list, and not surprisingly, it's all cookbooks:

1. Weber's Big Book of Grilling by Jamie Purviance and Sandra S. McRae

2. Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson

3. The Tra Vigne Cookbook by Michael Chiarello, with Penelope Wisner

4. Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking by Michael Chiarello with Janet Fletcher

5. Cat Cora's Kitchen by Cat Cora and Ann Krueger Spivack

6. At Home with Maichael Chiarello by Michael Chiarello

7. Michael Chiarello's Bottega  by Michael Chiarello

8. The Country Cooking of Italy by Colman Andrews

9. The Bread Bible by Beth Hensperger

10. 5 Spices, 50 Dishes by Ruta Kahate

11. Madhur Jaffrey's Quick & Easy Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey

12. Cheese & Wine by Janet Fletcher

13. Top Chef: The Cookbook by the creators of Top Chef

14. The Country Cooking of Ireland by Colman Andrews

15. Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi

Why don't you head on over to the  Chronicle Books website, and take a look for yourself at the marvelous selection of books they have (because it's NOT just cook books!). Here's a link to the Happy Haulidays giveaway rules, so you can check them out - and use them - for yourself, if you'd like enter yourself, and generate your own list. Hurry, though. You must be entered by December 2nd to be considered.

But if my list appeals to you, take the easy way, and just leave me a comment to win the same books I'd love to win!

If I win, I'll choose my winning commenter through a random drawing. One comment per person, if you please!

I hope we win!!! :-D

To comment, answer this question: if you had some time over the holidays, what genre of book would you be likely to choose?

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5 Things

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Wonder why I'm sporting a halo? Me, too. But, read on...

Oy, vey. Talk about your navel gazing post. Sheesh. I only did this for you, MamaKat, because you prompted me, darn you, through your pretty much world famous Writer's Workshop.

5 Things You Don't Know About Me:

1. I laugh loudly. But you can't hear me over the internet. (At least, I don't think you can. Can you?)
2. I'm wearing my pajamas. Seriously. Doesn't matter what time it is when you're reading this. Odds are, I'm likely wearing my pajamas.
3. I'm much cooler in real life. (This could be due to the fact that I'm wearing pajamas.)
4. I might need a shower.
5. I used to sing in Ukrainian over short-wave radio. (You might already know this, if your name is Donna, Val, or Dave. Or Stephanie or Paul. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you didn't know that.)

5 Things I'm Knowledgable About:

1. I've spent a lot of time reading and studying the Bible. A lot, a lot, a lot. And it's a darn shame it didn't take any better than it has. 
2. I know how to tell a story: there's some kind of alchemy that happens when I sit down and start to tell one. I can do it in a live situation, and I can do it in print. I don't understand it, but I accept it. And I think it's probably a God-thing.
3. I know how to cook pretty well. There must be osmosis involved in that, from growing up in the house that I did and just absorbing what my Mom was doing in the kitchen. Add in a little creative drive, sprinkle with several years of experience, and voilà. There you have it. The girl can cook.
4. I know how to speak dog. I can channel your dog's inner voice, if you don't know what it sounds like yourself. I can summon it forth. I hate to brag, but, there it is.
5. I know a fair amount about the music bidness, from behind the scenes. And my friends, there are things I wish I DIDN'T know about the music bidness.

5 Things I Know NOTHING About:

1. Lawd, Miz Scahlett, I don't know nufin' 'bout birfin' no baybiz. (AS IF I could resist that one!!!)
2. I know nothing about, (nor do I CARE to know anything about) car maintenance, or car repair. If my husband had croaked this summer, I would have been Wheelless in the Boonies. I thank God above for a man who tends to such things here below.
3. I know nothing about the advanced maths or sciences. (Sing with me: "Don't know much trigonometry...") I accept applied science and technology for the miracles that they are (and yes, I meant that to be ironic).
4. I know nothing about politics: who COULD get us out of the economic mess we're in? I have no idea. (Actually, I know enough about human nature to fear that the answer is "no one". But I really don't know if that's right, either.)
5. The future. I actually know nothing about the future, more's the pity. Even though I not only predict it but also dread it, with regularity. (There are also occasions when I anticipate it and look forward to it with great optimism. Happily, my glass is often half-full.)

5 Things I Believe:

1. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord, and in all the rest of the Apostles' Creed.
2. I believe that there is spiritually, inside of each one of us, a God-shaped hole, that longs for meaning and purpose for our lives that is beyond just ourself, and that that void was created by and meant to be filled by a relationship with our Creator, (who then teaches us how to express that love by reaching out in love to others). 
3. I believe that Jesus intended for us to have life to the full, and not to kill our joy.
4. I believe that a lot of my time I spend chasing after things that will not bring true joy or satisfaction.
5. I believe I'll go to bed, now.

Now, Gentle Reader, what about you? Surely this post has prompted you to want to tell me something! Something I don't know about you? 

Something you're knowledgable about?

Something you believe in?

Leave me a comment. Throw me a line. Bring out the hook, and get me off this stage! It's your turn, now!

Book Review: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

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It's a good read!

Yes, I'm going to do it. I'm going to offer you my review of "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt", the New York Times bestseller, by Beth Hoffman.

A BRIEF WORD TO THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVEN'T READ THIS BOOK:

Normally, I shy away from reading book reviews of books I haven't read, because I have spoilerphobia (a little known condition that affects those of us who REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW how this thing's going to end, on the outside chance that we MIGHT read it someday. Which we probably won't. But that's immaterial: don't be spoilin' the dang book for me.)

So, for those of you who ARE spoilerphobic: BREATHE. Inhale. Good. Now, let it out, exhale, Good. Deep cleansing breath in? Good. And exhale. Good.

(Now, wasn't that nice? And, you're welcome, for that moment of centering meditation.)

I promise not to spoil this book for you. So read on, fellow spoilerphobes. (And yes, I just made that word up: it's Boonese.)

"Saving CeeCee Honeycutt" is a book for women, about women. Yes, there were moments  for me that were Steel Magnoliaesque. Was I reminded a time or two of the book "The Help"? Yes. But those are both really fine stories, so if a little bit of female character development doesn't scare you off, then you just might find yourself really enjoying this book.

CeeCee is the daughter of a mentally ill woman, Camille. CeeCee ends up not only practically raising herself, but being the primary care giver of her mother as well. When circumstances change dramatically in her life, CeeCee finds herself uprooted from her dire straits, and transplanted into the privileged society of the upper crust of Savannah, Georgia. CeeCee moves in with her Great-Aunt Tootie, a woman who has the vision to not only restore crumbling historic homes, but who also sees the potential inside the wrecked soul of her sweet great-niece. She saves what was once dearly loved from destruction.

If nothing else, this book made me want to take a trip to Savannah to see that graceful city!

But there was so much more to this book: really interesting, intriguing characters, and really entertaining plot development. I swallowed the book whole, in one day, which is not my usual M.O., when it comes to reading fiction.

Another aspect I loved to were the nuggets of wisdom that the adult characters pass along to young CeeCee. (I'll throw this one in for free, as an example: "It's what we believe about ourselves that determines how others see us." That one alone might be worth the price of the book.) This book was all about growing up, and the lessons we learn along the way. Since I'm in the process of raising a couple of teenagers, it's my goal to equip them before they leave the nest. So this book had me really thinking about the tools my own kids will have access to as they process whatever circumstances Life hands them.

If I had one minor criticism for Beth Hoffman, I'd like to see her antagonists be drawn a bit more multi-dimensionally. There was one female character who was clearly thrown in to stir up some trouble, and while she did that, in an enjoyable way, I would have preferred to have been able to find a little something to like in her. (Thinking of villains I have known and loved/hated: for example, the character "Ben" on "Lost". Just when you think he couldn't get any more despicable, you find out a bit of his back story, and before you know it, you find yourself almost rooting for him.) I'd like to see Beth develop her villains a bit more in her next novel.

The holidays are coming up, and you don't REALLY want to spend ALL your time reading blogs or working on your blog, do you? You want a "Calgon: take me away!" kind of read to settle down with, with a nice cup of hot chocolate and some Christmas cookies, right?  This is a fun one! I think you'll enjoy "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt" by Beth Hoffman.

(Disclosure: while I won this book in a blog giveaway, that Twitter party is ancient history. I'm getting NOTHING for writing this review. All opinions are strictly my own.)

The Big Bison's Christmas Music

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You'll want to go here to give this a listen. Click on the star once you get there.

"We play The Big Bison's CD with dessert after the Thanksgiving meal: that's when Christmas officially starts at our house. Because only a Philistine would start the Christmas season before dessert on Thanksgiving."


These are the words of my pal, Paul, as we chatted on Facebook on Wednesday morning. We were each taking a quick break from all our food prep for the big superbowl of American food. Paul loves cooking as much as I do, and he's an excellent chef, so we swapped menu plans prior to the big feast.

Gratuitous Pumpkin Pie picture for the non-Philistines among us.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, and the danger of being labeled a Philistine has passed, and the turkey soup has been made, and I have had one full day of complete slothdom, while the rest of you SMART human beings snagged all the GREAT SHOPPING DEALS that there were to be had on Black Friday, I thought I would mention, again, some really nice Christmas music that we have available to make your holiday season a little more merry, and a little more bright.


Many of you know that I am married to a self-employed professional musician, who writes music for advertising for a living. About 15 years ago, my husband got the idea to record some Christmas music with our friend Bill Sinclair, a very talented guy who plays soprano saxophone and harmonica, among other instruments. The really cool thing about it was that Bill came to my husband and said, "I've got this great idea for a project that I'd like to try," and my husband said, "Oh, really! I've had an idea that I wanted to talk about with you, too! Why don't you go first, and tell me your idea, and then, I'll tell you mine."

And, as you have probably guessed, they had each had the same idea, and the result of that shared vision was a beautiful project of instrumental Christmas music entitled, "Bethlehem Morning". We asked our friend Tracy Reynolds who plays keyboards to do the ivory tickling on the first project, and when we updated some of the sounds a couple of years ago, my husband asked our friend Larry Hall, another pro musician in town to replace some of Tracy's electronic keyboard parts. I think the cello playing by John Catchings is one of my favorite parts of the project. I'm a sucker for it, because you know there's always room for cello. :-D

Anyway, here's a link so that you can go listen to some of the loveliness, so that you can try before you buy, because I KNOW you will want to own this gorgeous music, and play it as you decorate your tree, or entertain guests, or open presents, or just sit and sip a cup of Christmas cheer after the kids have gone to bed.

So go check out my link, and give a listen, and see what you think! I bet you'll want a copy for your very own.

And, after all, it IS Small Business Saturday, so you can support a true small business artisan by purchasing this music.

If you already own it, don't forget this would make a great gift to have on hand for one of those last minute, "Oh, crud, I meant to get that person some kind of gift!"  situations. It also makes a lovely hostess gift for any December dinners or parties you might be attending.

If you already own it, and like it, please, feel free to share this on Facebook or Twitter.

Thanksgiving Recipes: A Cornucopia of Culinary Delights

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Oh, my. Pecan Pie.

I thought I'd make it easy for you to find any of my Thanksgiving recipes that you might be interested in, and link them all up in one post, so...here ya go!

How To Brine and Smoke a Turkey

How To Brine and Grill a Turkey


World's Best Cream Gravy

World's Best Stuffing: Tuscan Bread with Prosciutto, Goat Cheese, Pine Nuts and Dried Cherries

Cranberry-Orange-Apple and Walnut Relish

Apple-Pear Salad with Maple Pecan Bacon 

Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake

Pecan Pie

So, I wish you the happiest of Thanksgivings, full of gratitude, and joy, for the many, many blessings you've been given!

Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll do my best to answer them.

(As long as they're not like...how old is the earth? Or, why is there pain and suffering in this life? I was actually referring more to questions regarding the recipes...)

But you're welcome to ask whatever you'd like anyway...I just don't guarantee the quality of my answers. :-D

Easy Cranberry-Orange-Apple-Walnut Relish

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Easy Cranberry-Orange-Apple-Walnut Relish is beautiful, refreshing, and delicious.

This is one of the recipes that nearly always sends at least one of my Thanksgiving guests over the moon. It's sweet, tart, fresh, juicy, and crisp. It makes your taste buds stand up, salute, and break into the Hallelujah chorus. With all the carb-heavy, butter laden dishes we typically serve on our Thanksgiving menus, this dish provides a welcome palate cleanse, in between bites. And no one can believe how easy it is to make!

An additional reason I adore this dish is because my Mommy made it, and I remember helping her crank the handle of the food grinder to make it. Happily for ALL of us, somebody invented the food processor, and now this dish takes all of about 30 seconds to prepare, once your ingredients are prepped.

Mom didn't leave me a written copy of it, so I had to go hunting for a recipe that would approximate what I remembered her making, and happily, I found something similar in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I have altered the recipe somewhat by adding an apple, and reducing the sugar, to suit our taste. This year, I also roasted the walnuts, just to deepen their flavor a bit, and I like that change as well. (350º for about 8 to 10 minutes)

So here it is, my easy-peasy, amazing cranberry relish. (Dedicated to my dear daughter, my sister-in-law Kim, and my friend Rich, who each would like to have their very own bowl, please.)

Cranberry-Orange-Apple-Walnut Relish

4 cups of cranberries (about 1lb.)
2 medium oranges, and their grated zest
1 apple (like a Honeycrisp, or a Gala: something sweet and tart and crisp), peeled and sliced
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. roasted, and then finely chopped walnuts

With a microplane zester, zest the outer peel off of two oranges. (Use the orange part only, not the bitter white of the pith underneath). then peel and section the oranges. Put cranberries, orange sections, zest, and apple slices into food processor and pulse until mixture is finely chopped, but not puréed. Add most of sugar and taste, adding more sugar to suit your taste. Stir in walnuts and refrigerate.

If you make this the day before (or a few days before), the color will be an even more brilliant red, as the juices of the cranberries work their way into the apple and orange. I usually make this on Monday or Tuesday of Thanksgiving week (but then, I have to keep my daughter out of it all week, till Thursday). Prepare early at your own risk: it may be hard to stay out of it.

Serve cold.

Do you serve cranberries with your Thanksgiving meal? How do you serve them?

Thanksgiving-Worthy Salad: Apple-Pear Salad with Maple Pecan Bacon

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I can still taste the tangy acidity of that dressing, the sweetness of the pears and grapes, the saltiness of the bacon, and the crispness of the lettuce.

I went to a slumber party with my wonderful girlfriends, and came home with the salad of my dreams.

OK, the truth is, nearly all of us bugged out after Bible study, dinner, and the hot tub, and went home to sleep in our own beds BEFORE we got to the slumber portion of the evening. I think 4 guests remained when I left. So, not much slumbering on site. And yes, I was one of the ones who hit the trail, late at night, so I could go home and sleep in the Boonies. But nearly all of us showed back up again the next morning for breakfast together, so it was ALMOST a slumber party.

But at the dinner we had on Friday night, my friend Debbie had prepared a huge, glorious salad that was so good, it had all of us begging for the recipe.

And then, the next day, I found that very recipe, in my brand new Southern Living 2011 Annual Recipes cookbook that had just arrived in the mail. It was listed among the very select group of the Best Recipes of 2011. And I can assure you, it earned that place of high honor. This was one of the best salads I've had in a LONG time. And, since it was actually published in the Southern Living Magazine during the month of October, its ingredients are very fall-friendly, making it perfect for your Thanksgiving table.

I tire of green beans on Thanksgiving. I always use fresh green beans, and they are a lot of work to tip, string and break. This salad requires very little preparation (the biggest effort was in browning the bacon, but that could easily be done the day before Thanksgiving), and will make a fresh and BURSTING WITH FLAVOR addition to your holiday menu.

It's the CRANBERRY VINAIGRETTE, people. Holy molé, it's packed with flavor. Check it out!

Apple-Pear Salad with Maple Pecan Bacon

Makes 8 servings

Salad Ingredients:

8 thick bacon slices
1/4 c. maple syrup
1 1/2 c. finely chopped pecans
1/2 of a large plastic container spring mix salad greens (I buy mine at Costco)
1 large pear, thinly sliced
1 large Honeycrisp apple (other variety, like Gala, will do), thinly sliced
1 c. halved seedless grapes (whatever color you'd like: I had green on hand)
4 oz. Gorgonzola cheese (I substituted Feta, which worked fine; you want something with zing, that is dry and crumbly)

Cranberry Vinaigrette Ingredients:

1 c. whole berry cranberry sauce
1 t. grated orange zest
1/2 c. fresh squeezed orange juice
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
1/4 c. olive oil
1 T. light brown sugar
2 t. grated fresh ginger
1/2 t. salt

To Prepare Vinaigrette:

Combine all ingredients in a jar with a lid, and shake vigorously, until blended and smooth. (Alternatively, you can whisk it.)

To Prepare Bacon:

Preheat oven to 400º. Place  a lightly greased wire rack in an aluminum foil-lined jelly roll pan. Dip bacon in syrup, allowing excess to drip off. Dredge bacon in pecan pieces. Arrange bacon slices in a single layer on rack, and bake 20 minutes; turn bacon slices, and bake 5 to 10 minutes more, or until browned and crisp. Remove from oven, let stand 5 minutes, and cut bacon crosswise into 1" pieces.

To Prepare Salad:

Place salad greens on a serving platter. Top with apple slices grapes, cheese, and bacon. Serve with cranberry vinaigrette.


I imagine this vinaigrette would be great on almost any other type of salad you've a mind to experiment with. But the cranberry fits the Thanksgiving holiday so well, I hated the thought of NOT telling you about it in time for the holiday.

I suggest you give it a trial run before Thanksgiving, and see if you don't decide to add this to your Thanksgiving menu. It's spectacular!

Got any side dish that you typically serve that you'd like to replace?

7 Wonders of My World, Witnessed with My Own Two Eyes:

Pin It In No Particular Order:

1. Thousands of jellyfish, floating underneath the swimming pool raft that I was lying on, belly down, in the Adriatic. I could not put a finger or toe in the water without getting stung. Jellyfish don't swim: they drift with the current. And so do air mattresses.

2. My then boyfriend/soon-to-be-fiancée's deer-in-the-headlights look, right after he slipped and accidentally told me he loved me for the very first time, as he was saying goodnight, after a loooong time spent making out on my couch. (I offered him a do-over in his choice of wording, in case in the heat of the moment, in his lust-filled state, he'd lost his mind, and wanted to take it back. He thought about it momentarily, and decided he'd just leave it, as it was. Good call on his part.)

3. The quiet, earnest, sincere, pondering, lingering gaze of my firstborn newborn baby boy, who supposedly couldn't really see me, the newborn's ability to focus being somewhat diminished. But when they laid him in my arms, we gazed into each other's eyes for what seemed like an eternity, as he gravely considered the owner of the voice he'd been listening to for the last nine months, and I fell irrevocably in love.

Lac Léman, between Switzerland and France. The mountains are called Les Dents du Midi. Image from here.

4. After two weeks of fog, and complete cloud cover, the morning in January that the clouds lifted, and the French Alps (les Dents du Midi) were revealed to me for the very first time, across the lake from my new Swiss home, in Lausanne. It was as if a magician had dropped them in there out of nowhere. They took my breath away, quite literally.

5. My five week old baby daughter's first smile, that she reserved for her stuffed animal, placed beside her in the crib. (We took it away: she stopped smiling. We put it back, she smiled again. Repeat, 5 times more…) Her joy brought me such overwhelming delight.

6. The message in the barnacle-covered wine bottle, that washed up in the waves in front of us at the beach, that claimed it was sent from a boat adrift at sea. It gave the boat's name, the coordinates, and the harbor it had sailed out of. Such wonder, at being the right place, at the right time! (Yes, we reported it to the Coast Guard. No, we never heard anything else. I've always wondered…)

7. The barn that gave my then-wounded father shelter during the Battle of the Bulge, when the 101st Airborne was surround by the Nazis, and the face of the woman whose family owned that barn, as she discussed her recollections of that time with me, as I translated her words from French to English, for my father, visiting Belgium almost 40 years later.

Tell me one wonder of your world, that you have witnessed with your own, two eyes.

(If you liked this post, feel free to share it on Facebook or Twitter. There are some little, unobtrusive gray buttons at the bottom of the post, I think.)

How to Smoke Your Holiday Turkey...or...Deck the Hawrs with Boughs of Hawry

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Last year, I gave you my recipe for how to cook your Thanksgiving Turkey. I went back and revisited that recipe, and I think I SHOULD give you a bit of an update on how we REALLY cooked our Thanksgiving Turkey last year. Because rather than grilling it, we smoked it.

And I feel like I might need a bit of a testimonial on the TASTE of the bird, from one of the guests, because if you SAW the actual bird, you might think I had lost my mind. Seriously.

Because, honestly? It looked a little...well...not like how I was expecting it to look.

Fiddle dee dee, you say? Do you remember that closing scene in A Christmas Story, when the Bumpesses' Bloodhounds have eaten Ralphie's Old Man's Turkey, and so the whole family goes out for Chinese on Christmas Day? And the waiters bring the Peking Duck, charred to a faretheewell, and lay it out on the table in front of the family? And then they chop off its head, right in front of her? And the mother screams?

Well, when you smoke a turkey, apparently, it gets more than a little, um, smoky looking, and honestly, it's not going to win any beauty contests. OK, I'll just go ahead and say it out loud: it looks burnt.

But, it tastes great.

So, just so you'll know, here's how it looks.

ACK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Y'all ATE THAT THANG????????????

Maybe I should just stop here, out of respect for all y'all who know a burnt bird when you see one.

Well, I would...

Except...

I know better.

And anyone who's ever smoked a turkey knows better. 

Smoking a turkey leads to the most delicious turkey I've ever tasted. But it ain't going to win the "Miss Butterball" Beauty Pageant, either, and I thought I ought to get that fact right out on the holiday table, from the git-go, as it were.

So go ahead and SHRIEK like the Mom did in "A Christmas Story" when they whacked off the duck's head, if you must.

But here's another  HUGE ADVANTAGE to keep in mind when you are contemplating cooking your turkey outside (via smoking, grilling, or even deep frying): it opens up VALUABLE OVEN REAL ESTATE on the day of the holiday, that you can use for rolls, stuffing, and/or any other baked side dish or dessert that you might be serving. So bear that in mind as you plan your holiday meal.


And now, we'll get on with our presentation on how to smoke a turkey.

I brine mine, and here's the brine recipe I use:

Brine:

8 qt. water

1 1/2 c. coarse kosher salt

1 c. honey

2 bunches fresh thyme

8 large garlic cloves, smashed and peeled

2 T. coarsely ground black pepper

Mix brine ingredients until salt and honey are dissolved. 

Rinse turkey. Line an extra large stockpot (I used an old popcorn tin) with a very large, heavy, food-grade plastic bag. (I use a Reynolds Oven Roasting bag.) Place turkey in plastic bag, and pour brine over top. Let turkey brine overnight.

If you want to know how to smoke the turkey, I acquired these instructions from the mouth of my dear husband, The Big Bison, who is our resident turkey smoker. (Enough with the "How does he get that whole thing in his mouth AND get it lit?" comments. Don't think I don't see them coming from a mile away, because, I do. Before I was initiated in the ways of smoking, I made them myself.)

First, you gotta have a smoker grill. The type we use is called a Char-Griller, but there are better models, and worse models, so I'm not necessarily promoting this product. I'm just saying this one works just fine,

Oh, Black Turkey, Bam-a-Lam, before she got blackened, and smoked.

The coals under the wood produce the smoke that works its magic on the flavor of the bird.

You cook a turkey over indirect heat, so, light up a chimney full of coals, and dump half of the coals to the left and half to the right of the grate where the turkey is going to sit.

The coals were for starting the fire, but the wood is added next, on top of the coals, and is the predominate heat source throughout the cooking. (We used hickory wood, because that's what we have.) You want to bring the inside of the smoker temperature to somewhere between 400-500º, before you put the bird in to cook.

I wanted the drippings from the turkey, so that I could use them for gravy, so the BB put the turkey on a rack inside a foil pan. Then he put about a half of an inch of water in the bottom of the pan, to keep the turkey moist while it cooked. (There's also another pan, down below that one, under the grate, where he poured some apple juice, to add more flavor.) Place the pan in between the two piles of coals/wood, close the lid, and our 10 lb. bird took about 3 hours to cook, but that was with opening the lid a lot, to check on things.

The turkey is done when the temperature of the meat at the innermost part of the thigh registers 165º.

To me, the only negative about smoking a turkey is the turkey's skin: the color is unattractive (it looks burnt) and surprisingly, the texture is NOT crisp. It is, in fact, leathery.

But the FLAVOR and JUICINESS of a brined, smoked bird cannot be beaten, in my opinion.

Please, don't hesitate to ask questions in regard to anything that is unclear.

Will you have a bird for Turkey Day? How will your "goose" be cooked? :-D

Hey, Y'all, I Got Nominated, Again

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I got nominated. Me, and  EIGHT MILLION OTHER PEOPLE, for the Homeschool Blog Awards.

 I was nominated, again, for Best Encourager. This is a fact that you may well find somewhat ironic by the end of this post.

I'm in the same category as Ann Voskamp.

You can knock it off with the ear-splitting, gut-shaking howls of laughter that you're emitting, just at any point, now.

I'm a HUGE Ann Voskamp fan, now that I've read her book 1000 Gifts, so, I'd have to agree, you might just as well just head on over there and vote for her.

But it was sweet of my Mom to nominate me.

OK, she's dead, so it wasn't her, but it might as well have been. 

Some people just love you too much for your own good, and you know who you are, Nota, my dear.

But anyway, if you want to vote for Ann Voskamp, or for any other of the 8 million nominees in my category of Best Encourager, or, even for me (I'm the third from the bottom of the list, because that's what you do - in all fairness - with a blog that starts with a W), here's the link to go vote.

Here's a link to the rules and procedures,  but I think if you click on the dot, and then go click the Vote button at the bottom, your vote will register. If you click on the blog titles, it will take you to that blog, so you can enjoy lots and lots of encouragement before you make your choice. 

Also, in other completely unrelated news, next year I'm changing my blog's name to:

 *AAAA Top Quality, Uber Encouraging, Wild Life in the Woods*. 

It's just a little whim of mine.

Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?

Pin It (I borrowed the title for this post from a line from: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock",  a poem by T. S. Eliot)

My baby boy hadn't eaten a huge variety of solid foods at all when these pictures were taken. He'd been nursed for quite a while, and then gradually switched over to solid foods, but the sweetness of a summer peach, fresh off the tree, had never been revealed to him up until this point in his brief life.

 Our good friend, Uncle Robbie, owned a recording studio at the time, called The Orchard. It had been named for the apple and peach trees on the property that he had purchased for his recording studio. Those were halcyon days, full of the melodies of tunes written that had earned respectable sums of money, and the promise of more to come.

Our future looked bright, and the fruit on the trees of The Orchard was ripe, and my Daddy was still alive, and we were full of joy, and hope, and optimism, and the proud parents of an adorable baby boy.

The first, sweet taste, from his Papa, and my Daddy.

That bite of peach that my boy took from his Papa? His first bite ever. Hence, the somewhat tentative look on his face.

See the juice, dripping off his chin, as his Daddy feeds him?

But that first tentative bite from his his Papa, led to many, many more bites of glorious, fully-ripened, peach-greed.  The juice of that warm, sweet peach spilled down our arms and onto his blankie, below. Can you feel the joy spilling out of the photo? From both the boy, in the taste of the peach, and from the father, in the savoring of the pleasure of the moment?

The boy dared to eat, and his Daddy and I ate the moment, and we both enjoyed it with every ounce of joy that he did.

The summer of parenting of that boy while he's still in our home is ending. The fall of the portion of our parenting journey, where we have that sweet baby boy still in our home, has begun.

 I'm a little verklempt by the whole thought.

Do I dare to eat THIS peach?




Parenting has seasons.

Life has seasons.

It can be hard to be In The Moment.

But I believe, nevertheless, that it is critical to be in the moment that Life hands you.

Are you aware? Are you paying attention?

How do you find YOUR peach to be?

Bleach It Away, Baby

Pin It When my son was about 16 months old, my girlfriend invited us over for some wonderful Razzleberry Pie. As I recall, it was a three berry pie: blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. All the sweetness of summer was packed inside that pastry shell. My son had never had a fruit pie before, and I think he actually did just about die and go to heaven.

When the kid really loved something he was eating, he made this sound that, back then, we called "wasping". It was a little hum, along the lines of "nom, nom, nom" that waxed and waned and waxed again. His vocabulary may have been limited, but his ability to communicate his culinary pleasure certainly wasn't. There was never a doubt in our minds when he was in love with what he was eating: the "wasp" would begin to buzz.

You know, they say a picture's worth a thousand words, and it so happens that on this occasion, taking a photograph was absolutely irresistible. If you like pictures of casualties of war, you'll love this picture of my Baby Boy, wasping over his Razzleberry Pie.

Nom, nom, nom. (Notice: it's in his hair, too.)

My girlfriend had a white tile table, with white grout between the tiles. You KNOW she needed some Clorox THAT night, to bleach away the evidence of my boy's Berry Bacchanalia. But oh, how we laughed. That moment was as delicious as the pie itself.

Have you had a Bleach It Away moment?


I received information about Clorox’s Bleach It Away campaign and am sharing my messy moment for the chance to win prizes from The SITS Girls. To learn more about the messy moment program, check out www.BleachItAway.com. Sharing your story on the Clorox fan page gets you entered for the chance to win $25,000 and daily prizes, and you can grab a coupon for Clorox® Regular Bleach.

Branding: You're Doing It, Whether You Know It Or Not

Pin It

View from my Atlanta hotel room's balcony. Pretty, yes?

I wanted to share some of the wealth that was shared with me from my time in Atlanta, city of Zombies, and location to the most recent  SITS Girls Bloggy Boot Camp. 

City of Zombies? You be the judge. It was a kickin' view, I admit.

I truly believe that in life we are blessed in order to be a blessing, so I'm going to share with you a little of what I heard, tell you what it means to me, and then, hopefully,  challenge you to find some helpful meaning for yourself.

Branding. You DO know what that is, don't you?

A little something from my childhood, to clarify:



Poor Chuck Conners, labeled as a deserter, had to travel the west proving that he WASN'T a coward, all the days of his life. He was, in fact, a brave and good man. He had the unfortunate luck to be poorly and incorrectly branded.

This show was on TV when I was just a wee tot, but, I had an older brother and sisters who loved it. In fact, at my house, we had alternate lyrics that we set to the show's tune:

"STRANDED, stranded on the toilet bowl.
What do you do when you're stranded,
and you don't have a roll?
Though you fight like a man,
And you wipe with your hand,
You are STILL,
STRANDED."

But, as usual, I digress...

Back to the topic at hand. Branding DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A BAD WORD (as it was for poor Chuck Conners). According to our presenter, Ms. Amy Bradley Hole, of BeBetterBranding.com, she with the hair of liquid sunshine (see, I'm branding her in a good way), personal branding can, in fact, improve your blog.

AmyBHole as she goes by on Twitter, offered the following series of questions, so that we can brand our own bholes, in a GOOD way. I'll put my answers below the questions, in italics, but I'd encourage you to make a copy of the questions, and put a little thought into answering them. Maybe bounce your answers off your best friend, or one of your most faithful readers, and get their perceptions as well. Their responses my surprise and enlighten you.



Question 1: What are my distinguishing characteristics and personality traits?

I think I'm funny, sincere, thoughtful, real, encouraging, witty, and entertaining. If I didn't believe I possessed these qualities, that people enjoy reading, then, I really shouldn't keep blogging. I do believe that what I have to say is of value. 


Question 2: What are my guiding principles and values?

I believe I belong to a loving God who wants people to know that their fullest life and greatest joy will be found living in connection to  Him, and through lovingly serving others. I believe that a sense of humor as we go through our days is invaluable. I believe loyalty to people is critical. I believe honesty is essential.

Some of the friends that I feel loyalty to, shopping in Atlanta after the Bloggy Boot Camp Conference ended.

Question 3: What is my role on the web?

I share what life teaches me, and very often, those lessons fall under these 4 categories:
My four F's: Food, Faith, Fun, Family

Question 4: What is my promise? (In other words: When my readers come to me, what can they depend on that they will get?)

When my readers come to me, they will get :
My three E's: Encouragement, Entertainment, and Education.


Question 5: What is my story? Amy encouraged us to come up with a twitter-length sentence that summarizes our story.

Child of God; wife; mother; writer; bon vivant; former city-girl currently living and laughing her way through her wild life in the woods.


I would love feedback from you on any of the questions I asked and answered. If you think I'm missing seeing something kind of obvious, that is quite clear to you, please leave me a comment, and share your insight with me.

I'm going to add those 5 questions, unanswered here at the end of the blog, so that you can copy them and print them out and answer them for your own blog. Run your answers past your best friends and readers, and see if you are branded in the way that you think you are.


Question 1: What are my distinguishing characteristics and personality traits?

Question 2: What are my guiding principles and values?

Question 3: What is my role on the web?

Question 4: What is my promise?

Question 5: What is my story?

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