Santa Snoop

 

Not sharing. Only one reason I made the naughty list.

Since I’m not one to hover at the top of Santa’s Nice List, I’m never sure what to ask for at gift-getting time, so I end up in January with a wishful thinking list instead of December with a want list. A castle in the Alps seems like it would stretch Santa’s Comfort and Joy a little too far, and socks and underwear are a little too personal coming from a fat man who dresses in fur and hangs out with the kind of elves that make cars instead of cookies. But since pushing my luck is my favorite activity, I feel like I need to ask for something. Just in time for my birthday. Which comes up in February just in case you're putting together a shopping list. It turns out lists are handy in all sorts of situations.

This year I know just the thing. Snoop Dogg’s peanut butter chocolate chip cookies! It will take the pressure off the elves who are more suited for Worst Cooks in America than the Holiday Baking Championship and give me incentive to resume my aerobic workouts in the New Year. (Hint. That’s a lie.)

For those of you who haven’t racked up enough street cred or haven’t been near a television in the past year, Snoop Dogg is the coolest (I’m not cool enough to know today’s synonym for cool), hottest topic since Taylor Swift rode to fortune and fortune on the remnants of her broken heart. Snoop is cooler than an Artic ice floe and chiller than the last popsicle in the back of the freezer.

He’s been a gangsta, a rapper, a Superbowl halftime sensation, an Olympics commentator, and a vocal coach on a TV singing competition that I usually forget to watch until the last episode. He’s been much more, and most of these at the same time, and even if I wore ice chips in my underwear I would not be as cool as Snoop.

And now he has a cookbook. Granted, he has a friendship with Martha Stewart that has lasted longer than Brussels sprouts at the kids table, but I would expect Gaga and Brad to invite me for a prime-time singalong of A Star is Born favorites before I would look for a cookbook from jolly ole Snoop. But what to my wondering eyes did show up on my digitally delightful news feed when pretending to shop for my husband, but a recipe for Snoop Dogg's Rolls Royce Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Now I don’t like to crumble my own crackers, but I have to admit I’ve sampled a few of the best cookies around in my six-decade snack streak. There’s a recipe in our church cookbook that would jingle your bells any day of the week. But I’ve never even had a Ram tough cookie, never mind a Rolls Royce one. I’ve had a lemon, both in cookies and cars, and there’s only one of them I’d care to have again.

So, I killed two birds with one chocolate chip, which sounds like a cross between Martha Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock. I ordered Snoop’s cookbook for Bill on Christmas Eve and told him he could make cookies for my birthday. He won’t have to worry about fit or fashion when he starts searching the sites for my gift.

Because chocolate chips never go out of style.

Merry Christmas, Eeyore

I’m a little bit of a late bloomer when it comes to getting ready for Christmas. I'm kind of like those bulbs you have to plant in your flower garden in the dead of winter to turn into flowers come spring. Or maybe it’s the seeds you plant. However it goes, Father Christmas won't be seeing my bloomers til half past Valentine's Day.

But for the first time since the Power Ranger incident of '02, I started shopping before Christmas this year. I was going to wait, but the operators were standing by and I had to call right away to get the Ginsu knives.

Although I don’t go full out in the decorating area, you can tell it’s Christmas around my house by subtle changes in the décor. Just keep an eye out for mutations in the dust patterns on the coffee table.

I’ve moved the nativity scene that I forgot to put away last Christmas from the shelf in the laundry room to the top of the entertainment center, dusted off the baby Jesus, and removed the dryer sheet from the shepherd’s staff. The shepherd isn't quite as festive without his lint-free banner, but now it smells a little more like a stable and less like the Snuggle bear.

What appears to be stray tree limbs connected by lumps of fur in one corner of the living room is actually a small Frasier fir holding up under the strain of the investigative processes of two Labradors, three cats, and an inquisitive Dachshund sporting a Christmas tree skirt. Occasionally the tree gives a shudder and deposits various small animals on the floor. If it lived in the Hundred Acre Wood, my tree would be Eeyore.

There are 1,497 gift bags of assorted sizes and heritage covering every available flat surface, along with several containers of used bows that are perfectly suitable for family gifts if you affix them to packages with a loop of Scotch tape. There is no Scotch tape anywhere in the house. There are several dozen wood screws of assorted sizes in the junk drawer, but repeated attempts at giftwrap show that the wood screw is not a device that is effective for this purpose.

The kitchen table is covered with bits of burned sugar cookies and ingredients for partially assembled gelatin salads and casseroles that will bear offerings of melted cheese and Ritz crackers come Christmas day. This is not considered untidiness in the kitchen, but rather food preparation with holiday flair.

There is a wreath on the outside of the closet door instead of the inside of the closet door. The wreath boasts a giddy Snowman who is on the verge of bursting into the songs of the season just as soon as the Captain tells me where he hid the batteries.

There is a car in the driveway awaiting new tires, a replacement windshield wiper, and a brake job. Nothing says Merry Christmas at our house quite like "there's a front end alignment with your name on it just around the corner."

So for all of you folks who have every Martha Stewartesque napkin folded into snowflakes, don’t judge me on my lack of handmade ornaments and scented candles. Christmas at my house might have a different flavor and a smell that tends more toward PineSol than pine branches, but the spirit is the same.

I might deck my halls with takeout boxes instead of tinsel, but I still have the hope that good will is not just a store where you can get half off every Tuesday.

Merry Christmas!

Deck the Dachshund

My house may not be Martha Stewart clean, but you can eat off my floor--there’s a stash of Cheerios stuck to the linoleum by the stove that I could string for Christmas tree garland. I’m not saying I’m the worst housekeeper since the Addams family decorated their house by taking the skeletons out of the closet, but it’s almost time to deck the dustballs for Christmas.

This year I’m going to keep it simple. I’ll string some lights on the cobwebs and tuck a present or two under the mushrooms that have grown up beside the bathtub. The boys, as clever as teenagers can be, have traced a map to Bethlehem in the dust on the coffee table. If it’s as accurate as the ones I’ve had from mapQuest, any wise men around here would do well to stop at the Citgo station on the corner in Jerusalem and ask for directions. Otherwise, they’ll risk missing a baby Jesus sighting by thirty miles and two left turns.

Keeping close to nature this year, I’m turning my efforts to decorating the dogs. Once you’re greeted at the door by a hundred pounds of black Labrador clad in the graceful garb of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and a Dachshund in Spock-like elf ears, you can appreciate the spirit of the season.

So what’s the big deal? Everybody loved it at Halloween.

Not Talking Turkey - My Top Ten List

I have a friend who writes a witty letter to send to the far reaches of her family at Christmas time every year. Since I never purposely steal anyone’s idea unless I can do it better or score first blood, I decided to compose an annual Thanksgiving letter instead, so that mine will be done before she gets out her shiny balls and Ho Ho’s. But on further reflection, I don’t want to risk competing with a lady who has enough culture to inquire, “What wine goes with roadkill?”

Therefore, in an act of stubborn cowardice, I have decided instead to present the top ten list of things I’ve learned this year. There’s been a lot of study material.

I learned that Life Lessons are either immensely painful or expensive. And also that one does not exclude the other.

I learned that driving a kidney patient to the hospital requires you to slow down, at least over the railroad tracks.

I learned that kidneys must be emptied more often than pockets at a police station and that the announcement that a patient’s kidneys are about to explode like the planet Alderan under attack from a fully functional Death Star shortens the wait at the Emergency Room immensely.

Transporting the patient home across the same railroad tracks, I learned that men with catheters DO NOT have a sense of humor.

I learned that the insurance company will pay for a bandaid quite cheerfully, but morphine requires an offering of type O positive and Taylor Swift tickets with backstage passes for the daughter of the insurance company’s CEO—and 350 of her closest friends.

I learned that if the kidney patient schedules a physical to see if anything else is wrong; something will be.

I learned that triglycerides are neither a good name for a rock band, nor a circus acrobatic act that revolves around a three-wheeled vehicle.

I learned to appreciate whole grain bread, lean meats, garden vegetables, and fresh fruit.

I learned that “refrigerate after opening” doesn’t necessarily apply to fresh fruit.

I learned that poached, grilled, boiled, and baked fish are still basically fish. Unless corn meal and hot grease are involved, all recipes are the same. Disclaimer: This is just an observation. I like fish. Please do not send me your recipe. I rejected Martha Stewart and I’ll reject you.

I learned that even though Life Lessons are expensive and painful and fraught with adventures that make you late for supper, having a healthy husband makes it all worthwhile. Tomorrow, between the green beans and Splenda-sweetened tea, I'll be putting in a word of thanks for that.

(Of course, that’s 11 things on the list. But when it comes to lessons, I was always an overachiever anyway. Happy Thanksgiving, Honey!)

Jeffrey Makes the Cake

As a tribute to Moms everywhere, I'm spending this week exploring motherhood with old and new stories. This tale is a favorite of mine because the Little Boy in the story, who is now 18 years old and studying robotics in college with an eye toward taking over the world, has learned, under my care and tutelage, to call for pizza all by himself.

“Mom, you have to make a German Chocolate cake for my social studies project.”

“Excuse me little boy, but I’m neutral. I do not sew, neither do I bake.”

Further negotiations found me and Little Boy at the kitchen table surrounded by supplies. We have eggs, vegetable oil, box of cake mix, and can of frosting. I do not want an “A” badly enough to make this cake from scratch. Nor do I want to miss out on seeing this kid cook. It’s the principle of the thing. Sooner or later he’s going to have to face the consequences of volunteering. Don’t bang the can on the counter unless you’re willing to bake the biscuits.

Besides, I am a firm believer in teaching children to make their own way in the world. Survival skills are necessary for kids who live in a world that evolves so rapidly that the prize in the cereal is obsolete by the time you open the box. With this concept in mind, and with the attitude of a pioneer, I decided it was time to teach my son to cook.

“These are modern times and there’s not always going to be a Pizza Hut on the corner,” I intone sternly as we head into the kitchen. Sure, they were harsh words, but sooner or later a kid has got to learn more in the way of survival skills than how to microwave popcorn. I’m sure Orville Redenbacher is a nice guy and a snappy dresser, but he should not be a young man’s role model in matters involving the food pyramid.

The Kid is 12. He is cooler than Doublemint gum. At present, he is wearing his cooking clothes, which are pretty much the same clothes he wears for everything else: socks without shoes, blue jeans with the top button missing, red silky boxer shorts, and no shirt.

“Why wear a shirt?” he shrugged when I send him to get dressed. “If I get anything on my skin, I can just lick it off.” He runs his tongue around his mouth for practice. This kid will never need a compass to draw circles in math class.

Once things get underway in the kitchen, the kid discovers that he loves to cook. It’s like working in a secret underground laboratory only without the eye of newt. His favorite part is cracking eggs. He’s been practicing his cracking while I don protective gear. Removing a Kevlar glove, I scrape all the spare egg slime into a bowl and plan an omelet for supper.

“Okay,” I call out in my best Martha Stewart voice. “What’s the first thing we do?”

“Eat the icing!” he chimes.

I stop and consider. It’s not too late to solo on this project. Although I might not bake like Betty Crocker, I can mix like a cement truck. But the principle of the thing still dangles like a participle above my head.

“Read the directions.”

“Preheat the oven,” he says slowly, underlining the words with egg yolk.

“Wrong. Wash your hands.” I cringe as he wipes egg yolk racing stripes down the legs of his jeans.

“With soap and water.”

Under my patient instruction, and with an extra helping of creative engineering, a cake rises haltingly from the crumbs of dry ingredients.

“No, No, No! You do not beat the cake batter like it’s the last horse around the bend at Churchill Downs.”

He gazes up at me with puppy dog eyes. His face and chest is dotted with chocolate splashes. He looks like a Dalmatian. “It said to mix well.”

“Mix. Not flog. We want to blend the ingredients, not torture them.”

After taking out our inner hostilities on the mixture, we pour the batter into the pan.

“Do we have to put it all in?” The kid’s cake mix targeting computer has been activated as I can see by the tongue that is already swimming in circles around his mouth.

“We have to put enough in to make a cake. You barely covered the bottom of the pan.”

He licked the spoon. “You said it was a sheet cake.”

“Well you short-sheeted it. Pour the rest in.” He poured in another teaspoon of batter.

“Enough?”

“We want a layer cake, not a pancake.” He eyed the batter, judging just how much would be left at bowl-licking time. I sensed mutiny hovering on the horizon.

“I have an idea. Why don’t you make cupcakes and eat one early?”

Later, I watched The Kid lounging in front of the television, licking the icing off of a tattered cupcake liner. He grinned, licked chocolate off his chin, and gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Sometimes the most important lesson is establishing priorities. I’m a slow learner, but this kid is a great teacher. Especially when the lesson involves chocolate cake.

Merry Christmas Anyway

I’m a little bit of a late bloomer when it comes to getting ready for Christmas, kind of like those bulbs you have to plant in your flower garden in the dead of winter to turn into flowers come spring. Or maybe it’s the seeds you plant. The point is, you’ll find me getting ready for Christmas just about the time WalMart begins laying in fertilzer and peat moss with an eye toward the bulging wallets and wish lists of early gardeners.

I started shopping before Christmas this year, though. I was going to wait, but the operators were standing by and I had to call right away to get the bonus Ginsu knives which I desperately need because I’ve lost the key to the rented storage building where I keep the reindeer for the yard and if those knives can cut through a soda can like they show on TV, I’m sure they can handle that cheap padlock the manager of the storage place put on the door.

Although I don’t go full out in the decorating area, you can tell it’s Christmas around my house by subtle changes in the décor. Just keep an eye out for mutations in the dust patterns and you can tell where I’ve turned an eye toward holiday preparation.

I’ve moved the nativity scene that I forgot to put away last year from the shelf in the laundry room to the top of the entertainment center, dusted off the baby Jesus and removed the dryer sheet from the shepherd’s staff. It made him look like a flagboy on race day anyway, even though it gave the whole scene an air of celebration.

What appears to be stray branches connected by lumps of unkempt fur in one corner of the living room is actually a small Frasier fir holding up under the strain of the investigative processes of two Labradors, three cats, and an inquisitive Dachshund sporting a Christmas tree skirt. Occasionally the tree gives a shudder and deposits various small animals on the floor like a pile of cast-off inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys. The version of that Christmas tale that boasts “not a creature was stirring” never had a cat who took personal offense at live greenery that was not scented to match the litterbox.

There are 1,467 gift bags of assorted sizes and heritage covering every available flat surface, along with several containers of used bows that are perfectly suitable for family gifts if you affix them to packages with a loop of Scotch tape. At least one of the bags is surrounded by shredded tissue paper. (See the “not a creature was stirring” reference in the previous paragraph.) There is no Scotch tape anywhere in the house, not even in the junk drawer. There are several dozen wood screws of assorted sizes in the junk drawer, but repeated attempts at giftwrap show that wood screws are not effective for this purpose.

The kitchen table is covered with bits of burned sugar cookies and ingredients for partially assembled gelatin salads and casseroles that will bear offerings of melted cheese and Ritz crackers come Christmas day. This is not considered untidiness in the kitchen, but rather food preparation decorations with holiday flair.

There is a wreath on the outside of the closet door instead of the inside of the closet door. The wreath boasts a giddy snowman who is on the verge of bursting into the songs of the season just as soon as Bill Dear tells me where he hid the batteries.

There is a car in the driveway awaiting new tires, a replacement windshield wiper, or an oil change. Nothing says Merry Christmas at our house quite like a car in need of body work. There is not a sense of urgency for the repairs, however, due to the fact that I’m fairly certain that the key to the car is locked in the storage building with the yard-bound reindeer.

So for all of you folks who have every Martha Stewartesque napkin folded into snowflakes, don’t judge me on my lack of handmade ornaments and scented candles. Christmas at my house might have a different flavor and a smell that tends more toward PineSol than pine branches, but the spirit is the same.

Merry Christmas!

Mixed Messages

Compared to my mom, Martha Stewart bakes with an Easy Bake Oven and a low wattage bulb. When I was a kid, my mother, the love child of June Cleaver and the Pillsbury Doughboy, baked enchanting birthday cakes that rose from piles of hand-measured ingredients: freshly sifted flour, cups of sweet milk, and eggs so fresh the hens were still thinking up baby names.

My sisters and I would search through cook books full of black-and-white pictures of prize-winning creations, picking the masterpiece we wanted for our birthday celebration. Mama would lovingly pull out her Mixmaster, line baking pans with waxed paper, and lock us out of the kitchen to keep our tiny fingers out of the double boiler.

Years whizzed by like a blender stuck on puree, and I stood contemplating a box with a fuzzy picture of a cake stamped on the front in brown ink. Bake from scratch? Excuse me? Are you here on a visa from the Land Where Whipped Cream is a Still a Dairy Product? My kids think ingredients are the bad things for you that are listed on the side of the box; the renegade roll call of –ites and –ates that begins with corn syrup and end with death. They believe that Red Dye number 2 is the only pathway to Nirvana and have abiding faith that Little Debbie is a natural Earth Mother that sprang to life from a carton of Cool Whip.

The first time my kids saw a round cake, they thought I’d cut off the burned corners. In their experience, cakes went straight from the mouth of the Betty Crocker box into my 11 x 13 baking dish and on to a fiery death in the bowels of our thermostat-challenged oven that raged from frozen food to flash fried in a matter of minutes. They thought cakes were bricks with chocolate frosting. But since they helped open the box and mix the mortar, they also thought chocolate bricks were the best invention since nunchucks for Ninja Turtles.

One Christmas when we made cookies together, I tried the old fashioned bake without a box method. By the time the butter softened and the eggs were room temperature, Santa’s reindeer had come and gone and the dog had long since digested the icicles off the tree. The next Christmas I snagged a roll of cookie dough that let me chop off cookies like I was slicing dough with a circular saw. They were ready in twenty minutes and the kids clustered around like cats around a cricket to pipe on red reindeer noses and Santa hats.

My mom would have known that red dye would smear into the other colors until Santa looked like a bloody-eyed zombie from Christmas past.

As I watched the kids giggle over their creations, I grabbed a warm cookie and took a bite.

Rolled cookie dough: $1.99. Soap to clean up the mess: $2.50. Happy kids making Satan cookies: Priceless. Mama would be proud.

Top Ten Memorable Things About Being Pregnant

(I’m going from memory here. This is History, not Live at Five.)

1. Because you’re not famous, you don’t have a “bump.” You have a baby.

2. You finally have cleavage. And it’s not in the back!

3. You get to decorate the nursery – but nobody will let you lift, paint, or use harsh cleaners. Sweet. Interior design without the gruntwork. It's like ordering dinner from the Martha Stewart cookbook and instructing Martha to be gentle with the egg whites.

4. You cry over sentimental things like Budweiser commercials. Or because they’ve run out of Choco Tacos at the corner store.

5. The gas station before your exit has the bathroom key ready for you every morning at 7:30. And they remove the chain and tire iron it was originally attached to and replace them with a ribbon and a cookie.

6. Cravings – Like who doesn’t cross four lanes of rush hour traffic to peel into the Quick Stop for a Slim Jim?

7. Stressful things like, say, naps make you want to take a nap.

8. Getting so accustomed to giving urine samples, you feel the urge to empty your bladder every time you go down the Dixie Cup aisle at the grocery store. Sometimes you feel the urge after it’s too late.

9. Lying on your back for nine months like fried bologna on an open-face sandwich.

10. Your belly button pops out like the timer on a Butterball turkey when the baby’s done.

Cherry Bombs and Sticky Buns

I’m not a nurse. I don’t play one on TV. I can’t even open a Bandaid without an instructional video. But it seems like I could manage to pop a package of pre-made dough without the household going to Code Blue and breaking out the sticky buns.

All I wanted to do was make cherry turnovers for breakfast. There are infants in undeveloped countries who can help their mothers peel the plantains for the appetizer, and I can’t manage to crack open a can of crescents and squirt the cherry plasma out of the bag without feeling like Marcus Welby, M.D.

I’m not a complete moron. Okay, I may have all the qualifications, but I should still be able to handle the point and shoot method when it comes to cherry filling.

“Here’s breakfast,” I said breathily, placing a tray carefully down on the table.

“What’s that?” Bill asked. His tact factor burned out the night I sprinkled meat tenderizer on the garlic bread instead of, well, garlic. Think salt with a side order of salt.

“They're pastries.” I put my hands on my hips and tilted my head to one side. They definitely looked better tilted.

“I’ll pass. I ate yesterday.”

“So you’re not hungry?”

“I’ll just have coffee. Why are they so. . .crispy?”

I looked at the triangular balls of dough. Burned triangular balls of dough oozing thick red mucus. “I’m having a little trouble with the new toaster oven.”

“Are you sure you changed the setting?”

“You can change the settings?”

“Uh huh. You might want to switch it from “Bloodbath” to “Bake.”

I checked the uncooperative appliance and groaned. “It’s on Broil. I guess they’re overexposed to the heat.”

“Put them out of their misery.”

"Martha Stewart would turn them into cunning appetizers."

"This is not a case for Martha Stewart. It's a job for Dr. Kevorkian."

"There's still hope. I haven't frosted them yet."

"They're bleeding to death."

“That’s cherry filling.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be on the inside?”

“I had a little trouble aiming.”

“If the Germans had your eye in WWII, they would have bombed Lexington instead of London.”

I smeared a concealing cover of icing on a turnover, took a big bite, and settled down beside him. “Well if they’d used cherry bombs like these, the war would have ended a lot sooner.”