The Season of Giving

This year, for Alex’s teachers’ gifts, I decided to bake chocolate chip cookies. My mom used to bake gifts for my teachers and it is a tradition I would like to continue. I have been using this recipe for years. It is my go-to recipe when I am in need of a crowd pleaser. In fact, I baked over 250 to go into the welcome bags at Andy’s and my wedding, and was asked for the recipe countless times at the wedding. 

Finished product. 

I picked up these boxes at Michael's, and lined them with white paper towels.
Afterwards, I added this crinkle to the bottom to make them more festive.

Each box fit about two dozen cookies. 

I wrapped them in cream paper and tied them with green, red and cream ribbons. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

INGREDIENTS

2 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup of granulated sugar

1 cup of packed brown sugar

3 teaspoons of vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1 package of Vanilla or French Vanilla pudding mix

1 package of chocolate chips (I usually use milk chocolate)

Makes about three dozen.

DIRECTIONS

• Pre-heat oven to 350° F.
• Mix butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy.
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Gradually beat in flour, baking soda and salt. Mix in pudding mixture.
• Stir in morsels.
• Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
• Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown.
• Cool on baking sheets for two minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

As a blast of freezing weather has hit New York City, I struggle to find things to do inside our small apartment with a rambunctious almost two-year old. So, I decided it would be fun to invite some of his friends (and, maybe more importantly, my friends) over for cookies, hot chocolate and cupcake decorating.

We made gingerbread cookies, drop sugar cookies and vanilla cupcakes with white frosting pre-play date; to decorate the cupcakes, the kids used plenty of sprinkles (red, green and white), and red and green M&Ms. They had a blast and we all stayed warm. It was a fun and easy way to get into the spirit. 

Rolling out the gingerbread dough.

Alex loved cutting out the dough. 

These cookies are the perfect size for little hands and mouths! 

Cookies ready to be eaten; mugs ready for hot chocolate. 

The cupcakes are ready for frosting (in the mugs) and decorations.

Introducing his friends to his favorite ornaments (mostly, a train ornament from his Busza).

Enjoying the fruits of his labor. 

The gingerbread recipe I use is so easy to make and the dough is fairly easy to roll out.

Gingerbread recipe

Ingredients

2 or 3 packages cook and serve butterscotch pudding mix

 1 cup of butter

 1 cup of packed brown sugar

 1 egg

 3 cups of all-purpose flour

 1 teaspoon of baking soda

4 tablespoons of ground ginger

 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon

Original recipe makes 3 dozen

DIRECTIONS

·         In a medium bowl, cream together the butterscotch pudding mix, butter, and brown sugar until smooth. (Note: I usually melt the butter in the microwave first.) Stir in the egg. Stir in the flour, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon. Cover and chill dough until firm, about 1 hour.

·         Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease baking sheets. On a floured board, roll dough out to about 1/8 inch thickness, and cut into shapes using a cookie cutter. Place cookies 1.5 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.

·         Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are golden at the edges. Cool on wire racks.

Let’s Have a Parade

For the past five years, my husband, Andy, and I have participated in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The first year we participated, we were balloon handlers, but asked if we could be clowns the next year. After being clowns, which we absolutely adore because you get to interact with the crowd and make so many kids happy, we decided we wanted to make this a family tradition.

In celebration of our fifth year, we were also able to get my mom, sister and aunt in the parade to0. We were all assigned the birthday party clown group and anxiously awaited to see what our costumes were going to be. We were not disappointed the morning of when we saw them for the first time. A few photos from this spectacular, but rather cold, Thanksgiving morning.

We were able to meet up with Alex and my dad (the babysitter) and got Alex close to the floats.
He loved the train float!

Future parade participant; just practicing his walk. 

The whole gang. 

Alex looks thrilled here; I think he wishes he was back at the train. 

My mom, me and my sister. The cake I am wearing is serving as a table for our confetti. 

The start of the parade: my sister is getting ready to throw some confetti.
I love her face here, as it is pure joy. 

I hope you had as wonderful a Thanksgiving as us, and spent it surrounded by family and laughter. 

There’s No Place Like Home

I adore Halloween. It is an excuse to get dressed up…in costume—something the former actor in me loves. This Halloween, I really wanted to have a family theme. So, in honor of the 75^th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, I decided to go as Dorothy, have Alex go as a lion (the costume was found at Target on sale), and Andy as the Tin Man (he was a great sport). 

I think Andy takes the cake for best costume. 
It is hard to see in the photo, but I made his ax using tin foil, cardboard and a golf club. 

Sitting on the stoop, handing out candy.

Alex loved having his face painted; maybe he has a flair for the dramatic like his mom. 

For our apartment door, I cut out around 20 bats and had them “flying” over the door. I also found a cheap, unadorned wreath at Michael’s, wrapped it in a spider web and added spiders and orange ribbon to it. Alex loved the door and would always ask to go see the bats. 

For our pumpkin carving, I used a pattern for the two big pumpkins (the momma and daddy pumpkins), and carved the baby pumpkin free-hand. They were all so easy, but we got so many compliments on them. Of course, I saved the pumpkin seeds and roasted them—they almost tasted like Chex Mix (see recipe below).

We also baked cookies for Alex’s class—just simple rolled sugar cookies in the shapes of pumpkins and ghosts. After the cookies were baked, we wrapped them in wax paper and tied them with orange ribbon. I made the witches hats using black construction paper and wrote each child’s name on them.

It is magical because it only comes once a year, but I am always a little sad when it is over. We had a wonderful Halloween!

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients

3 tablespoons of butter, melted

 1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of garlic salt (honestly, I add more than the recipe calls for—I usually just eyeball this)

 8 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce

 2 cups raw whole pumpkin seeds

Directions

·         Preheat oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees C).

·         Combine the butter, salt, garlic salt, Worcestershire sauce and pumpkin seeds. Mix thoroughly and place in shallow baking dish.

·         I sprinkle a bit more garlic salt and Worcestershire sauce over the pumpkin seeds before putting in the oven.

·         Bake for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Apples and Pumpkins

Fall is my favorite time of the year—I love the crisp, cool weather; seeing apple cider on menus; getting lost in a corn maze and then picking out the perfect pumpkin. This year, we went to a pumpkin patch with an apple orchard, as my one of my son’s favorite books is called Apples and Pumpkins—a book we got from the scholastic book fair at his school. After picking out a daddy pumpkin, a momma pumpkin and a baby pumpkin, we picked up a variety of apples so I could make my famous apple pie.

I love the sight of a field of pumpkins. 

Trying to pick up the pumpkin

Someone is very excited.

Entering the corn maze...I was a little nervous I was going to lose my son in the maze. 

Although I love making pies, I was starting to hate making the crust—I felt like a failure when it would fall apart trying to transfer it to the pie dish. So, I decided to try out a new pie crust recipe and I loved it. I will be using this recipe from now on and wanted to share it with you—it is so easy to make. 

Pie Crust

INGREDIENTS 

4 cups of all-purpose flour

1 3/4 of cups shortening (I try to use butter-flavored if I can find it)

1/2 cup of white sugar

2 teaspoons of salt

1 egg

1/2 cup of water

2 teaspoons of almond extract

Original recipe makes three crusts

DIRECTIONS

·      In a large mixing bowl, combine all-purpose flour, shortening, sugar, and salt. Blend together with a pastry cutter until crumbly.

·        In a small bowl, mix egg with water and almond extract. Blend into flour mixture. Chill in refrigerator until ready to use.

Finished pie almost ready to go into the oven (still need to cut vents). 

Small Town Charm

My extended family and I are from a small town in Michigan—Alpena, Michigan. After having lived in New York City for over a decade, there are so many wonderful things I love about visiting Alpena—my family, of course, but also the quaint main street, the old movie theatre, the fact that you don’t have to show up four hours in advance to get a seat at the Fourth of July parade. For this year’s parade, we arrived thirty minutes prior to start time and still got a seat on the curb!

I used to watch this parade as a child and loved it, and I am so glad I was able to share this experience with my son. Alex had so much fun running around the street, collecting candy and, of course, waving the American flag. 

Main Street.

My sister getting the parade started. 

Right before the start of the parade, warming up the crowd. 

Father and son. 

Family shot. 

Busza and Alex checking out the upcoming floats. 

Nine Lives

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt asks Mercutio: What wouldst thou have with me? Mercutio responds: Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives. Even in the 1500’s, the superstition that cats have nine lives existed. Although I don’t know where this belief comes from, I can attest to its accuracy when it comes to my family cat, Kari, who has consistently defied the odds against her.

I remember the day when my dad, a dog lover, told us that we could finally get the cat we had been begging for. We were stationed in Oslo, Norway at the time, and we picked her because she was the most playful, the feistiest of the bunch. A Norwegian forest cat, she would roam outside for hours, returning in the winter with icicles hanging off her fur and whiskers, and in the summer with branches and twigs tangled in her tail. She often would leave us “presents” on the doorstep, as Kari always has been a hunter. When it was time to leave Norway, she was upgraded to first-class where she had a personal flight attendant watching her—we, meanwhile, were stuck in economy, sharing a flight attendant with the other 70 passengers.

We arrived in Michigan in September and then moved to Illinois in January, Kari moving each time with us. In Illinois one winter night, Kari was outside, as she usually was. But, as we had just moved there, the neighborhood was unfamiliar. That night, it snowed, and Kari couldn’t find her way home. We plastered the neighborhood with her picture and advertised a $50 reward; kids from all over would bring us black and white cats in the hopes that they had found our lost Kari and could claim the money. After three months, we had lost hope and assumed that Kari was gone forever.

I had been at cheerleading practice one afternoon when my dad came to pick me up. As I got in the car, he casually mentioned there was a surprise waiting for me at home, but would say nothing more. I walked into our home in Rantoul and in the kitchen sat Kari, about half the size she was when I last saw her. A neighborhood child told my sister she saw a black and white cat; in one last attempt, my sister followed her where, about three blocks away from our home, she spied a Norwegian forest cat. She yelled Kari’s name and our feisty cat came running to her arms. Amanda cradled Kari on the way home and to the vet that afternoon; after a clean bill of health, we took our Kari home.

Since then, Kari has lived in Arizona, where she escaped from coyotes, snakes and gila monsters, and now she resides in Maryland. About five years ago, Kari was diagnosed with FIV, feline HIV. When I see her, I still remember the kitten who would sleep on my neck; the cat who would climb up our burlap wall in Norway rather than take the stairs; my pet who has given me a handful of scars as I tried, without success, to hold her against her will; and now the aging darling who still purrs when I pet her face.

Despite being lost for several months, moving numerous times, being in more fights than you can imagine, and having a crippling disease, Kari recently turned 20. Kari is without a doubt a survivor and I only hope she still has a few more lives left: Happy birthday, Kari!

Kari as a kitten in Norway

Kari in Arizona

Kari, age 20, still enjoying the outdoors in Maryland

Tea and Soup

Andy and I arrived in Maryland on Friday night, after a rather long drive on the car-filled Jersey turnpike. Tired and frustrated, we lugged our luggage and laundry up the walkway, and standing in the warm light of the kitchen window was my mother. George Eliot once wrote, “Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.” As life continues, I still find very little that compares to the comfort and love I feel when I see my mother’s face.

After dropping off our bags, we went into the kitchen, where brewing on the stove was one of my favorite soups – fresh vegetable (only slightly second to her homemade chicken noodle). I eagerly scooped a bowl of soup when my mom said, “Lis, come here, I want to show you something.” I followed her to the garage, where she had bought out the commissary of my favorite tea—after searching the town for weeks to find it. As I sat down with my bowl of soup and tea, I couldn’t help but think how very fortunate I am to have a mother who gives so much. I know everyone is partial to their mother, but I do know I hit the jackpot.

Later that night, as I lay next to Andy, I started to cry, overcome with love and emotion for my mother—this woman who has given me so much; who has shown me the importance of family, of love and of enjoying life; who encouraged me to be my own person, even when I wanted to cling to her; who supported me through periods when I had no friends at school or was changing careers; who persuaded me to attend a college 3,000 miles away from family when she knew it would open more doors for me; who always put me, and my future, first.

Even though there are no words that can adequately thank my mother for all she has done for me, I would still like to say thank you, Mom, for everything—for the love and support, for the strong example you set, for being such an amazing, kind and remarkable woman, for the soup and tea. I love you.

My mother with all three of her children

My high school graduation with my mom and dad

At my wedding with my sister