Comfort Food for the New Year

Here at Sassafras House, we celebrated the end of 2007 by putting Mama's new square baking dish to work to make chocolate fudge pudding cake. I wanted a square baking dish pretty much for this cake alone. The recipe is from Cooks' Country and it's a no-fail warm and tasty treat on a cold evening. Guaranteed comfort food (now served in my lovely warm red dish).

1 cup sugar
½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ cup milk
4 tablespoons butter, melted (I use salted butter......if you use unsalted, add ¼ teaspoon salt)
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ cup chocolate chips
1 cup boiling water

Place your oven rack in the middle of the oven and then preheat to 350 degrees. Spray an 8 inch square baking pan with non-stick spray. Whisk ½ cup sugar with ¼ cup cocoa powder in a small bowl.

Whisk flour, remaining ½ cup sugar, remaining ¼ cup cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk milk, butter, egg yolk, and vanilla in a medium bowl until smooth. Stir the milk mixture into flour mixture until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips (the batter will be stiff).

Using a rubber spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan and spread into corners. Sprinkle the reserved cocoa mixture evenly over the top of the batter. Gently pour boiling water over the cocoa layer. Do not stir.

Bake for 25 minutes. When the cakes come out of the oven it will look cracked and there will be sauce bubbling. Cool on a rack for about 10 minutes. To serve, scoop the warm cake into individual bowls. Top it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and your little boy will give you a hug.

Happy New Year!

Set Addiction

Last Christmas, I first learned how to play Set, a card game that I highly recommend.

I've been a junkie ever since, playing the on-line puzzle every day and recording my score when it was particularly awesome. When my score suggests that I am painfully stupid......well a girl has to have a few secrets.

Santa left JT the Set card game in his Christmas stocking, but we all knew what would happen with the game. I've made JT play me every day since Christmas. And, as JT sighed this morning and agreed to play yet another game with his Mama, he announced, "You're addicted to Set."

The first step in getting help is admitting that you have a problem.

Best Laid Plans

The weekend of December 15, when I should have been grading papers, I instead made Christmas and New Year's cards for various friends and family. By the end of the weekend, my cards were ready to place in the mail. To save time and avoid waiting in line, I went on-line and ordered stamps from the U.S. Postal Service. It was December 18 and I figured that the stamps would arrive in time for me to mail off my cards by the 24th at the latest.

Thus commenced my daily anxious checking of the mailbox. As my cards gathered (figurative) dust, the mailbox was empty. Finally, the stamps were delivered.

TODAY.

So the cards were stamped tonight and then JT and I took an evening walk to the mailbox down the block. If you've been waiting for a greeting from Sassafras House, be assured that the cards are on their way to points south, north, and east. And, if the post office is true to form, they should be there in mid-January.

Big Daddy Revealed

JT has a lovely wooden advent calendar that provides a daily pre-Christmas treat. On Christmas Eve the treat was to open a Christmas package early. It was quite clear to both of us which package would be selected that day......the big daddy, the package sent his way by his California cousins (whom, I believe, had a whole lot of help via JT's Auntie KO).

He was very excited as he prepared to tear into the paper.

It was a Playmobil Roman ship.

Mama put it together straight away.

And they sailed off into the sunset to conquer foreign peoples. Don't worry: the boy is a benevolent ruler.

Christmas Day 2007

Going to bed on Christmas Eve is a tricky business when you are 7 years old. You want to sleep, of course, because only then will Santa come. But sleeping is counter-intuitive when you are simply quivering with excitement about Christmas morning, which is finally within reach.

In my mind, Christmas morning is the best day of the year to be a parent; watching JT's face as he sees what Santa has left for him is simply a glorious pleasure. For me, playing Santa and selecting the things that I know will most thrill my boy then setting them up to await his morning excitement makes the hard part of parenting worth while. JT's excitement filled the house.

After we opened the presents under the tree, we had a quiet afternoon (Mama even enjoyed a brief nap!) while JT played with his new buddies.

We wrapped the day up with a lovely Christmas supper shared with some very good friends.

It was a good day.

Santa: Outsourcing

My son is 7 years old and he is in the 2nd grade. It's a nice age because he retains the charm of childhood even as he begins to develop reasoning skills. For this reason, Santa Claus is a complicated figure. JT very much wants to believe and I think that he still does believe. But he asks pointed questions: how is it that Mama promises to wake up if a bad guy comes in the house and yet she sleeps soundly through the night on Christmas Eve? The world is a big, big place: how does Santa get to every house on Christmas Eve?

This year's suspicion centered on just where it is that Santa gets his goodies. In our sometimes cold corner of the world, Santa frequently delivers the gift of fleece. Last year Santa brought a fleece vest. This year Santa left new fleece mittens and a new fleece hat in JT's stocking. Like many of the clothes worn in our house, all of the fleece items came from Lands' End.

"Oh," JT announced as he emptied his stocking, "Santa gets things from Lands End, just like you do. Mama , why don't the elves make these things for Santa?."

Obviously, this query called for a quick response. So I went with the obvious as I explained, "Santa has lots of things to make for people so he asks for help. And the nice people at Lands' End make good warm things like jackets and mittens so Santa must have asked them to make mittens and a hat for you."

He seemed satisfied with this explanation, but I think that I just accused Santa of outsourcing.

My Christmas Stocking

My ex-partner and I always filled a stocking for one another on Christmas Eve, playing Santa for one another and then playing Santa together for JT. Filling her stocking was one of my greatest Christmas pleasures; I would search high and low for the perfect items for her. As Christmas approached last year, and I was playing Santa alone for the first time, I suddenly realized that there was no one to fill my stocking. And, as excited as he would be on Christmas morning, I realized that JT would notice if Santa didn't leave me a stocking.

So I set about collecting items to fill my own Christmas stocking. It was a sad and lonely business. It brought me little joy.......honestly, I felt pathetic. But JT noticed that Santa had included me, and he looked through the treats in my stocking (sad for me that no toys were involved). I was glad that I had looked after the detail.

This year, I was absolutely determined to enjoy the process of filling my own Christmas stocking. Key to that was acquiring things well in advance of the holiday, tucking them into a secretive corner, and then promptly forgetting about the tiny treats I had bought myself. The Etsy artisan website was key to this process. And I'm pleased to say that it was a great success. When I filled my stocking tonight, I succeeded in making myself actually excited to explore the treats tomorrow morning.

And I wonder if this is an appropriate metaphor for the larger questions in my life. But tomorrow is Christmas, a day for childhood joy and wonder, and so I will leave those questions for another day.

Creature Comforts

Last year, in the fall, when JT and I both tried to manage the open wound of our freshly broken family, we picked out two kittens to join our family. I thought that caring for other beings would help to heal our hearts. And the kittens – Tiger and his sister Lucy – were a great success.

Though they sometimes try our patience, they have mostly been a wonderful addition to our lives. They make us laugh, they are good for a cuddle on a cold evening. When they join us for stories each night, we cuddle up together in JT's flannel nest. They nap quietly in a cozy sunny spot, and it seems like they have always been here. In so many ways, they help to make our house feel like a home.



They greet us at the door when we come home from school, happy to see us at the end of the day. They sometimes join JT in his playroom, curling up for a nap in the sleeping bag. On the cold winter days, Tiger and Lucy sit on the radiator in the dining room, looking outside the window and keeping me company as I write and grade papers.

Whether curled up on an afghan, or stretched out in a patch of sunlight, they warm our lives in so many ways. When JT is away for the evening and my house feels terribly quiet, they are my comforting creatures.

The Big Daddy, part II

JT's affection for the big daddy package has continued unabated. Everyday, he suggests that we open before Christmas morning. I ignore this request, of course, and then suggest that I actually know what is inside the big daddy box. Naturally, my goal here is to horrify JT. And I am proud to note that I have been quite successful. The suggestions which engender the most boy distaste:

- Barbie dream house
- Dora the Explorer play set
- nothing
- lots and lots of My Little Pony toys (hey, that pony is little)
- Strawberry Shortcake (it got him to sniff the box)

It would seem that Mama still has a little game in her.

Christmas Vacation!

The holiday break started yesterday afternoon at 3:05 when school let out. The first thing I did when I got home was turn off the alarm on my alarm clock. No more 5:45 am wake-ups for me (well, at least for two weeks).

Then I had a nap.

Today, the boy and I enjoyed a luxurious 9 am sleep in. And then I played Monopoly Junior with this shiftless ne'er do well.

He beat me twice.

But it's a few minutes after 12 pm and we are both of us still in our pajamas. So you'll hear no complaints from me.