Family dinners – Dear Liza

Dear Liza,

While you and your folks spent Thanksgiving day in The City of Lights, the rest of us all got together at my house in Portland.

After a Turkey mix-up was sorted out (with Laurelhurst Market giving us the best service ever and a fine upgrade) we got everything started and Auntie Katie and Cousins Kestrel and Jasper came over.

Auntie Katie and Jasper taught Bridgett and me how to play role-playing games. The most well known of these is Dungeons and Dragons, of course, but there are lots of others. We were playing Magical Kitties.

We got to make up feline characters with personalities and magical powers, as well as their humans, who had troubles for the kittens to solve. It was fun, and next time it will be even better because we will know more of what’s going on.

We had lots of food, too. The giant half Turkey cooked well in the crockpot, the pumpkin purée got spiced, and veggies were roasted. There was homemade bread, of course. I had baked a regular loaf and four smaller round-ish loaves, which Kestrel transformed into a “bread Turkey”. It was fun, and just as tasty as ever.

We took a long walk after supper, and we saw some lovely Christmas lights (Which I totally forgot to take pictures of, stay tuned), and then back for PIE! Beside delicious apple and pumpkin pies, Auntie Katie made something absolutely new.

This is a Hanishi Custard pie, which is also called Faerie Pie, made with eggs, cornstarch, and vanilla and colored with butterfly pea flowers. It had a Graham Cracker crust flavored with rosemary and lavender. It was amazing; sweet without being sugary, soft and creamy. A Thanksgiving Day triumph of pie.

My contribution to dessert was Grandpa Nelson’s favorite, Pinwheel cookies. The apple and pumpkin pies sat beside them on the counter until knives and forks came out and we ate until we were hopelessly stuffed.

By then, the thread of the game was lost and it was time for the evening to end.
We divided up leftovers and loaded our fridge and Katie’s car, hugged our last hugs and headed in for ginger tea and bedtime.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Dear Liza,

Last night we went over to Auntie Katie’s house for dinner! When I asked what we could bring, she asked for ice cream sandwiches, and I knew just the place to go to get them, Ruby Jewel Ice Cream! We first found this lovely shop downtown, but they have a few branches, and the closest is just about a mile from here, in the neighborhood, if not exactly on the way…. so we stopped there.

At Katie’s there was pasta boiling, meatballs coming out of the oven, and delicious sauce bubbling on the stove. There were also artichokes steaming. Ummmmmm.

I got to chop garlic for the butter, so I smelled as delicious as everything else. Katie poured wine, we set the table, ate and talked.

We heard about Kestrel’s week at “Back Yard Bird” Camp, where she learned to identify all the local birds, and helped us correctly name a black capped chickadee that we have been struggling with.

Auntie Bridgett and I cleared the table while the rest set up the video game “Rock Band”. This is a complicated but fun and noisy game where we hold ‘instruments’ like guitars, keyboards, or drums that are connected to the game and respond when we push the right buttons. A cartoon rock band played music on the screen and gave us directions, and we struggled to keep up.

The first time I saw Jasper play with this, he was just about eight years old and very easily frustrated. He wanted to be perfect the first time and got angry at himself when he wasn’t. Since then, he has had lots of time to practice playing and getting better at it. He has also had time to practice being frustrated, and getting better at that. This, I have decided, is an important skill…knowing something will be hard, and forgiving yourself for taking time to make mistakes. I am so proud Auntie Katie has helped him with this lesson!

In the other room, Auntie Bridgett and Kestrel were having a doll and stuffties picnic. There was lots of giggling and conversations between a stuffed unicorn who had ‘given himself a haircut’ and two very old, beautiful dolls who have porcelain faces, hands and feet.

When it was dessert time, we got out the ice cream sandwiches and everyone got their pick. Yummy, sweet and cold, just what was needed to wrap up a fun evening. We kissed everyone goodbye and drove home to sadly watch the Giants lose their baseball game, then turned in, happy and exhausted.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Tag: Family dinners

Thanksgiving Together

Dinner at Katie’s