Gingersnaps, anyone?

Our whole family loves my gingersnap recipe--soft, chewy, and yummy, so we make big batches. Recently I've discovered a new recipe that uses gingersnaps. If you like German food, you'll want to try this recipe.

SAUERBRATEN WITH RED CABBAGE
(Williams Sonoma Recipe -- Slow Cooker Book)

Boneless beef chuck roast (about 3 lbs.)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 yellow onions, chopped
1 cup beef broth
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1 bay leaf
1/2 head red cabbage, thinly sliced
12-16 gingersnaps, finely crushed

Sprinkle the meat with ground ginger and rub in. Season with salt and ground pepper. Place meat in crockpot. Cover with chopped onions. Bring the broth, vinegar, and brown sugar to a boil to dissolve sugar. Pour over the meat and add the bay leaf. Place the crockpot in the fridge overnight. The next day cook on low setting for about five hours. Remove meat. Add chopped cabbage. and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt. Put meat back on top of cabbage. Turn heat to high setting for another 2 hours. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Transfer the roast to a cutting board, and transfer the braised cabbage to a serving bowl. Stir enough of the crushed gingersnaps into the liquid in the slow cooker to form a thick gravy. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Slice meat across the grain. Serve the gravy with Spaetzele or rice.

Areviderci, Roma

Our good friend, Dick, is in Rome right now. Yesterday he emailed home with an account of all the wonderful experiences they are having. My first trip to Rome was in 1962. I have two very vivid memories. I had participated in the Utah Shakespearean Festival that summer. After striking the set, the cast set out for an 8-week European adventure. The entire trip (including airfare, lodging, transportation, and all entrance fees) was only $600, so it won't be hard for you to believe that Europe on Five Dollars a Day was our bible. We stayed in youth hostels, out-of-the-way Gasthauses and student housing. But when we got to Rome, we stayed in a real hotel. It was old and beautiful, with lots of wood, carved moldings, and sweeping, curved marble staircases on both sides of the lobby.

There was a sign posted in each room clearly stating that no food was to be eaten in the rooms. But students will be students, and we were hungry students. Very quickly we had accumulated an entire two-handled paper shopping bag full of watermelon rinds, pastry wrappers, and Limonade bottles. We couldn't leave them in the room for the housekeeper to discover, and somehow the lot fell to me to carry the bag downstairs and out to a trash can on the street.

At twenty years of age, I was still hoping to become sophisticated. And so, with one hand lightly resting on the carved banister, head erect, and eyes straight ahead, I began my descent. Just as I reached the mid-point, the soggy bottom of the bag gave way. Watermelon rinds catapulted end over end, spraying seeds against the wall. The Limonade bottles clanked their way to the bottom, then rolled across the lobby floor to the front desk. As a SWAT team of bellmen and custodial staff materialized out of thin air, I could only shrug my shoulders, raise my eyebrows, and give them my most innocent "Who, me?!" look. The only two Italian words I know are "Areviderci, Roma," and fortunately, they didn't use those two.

My other memory surrounds the Spanish Steps, a "crush" of Italian men, and a flight for life. Curious?

Safe Delivery

Hey, all you bloggers, I'm back! Whenever I go to Utah I have my favorite haunts -- BYU Bookstore, Nielson's Custard, Distribution Center, Lehi Roller Mills, Seagull Books, Kneaders, Cafe Rio, Expidex. No trip is a success without stopping at a few of my favorites. This trip, however, was so busy that I didn't have time to get to a single one of them; not even the BYU Bookstore, even though I was on campus for four days. As I was driving out of town on Saturday I drove past the Busy Biddy. Some strange, uncontrolable urge just took over and forced me to flip a quick U turn and go in. I resisted the $139 dollar jacket that caught my eye, but as I was leaving, that same uncontrolable force took over and "made" me buy this yard lantern for our front porch. What was I thinking?! I already had two bags to check, a briefcase and a purse. How in the world was I going to get a huge lantern on the plane. I managed to stuff my purse into my briefcase and that got me through security. But when I tried to put the langern in the overhead bin, it didn't fit. Nor did it fit underneath the seat. I was forced to call the flight attendant for help. Since it was so large, the only bag it would fit in was a plastic garbage bag, which didn't seem like much protection to be placed in the baggage hold. I watched the flight attendant carry it up the aisle, but instead of going out the door, he carried it into the cockpit. The pilot removed the plastic bag (to make certain it was what I said it was). Then they gently seat-belted it into the jump seat behind the pilot for safe transport. I love Southwest Airlines!

Do you Remember?

Tomorrow I leave for board meetings at BYU. I realize that for many, BYU is "the school they love to hate." At the risk of offending some, may I just say that for me, BYU is the school I love, period. In fact, I don't just love it -- I'm passionate about it. You need to know that my loyalty isn't because that's the only school I've ever attended. I went to BYU for two years. I spent an additional five years at two other universities. BYU is different. We talk a lot about the "Spirit of the Y." The Spirit of the Y is actually THE Spirit. It's an amazing and unique place that offers the environment where the Spirit can be operative in every aspect of your life. Whenever I hear a BYU student say, "Oh, BYU is okay," there is a little part inside of me that cries, because I think to myself, "She doesn't get it! She's missed it!" And how sad is that.

Here are a few things that I love about BYU and that evoke pleasant memories for me.

Brazilian Embroidery

A few years ago I learned to do Brazilian embroidery, which I think is very intricate and very beautiful. I'd be the first to acknowledge that I'm better at embroidery than I am at photography, but here are a few close-ups to give you an idea of what can be done with a needle and thread. I should have posted the pictures in a larger format, but you can click on them for more detail.




































































I'm working on a new piece that is the most complicated stitch I've done. I've mentioned before that I like to crochet because I can do it while I multi-task. Brazilian Embroidery is not a multi-tasking activity. I can't watch TV. I can't talk to anyone. I can't even listen to music. This particular stitch requires a tomato pin cushion (underneath), four needles (some pointing up and some pointing down), three different threads, both hands, my knees, and a complicated counting-out-loud system to keep track of where I am and what I'm doing. Each of these flowers takes 4-5 hours to complete. I'm happy to have this stitch completed. I think it will be pretty when the project is finished!

Foamopedic Surgery

I have been on a quest to find the perfect pillow for me. I've tried down pillows, poly-filled, fat pillows, hard pillows, rice-filled pillows, pillow rolls and contoured foam pillows. I actually quite like the foam memory pillows, but the one I have is too thick. They come in a variety of thicknesses so I thought I might buy a thin one, but it occurred to me that buying another expensive pillow as an experiment might not be the best idea. While I was trying to go to sleep I thought about my friend, Marilynn, who attacks the tree stumps around their family cabin freehand with a chain saw, turning them into bears. If she can do that, surely I can remodel a pillow, and so at 1:23 a.m. the bright lights came on and I took my pillow into surgery. Lacking the proper jigs or a pattern, I decided to use a creative approach rather than scientific. I also failed to follow the first rule of carpentry -- measure twice, cut once (It's on the thin side). It's a little premature to assess the final outcome, but after "rounding" on it one night, I'd say the prognosis is very good.

April Fools!

Mother Nature has come up (no pun intended) with a great April Fool's joke for me. She had me convinced that Spring would never come this year. This morning I pulled back some dead leaves and look what I found. Spring is coming!

How does THIS . . .

become THIS?

THIS. . .

become THIS?

or THIS . . .

become THIS?

I am stunned again each year at the miracle of creation. And sobered by the realization that Heavenly Father doesn't do it all. Whatever He doesn't do is up to me, and every Spring I wonder if I will have the strength to do it again. And each time I do, that's another miracle!