Saturday, December 27, 2008

A Taste of Our Christmas

It has been a wonderful Christmas, culminating in my hometown with celebrations at both my sister's home and in the home of my parents and brother. The latter reside in the same house where I came home from the hospital when I was born. There are some roots in that sand in Polk County!

B makes great green beans and that was one of our contributions to Christmas Day dinner.

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Here is a sampling of the cookies. I had baked all day one day this week and made four kinds that are traditional in our house.

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The sons love my sweet potato casserole--topped with pecans, not marshmallows!-- so I made that.

Mama, who is 91 years young, made the yeast rolls: all 26 of them.

Here was the "kids' table." The kids are no longer kids but they got the porch table as it took three tables to seat everyone.

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Those roots in the sand I mentioned are citrus roots. On Christmas Day, five went to family-owned (and maintained) groves to pick fruit.

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One of our favorites is the pummelo. They are similar to grapefruit: pink on the inside and sweet. They are much larger than grapefruit and are a traditional food to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

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So now we are back home and having to do some extra activities to burn up a few of those yummy, yummy calories.

6 comments:

R.Powers said...

Sounds wonderful! Funny, but my mostly grown kids went out on the porch at Mom's just like they used to do.

David said...

Thanks for another great Christmas :)

Kimberlee said...

Three things...
1) I've never heard of a pummelo...it looks interesting. Are they sweet? Are they sold in stores down there?

2) I am AMAZED at the photos of fruit growing in the middle of winter. I knew the winters were mild there, but I can't believe nothing has frozen at least once!

3) I am so happy to see green beans made the "right" way. :) Around here, they are dumped out of a can and into a pot and heated...that's pretty much the extent of it. No wonder kids won't touch them!!!

Looks like a really nice family Christmas.

S N B said...

You write that you were raised in the South...Will you say where?
Winter is the harvest time for citrus. I have a cousin in Willow, Alaska and we have tried to figure out how to ship her some fruit without it being ruined by freezing--and of course, be something affordable for what you are sending. She has sent my dad smoked salmon that she makes and he loved it. Pummelos look like huge grapefuit and yes, are almost as sweet as oranges. You can find them in some stores sometimes. They are pricy, about $4 a piece even in the state in which they are grown.

Kimberlee said...

Hey, I know Willow! :) I've passed through there on my way from Fairbanks to Anchorage (during the summer). In fact, we had a substitute teacher working at our school for a while who was from Willow. It sounds like a great place...small, but on the road system.

Shipping fruit to and within Alaska IS a challenge. And shipping costs are astronomical. I can definitely sympathize. That's why we don't get much fresh fruit up here. I paid six dollars a piece for avocados a few years ago...and THAT didn't include shipping! Milk (which is heavy) costs even more. I think it's around $10.00 a gallon in Barrow these days. Not much we can do about it.

I was born in southeast Texas and lived in the Beaumont area until I was a young teenager. Then we hopped across the state line to Louisiana and settled in a small rural community between Lake Charles and Alexandria. Years later I moved to New Orleans and lived/taught there for fifteen years until I moved to Atqasuk in 2002. Big change, but a welcome one! My heart has always yearned for snow! :)

I forgot to ask about those cookies you have pictured...the round ones dusted with powdered sugar. My grandmother used to make something like that...what do you call them?

S N B said...

Kimberlee, there are actually two different kinds on the plate that are sugared: date balls that are a candy and Mexican wedding cookies. They are very different and both are pure heaven in your mouth. That's the recipes, not the cook, that account for that.