Wednesday, December 30, 2009

The Best At His Game

Read Charlotte Canelli's entire column in the Norwood Bulletin and Transcript this week.

Excerpt:
While my children were growing up, holiday tradition always included playing games. As the years passed, Candyland, Sorry, and Go Fish! led to Scattergories, Balderdash, and Hearts. Jenga, a family-favorite tower game of stacking blocks, provided late afternoon fun for various generations. We’ll always miss my elderly aunt Betty who was the master of the steady hand into her late eighties.
Over the years the popularity of board games came and went as kids grew up. Sometimes adult patience wore thin with multiple hours of competitive Monopoly or with the more calculating and troublesome warring game of Risk. As time passed there came teenage angst, family divisions, leavings and comings and less opportunity for the Currier and Ives postcard holiday.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

On A Snowy Evening

Read Charlotte Canelli's entire column in the Norwood Bulletin and Transcript this week.

Excerpt:

Waking up to drifting snow against our windowpanes last Sunday I was reminded again of why I love living in New England. The romance of snowy woods and twinkling lights through the shrouded dawn cause me to catch my breath every time. The tradition of the seasons, the poetry of life and the rhythms of New England are part of my soul.
Although I was born in Massachusetts I moved away in 1959 and grew up in the San Francisco East Bay in Northern California. There we had a four-hour car ride to the Sierra Nevada mountain range with its constant wintery snowfalls. It’s not quite the same, however, when your own home’s front walk and backyard aren’t part of the seasonal fairytale

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Holiday Memory Play

Read Margot Sullivan's entire article in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

Excerpt:

I began to think of memories of holidays and those memories are certainly not realistic but definitely emotional. At Thanksgiving I always remember the huge gatherings at my Aunt’s house in Brookline. She made everything from scratch – and often only slept two or three hours before the big day. Then afterwards the adults would settle in to play bridge. I loved that day of long ago!

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

A Dicken's of a Tale

Read Charlotte Canelli's entire column in the Norwood Bulletin and Transcript this week.

Excerpt:

"There is nothing like a good holiday book or movie to fight off holiday trauma. One of Dickens’s reasons for writing “A Christmas Carol” was, in fact, to circumvent the holiday humbugness of the day. He and Washington Irving had an exceedingly romantic relationship with the glorious and harmonious Christmas traditions far from the madding crowd. Dickens merely translated them to the urban squalor of an industrial city of the 19th Century"

Friday, December 4, 2009

Thanking Fanny Farmer

Read Charlotte Canelli's entire column in the Norwood Bulletin and Transcript this week.

Excerpt:

These days I have to confess I don’t cook very much or at least I rely on tried-but-true recipes from my more-eager cooking days when I do. When I remarried over two years ago, that was one of the perks on the table, so to speak. I had only to show up for dinner each night (hopefully on time or with a good excuse if otherwise.)

My husband often relies on fast recipes for the weeknights due to the time crunch between his arrival home and our grandson’s homework and bedtime. And he always makes a stop at the grocery store for a last-minute purchase. One of his favorite new tricks is to use his new iPhone app, “Epicurious.” This handy Internet novelty not only hands over a recipe (using one or more search ingredients) but also gives him an exact shopping list. And all at the tap of his finger.

Would our most famous Boston cooks approve? Known for some of the most complicated recipes in “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” Julia Child could also make things as simple as possible. Julia’s roast turkey recipe includes a short list of ingredients: oil, salt, pepper, celery onions, lemon, butter. And Port or Madeira, if desired. Even Fanny would approve of that.