Good Morning!

Despite the cheery intentions of this morning's blog, there is an air of unease around the TriSec household today....my father-in-law went back in the hospital overnight. He fell about 2 weeks ago and was admitted briefly, but since then his Alzheimer's seems to have taken a downward turn. However, I heard him chattering in the background last night when I spoke to Mrs. TriSec, so who knows what the next diagnosis will be.

In any case...let's think about the holiday, shall we?

Last night, I spent the time after our pack meeting making a batch of pizzeles. It's a laborious process, making two cookies at a time on an electric iron that looks a little like a sandwich press. As I often do at this time of year, I gave a little thought to the things we always do every year.

For me, it's the baking. As a kid, we always had a mountain of cookies and other pastries...my grandmother was quite the avatar at this sort of thing. Naturally, my mother learned the skills, and then in turn, I did too. Looking over grandma's old recipe cards, they are distinctly old-school. Things like "add flour" and "a spoonful of baking powder for every egg" and "bake until brown" dominate the instructions.



Over time, I've taken careful notes and measurements and now have reasonable facsimiles of actual recipes for these things. But I learned like my mother did...standing in the kitchen watching and helping someone else...tasting and seeing the batter as we went along.

There's more to be made...tomorrow I'll be working on soft-dough cookies (which you can find in your supermarket peddled as "anise drops", although I use lemon flavor) and latter in the week, the piece de resistance, our family recipe for ricotta pie.

Ricotta pie is another dessert you may be familiar with. You know the cheese that's in lasagna; I make a sweet dessert out of it. The traditional method is with lemon flavor and bits of citron fruit interspersed throughout the mix. It makes for a festive cake, but I'd have to call it an acquired taste. Over a half-century ago now, my elder great-aunts discovered that 'the kids' didn't like it. (my mother and her generation). So the great bakers of the family did some experiments and came up with a chocolate and cinnamon version that we make now.

Of course, you know the biggest tradition of all...the Italian "feast of seven fishes" on Christmas eve. Alas, the last one we had was in 1996 (my grandmother's last Christmas). Now with Javier allergic to most shellfish, that seems like it will be a part of my past now. But there's Cuban things to do, to. With a little bit of the ol' melting pot action going, I've also learned how to make a sugar cookie called a Split Second...it's filled with guava jelly. And I can also make a pretty good pastele, too.

I can only hope that the things I do now get passed on to the next generation...it's not lost on me, especially when I work on the more labor-intensive cookies and desserts that I make only at this time of year, that somewhere in every Italian and Cuban household, there is somebody making the same things, too. Never mind the trite things like gift-giving, or even the pagan and religious origins of these holidays. For me, it's the food and family, and the continuity of the traditions that really make Christmas happen.