Not A Goodbye Note

To miss Adeline,
The most kindred of kindred spirits, a sister from the Tribe of Joseph if ever any one was, it has been delightful.

To call you "sweet" would be a gross oversight, because you are the very definition of the word "fabulous", in fact, I'm not entirely certain any such word was in existence until you walked into this world shining from the very roots of your hair. I don't need to wonder where you are now, because I know as an absolute certainty that you are in the very front of God's choir singing Christmas carols the very loudest of any angel around, your face lit with joy and projecting to the back of that cathedral like nobody's business. You are not wearing any old boring white robe, but a bright purple, sequined, puffed sleeved gown, you also don't need a halo because your face is framed by your hair and in your hair are a multitude of glittering sparkles that only the most heavenly of hairdressers could ever have styled. Yes, these things I am certain of.

As for us down here, aside from basking in the beauty of your song, we are doing our very best to keep every memory alive and well. Since the first day I met you, you have been both an inspiration and the greatest encouragement anyone could ever ask for. I yearn to be back in your classroom, discussing the frustrations of felt story-boards and the many joys of all things glittery and shiny. I remember the very first thing I ever made for you; it was a little paper house filled with a little tissue-paper family, most of them made out of the color purple. I remember that when I gave it to you, you were 100% genuinely pleased and that made me feel like the queen of miniature-making. It encouraged me to continue. I can honestly say that I would not be where I am, if it were not for you. The last time I saw you, you were as full as spunk as any sassy girl of eight, purple sparkles, purple suit, purple shoes. You greeted me the same as every week "My special girl! How has your week been?" you asked me, as you always do, if I've written a book yet, your candle-bright eyes keen to tease out my plot-line.

Throughout the years, you have taught me that the most lady-like thing in the world is to do the things you are gifted with as much as you possibly can and in the best way you possibly can, you have shown me that the height of sophistication is in being your absolute only self without apology, because no apology is needed, and most importantly you have taught me that God wants every thing we can give him without discrimination- he wants every doodle, every scribble, every silly tune that doesn't make any sense at all. In the entire time I've known you, I've never heard a cross word fall from your lips. When you walk into a room, your joyful spirit lights every little corner with grace and love. Everyone will always smile when they think of you because even when there is nothing in particular to smile about, that's exactly what you are doing.

I want you to know that every time I make things, I can't wait to tell you about them on Sunday mornings. I want you to know that, every time I wear purple I think of your incredible, fantastic, purple wardrobe. I want you t know that sparkles will forever be the most fashionable accessory a woman could ever wear. And I want you to know that I'm finishing my book. I didn't know it before, but you're in it, and you're my favorite character. I'm going to bind you a copy and you'll get it the next time I see you. Save a seat for me in the soprano section.

With all of my love,

Your girl,
Elaina

Waltz of the Wild Flowers

One, two, three, dance, two three,

There is a scent on the west wind you see.

White, two, three, gold, two three,

Bobbing and darting and ssssssh! two, three.

A rustle of leaves (the columbine’s cape),

And all of the grasses look down towards the lake.

Dip, two, three, turn, two, three,

Something is caught in the current’s harsh spree.

Bob, spin, dive, dunk, two, three,

Why, yes it’s the dandy and just look at his glee!

He leaps to the shore, with nary a scrape,

And grabs hold of Queen Anne, for fear he’ll be late.

One, two, three, bow, two, three,

The lace bends down low to the ground, two, three.

Leap, two, three, tug, two, three,

The mane of a lion set free, two, three,

And then through the trees, a much harsher gale,

Stirs up all the petals – Goodbye! (two, three).

Potato Roses

First off, I apologize that after such a long gap in posting I'm putting up another recipe. This is not a food blog, I promise!

Alright, on to the recipe:


Potato Roses
Serves: 5 (2 roses per serving)

What you will need:
3 large potatoes
1/2 lb of bacon (or any other meat)
1/2 cup broccoli steamed and finely cut (optional)
8 eggs
Milk
vanilla
salt
pepper
dried basil flakes
garlic powder

cooking spray
butcher knife
pairing knife
Vegetable peeler (optional)
medium sized frying pan
mediem sized mixing bowl
whisk
vegetable steamer
2 LARGE muffin tins


Directons:

Alright, now that you've assembled all of your materials we're ready to get started.
Don't forget to wash your hands!

1: Cut your half lb of bacon (or, you know, what ever meat you chose!) into very small pieces and fry them over medium heat until they are done, but not too crunchy (this will ensure that they won't burn when you put the roses in the oven)

2: While you're frying your meat, cut 1/2 cup of broccoli into small pieces, and try not to include too much of the stem, as it doesn't ever get very soft. Fill the bottom of your steamer with about 1 1/2 inches of water and put it over medium heat, placed the broccoli in the top half, sprinkle on a little but of salt, place the lid on and you're free to forget about it for at least a little while.

Don't forget to stir your bacon!

3: Your bacon shouldn't have taken too long to fry, so once you've checked that it is cooked how you want it, take it off the heat and you can now forget about it too. Just don't forget it too well or your quiche filling won't be as satisfying as it should be.

Spray ten of the cups in your muffin tins with lots (and I mean LOTS) of cooking spray. No, you don't have enough yet. Now, my tins have six cups on each, so if you forgot that you only needed ten sprayed and you sprayed all twelve, just but a little bit of water in the extra two, and it will keep the oil from baking on.

4: Now, you do have 3 large potatoes, don't you? (Just thought I'd ask because I didn't and I wished I had). Good. Scrub them down under warm water and cut the ends off.

You can remember your broccoli now. Is it soft enough? If it is, turn off the heat. If it isn't, forget about it again and go back to your potatoes, but not before you set your oven to 350

5: Alright, now were going to peel or pair very thin slices of potato. You can either go half way across or the whole way across, but I find the first way easiest. These have to be very thin! As you peel, place the slices inside the muffin cups. You want them overlapped, so that the edge with the skin is the edge that's touching the pan and about a quarter of each slice bends onto the bottom. It will be much easier to get them out this way. Have you gone all the way around the edges of your first cup? If your broccoli isn't done by now, you probably want to check that you actually turned your stove on. Alright, this next slice doesn't need to be quite so thin, and you definitely want the whole circle, just plop that thing in the center of you muffin cup and repeat nine more times.

6: Go ahead and put your meat at the bottom of your muffin cups.

7: Crack your eight eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk to your hearts content. Add some milk. I'm sorry that I apologize for never measuring the amount of milk I put it, but 1 cup should do it.

8: Stir in your steamed broccoli.

9: A pinch salt, a little vanilla, a dash of pepper. I don't measure those either, but you don't need very much.

10: Stir it all together and then using a measuring cup, pour the batter into you muffin tins.

Bake on convection for 25-30 min... you did set your oven to heat, didn't you?

DING!

11: Take them out of the oven, sprinkle on your garlic and basil, serve them onto a platter and take them to the dinner table.

12: Now you can eat, of course, since you've put so much time into them, you may not really want to eat your roses, but since it's dinner time you should eat them anyway.

I'm sorry, but you will have to wash the dishes.




P.S. I promise that I'll put up step-by step pictures for this before TOO long.

Chocolate Angel Parfait

It was my day to make dessert today, and I just couldn't find anything that sounded interesting enough, so a made up a little something instead! Enjoy :)

Although this recipe is a fairly long time in preparation, it is most definitely worth the result!

Serves Six

1 small small container of heavy whipping cream

1 pound of medium to small strawberries

Chocolate Pudding

Chocolate biscuits.

Mix up a your batch of chocolate pudding and put it in a bowl in the fridge to chill.

Cocolate Biscuits:

Heat oven to 450

2 Cups Flour

3 tps Baking Powder

1 tsp salt

1/4 sugar

1/3 cup cocoa powder    Mix dry ingredients

2/3 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

1 egg           Mix wet ingredients into your dry ingredients

Liberally flour your cutting board and kneed your mixture until in can be rolled out. Use extra flour if necessary. Roll out the dough and cut it into circles small enough to fit into the glasses you will use. Bake for 7-9 minutes. Let cool on a rack.

Wash your strawberries and separate six of them from the rest. From the remaining strawberries, cut half into very small pieces, set these aside in bowl (you might want to put them in the fridge), slice the rest of the strawberries long-ways and set these aside in a bowl in the fridge.

Mix up your whipping cream. I like to use two tablespoons of sugar (or a little less than that of agave if you prefer) and a liberal amount of vanilla, I never measure. Next, separate about half of the whipping cream into a bowl and mix in the finely cut strawberries, put both bowls of whipping cream in the fridge to keep cool.

Layer 1:

Take out your pudding (it should have only taken it two or three hours to cool), give it a good mix, and, using a dinner spoon, scoop three spoons-full into the bottom of six goblets.

Layer 2:

Take out your long-ways strawberries and put a layer of them on top of the pudding. Sprinkle them with plenty of sugar.

Layer 3:

Cut six of the biscuits in half and put the bottom half on top of the strawberry layer, cut side up.

Layer 4:

Take out your strawberry-whipped-cream mixture, and put a thin layer on top on the biscuit.

Layer 5:

Put the top half of the biscuits in the goblet, cut-side down.

Layer 6:

Another layer of strawberry-whipped-cream

Layer 7:

A thin layer of pudding

Layer 8:

Take out your plain whipped cream, and fill the rest of the goblet with it.

Toppings:

Break six more biscuits in half and place two halves near the edge of each goblet. With the whole strawberries that you set aside in the beginning, cut them almost to the top long-ways, but leave them connected, spread them out, and place them in front of your chocolate biscuit halves; these are your "Angels".

Serve and enjoy!

Tomorrow's Lemon Meringue pie. YUM. 

King of the Mountain: A Satisfying Depiction

He sits there, on the portico, the summer wind blowing into his amber eyes, stimulating him to breathe in the beautiful scents that prevail upon his rather prominent nose. He is surveying his kingdom, this prince with the chocolate brown tones and soft expression of wisdom in his half-closed eyes. He watches the grass sway against the hills, and notices how lovely and supple are the birds that fly overhead. Then, distinctly, he hears a sound that makes the short hairs on the back of his neck stand shaft-for-shaft in excitement. Away in a thicket, at the far side of his personal gardens, stands a stag, tall and proud in his defiance of the young lord’s boundaries. In one leap the prince abandon’s his palace and races across a grassy hillock towards this intruder of his privacy. Ears flapping comically in the breeze of his action, yet stately in the defense of his country, this holder of land charges towards the stag, ready for an even victory.

Padraig Falls

Another short story.

The wind raved against the cliffs of Moher which overlook the Irish sea. Padraig always came here on the first Saturday of spring, he used to bring his younger siblings, but both Niamh and Gaelen had grown out of coming with him to hear him tell a story about what all of the magical sea creatures of the ancient Celts. Instead they slept in as late as they could and spent the day in someone’s garage, hanging out and eating as much junk food as they could get their hands on. Padraig laid his jacket on the ground at the edge of one of the tallest cliffs and sat on it (so as to avoid getting too wet), swinging his legs against the cliff. Without thinking he started telling one of his stories aloud to the seagulls and various little creatures around him…

            “They used to say that there were selky people who basked on that rock down there, and out in the waves were mermaids riding on their water Kelpies, watching us human folk make a fool of ourselves with our clumsy legs here on land while they slipped easily through the salty water of the great sea. What the folks who said that didn’t know, is that it were true. See, they’d forgotten where the stories had come from…” while he spoke Padraig adjusted his position so that he was laying on his back with his head resting on his hands and listening contentedly to the waves below and the sound of the gulls in the air. “Even the descendants of the traveling folk had completely forgotten how they’d come to be called that.” Just when Padraig was beginning to feel completely relaxed he rolled over to the wrong side and felt himself falling, falling -- to the arms of the waves waiting far below. At first, he tried to gain his senses in the few moments it took before he struck forcefully upon the water, but even if he had been able to, there was no handhold on the sheer cliff from which he had fallen, so he let himself relax and reconciled his life to the roaring sea which was about to consume him.

           

The moment that he hit the water he was certain that he had died, for there was first a smarting collision and then all of his limbs were numb, his eyes were closed, and he couldn’t hear a single sound over the ringing in his ears. He didn’t struggle, as some do when they assume themselves to be dead or on the verge of death; instead he allowed sensation to wash over him. It was oddly comforting, after the fall, to be in a state of total isolation from his body, which he was sure must be feeling vast amounts of pain. The noise in his ears grew louder and then subsided. Presently he began to notice faint whispers of something familiar; a lulling rhythm filled his whole body as the ache from the fall tingled into his consciousness. So he wasn’t dead. Bracing himself for the sting of salt water, he squinted open his eyes. Nothing. He opened them wider, straining to see or feel something in them. It was too bright to see anything, but the light didn’t seem to hurt his eyes. For that matter, even the irritation to his body that he assumed to be a bruise from striking the water seemed very mild when he compared it to what he thought he should have felt.

            The familiar sound in Padraig’s ears grew less distant from him and thought that it must be the waves, striking against him and whatever he was resting on, because he couldn’t be under the water if his eyes didn’t hurt. Through the vast amounts of light flooding in past his lashes, Padraig noticed a small black shape drifting above him. A seagull? There wasn’t much that it could be, but it must be closer that he first thought, because it was very large. He wiggled his toes. Still intact. Sitting up, he glanced further around him. It appeared that he was in a dream of sorts, probably the result of being knocked out by the force of the fall, and that he was sitting inside a ring of alternated pillars and white trees. On the ground under his feet were patterns of light, almost like when you shine a flashlight on tub full of water and the ceiling ends up covered in web-like strands of light.

            “Why were the travelling folk called what they were?” The voice came from behind the nearest tree.

Padraig peered around the trunk to find a boy who bore a striking resemblance to his little brother, when he was younger. “You were listening, then?” He asked, though the answer was obvious.

“I always listen.” The boy replied “So?”

“Well, Truth is, I don’t know either. Nobody could ever tell me. But I think it must be that they were the children of the nymphs who had to leave time and time again, when their lands were settled by humans.”

The boy nodded and then his attention seemed to be diverted by something. He looked up at the gull that Padraig had noticed a minute before and said “I always hate this part.”

“What part?” Padraig looked up, too and saw that another, larger, thing was moving its way towards the bird. Afraid that it was a predator of some sort he yelled, trying to scare it off, but it didn’t alter its course. “What’s it doing?”

“Watch.” The boy said “You’ll see”.

Padraig watched, and as he did he saw that the larger thing was nothing at all like a bird, and little disturbances puddled around the thrusts of its movements, almost like water around the paddles of a boat. A boat in the sky? Someone leaned out of the boat and reached towards the gull, which he realized was not a gull at all, but a person. As man in the boat’s arms went around whoever he was saving Padraig felt his bruises throb as though in sympathy. He sucked in his breath. “What is it?” His bruises still hurt.

“Its…” the boy’s voice trailed off.

Padraig grew angry as the boat in the sky moved away with its newest member “What was that, and why is it there?!” when the boy gave no answer her grew frantic, his mind bursting with questions “Who are you anyway? Answer me! Why do you look as though that thing was -- was dead?” He realized he was shaking this boy who looked like his little brother

The boy moved his gaze from the retreating object and turned his now baleful eyes upon Padraig. “Couldn’t you tell?” Great tears welled up in his eyes “Never mind. You’ll find out soon enough.” The boy’s face brightened as if by force “I’m Alan. Come on, I’m going to take you to meet Maisey, you were talking about her earlier.”

“I don’t know anyone named-“

“You know Maisey. She’s the slekie, she’s…”

Feeling a little bit ashamed of himself Padraig followed behind Alan and thought through what he’d seen and felt. And then he did know. As they came upon a lake of perfectly crystalline water and saw the selkie-girl, Maisey, he knew exactly what he had seen. Suddenly, Padraig knew why Alan looked so much like his brother. There had been an uncle who died before he turned twelve

“They say he fell off the cliff while he were on a forbidden walk. They brought ‘is body back in a boat the next day, poor little man. Didn’t know what hit ‘im.” Padraig remembered the conversation from long time ago, after someone had asked him who he belonged to and the looked sadly at a friend and told them the story of uncle Alexander. “The mother was never too well after that, Mairead the sad, folk called her… ‘till she jumped in, herself. Though -- she were never quite right, even before that, you know -- always walking to the cliffs alone with….” He couldn’t remember the rest of the conversation, but he could guess it.

He looked at Alan, finding it hard to ask the question; “It was me, wasn’t it?”, and Alan nodded solemnly. “It’s true,” he whispered

“What about Niamh and Gaelen?”

Uncle Alan furrowed his eyebrows “You never know”. He said “But… I think they’ll be alright”.

They continued towards Maisey and Padraig smiled as he greeted his grandmother, the selkie, for the first time. Because that had been true as well.