Skating

Los Angeles, California


It's time for a recipe. And I will get to that, down below. However, if you're expecting haute cuisine (but why would you be, here?), you should exit, stage left, pronto. This post isn't about what we take in, at least not food-wise. 


Thanksgiving has come and gone. It was good. We gratefully accepted an invitation to break bread, and turkey, with our friends, Bonnie and Marty. In reverse order of importance: their home is beautiful; the food was fab; other guests were interesting and friendly; we felt warmly welcomed. No small thing when you are changing out holiday celebrations. We spent the afternoon with my mom. Her caregivers, who we think are heaven-sent, took her to afternoon dinner in the dining room of her retirement facility. Hard to write that, but it was ok. Especially for her.


For many years we spent Thanksgiving on the road. Our family celebrated Thanksgiving at a relative's home in Long Beach. After 1998, it was our job to collect the widows -- my mom and aunt, who lived at diagonal opposite ends of the Valley where we live on a middle edge. This was cheerfully done, more or less, though it meant we were on the road for hours -- one year, exactly five. We could have driven to Carmel. But it was my family's Thanksgiving, and we have always been pitchers-in. Plus, I always looked forward to this first holiday celebration which kicked off the season. I enjoyed being with my family. And I miss them.


However, apart from the heavy commute, the unfortunate thing about this annual Thanksgiving celebration was that the relative hosting it was not open to adding anyone in to the celebration -- even those we call splinter relatives, the ones not exactly on the main branches of the family tree. And, like the Shakers, we are a barren lot -- there were no babies who grew to children who grew to adults through the years, either. No cousins' table. Once I asked if I could bring along a friend who was freshly separated from her husband. No, was the reply, to which was added, I don't have enough matching wineglasses. I offered to bring wineglasses, but it wasn't a problem that welcomed fixing. As a result, Thanksgiving turned into a tontine with the older guests disappearing from the table at the end of their lives, including, first, my father, then my favorite aunt. I had promised Billy that when my mom was gone and we were down to four, we would stop going. It was getting more depressing by the year, with the numbers diminishing and the dining room looking dim and brown, like something from Arsenic and Old Lace. Then, something unexpected happened. One of our generation died, and shortly after, my mom needed to move to a retirement village. The Long Beach relatives didn't want to host Thanksgiving that year. And that, was that.


During the years when we carpooled the ladies there, we would sometimes leave my mom in Long Beach to spend the weekend with the relatives. When we left to take my aunt home, she and I always rode in the back seat, talking all the way home. Billy would act as chauffeur. Once we dropped her off at her pretty house in Toluca Lake, we would head for home. Our route took us past St. Charles Borromeo, the Catholic church that Bob Hope and Bing Crosby attended (and helped build) while they lived in Toluca Lake. On the ride home from my aunt's, now late on Thanksgiving evening, I would take A Charlie Brown Christmas from it's jewel case and insert it into the CD player in Billy's car. The first hearing of Christmas music (except in stores since mid-October!). It was our tradition.


I like A Charlie Brown Christmas. I like the spirit of it. I like most of the Vince Guaraldi music. But the main reason why I listen to it is for the tune, Skating. I love this. I have told Billy that if I am ever in a coma, this is what he should play next to my bedside over and over again. It will bring me back to this earth. It's not just the title, though, as a former figure skater, I do like the title. But more than that, I love the evocative nature of it. It does sound like skating -- something that I loved to do beyond anything else in my childhood.


My family started listening to this music back when I was growing up. We also listened to To Wish You a Merry Christmas by Harry Belafonte. Music is, and always was, an important part of the holidays for me. My parents never watched much TV, and so there was often music on in our home. My dad had built our stereo system. Fine fun for a former radio engineer who ended up in aerospace. The receiver tubes were all exposed behind a cabinet door, and I remember once placing a stack of records on top of these tubes where they melted into something that looked like it could be found in outer space. My dad wasn't angry (even though I was taking HIS records off to put MINE on). I had often seen him do this, but hadn't understood that you couldn't do it when the tubes were hot.


I had a similar lack of understanding when I once put a Playdoh ashtray, which I had made for my grandfather's pipe, into the kitchen oven to fire, as I had seen done in school (but with, uh, real clay). The Playdoh dripped through the rack and into a smelly pool at the bottom of my mother's new oven (which came with her new kitchen). Not a similar response to my dad's, when I melted the records. My mother dissolved into hysterical tears, railed at the Gods and asked what was to become of a dangerous person like me? Parents. You really get the yin and the yang there.


But back to Skating, and Christmas music. For the first time in, well, forever, we have not put up a Christmas tree. And, for the first time in, also forever, we will be spending Christmas away from home. We will be in Carmel. Neither Billy nor I have ever spent Christmas anywhere away from Los Angeles. As in, never. We do have some Christmas decorations placed around our house right now, but even those will be packed up and taken up to Carmel. We plan on buying a small tree there, and a wreath. I'm bringing Christmas tableware-- napkins and place mats, and some of our collection of large Christmas mugs which appear the day after Thanksgiving and disappear the day after New Year's.


All our Christmas music will come with us -- CDs and iPod. It wouldn't seem like Christmas without it all, and, of course, without Skating. And, maybe too, there will be actual skating. I haven't laced on skates since I was just out of college, and that's a couple of decades without being in boots and balancing on blades. But I still carry the feeling within me. It's one of the reasons why I love salsa dance. A couple of my partners in salsa know how to spin both of us around quite fast. One of them, Marvin, does this the best. It's the one move that gives me that feeling of wind-in-my-hair flying that I loved the most about skating. That, and your first glide onto the rink from the boards. Feeling the smoothness, or not so smoothness, under your blades. Getting your skates under you, and your body accustomed to the familiar feeling of it all. Whoosh . . .


But now (lots of digressions here), back to that small tree which we plan on buying in Carmel. We won't have many decorations. I have some tiny Italian rooster pitchers, and also Emile Henry pitchers in various colors. They will go on the tree with ribbon, and maybe we will even string popcorn -- one of the very few things I am able to do with a needle and thread. And if we do string popcorn, we will pop some extra for eating. Because one of the things I like almost as much as Skating (and skating) is popcorn. Yes, I know, I'm afraid that's it for this post. I should be ashamed. But, it IS a really good popcorn recipe. I gave up on microwave popcorn at least a decade or so back. This is so much better:


Casa Healy Popcorn


1 tablespoon chili or red pepper olive oil*
1/2 cup good-quality popcorn**
salt (or flavored salt), only if desired


Heat olive oil in 2-quart saucepan over medium heat. I find lighter-weight pans work best. I've tried this in my Le Creuset with lesser success than a plain stainless steel one. And I like a glass lid so I can watch the magic.


In a minute or so, when the oil is beginning to really heat, throw in your popcorn. Place a lid, cocked to allow for steam to escape. When corn starts to pop, gently move/shake pan over the burner. Keep lid very slightly cocked, or hot kernels will find a way to fly out. When popping slows down, take pan off burner and let the popping continue until it is just about stopped (invariably a couple of late boomers will pop while you are pouring the popcorn into a serving container). I use two baskets lined with cloth napkins or paper towels, depending on mood, or the movie we've chosen to watch. They are of differing sizes. I get the largest one. It just happens that way in our house, where popcorn is concerned.


*I've used both Consorzio Roasted Pepper olive oil, and Lucini Fiery Chili Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I've also tried it with Asian chili oil which is way too hot. I learned how to mix that with regular olive oil to tame it. I've also made this with lemon olive oil or a mix of the lemon and chili.


**I like White Cat Corn which I used to purchase at Williams-Sonoma, but they no longer carry it there, at least in my area. I did without for awhile, then found it at Whole Foods on a treasure hunt. More about treasure hunts in a later post . . .


So there it is. The belated first December post complete with music, family remembrances (both good and bad as they always seem to be), skating, and popcorn. A virtual potpourri of what is swirling around me as I begin to pack for Carmel. Hope your holidays (whatever they are) are warm. Hope they are merry and bright. Hope we skate through to a New Year with much happiness, and peace. See you in Carmel and thanks for reading my blog!