Nope, no 25th yet.

Milk Pail is on vacation for five weeks, so I decided to try out the fishermen again who’ve teamed up with a few local farmers.

Oysters harvested Wednesday were on their list. I was curious. They were hand-delivered today and I realized I suddenly had to get serious about figuring out what to do with the little ocean geodes.

We hadn’t bought rock salt since making ice cream the hand-crank way when the kids were little and we replaced that with an electric one pretty early on, being, y’know, fast learners and all that.

The rock salt is to smush them into to hold them in place curvy side down so the juices don’t leak out. Oh. Huh. I ended up balancing them on each other just so, sort of like a preschooler experimenting with a tinkertoy set, wondering if I could move them into the oven without–whoops, try again.

On the third wobbly try I had them all on their backs facing upwards and I put a small rack across the top to keep them that way. It sorta/almost worked.

I remembered my mom once tackling a huge bag of mussels big enough to feed our family of eight when I was a kid and her telling me, if one is opened before you cook it you throw it away–that one’s dead and it could give you food poisoning. You check to make sure they’re shut tight.

These all looked shut tight to me.

The internet said in multiple places that you could just roast them in the oven at high heat and then the shells would pop right open.

Good, because we’re right out of oyster knives if I even knew what one looked like.

450F seven minutes and then you can have your still-raw oysters!

Uh…

Ten minutes. Checked. No popping open. Put it back in for another minute. As if. Then, what the heck, four more.

At that point it smelled wonderful and there were signs of bubbling juices so I figured they were done.

You know how many had cracked open?

One. A second one teased that it might. There were thirteen.

Well huh.

I went looking for a camping knife: I once bought a bunch of random mismatched silverware at Goodwill for not caring if a piece got left behind outside some tent somewhere. Turns out I’d long since let them go back to where they’d come from.

I had one dinner knife–Magnum Lauffer, no less, but still–whose handle had separated slightly from the blade, which I had long rued. It never fell apart but it never felt good in the hand. So that one was the victim, and I went at it.

Most of them actually opened without too much hassle. There were a couple where the oyster was bigger than its outer shell was letting on and they weren’t letting go that easily. I now understand whoever created oyster knives. I don’t *think* the very tip of that rounded blade was broken off before but it is now and I’m just glad no shards, not shell nor metal, hit me in the eye. But they tried. Yay glasses.

So were they way overcooked? I’d say the texture was actually pretty surprisingly perfect. And the flavor was as fresh as I’ve ever had.

Chewy seawater.

I’d order more, but I think next time Costco is going to do the work. Even if those jars won’t give me the shellfish stock that’s in the fridge waiting for tomorrow’s chowder.

Well, that was a day that started off really well–and Ossoff and Warnock’s victories in the Georgia runoffs meant that suddenly Mitch McConnell was making the kind of speech this evening he should have been making his last thirty-plus years in the Senate, calling for bipartisanship and appealing to history and our country’s ideals. Now that he’s finally losing his Majority Leader status.

And after he and those around him had fled for their lives from the rioters (Klobucher, looking at her phone: “Shots fired”) invading the Capital.

After they hustled all the Senators, aides, and reporters present into a secure spot–whoops, it’s not, they’re in there, too, go in over here now–someone realized that Tammy Duckworth wasn’t with them because her wheelchair can’t do the route they took. They sent someone to rescue her from the office she’d had to barricade without legs, with a specific phrase from Sen. Klobuchar to let her know it was okay to open the door. She did indeed get rescued.

Props to the Parliamentarian’s aides who said, Help us grab the electoral votes! in the middle of the craziness. Big heavy boxes.

Note that Trump replaced the head of the Capital police last year, that some of them were taking selfies with the rioters and that there is video of a few of them moving the gates out of the way and letting the rioters in. Note that when Mayor Bowser asked for the DC National Guard to come to their aid, she was denied.

Whose signature was on the order for them to come after all?

Mike Pence’s.

Pence has zero authority to–

–unless–

–unless he’s already signed another paper. Article 25 puts him instantly in charge if they invoked it while they were all huddled down there. Wouldn’t even need the Cabinet in that case.

One can only fervently hope.

I heard back from my doctor’s office: whether I had covid in February or not is irrelevant in terms of my susceptibility to getting it again (I had told them I didn’t want to take the place of someone who needed it if I didn’t; they said, but you do) and so with my medical history I am in tier 1c and should receive my vaccine in a few weeks.

Very glad I checked.

The Washington Post was reporting on hospitals in southern California, where they’ve been far less compliant with public health protocols than the much stricter and earlier-onset ones we’ve been on, and they are now running out of oxygen to give patients and even the in-home concentrators like my dad was on before he died in Oct ’19 are in short supply.

If only the current administration were actually doing a decent job of rolling out the vaccine. (Today’s disclosure: rich donors were able to buy their way in in Florida.)

To which someone out there responded in the comments:

“Train Amazon drivers to give the vaccines. Everyone would be vaccinated by Saturday, Wednesday if you have Prime.”

Come on, Georgia, we’re counting on you. The whole country will be celebrating with you! And then we can get these vaccinations off the ground.

I was wondering when what tier would go next so I looked it up and was gobsmacked at how few doses there were out there right now.

My state says check with your county. My county says check with your provider’s system. My provider’s system says check with Public Health over at the county. The bottom line: they ain’t got’em and there’s no system and there’s no plan.

In two weeks there will start to be one, if we have the votes in place to make the government govern. Go Georgia!

Meantime, we do have some doses being held for an unspecified other county that doesn’t have the equipment to accept them. So, what, are they going to life-flight them to Monterey to beat the clock on the hours they can be out of the fridge?

I do wonder, though, why the run-off is being held after the new Congress is sworn in: because what that does is make the winners the least-senior members of the Senate. That used to matter in terms of what committee assignments you got to have.

My grandfather was there from 1950-1974 and when he retired, he resigned I forget if it was a day early or a week early so that his successor could have first choice over all the other incoming freshmen and a quicker trajectory towards potential future chairmanships.

It caused a bit of a stir.

Would that today’s Republicans looked for such harmlessness in their loopholes.

There’s art (these wire sculptures are gorgeous.)

And then there’s… art?

South Carolina decided to redo its flag after the massacre at the Mother Immanuel Church, doing away with the Confederate emblem at long last.

What I hadn’t realized is they haven’t finished deciding what they want to replace it with.

Thanks to the New York Times, I finally get why they call it the palmetto state: during the Revolutionary War, the British fired on their fort but it was made of palmetto logs and those held off the cannonballs.

We once had a palm tree cut down and it took three men three days because that wasn’t a trunk, that was a swirl of thick tough fibers that jammed the chainsaws again and again and nearly refused to go. So yes, I could definitely see those holding off cannon balls, and whoever cut them down had a huge job.

The state had what they thought was a stylized modernized palmetto silhouette–and then they asked what people thought of it.

No possible way. No flapping fabric toilet brushes in the breeze up there, just, no.

My mom and siblings and Richard’s would get a kick out of this one because we know that area and watched it change over the years. I imagine the horses’ hooves once clopped along between the farms there.

Fifty years ago, the couple that would later become Starland Vocal Band (who knew they lived in Georgetown!) were trying to come up with a song to sell to Johnny Cash as they were driving through Gaithersburg, Maryland heading to a family reunion on the other side of the Potomac. Going home: now there’s a theme to riff from.

Take Me Home Clopper Road just didn’t quite…have that ring to it. Almost Heaven–that down-home feel? (Re the guy’s home state.) With Boston? Johnny Cash? No.

They opened for John Denver his first night performing in DC and he came to their place afterwards asking did they have any other songs? They pulled out that starter verse and the three of them brainstormed.

The next night they were on stage again and when the audience wanted an encore, Denver said, Well, I haven’t learned the words yet this is brand new so hang on a moment, and got out the scotch tape so he could read off the paper.

From that long and standing ovation that said they really had something there, to his first platinum hit. Even if most of the scenery described is more western Virginia than West Virginia.

None of them had actually ever been to West Virginia at that point but it’s now an official state song.

I’m not a big sweets person but I’d still add a bit more sugar and a bit less salt to the recipe I linked to yesterday. But it was good and between us it’s half gone now.

I refrigerated it till it was just a bit cool, not cold, and then got impatient and turned it over and unmolded it unsure just how this was going to work at all when the edges curl in over the bottom of the cake but then it just did it all on its own, it felt like. That was easy!

When the local yarn stores can have gatherings again, when the pandemic is kicked out of here, we should definitely celebrate with yarn cakes. Lemon raspberry like this, chocolate, chocolate hazelnut; anybody’s favorite is good by me.

(Y’know? That last photo? Kind of looks like a relaxed Shar-pei curled up in its favorite spot.)

There’s this phenomenon where, when you’re driving, you have a tendency to steer towards what you’re looking at whether you intend to or not.

I’m guessing with the out-of-state plates that someone was in awe of the Pacific ocean laid out at last before her…and realized a moment too late to correct. (Don’t look if it’s too hard.) But the bumper in a pocket of the cliff suggests that bounces along the way down absorbed a lot of the momentum and saved her as she landed cushioned at last by the sandy beach. The tide had deposited just a bit more specifically there, waiting for the moment.

The road was a hundred feet above her but she lived and her injuries were deemed serious rather than critical. I so feel for her and wish I could do something to help her healing, an afghan to wrap herself in to know she is cared about, whoever she is, but then those who attended to her clearly did a great job in the way that was actually needed.

I guess those pictures for me stand in for all those we’ve prayed for this year, all those we’ve worried about, and in too many cases lost and grieved. We’ll be telling Brad’s koi story forever–and in his memory we have been relentlessly careful about sheltering in place.

The vaccines are coming.

The woman’s Prius (I have an old one too) will never drive again: but it got her through it.

2020 is an utter wreck and thank heavens it’s about to be hauled away into history. But for all of us still here, somehow it saw us through.

—

I wrote all that out, came away thinking, y’know, that’s a bit moody, but it’s been a pretty moody kind of a year–

–and went in the kitchen. Looked at that cheerful pan that’s been waiting for me to get out of the funk I hadn’t quite been admitting to myself. Looked at what I had in the fridge and freezer–raspberries, oh even better. Grated the yellow off a newly-ripened Meyer lemon from the back yard and smelled that beautiful scent of California winters, picked the bits out into the mixing bowl by running a toothpick between the sharp ridges again and again, with the feeling, let’s do this, let’s do this, let’s do this, keep going.

One lemon raspberry creme fraiche  yarn ball cake just came out of the oven, with 65 minutes being just right. (I never have creme fraiche in the fridge. It was my one Christmas ingredient for the year.) I’ll let it finish cooling. Then I can put it in the fridge to solidify the edges enough that I can peel it out of there in great hopes of being able to show it off here–it’ll taste good but I want it pretty, too, darnit, it’s got expectations to live up to.

Turns out the little splatters on the pan turn into crunchy enticing little bits that flip right off into your hand or rubber band across the counter if you’re really into it. Hmm, I think I’d go to a half tsp salt next time. Not hugely sweet. Good.

At the turn of the year the cake should be ready and perfect for a triumphant midnight snack. Get things off to a good start.

Happy New Year!

Last Saturday I was actually starting to feel like baking something festive, y’know, try out that new yarn ball cake pan at last (I’d been avoiding the calories), or make some caramel sauce like my mom always made this time of year and all the possibilities of what I might do with it. Mom always poured it on homemade figgy pudding, but what if I lined my new silicone mini-cupcake molds with chocolate (so they could pop right out after cooling), poured in some cooled sauce, added ganache and chilled it with a raspberry on top…

The oven mitt stockings that a friend laughed and called “The most 2020 thing yet!” came down from the mantle.

The doorbell rang. It was a Christmas present order both for me and for the sake of the local bakery that my kids remember fondly and want to have still be in business when they come back into town.

The youngest on the phone later: Was it from…? Me: Yes. Him: Oh good!

I do believe that was the owner of the bakery himself, masked and handing it to me from arm’s length. He retreated down the walkway and turned: clearly he was hoping to see the look on my face when I opened the box and saw what they’d created. He definitely got what he’d hoped for–my jaw dropped. I looked back up his way and went, Wow!! THANK you!!

He drove off with the biggest smile on his face.

When there are that many calories hanging over you you don’t go making competing ones.

The photo doesn’t quite get the height and depth of the thing. The box stretched across the fridge. It was huge–and very good.

My sweetie enjoyed it for breakfast these past five days; I’m not a big breakfast person and couldn’t bring myself to touch all that sweetness before eleven a.m. but I sure did then. We had it for dessert a few nights. Snacking happened.

Finally, somewhat reluctantly, we watched the last morsels disappear after lunch today. It was time.

I found this recipe tonight and thought, someone was thinking like I was thinking. Maybe I should stuff those chocolate shells-to-be with whipped ricotta instead? Y’know, fewer calories?

Nah. I still want some of Mom’s caramel sauce.

Ooooh, thaaaaat’s it… Maybe.

A friend sent a text a little while ago that randomly mentioned the curfew. I checked: yes, we are in the purple tier now with ambulances being turned away from most hospitals so from 10pm to 5am, she’s right, that applies to our county too now.

Meantime on the immunocompromised front, the grocery app said 7-9 pm was the only available delivery slot today. I was hoping for earlier because last time we took that the guy never showed up other than to cancel at 10.

This time they messaged at 8:15 asking about a substitution and got my okay, so clearly someone was at least checking inventory.

At 9:00 it said, “Your shopper has finished working on your order.”

It’s 11:03, we are a mile from the store, there are no groceries, no updates, and it’s past curfew.

If he/she had to drop off to too many places and ran out of time, what happens to the orders remaining? Please please tell me they don’t make the lowest-ranking guy in the system eat the cost?

(Hope he’s got fridge space for it?)

Update, just before we hit lights out for the night a half hour later: he was on his way. It came!

I cast on for a hat and did one row. So now I have a carry-around project at the ready; it’s a start.

I can’t wait till we can be around friends and strangers again: all those people out there who need to be knitted for and they don’t even know it, sparking that spark.

Going back to last Sunday: the Primary, ie the kids 3 to 12, put on most of the program for church via Zoom of them singing and describing Christmas to us.

One adorable little girl of about five pointed out her family’s tree decorated with lights and balls and a prominent construction-paper garland and the presents beneath and explained to us that the Wise Men had brought the Baby Jesus their treasure chest full of Frankenstein.

You know those monoliths that have been popping up, starting with the metal one in the Utah desert?

Someone set one up on top of, where else could be better, Corona Heights hill in San Francisco. Made of gingerbread. (BBC link.) Frosted around the edges and gum drops for nails.

There’s got to be a word for the type of wide shipping box that opens like a lid and closes with flaps at the end tucking inside their slots.

Turns out that if you’re little enough, and the present is still inside the box after the lid has been opened all the way and it’s heavy enough to counterbalance you, you have an impromptu slide just your size and then you do it again because that was fun and the people on the screen are clapping and cheering you on and this box is the best present ever!

The phone is being its usual slow self re photos but meantime here’s last night’s glamour shot of our Christmas stockings before the Chocolate Cherry Fantasies and Sugar Plums from Andy’s got tucked in there.

With the neighbor’s trees overhanging our house gone now, the holly has berries for the first time in so many years that I’d forgotten it could.

The Christmas tree isn’t up: a few years ago we bought the widest-but-one, fullest, heaviest tree at Balsam Hill for its lack of allergens but this was just not the year for struggling with it.

Which means I didn’t go sorting through the ornament boxes in the garage to find the one with the stockings in it. I asked him his feelings on the subject and he said, apologetically, Well actually bah humbug?

Oh good. Neither one of us had to feel guilty about it, then. (The lights but one have burned out in the garage so it would be one hand on a flashlight and one hand moving and opening boxes.)

We did have a great time of a Christmas Eve, though, wishing Maddy a happy sixth birthday, talking to Mom, and later Zooming with her and my aunt and a whole bunch of cousins–one of whom I hadn’t seen since her wedding in the early 80’s. Aunt Joyce has always thrown a Christmas Eve party for whoever in the family could come and now we all could from wherever we were.

Emily played The Holly and the Ivy on the piano and it was all I could do not to burst into unexpected tears: with her fingertips gone, there were missed notes–but there was so much feeling, so much living, so much rejoicing in those notes, so much forever the musician no matter what and it was a privilege to be able to witness.

Writing that just now led me to Alison Kraus and Yo-Yo Ma’s beautiful Wexford Carol rendition–I have that album. But my CD player did the 2020 thing and repairs have to wait till after the pandemic and yes of course computers and all that but I’ve simply gotten out of the habit.

It hit me that I have needed more music. It has been missing, and a bit of me with it.

As for the stockings: I had to have something, because I’d bought some great treats at Andy’s Orchard to put in them and whatever with the garage, they refused to be denied.

I was standing in the kitchen…

When in Romaine do as the Romaineians.

It’s awfully handy of oven mitts to come with a loop for hanging them. A few long paper/wire twisties that the vegetable crisper doesn’t need anymore, the long thick wire under the mantle we always hang the stockings from waiting for the new set-up, and there you go. No Santa that doesn’t mean your cookies are in the oven and you have to take them out yourself but thank you for offering to help.

I was leaning over the chair taking a picture of the mitts and smashed the back of the rocker into the underside of my nose because 2020 is into slapstick comedy like that.

Next year will be all about the grandkids. As it should be. I can’t wait.