Pick prickly pears with leather gloves on your hands. Take off spines. Rinse the fruit and place in kettle, adding enough water to cover. Boil until quite tender, squeeze through jelly bag or jelly press. To every 2 1/2 cups of juice add 1 (1 3/4 oz.) package powdered pectin and boil for a couple minutes. Then add 3 tablespoons lemon juice and 3 1/2 cups sugar. Stir often and boil hard for 5 minutes. Pour in jelly glass and seal with paraffin.
The days of yesteryear. A wardrobe was a valuable commodity for any woman. Each piece was held in high regard and was carefully stitched by hand or treadle machine. Quality workmanship was essential, as there were not discount stores to buy a quick replacement if stitching wore out. Each outfit was carefully planned and accessorized. And extras were the exception, not the rule. The result, some very well dressed women! The stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the emphasis given to sewing her wedding trousseau has always held much fascination for me!
Tea rooms come in all shapes and sizes! I wonder, would this one fits the criteria established for a proper 'afternoon tea'? Watch out for stray cowboys!
Auntie and I have started a special tradition. Whenever I visit her in her home, we have an afternoon of 'tea' together. We are both passionate about 'afternoon tea', but with perspectives that differ somewhat. That doesn't matter, though, as both methods of 'tea' are memory makers. My interest in 'afternoon tea' focuses on the ettiquette and service of tea in the Americanized Victorian style. Three tiered trays containing sandwices, scones, and sweets; a pot of tea; and toppings of clotted cream, lemon curd, and jams. Auntie's teas are a result of the thirty years she lived in Europe and the many trips she took to England each summer. She creates an afternoon tea that is a lovely 'high tea'. Salads, a relish tray, cheesy scones, and boiled eggs create the main course of aunt's teas. She adds clotted cream, jams, apple butter, applesauce, tea breads, cookies, cream and sugar, and a pot of hot, English tea. Her favorite china, Beatrix Potter style, always graces the tabletop. And the best part of all --- hours of intimate conversation and catching up that occurs when we have the opportunity to visit every year or two. Thank you, Aunt, for a lovely afternoon tea! I enjoyed our afternoon tea together in the December sunshine on your front porch!
It is hard to believe that anything is worthwhile, unless there is some eye in common with our own, some brief word uttered now and then to imply that what is infinitely precious to us is precious alike to another mind.
Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time. ~Laura Ingalls Wilder ~
I have always thought of Christmas time as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.
Christmas-that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance– a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.
We enjoyed celebrating Grandma's 102 birthday with her this year. Aunt prepared a lovely, farm-style dinner. Table decor featured red apples and hunter green. Both went well with the beautiful Christmas decorations in her home. Great-uncle was able to attend (he's young at 90, compared to his older sister-in-law!). It was so special to be able to spend time with Grandma and the extended family.