Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Hello, Everybody. Hope your Christmas and Hannukas were steller, and that everyone is well and happy this morning.
So here is a funny story. At the end, there will be a request for baklava recipes, which I need ASAP, please.
***
Remember my posting about trying to find Italian cookies and baklava to send husband Italian mom for Christmas? And then the online bakeries stopped taking orders? And then we found delicious Italian cookies right here in our own town.
And beautifully packaged baklava at, of all places, Sam's Club?
So, there was extra baklava after we shipped the mom's package. We had some, and shipped the rest off to granddaughter with her Christmas package ~ almost as an afterthought, we did this.
She loved the baklava, of course.
Her Greek boyfriend is at his family Christmas this week.
Does anyone see where this is going?
So, because granddaughter really does believe I am like, Mary Poppins with a bullet in the grandmothering department, and because the baklava had come wrapped in foil and not in a commercial package...she told the boyfriend, who was so happy to be having his grandma's homemade baklava at his family's Christmas celebration, that she was very sure her grandmother's baklava, which she was currently consuming, was better than his grandma's baklava.
So they decided to have an ugly sweater party when he returns, the highlight of which will be the Battle of the Grandmothers' Baklava.
Granddaughter was horrified to discover I had not made the baklava we sent. She was more horrified still to realize I have never made baklava in my life, and that, being Italian and not Serbian, her great-grandmother (husband mom) had no family recipe to give me, as she has never made baklava, either.
So I am going to give it a shot. I am going to find a recipe, and make and send her some baklava. And from this Christmas on, I will make and send baklava to our granddaughters, along with the recipe, and the story of how and why the tradition was begun.
I love the idea of doing this, and of creating that story and tradition for our family.
The thing is, from what I have heard, baklava is more an art form than just the cooking of something. It is layers and layers of paper thin pastry, walnuts or pecans, honey. I don't know what else.
The baklava needs to go out this week.
***
Here is another funny story about this same granddaughter.
Also having to do with food.
So, one day about two years ago, she asked me to send her some banana bread.
We bought the bananas and, as they ripened and ripened, took pictures of them. husband was holding the ripening bananas in one picture. In another, the bananas are sitting beside the dog. In another, they are being held by a spooky, Hallowe'en decoration skeleton's bony fingers. Then, we took pics of the cooking of the bread. Then, of the packaging.
Finally, we sent the bread.
And received so many pictures back of the things those slices of banana bread got to do!!!
One picture was of a slice of banana bread silhouetted against the rising sun.
One was of a slice of banana bread at the top of some wilderness area she and her boyfriend had hiked up to.
One was the banana bread, riding in the car.
:O)
Isn't it sweet and funny, the things we get into with our grands?
Cedar
Has anyone made baklava?
So here is a funny story. At the end, there will be a request for baklava recipes, which I need ASAP, please.
***
Remember my posting about trying to find Italian cookies and baklava to send husband Italian mom for Christmas? And then the online bakeries stopped taking orders? And then we found delicious Italian cookies right here in our own town.
And beautifully packaged baklava at, of all places, Sam's Club?
So, there was extra baklava after we shipped the mom's package. We had some, and shipped the rest off to granddaughter with her Christmas package ~ almost as an afterthought, we did this.
She loved the baklava, of course.
Her Greek boyfriend is at his family Christmas this week.
Does anyone see where this is going?
So, because granddaughter really does believe I am like, Mary Poppins with a bullet in the grandmothering department, and because the baklava had come wrapped in foil and not in a commercial package...she told the boyfriend, who was so happy to be having his grandma's homemade baklava at his family's Christmas celebration, that she was very sure her grandmother's baklava, which she was currently consuming, was better than his grandma's baklava.
So they decided to have an ugly sweater party when he returns, the highlight of which will be the Battle of the Grandmothers' Baklava.
Granddaughter was horrified to discover I had not made the baklava we sent. She was more horrified still to realize I have never made baklava in my life, and that, being Italian and not Serbian, her great-grandmother (husband mom) had no family recipe to give me, as she has never made baklava, either.
So I am going to give it a shot. I am going to find a recipe, and make and send her some baklava. And from this Christmas on, I will make and send baklava to our granddaughters, along with the recipe, and the story of how and why the tradition was begun.
I love the idea of doing this, and of creating that story and tradition for our family.
The thing is, from what I have heard, baklava is more an art form than just the cooking of something. It is layers and layers of paper thin pastry, walnuts or pecans, honey. I don't know what else.
The baklava needs to go out this week.
***
Here is another funny story about this same granddaughter.
Also having to do with food.
So, one day about two years ago, she asked me to send her some banana bread.
We bought the bananas and, as they ripened and ripened, took pictures of them. husband was holding the ripening bananas in one picture. In another, the bananas are sitting beside the dog. In another, they are being held by a spooky, Hallowe'en decoration skeleton's bony fingers. Then, we took pics of the cooking of the bread. Then, of the packaging.
Finally, we sent the bread.
And received so many pictures back of the things those slices of banana bread got to do!!!
One picture was of a slice of banana bread silhouetted against the rising sun.
One was of a slice of banana bread at the top of some wilderness area she and her boyfriend had hiked up to.
One was the banana bread, riding in the car.
:O)
Isn't it sweet and funny, the things we get into with our grands?
Cedar
Has anyone made baklava?