Christmas Packages Part 1

There is not a strong Christmas cookie tradition in my family – when we were young my sister and I would cut and decorate the requisite sugar cookies, but by the time we reached our teens we mostly abandoned this particular tradition. The culprit – no one in our immediate family really likes sugar cookies.

This doesn’t mean that food doesn’t play a large part in our family traditions – Mom makes caramels, turtles, chocolate-covered peanuts, and old-fashioned chocolate fudge. My mother does not actually make fudge most years because my maternal grandmother makes fudge for each of her sons and son-in-laws every Christmas and each of her grandchildren that is out on their own (quite a few of us now), requiring so much cream she should invest in a dairy. [...]

A Thanksgiving Surprise

There are people in my life dealing with real, seemingly unending crises, and I then I wonder why I can’t even manage to post to this site regularly. I try… I really, really do. I’ve been holding on to this great recipe that my Aunt Toni shared with our family on Thanksgiving for cranberry salsa. I need to share it because it’s simple, it’s delicious, and it’s appropriately festive. And it’s a great way to use up any leftover cans of cranberry sauce (you know – that stuff that is unnaturally can-shaped). [...]