Snowed In In Western Washington

I interrupt my coverage of our Thanksgiving holidays to bring you a glimpse of the beginning of our Christmas holiday in the Pacific Northwest.

Some background first. Woodinville, Washington, is a Seattle suburb, located to the east of Lake Washington and just north of the town of Redmond. The average temperature in Woodinville for December is comfortably above freezing--high of 46F, low of 35F. It hardly ever snows here, and when it does, the snow melts away in a blink of an eye. They sand, but do not salt the roads here on principal. Given how little snow usually falls here, there is little snow removal equipment sitting around.

When we arrived here on Thursday, there was already over a foot of snow on the ground. Since Saturday night, at least another 6 inches fell. The temperature yesterday barely edged above the freezing point and went right back down to the low of 27F. And the roads... Well, no one is clearing the local roads. There is just barely enough equipment to clear the highways, and state routes. The buses are running with chains around their rear tires.

As for us, we ventured out with sleds.

Thanksgiving Recap--The Corn Bake Recipe Evolution

My family first tasted the corn bake dish while celebrating Thanksgiving with our family friends, the Polskys. The dish is simple to make, and the result is similar to super moist corn bread.

The Original Corn Bake Recipe
1 egg
½ cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup of sour cream
1 can of cream style corn
1 can of kernel corn drained
1 package of Jiffy corn muffin mix

Mix all the ingredients together (I find it easier to mix in the cans of corn and the muffin mix last). Pour into a greased 9 x 9 inch square dish, cover with foil, bake for about an hour at 325F. Then remove the foil, and bake for another 15-30 minutes till doneness at 375F.


The corn bake dish has been a part of every Thanksgiving dinner for almost two decades. However, this year I decided that it was time for a change--I no longer wanted to stock up on Jiffy muffin mix, and I was disappointed to learn that the corn is not vegetarian because Jiffy muffin mix contains lard.

I used this corn bread recipe—the quickest fastest simplest recipe ever for a decent corn bread—as a point of reference. I also studied the ingredients of the Jiff corn muffin mix, which essentially boiled down to flour, corn meal, baking soda, salt and sugar.

After the first attempt, I decreased the amount of corn meal, and switched to using maple syrup instead of sugar or honey. The second attempt was a success, and that is exactly what mom baked for our Thanksgiving dinner.

The New Corn Bake Recipe
1 cup wheat flour
¾ cups corn meal
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 egg beaten
¼ cup (½ stick) of butter, melted
1 cup plain yogurt (we used low-fat)
3 Tbsp maple syrup (honey can be substituted)
1 can of cream style corn
¼ cup corn (from a can or frozen and thawed; more can be added to taste)

Mix the wet ingredients. Then mix in the dry ingredients. Pour into a greased 9 x 9 inch square dish, cover with foil, bake for about an hour at 325F. Then remove the foil, and bake for another 15-30 minutes till doneness at 375F.

Thanksgiving Recap--The Stuffing Saga

Did you know that most surveys show that stuffing is most people’s favorite Thanksgiving dish. Stuffing, not turkey!

People in my family are not big stuffing eaters, and I knew that Nick and I would be pretty much the only people eating the stuffing. So the goal became to cook the stuffing to please Nick, and the way to please Nick with food is to make it the way Nick’s family made it. A brief conversation with Nick’s mom revealed that she uses a stuffing mix. This was not good enough, because I was determined to cook everything from scratch. The search for the perfect recipe continued.

Nick’s mom makes a relatively simple stuffing—bread cubes, seasoning from the mix (probably poultry seasoning), celery and onion sautéed in butter, lots of sage. So I had to eliminate any recipe that called for nuts, dried fruit, berries, sausage, mushrooms, or other similarly “exotic” ingredients. The remaining choices were slim. After eliminating Martha Stewart’s recipe that mysteriously required eggs, I was left with a New York Times stuffing recipe where the only ingredient not mentioned by Nick’s mom was vinegar.

I ran out of turkey broth and did not feel adventurous enough to add more water, so the result was a bit dry. However, the stuffing tasted quite good in the spots where I managed to pour enough broth, so the next attempt should be a lot more palatable.

Breaking The Silence

I just wanted to reassure all of you that I am still around, and I did not give up on my blog. I just had to put it on the back burner while cooking and card printing required all of my energy and creativity. Thanksgiving is over, so I am done with scanning recipes till my eyes hurt, making shopping lists and cooking schedules, and more importantly I am done cooking till 2am for awhile. A full report on the ups and downs of my Thanksgiving cooking spree is coming soon… but not before the Craft Fair.

That’s right. I signed up to participate in the Craft Fair at work, and it is this Thursday. While I have spent hours drawing and cutting linoleum, my inventory is still very low. So for the next five days I will be printing, printing and printing. Did I mention printing?

Wish me luck!

Here Comes Moyshe Haim

You may remember a somewhat legendary story about Moyshe Haim that I posted in September. Well, now I know what he looked liked. Tetya Rosa, thank you so much for scanning in these wonderful old photographs and emailing them to us.

In the photo above, Moyshe Haim is sitting down with his wife Mati (Matilda may have been her full name). Their two daughters, Dora (on the left) and Eva, are standing behind them. Dora is my great grandmother--my grandfather's mother.

I was intrigued that the photo has English writing on it--"cabinet portrait," so I looked it up. "Cabinet portrait" seems to refer to the photograph's format, which originated in England in mid 19th century and soon became very popular. Judging from other old photographs that say "cabinet portrait" on them, I think the back of the photo may have more information about where and when the photo was taken.

What I Worked On Most of the Weekend

Another Confession

Last Saturday I had a beer—my very first bottle of beer.

I know that this fact is hard to believe, but the truth is that I have never liked beer. And it was not for the lack of trying. I have tasted other peoples’ beers. I have ordered shot size samplers at restaurants. I have gone to beer tastings at breweries. All of those beers smelled good, but tasted bad to me.

I have more or less given up, and assumed that, just like my mother, I simply do not like any beer. That was until a few months ago, when I tried a Japanese white ale at a party. At last there was the beer I actually enjoyed drinking as well as smelling.

So last Saturday, when we went to have dinner at The Publick House in Brookline, famous for their enormous beer selection, I decided that I was finally ready to have a beer. The restaurant carried several Belgian white ales, and Nick picked Wittekerke for me. So there it was—my first beer, ordered specifically for me, consumed and enjoyed entirely by me.