Game Nights

The days that fall between Christmas and New Years have always felt a little “outside of time” for me. The hustle and bustle of holiday celebrations calms briefly and I don’t have responsibilities competing for my time. I can catch up with out-of-town friends and the recommended hours of sleep per night. I can read a book cover to cover and still remember the beginning when I get to the end. I can begin to sift through the layers of tissue paper and craft materials blanketing my floor. Or I can wait until tomorrow for that.

There’s also no better time to enjoy a game night with family or friends. I always forget how much I love playing games until I’m laughing so hard I can’t swallow that gulp of water I just took. Efforts not to snort or spit said-water then ensue.

Confession time… I’m a little competitive by nature. Part only-child syndrome, part A-type personality. Which means I wasn’t always the kid other kids wanted to play games with. Because if I won I crowed and if I lost I got really, really grumpy. Or huffy. Or sometimes just plain b*****y in the spirit of honesty. For those who grew up with me who are nodding your heads right now, I assure you I can now be quite civilized whilst playing games. But I have a secret strategy – if I get to choose the game, I typically pick one that’s more about the fun of participation than the sole object of winning. That way I avoid having to manage my frustration when I don’t win. Plus I like the game night vibe it creates.

Here are some of my favorites:

Baker on KP

Christmas time brings seemingly limitless baked goods to kitchen counters and office break rooms and church fellowship halls. I imagine pecan farmers working ‘round the clock to keep up with the chocolatiers in their Willy Wonka factory rooms. Bakers and cake decorators rubbing lotion into chapped hands after long days with rolling pins and frosting bags. Young children standing on stepstools to press a snowman-shaped cookie cutter into gooey dough. Lots of egg shells and discarded butter boxes, a thin film of flour coating kitchen surfaces, and nut pieces that escaped the counter only to crack under a shifting foot.

I’m writing this while waiting for a batch of cookies to complete their 15-minute cycle in the oven before I replace them with the next sheet. I’m settled in for a long winter’s night in the kitchen, smells of cinnamon and brown sugar dancing around my nose.

Baking is a Christmas tradition I grew up with and have every intention of cultivating for the rest of my life. Sometimes I hesitate to contribute to the cultural overdosing on carbs and sugar, but then my timer dings, the oven door opens, and I am content to keep my baker’s cap on for a while longer. Feeding people is a love language for me and love is, after all, a Christmas virtue.

Look At All The People

I've been warming up my oven for the Advent season ... there'll be some baking recipes coming over the feed in coming weeks. 

In the ramping up of the busy holiday season, I am freshly aware of how rough being alone can be, even if the solitude is broken by parties and get togethers and a year's worth of sugar consumption. As you're filling your December calendars, can I encourage you to look around amidst your regular traffic patterns for people who may be running low on nurturing? Ask them to spend an afternoon in the kitchen with you or invite yourself over for a cup of coffee. Make grilled cheese sandwiches. Ask them about their favorite Christmas memories or traditions they want to create, or let them share the tough stuff if they want to. Make them feel like family, even if it's a little awkward.

Grilled cheese sandwiches ... quick-to-make comfort food. When I'm feeling fancy I like to make them with goat cheese, fig preserves, and some julienned basil on a sturdy multigrain bread. Or a sharp cheddar with a few slices of Jarlsberg for a more traditional combo. I outgrew American singles on white bread awhile back. Lightly butter the bread slices and set the pan or griddle on a medium-low setting to give the cheese a chance to melt without burning the bread. 

Conversations: Hosting Dinner Parties

Gathering around the table can look like any number of things. It can be an impromptu weeknight of family style dishes straight from oven to table. It can be paper plates and plastic utensils. It can be dessert and a late night game of cards. And it can be dinner parties.

Dinner parties are a concept I grew up with and have seen plenty of in movies and television, but not as often practiced by my generation. By reputation, I think they have a formality to them that makes some of us shy away from hosting them. But from my experience over the past year, they are a big hit with guests. Dinner parties are a way of saying, “You are special and I’d like to prepare a nice meal and enjoy your company for an evening. And I’d like some of my other friends to enjoy your company as well.” Who’s not going to love that?!

Let’s talk about what throwing a dinner party entails … in two parts: the menu and the hosting.

Conversations: Strangers and Blind Dates

"I agree with Mary Bennet," said no Jane Austen reader ever but I am going to say it just this once. Elizabeth may have been the spunky heroine that girls relate to but Mary had her own wisdom to impart. "I think a ball is a completely irrational way of making new acquaintance. It would be better if conversation, rather than dancing, were the order of the day." Lest my dancer friends spurn me at this juncture, let me say I am not against dancing as a rule - I find it both meaningful in its artistic expression and effective in its ability to generate chemistry between men and women. But that is not my topic today or in the coming weeks. I want to start a conversation about the value of conversation.

If you were to ask me what I look for in friends or men I date, good conversation would top my list. Which makes me sound very old fashioned. Which I'm fine with. In this, I will keep company with Mary - maybe after some good conversation I may succeed in making her smile.

My favorite people are those who I've enjoyed couch conversations with or long cross-country drives. Life is at its fullest in these moments. Every conversation is a unique expression of who we are and how our experiences and perspectives relate to the other people in the conversation. Dialogue is a two-way street - I contribute and I receive. And I am known.

On a recent business trip to Nashville, I ventured out to a highly-rated restaurant, Husk. Not wanting to monopolize an entire table, I found a seat at the bar next to a middle-aged woman, also dining solo. After an hour of divine Southern cuisine and libations prepared by our blur-of-a-bartender, we were no longer strangers. Our conversation ran toward the venturing of grown children into new cities and career paths. We talked about California's water problems and trends in online dating. I found some NPR stories I'd been listening to made for quality drop-ins.

Lessons from my Mom's Kitchen: Staples

When it comes to pearls of wisdom that my mom bestowed on me, one of the best was to never try a new dish when company was coming over. It makes sense - because Murphy's Law is a real thing. Probability of errors or just plain ol' disaster increases in circumstances when I'd like to deliver perfection.

Mom repeated this wisdom often during my childhood on through to adulthood. And I have by and large ignored it. Which makes me the town idiot.

Lessons from my Mom's Kitchen: The Casserole

My mom has a recipe library. Recipes collected from friends and magazines and cookbooks over the past thirty-five years since she married my dad. She credits recipes with helping her take the leap from "heating soup, pouring cereal, or making a sandwich" to feeling at home and inspired in the kitchen. The recipe library is organized, every food category within easy reach.

I grew up in that kitchen with those recipes - we enjoyed executing what others had tested to publishable perfection. Take baking, which is more science than art ... recipes ensure that breads rise and cookies hold together properly. When I'm entertaining, I have confidence in trying something new when I have a trusted recipe source to lean on. We like recipes.

But then there was the moment my mom discovered a world apart from recipes - a world called casseroles.

Before I tell you about this moment, I think the term "casserole" has fallen out of vogue in the last decade or so and deserves a reintroduction. The etymology is from the French word for saucepan. The modern concept of "casserole" was developed in the late 1800s to describe a savory mixture of rice and meats, and evolved to describe a one-dish meal that became popular in America in the 1950s. What I'm saying is it's part of our American heritage and we should not dismiss it as plain jane kitchen fare.

So back to my mom's kitchen...