Stories Down Snowy Gravel Roads

A highway runs near our house.
South on the road takes you to my favorite little town; head east and the next town is the one I  frequent most.
North lies the town I visit least often, only if I'm running a specific errand.
"Getting the best coffee in the county" is one such specific errand.

So it was that yesterday, 2 whopping degrees that it remained (-windchill, but we're not going to talk about that okay, okay), I found myself in the backseat of my sister's car, she and Grandma discussing the weather.  To be fair, it was pretty #extra even for Iowa on this particular day.

From the gravel to the highway and north to coffee we traveled.  You may remember hearing about this place before, but if you haven't, I'll direct you here: Coffeeshop Chats
Also, if you, noting the temperature, thought that I would have ordered hot coffee to combat my chilled fingers and face, you underestimate my love of iced coffee.  Holding mine in gloved hands, my two older, wiser companions burning their tongues on their hot drinks, we began driving home.

~~~~~

One of the great things about growing up in the same area as the previous three generations of your family is that your family members are founts of knowledge.  I swear my grandma knows the family trees of half the people in the area, and the surrounding land records down to the 1/4 section for the past 60 years.

"Right down this road," Grandma started between sips of her mocha, "is the farm where your great-grandpa played for barn dances."  She continued, pointing out farm places in the neighborhood.  From these anecdotes, I'm not sure how much of a dancer my Great-Grandpa Ed was because they all revolved around him accompanying on his accordion.

Morgan turned onto the next gravel road, her car adapting the conditions.  As close to a square-mile grid as you can get, it's pretty easy to locate farm places, even with certain pieces of roads having been demoted to B-level maintenance, or removed altogether.

A few different buildings sat on this acreage, including the one featured in the above photo; they varied in both age and structural integrity.   The barn we were meant to see rested at the bottom of both comparisons.  One side had collapsed long before our excursion, the other three remained mostly upright.  However, the barn which held so many social events was, as we might have guessed, no more.

It's a weird sort of nostalgia to miss things of which you never took part, like barn dances which, decades ago though they were, took place less then ten minutes from my house.  Like the people who gathered there, the buildings are no longer with us, certainly not like they used to be.  But the events live on in stories passed down, and in four-wheel drive adventures on snowy gravel roads.

- Grace

December Mixtape // Christmas Edition

It's Christmas.
Yes, you people who started listening to Christmas music on the Fourth of July, it is actually, literally, positively, STILL Christmas, the second day, to be exact.

So here are my favorite Christmas songs and a handy dandy playlist of them for you: Life of Pies Mixtape

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Deck The Halls - Mannheim Steamroller
It's really not the beginning of my Christmas preparations until I've played this song, preferably as background music while decorating the tree.  It's the most memorable Christmas song of my childhood.  While you're at it, listen to every Mannheim Christmas album because it's the peak of Christmas music, in my honest opinion.

The 12 Days of Christmas - Straight No Chaser 
It's the song you love to hate, in a version you'll immediately love.  You're welcome.  I usually play it on repeat until I'm asked to change the song.  If I interrupt one of your Christmas songs with another song, you may blame this song.

Underneath The Tree - Kelly Clarkson
This is a rather new addition to my playlist, a guilty pleasure, secular holiday song.  It's my jam.  It's also on a playlist titled, "Festive Pagan Tunes" if that makes you feel better.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Michael Buble
This whole album is a joy to hear.  Allow the beautiful sounds to bless your eardrums this holiday season, starting with this great cover.

Baby Boy - For King and Country 
I admire any artist who steps outside the normal realm of Christmas covers, and enters the world of new and original songs.  If you're a fan of covers, their rendition of Little Drummer Boy is probably my favorite one that exists.

White Christmas - Bing Crosby
It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Andy Williams
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Frank Sinatra
Listed here are a few of my favorite classic Christmas songs.  They need no description, but they all deserve to be added to your Christmas playlists.

White Winter Hymnal - Pentatonix
Their style is so appealing to me, and it always seems like their music is even better around Christmas.  Harmonies like these make me happy. <3

(There's No Place Like) Home For The Holidays - The Carpenters
I was only introduced to The Carpenters in the past year, and I'm slightly salty about it because I missed out on so many years of listening to their beautiful music during the holiday season.

A Charlie Brown Christmas - Vince Guaraldi Trio 
This one is an album from my favorite Christmas movie of all time (except maybe Die Hard [I kid, calm yourself])

As a note, if you wish I would've made this list longer, you have my distinct permission and even recommendation to listen to the full album of each these songs, so long as you do so in the order they are listed.  We can't have any of those full album-shuffle disasters.

What are you favorite Christmas songs?
Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?
Leave your answers in the comments section.

- Grace

Secret Recipe Sugar Cookies

'Tis the season for Christmas baking, and these cookies are on the top of my list every year. 

My favorite kind of recipes are the ones passed down from each generation to the next.  They're most often titled with the name of the first person to make them, or at least the first to make them famous amongst our extended family.

Though I don't remember my Aunt Eileen, I always think about her when these sugar cookies show up at a family event during the holidays.  They are the perfect cut-out cookie with a secret ingredient which keeps them soft, even though they won't last long in your house.

They are so incredibly easy: one bowl, no sifting, no nonsense, just straight-up sugar cookies meant to be made and decorated and devoured (not always in that order, if you're asking the cookie dough thieves in our family).

Our favorite way is to take a can of white frosting (I know, *cringe*, but just roll with it), whip it in a bowl to make it go further, divide it into 8+ little bowls, make a bunch of fun colors, grab some sprinkles, and go to town.

I highly recommend Wilson brand paste dyes for your frosting.  When you want true red for your candy cane stripes, you'll thank me that you needed a little blob of dye instead of an entire bottle of the drop kind.

They're really fun to make with kids, and even more fun to decorate with friends and family.  Try them out with your favorite baking comrades during these 12 Days of Christmas.

Sugar Cookies
Makes 12 dozen cookies (this varies based on the size of cookie cutters you use, the thickness, etc.)

Ingredients: 
1 C butter
2 C white sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
5 C white flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 C sour cream

Directions:
1) Cream butter and sugar with a mixer; next, add eggs, vanilla, almond extract, and mix together.
2) Add dry ingredients and sour cream to the bowl and mix to combine.
3) Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
4) Roll out with plenty of flour to between 1/8" and 1/4", and cut into desired shapes.
5) Place on a greased baking sheet, or an ungreased baking stone.  Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned.
6) Cool, decorate, and enjoy.

- Grace

When the Childhood Magic of Christmas is Gone

It's almost Christmas. 

The first real, sticking snow in our area rests on the evergreens around our house.

I can see the magical, white blanket continue across the road onto the rolling hills of our neighbor's horse pasture.  We will have snow for Christmas.

Our Christmas tree is set up, the living room rearranged for the holidays, and a few wrapped presents sit beneath its limbs.  The rest of the wrapping will be done today.

The stockings are hung, the nativity scene is set up, and the advent calendar is almost complete.

But sometimes, it still doesn't feel like Christmas.

The general consensus among my generation is simple: Christmas, at some point, stopped feeling like the Christmas we remembered.  The magic has disappeared.

But what kind of magic did we feel then that we're missing now? 

A commercialized frenzy of viewing, asking for, and receiving the newest toys?

The joy of fresh powder long before we were handed snow shovels?

The thrill of waiting for a creepy old guy to break into our homes while we slept?  To be honest, I'm really not sure how my paranoid-self ever accepted this story without question.

Now that I reflect on the past excitement of Christmas, I can divide it into two categories: one is timeless and true, traditions based on the story of Christmas which hasn't changed in 2,000 years; the latter is gone as soon as you catch your parents putting presents under the tree at 1:30 AM.

It doesn't surprise me to hear that my generation no longer feels the joy of Christmas when the joy they were sold as kids is built only on the love of presents and a twisted story of Saint Nicholas.  It only sets up children for disappointment later when they realize that the only traditions they know are as superficial as the mall santa's beard.  

This is not to say that you shouldn't teach your kids to appreciate the fun of Christmas, or watch Frosty the Snowman movies, or watch them experience the excitement of "Santa gifts."  But no matter which traditions you make with your kids, old or new, please teach your kids what Christmas is really about.  It is about Jesus Christ, who was born in a manger, who came to earth to live the life we couldn't and die the death we deserved.

Take them to church on Christmas.

Read Luke 2 with them.

Tell them more about Jesus than you do about Santa Claus.  

Teach your children what peace on earth looks like: Christ in the manger. 

Teach your children what real love looks like: Christ on the cross.  

Share with them the joy that is true and the peace which surpasses all understanding.

These things can't be outgrown.

- Grace 

A [Book]case of the Re-reads

The Book List

It never gets shorter.
It only grows with each conversation I have, no matter the topic of the conversation.

The topics: the religion of the Founding Fathers, indie novels by other bloggers I follow, Russian literature, theological books from various centuries, and, yes, John Green's entire bibliography.
I enjoy the eclectic aspect of life.

We live in a world where all of these are free at the library, or, at the least convenient, 2-day free shipping away.
So why does the list ever grow, taking only one off for every five I add to its length?

I have a case of the rereads, a whole shelf, actually.  A seemingly unorganized collection of bent-cornered paperbacks with unfortunate dog ears, not from intentional abuse, but from bumping around in my backpack on a trip or sliding into dangerous car seat pockets.

The worst offenders on my shelf of rereads:
- The Iliad and The Odyssey
- Little House on the Prairie
- Anna Karenina

It is a simple joy to reread books many years after you've read them for the first time.  You are able to compare yourself at a younger age to yourself now, the development in the time between, in relation to a book which hasn't changed.  You may even find yourself relating to different characters.

There is also odd comfort found in the worn pages of a softcover book which is too far past keeping "nice" that is it is now best used to riding around in a purse or backpack.  It's a companion edition not meant for shelves, the misfit of the bookcase.

Will I have cross every book off my list when my life is over?  I don't know.
I will add new stories to the list, and I will reread my favorites because both are enjoyable to me.
These things I know.

Comment below: do you reread your favorite books?

- Grace

Images of an Autumn Gone

This autumn was like the leaves on these trees, bright and beautiful and fleeting and now gone.
Since these photos were taken, it has given way to the Advent of winter, the dry and cold preparation before the beautiful, white snow comes to cover the ground.
However, the intense colors of autumn leaves are still firmly engrained in my head, along with the memories that accompanied them. 

- Grace

Not The Angel's Food Cake

Recipe books, faded with time, many of pages falling out, once lived in this cabinet.

My great-grandma's favorites books, newspaper clippings, and magazines filled the bottom right drawer, just below the spice canisters.

Some of these books made their way to my grandma's house, including one dedicated to desserts.

"Could I borrow this?" I asked. 

"No," the response.

So, I made my great-grandma's chocolate angel food cake by hand, from scratch, reading the instructions off a photo on my iPhone because it's 2017. 

For reference, all three of these houses are located on the same farm, each less than a mile from the other.  I made the cake in our house last night.  The lighting was not ideal or I'd have photo proof that I whipped the egg whites by hand, but alas, 'twas not aesthetic.  You'll just have to believe me.

I think I need to whip them firmer next time, but that means I'm using a hand mixer.

It's phenomenal, light and fluffy on the inside, sticky on the edges, and with a thin, crunchy top. 

I think I'm going to make strawberry sauce and whipped cream for it for supper tonight. 

Chocolate Angel Food Cake

Ingredients:

3/4 sifted cake flour (or 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, - 1.5 TBSP flour, + 1.5 TSBP cornstarch, sift together a few times)

4 TBSP cocoa

1 1/4 egg whites

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 1/4 cup sifted granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Sift flour once, measure, add cocoa, and sift four more times. 

2. Beat egg whites and salt with a flat wire whisk (or a hand mixer). When foamy, add cream of tartar and continue beating until eggs are stiff enough to hold up in peaks, but not dry. 

3. Fold in sugar carefully, 2 TBSP at a time, until all is used. Fold in vanilla. 

4. Then sift a small amount of flour over mixture an fold in carefully; continue until all is used.

5. Pour batter into uncreased angel food pan and bake for 30 minutes at 275 degrees, then raise the temperature to 325 degrees and bake for another 30 minutes.

6. Remove from oven and invert pan 1 hour or until cool.  If you have a handy old fashioned glass soda bottle sitting around, they work perfectly, as do beer bottles, etc.  

7.  Once it's cool, you can run a knife around the edge, and flip it onto a plate.  My pan is in two pieces, so I lifted the cake out of the pan with the bottom piece, and then ran a knife around the bottom of the cake, placed a plate on top, and flipped it over. 

I can't wait to finish this cake for dessert tonight. 

Make this cake for one of your Christmas shindigs; it's fantastic.

If you ever make my recipes, I'd love to see photos of them. <3

- Grace