Amalia Sails to Stiltsville

 Last Sunday, while visiting Miami with her Mommy and Papi,  Amalia  took a cruise by catamaran to visit Stiltsville, a group of seven houses built on stilts on sand banks on the edge of Biscayne Bay. 

She was wearing her new shocking pink bathing suit with butterflies on the chest for the first time.

But to ride in the rented catarmaran, she had to put on a life vest, and Mommy added sun screen and a hat.  Safety first!

With Papi,  who was going to be the captain of the ship, she examined their catamaran—number seven.

Crew member Amalia didn’t know what she was supposed to do with all the ropes, but Papi would explain.

We’re off!.  Those dots on the horizon are some of the houses of Stiltsville.

The first stilt shack was built in the early 1930’s—some say to use for selling liquor during  Prohibition, others say for gambling clubs, which was legal at one mile off shore.

Crawfish Eddie Walker built a shack on stilts in 1933 where visitors could get beer, gambling games and a chowder made with crawfish he caught  under his shack. 

More shacks were built by his buddies.  Eddie’s shack was destroyed by a hurricane in 1950. Social clubs like the Calvert Club opened with membership dues.  Politicians and wealthy Miamians flocked to them, but many of the structures were destroyed by Hurricane Donna in 1960.  Some of the structures were created out of a sunken barge and a 150-foot yacht. The yacht housed the “Bikini Club”, where women wearing bikinis got free drinks.

Hurricane Betsy in 1965 ended the “wild west” era of Stiltsville.  Florida began requiring annual payments for owners to lease their “campsites”. No permits for new construction were allowed. The state said all the shacks would be removed on July 1, 1999, but Congress expanded the boundaries of the Biscayne National Park taking in Stiltsville.

 Life Magazine featured the place in an article in 1998, and  more than 75,000 people signed a petition to save the structures.  In 2003 a non-profit organization called the Stiltsville Trust was established to protect the seven remaining structures and now the National Parks Service owns the buildings, while their “caretakers” (leaseholders)  perform maintenance.

Meanwhile, on every nice day,  the partying continues—and people passing by on boats are often invited to join in.

Stiltsville has been the setting for movies, many novels, several episodes of Miami Vice and other TV programs. The Sessions and Shaw House was featured in a national ad campaign for Pittsburgh Paints.

Papi did a masterful job of sailing the catamaran, but Amalia was so exhausted being first mate that she took a power nap as they returned to shore, with Miami in the distance.

But the promise of seafood and key lime pie at the nearby Light House Café in Bill Baggs State Park  brought her wide awake

And she ate a whole loaf of Cuban bread dipped in olive oil.

Then it was on to the beach where the Cape Florida light house overlooked the scene—the oldest standing structure in Greater Miami.

  

Mommy did a head stand.

Meanwhile Papi created a masterful sand castle

Which Amalia demolished with glee.

Sailing to Stlltsville was fun, Amalia decided

But the most fun of all was stomping on sandcastles.

The Kitchen God—A Chinese Elf on the Shelf

Recently, at an auction, I bought a box of delightful Chinese prints—including various Chinese gods and posters for oolong tea—all colorfully printed on thin rice paper and block-printed in bright colors.

I was charmed by the jolly fellow pictured above and started poking around on Google to learn more about him.

Turns out he is the Kitchen God, who is tacked up behind the stove in every Chinese kitchen along with a small altar to hold incense burners, candles and offerings.

The Kitchen God observes the behavior of the family all year long and, seven days before the beginning of the Lunar New Year celebration, his image is taken off the wall and burned.  This releases his spirit  so that he can go to make his annual ascent to the Jade Emperor to report on the way the family has behaved during the past year.  After hearing his report, the Jade Emperor decides how much prosperity and abundance he will give to each family in the New Year.

But before burning the Kitchen God, the family will attempt to bribe him into making a good report by bestowing on him sweets, like fruits, honey and lotus cakes as well as candies and rice wine and especially sticky rice—perhaps as rice balls served in a sugar soup.  The plan is that, if the Kitchen God’s mouth is full of sweet sticky rice, he won’t be able (or inclined) to report on any bad behavior by the family.

Seven days after the old Kitchen God is burned, a new image is installed above the stove to keep an eye on things during the coming year.

This year the Chinese New Year of 4712—the year of the wooden horse—begins on January 31, so you’d better start making sticky rice balls right now, because the day to make sweet offerings and send the kitchen god on his way is —Friday Jan. 24!

When I read this, I immediately thought of the Elf On the Shelf—a not-as-antique tradition familiar to nearly every parent and grandparent in the U. S.  Based on a book written by the mother/daughter team of Carol Aebersold and daughter Chanda Bell in 2005, the Elf is a little bendable doll who comes in a box along with the book (cost: about $30) and, beginning in December until Christmas, he sits around somewhere in the house and observes the behavior of the children (naughty or nice) then, after the children are asleep, he flies back to report to Santa every night.  The Elf reappears every morning in a different spot.  Finding him makes it a game.  But no child must ever touch the Elf or he will lose his magic powers.

When I first heard about the Elf on the Shelf, it all sounded rather sinister and scary—like Big Brother watching you from the TV set in “1984”.  This past season, the Elf seemed to be the most controversial thing about the holidays, discussed even more than the  elimination of the word “Christmas” from “Happy Holidays “ and “Holiday tree.”  It seems some A-type parents were one-upping each other by creating elaborate scenes of mischief or magic created by their personal Elf overnight—inventing yet another laborious task for moms during the holidays.   Others complained that the Elf was a means of terrorizing children into good behavior out of fear of what Santa would hear.

At Thanksgiving, when her family came to our house in Massachusetts,  someone (not me!) gave 2 ½ -year-old granddaughter Amalia an Elf on the Shelf which she promptly named David for no observable reason.   She loved the whole idea—especially after seeing a TV special based on the Elf.   She didn’t seem frightened of him, although I did see her freeze with surprise when, back in her New York apartment, she realized that David had followed her from Massachusetts and was perched near the top of her family’s, uh, holiday tree. 

No one created elaborate scenes for David in the ensuing days—it was all we could do to remember to move him, but when Amalia found him on the window ledge in the kitchen, I did imply that he had bitten the head off of one of the tiny gingerbread men I bought at Trader Joe’s.

When I came to Manhattan to see Amalia after Christmas, she confided to me rather sadly, “My little friend David has gone away.”

I promised her he’d be back next Christmas.

Amalia Cooks Up a Storm

Although she's not quite two and a half yet, Amalia already has a favorite hobby -- cooking.  She loves pouring ingredients into bowls and then "misking" them all together--a word she created out of "mixing" and "whisking".

Her first culinary triumph was making confetti cupcakes for Mommy's birthday back in October, when Yiayia Joanie was her sous chef.  Amalia's job was putting the sprinkles on top of the frosting and eating any that spilled.

When she went to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving, she helped make a raspberry swirl cheesecake pie and a pumpkin pie--including the delicate task of decorating the latter with candy corn (and eating the leftover candy corn.)

After Thanksgiving she and Yiayia made gingerbread cookies--she watched them bake.

And the next day she decorated the cookies with her friends Natasha and Sophie.

For Christmas, Amalia went with Mommy and Papi to Abuela Carmen's house in Managua, Nicaragua. There, at a restaurant called "Italianissimo", she learned to make her favorite food--pizza!  The restaurant even provided her with a pint-sized apron for the cooking lesson, and let her take it home with her.

Step one is to spread exactly the right amount of tomato sauce on your pizza.

The waiter showed her how to top it with extra cheese, since she didn't want pepperoni.

After the pizza was baked in a brick oven, Amalia got to eat it.  Bon appetit!

For New Year's Day in Nicaragua, Amalia and her Mommy baked a fusion version of their traditional Greek vassilopita--the sweet orange-flavored bread with a coin hidden in it which is cut on New Year's Day to see who will find the coin in their piece and have a year of good luck.  Instead of the usual Greek Metaxa brandy, they substituted Flor de Caña, a Nicaraguan rum.

Inspired by her latest culinary triumphs, Amalia, back in Manhattan, insisted on making cupcakes for her Papi's birthday in early January.  Her assistant was Julia, her favorite cooking, playtime and yoga companion.   Here's Amalia "misking" the dough.

The proper balance of sprinkles to frosting is critical.

Now for the tense moment--the taste test…

Delicioso!

Amalia has agreed to share with you her recipe for Vasilopita, which she originally learned from her  Greek Yiayia Neney.  You can use the brandy (or rum) of your choice.

Vasilopita (from Eleni Nikolaides)

5 cups flour

6 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 pound sweet butter

1 demitasse cup brandy

3 teaspoons baking powder

juice from one orange

shavings from one grated orange peel

Mix together the softened butter, eggs and sugar.  Beat it so that it's a soft cream.  Then add the brandy and little by little beat in the flour (which has the baking powder in it.) Also add the orange juice and the grated orange peel.

This recipe will make one large or two smaller cakes.

Bake it at 370 degrees for about 40 minutes.

Don't forget to put in the coin and to make the number of the New Year on top

with toasted almonds before you bake it!

Happy New Year 2014!

Confessions of a Christmas Tree Nut

(This is a re-post from the past, but this year I've already got my four trees --described below--  up at home in Massachusetts, thanks entirely to the patience,  talents and assistance of family members.  Right now, I'm in Manhattan, about to take the subway with daughter Eleni and granddaughter Amalia to Rockefeller Center to see the ultimate Christmas tree... then the Radio City Christmas show.  Can't wait!  As to the annual Christmas card and letter--I haven't even started!)

Right now I should be addressing Christmas cards but I'm in the grip of my seasonal craziness which involves decorating...lots...of...trees.

I also decorate doors and chandeliers and kitchen shelves and the grand piano and of course the mantel piece, but what I do most is trees.  Each with a theme.  In every room.  Well, not EVERY room because my husband has started to crack down on that--especially in his office, despite the lovely all white (sprayed snow and icicles and pine cones) tree I did one year.  It shed.

I think this is a genetic thing inherited from my mother.  At Christmas time she decorated so much that you couldn't find a flat surface available to set down your cup of eggnog.

So far I've only put up, um, four.  And I'm going to show them to you now.

On the day after Thanksgiving came the Real Tree, which goes in the living room.  I realize that's much too early and it will soon be very dry, but daughter Eleni and her brand new husband Emilio, with some other elves, insisted on dragging it home and putting on the lights as soon as the turkey was digested and the cranberry sauce was gone.  I usually pick a color scheme, and this year went with silver and white, with the only color coming from some crazy peacock ornaments I got from Pier One (which has great ornaments!  Have you seen the under-the-sea collection?  Squid and fish and lobsters and crayfish and mermaids.  Now there's a theme I haven't tried.)

With the peacocks, I also used lots of white butterflies (from the Dollar Store) and white birds and angel wings, so I guess the theme of the wonderful-smelling Real Tree this year would be wings.

In the dining room I always put a wire tree to show off my antique ornaments.  And I put a wire from the tree to the window latch so that it (hopefully) can't get knocked over.  You can see that we don't have snow yet in Massachusetts, unlike Minnesota, but we will soon.

Some of these ornaments are reproductions, but most are the real thing.  My grandmother had a whole tree decorated with blown-glass birds with those spun glass tails and often a metal clip to hold it on the tree.  I still have a few of hers.  I really love the fragile teapots once sold at every Woolworth's for pennies. They cost a lot more now.  The blown-glass ornaments usually say "West Germany" on the metal cap.  The  glass ornaments that were once screw-in lights were made in Japan between 1930 and 1950 and are a lot less likely to break.

In the library I always put my Shoe Tree, which started when the Metropolitan Museum in New York first started selling ornaments based on shoes in their collections.  

This became a kind of mania and now I can't afford to buy the newest ones from the Museum, but I've added lots of cunning real (baby-sized) shoes, and people keep giving me more.  My favorites on this tree are the Chinese baby shoes that look like cats and the fur-lined baby moccasins and the tiny Adidas sneakers.

On the porch I've put the  Kitchen Tree, or Cookie & Candy Tree.  This was inspired by some friends who live in a tiny apartment and decorate their tree only with cookies and candy and pretzels and candy canes.  Then, when Christmas is over, they put it all outside for the birds and other New York fauna to enjoy.

As you can see, I've cheated quite a bit--adding ornaments that look like kitchen utensils and non-edible gingerbread men and peppermints.  An authentic Kitchen Tree should have chains of real popcorn and cranberries (which we did back when I had children small enough to enjoy stringing them.)

Last year  Trader Joe's sold little gingerbread men with holes already punched in their heads so I could string them on the tree, but this year the gingerbread men are frosted but the holes are missing, so I just  stabbed them with the wire hooks and it worked fine (and any that broke, I ate, of course. They taste better frosted.)

That's four trees so far and counting--I still haven't started decorating the tree in my studio that holds my stash of ornaments from Mexico and India, but that will come soon, and I haven't  shown you my Santa Claus collection and the miniature town in the bay window in the kitchen and the many creches we have from around the world....But let's face it, I have to get back to those Christmas cards.

One Grandma's Sneaky Shortcuts for Thanksgiving

(This is a slightly revised and updated version of last year's Thanksgivng post--Apologies to those who have seen it before!)

Just heading back from New York--to launch into my annual pie baking panic before the kids fly in and we sit down to a Thanksgiving table set for 12, including two-year-old granddaughter Amalia. (Below a photo from her first Thanksgiving--two years ago.  This year, now that she's 27 months,  she's made me promise that we'll bake an "orange pie" together, which I take to mean a pumpkin pie.)  (Pies pictured above are from LAST Thanksgiving, when I was more organized.)  Amalia and I have already made turkey sugar cookies in Manhattan from the tube of dough bought at the supermarket with a turkey pictured in the center.  All you do is cut slices off the dough and put them on a cookie sheet and bake. Welcome to Thanksgiving for dummies.

Amali's first Thanksgiving, 2011

For 42 years I’ve been streamlining the procedure drastically every year because I’m lazy, and my Greek relatives still don’t realize that my special cornbread stuffing comes out of a package (slightly doctored up.)  They spend days making their Greek stuffing, which includes chestnuts, hamburger and a lot of other things.  Amalia's honorary Grandma, "Yiayia" Eleni Nikolaides, will be making it for our table this year.  Of course everyone prefers the Greek stuffing, but I still make my cornbread stuffing, because it’s “tradition.”  

Every Thanksgiving I try a different apple pie recipe in the hopes of finding the prize-winning pie that will bring tears (of joy, not sorrow)  to my family’s eyes.  This year, because I'm back at Weight Watchers' meetings, I'm doing apple pie with a lattice crust and the low-cal Apple Pie Filling I got off Weight Watcher's web site.  You can serve it with no-cal frozen whipped topping (which has no ingredients that ever came near a cow) or, for the more reckless, with vanilla ice cream.

For those who say "calories be damned",  a fabulous Chocolate-Kahlua pie has somehow become a staple of our Thanksgiving. It, too, can be made way ahead. When I make a pumpkin pie—which is really fast and easy…(just take the recipe off the pumpkin can)—I decorate the top with a circle of candy corn left from Halloween. Or Cinnamon Praline Pecans.This year I'm trying a recipe for "Maple Pumpkin Pie with Cinnamon-Maple Whipped Cream" that I cut out of the local paper.  Don't tell Weight Watchers.

 Nowadays magazines and ads on TV make much of the young wife and mother terrified by the complexities of roasting a turkey and serving Thanksgiving dinner to a crowd. I think the whole thing has been vastly over-complicated by the media.So I’m going to share some sneaky shortcuts for a super-easy Thanksgiving.

The Turkey—don’t stuff it! A turkey roasted with the stuffing inside takes much longer and then you have all those risks of food poisoning if you leave the turkey and stuffing un-refrigerated long after taking it out of the oven. Stuffing baked in the turkey comes out soggy. I prepare my stuffing on top of the stove.The directions are on the back of the Pepperidge Farm Corn Bread Stuffing package—Melt 6 TBSP butter in a saucepan, add a cup of chopped celery and a cup of chopped onions, cook for 3 minutes. (Then I throw in sliced mushrooms and maybe this year chopped apples and cook some more. You could also add chopped chestnuts or pecans and crumbled bacon or sausage.) When everything is softened, you throw in 2 1/2 cups water or broth (if you’re not going for vegetarian) and add the stuffing mix, stir and you’re all done.

As for the turkey—I always get a fresh turkey, even though it costs more, so as not to have to defrost it for days and then find it still frozen.  I get mine from a local butcher called Sir Loin's who guarantees that it was free range and had a happy childhood. I cut an onion and a couple oranges in half and put them in the cavity before putting the turkey in the oven.  For the last 15 minutes I baste it with Maple Bourbon Glaze which also gives a nice color. (Don’t forget, the turkey needs to sit for a half hour to soak up the juices.)

Green Bean Casserole and Candied Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows: I don’t make them. I came to realize that nobody eats them. What I do make is: Parmesan Potato Casserole which is mashed potatoes in a casserole dish with a lot of butter and cheese, cream and eggs stirred in and then you bake it with some cheese and parsley on top. I cook Wild Rice mix straight out of the Uncle Ben box. Artichoke hearts alla Polita with peas and dill. Corn and red pepper casserole.  Stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer.

Gravy—open a can. I’ve tried about a million “No fail turkey gravy” recipes over the years and I manage to fail every time. What I do is open a couple cans of store-bought turkey gravy, chop up some of the neck and liver of the turkey (which have cooked in the roasting pan alongside the turkey), add a nice splash of some liquor—like sherry—or you can throw in some of the pan juices. Who’s going to know that it came out of a can?
Orange-cranberry relish—you can make this up to a month ahead. Everybody loves it and it makes even the driest turkey taste better. Pick over and grind in the blender a one pound bag of cranberries. Grind up a couple oranges—pulp and rind. Mix together with two cups sugar or more. Chill in the refrigerator--the longer it sits the better it tastes. I always make a double recipe.
When the kids were small I would have them cut with scissors a jagged edge for hollowed-out orange halves to make little baskets to hold the cranberry relish—I’d put the baskets surrounding the turkey. Or nowadays I surround the turkey on its platter with green and purple bunches of grapes.

Placecards and menus—Making the placecards or favors is a great way to keep children busy and out of your hair. I used to have mine make favors/place cards that were turkeys fashioned out of (store bought) popcorn balls with a ladyfinger for the head and neck, three toothpick legs to stand, red or orange cellophane tied around the popcorn ball and gathered for a tail.—The three-legged turkey was then stuck in a large flat cookie, where the name would be written using those cake-decorating tubes.  Other creative folks make turkeys out of chocolate cupcakes and candy corn. 

Pie dough—Pillsbury refrigerated. I don’t have the magic touch for “from scratch” pie crust that grandmas always brag about, and I’ve never had any complaints. When I do some clever crimping around the edge, the pie crust looks completely homemade and tastes fine.

The centerpiece is always the same—I have a basket shaped like a cornucopia, filled with various fruits, nuts and some fall flowers that have survived in the garden. Couldn’t be easier. Candles in candleholders.  Also I've acquired a bunch of rubber turkey finger puppets which Amalia has already commandeered. Nowadays lots of craft and party stores are selling activity books and placemats for the the children's table.   And yes, everyone has to tell what they're thankful for. I always print out on the computer a small decorative menu for each plate so people know what they’re eating. What they won’t know is how easy it was, unless you tell them.