Thankful Thanksgiving

The first thing I was thankful for was how Theo roasted the turkey all by himself and turned out an amazingly succulent and well-cooked bird. Isn't she a beaut!?
We had so many dear friends with us this year from all different parts of our lives. In the above picture is my closest friend from my MFA program, Kati Macartney; Theo's first cousin once removed, Amy deJong, and one of my best friends from Seattle, Meghan Helsel who is up this weekend from Baltimore through Sunday!

We had a full house to celebrate and be thankful for. In this picture from left to right we have: Doug, Heidi, Theo, Elizabeth, Megan P., Megan B., Andy, Amy, Kati, Jenny, Richard, James, Shannon and Meghan. Yes, it was a three Meg(h)an Thanksgiving. We had hopes for a fourth Megan earlier in the week but she ended up finding a flight out west to see her boyfriend last minute. We moved our large desk into the living room for the occasion and together with our regular dinning table we managed to seat 14 including Theo and I.Andy's favorite part of the meal was desert. We had five different pies and he ate a piece of each!After all was said and done we were all in food-coma and couldn't think of a happier time. People started coming over around 1pm in the afternoon, we ate our heart's out until we could eat no more, some of us took a nice walk around Prospect Park/while others just digested, followed by desert and our last guest left at 12:40am. What a wonderful time! We are thankful for all of our guests/good friends that were able to join us and hope to be able to do this again in the future. The next day we slept into 11am - very unusual for us and reveled in the bounty of the previous day.Hope you had a great Thanksgiving as well!

Prince Classic 2009

As many of you know each year we host an annual cribbage tournament. Cribbage is a family tradition for Theo who has been playing since he was 5 years old. He dreams that one day there will be a tournament with the entire Prince family.

Theo started hosting crib tourneys years before he officially started the Prince Classic in 2005. Three years ago when we moved from Seattle to New York the Prince Classic became a bi-coastal National tournament. In Seattle it is now run by our dear friend and Crib King, Dan Wrenn. Dan is a two-time Prince Classic Champion winning the Seattle tournament in 2005 and 2009.

Back row: Theo Prince, Nona Dettori, Jessica Merville, Tiffany Yee, Tom Eaton
Front row: James Harley, Megan Prince

The 5th Annual Prince Classic, NYC, took place last weekend in Brooklyn, NY. Although the turnout wasn't spectacular, emotions were running high as the trophy board was the finest to date. Jessica hit the round robin with a bang, being the only player to win all her games and go into the finals as the number one seed. That didn't stop Theo from devastating her in the second round of play with one of three skunks he passed out through the finals to take home the trophy.

The final game was a Prince vs. Prince but the reigning champion of the 2008 tournament, Megan Prince, was easily de-throned, barely sneaking past the double skunk line before Theo took home the victory. After all the years he has hosted the tournament this is Theo's first win of hopefully many.

Congratulations THEO!!

Rose Hips!

I began hearing about Rose Tea about one month ago. If you have not heard of it yet you need to look into it. The rosehip has long been valued for its refrigerant and astringent properties. It is very well-known for its high concentration of Vitamin C.

The leaves of the Dog Rose, when dried and infused in boiling water, have often been used as a substitute for tea and have a grateful smell and sub-astringent taste. The flowers, gathered in the bud and dried, are said to be more astringent than the Red Roses.

Some of the health benefits of drinking rosehip tea include: strengthening to the stomach; combating diarrhea; fighting dysentery; it is good for coughs and spitting of blood; can be used to help treat distempers of the breast; and can also help break the stone and to ease and help the colic.

You can make your own tea at home from roses in your garden or look for it in sachets or loose. It tends to be expensive but I found some plain rosehips at guess where - the Co-op! If you want to try and make it from your own roses here is a link that could be helpful. Otherwise I'm just using the hips I found like you would any other loose tea.

Rose Hip Tea - Rose Hip Recipe | Make Your Own Rose Hip

Enjoy!

Including Paperwhites!

Every year at Christmas I see beautiful Paperwhites all over magazines and they make me want them and wish I had the foresight to have them. A few weeks ago Theo and I went to the C0-op and across from the seasonal ales there they were - boxes of Paperwhites!

I was able to convince Theo that we needed them and once we brought them home I immediately put them together. Lucky for me it was a full kit with dirt, rocks and even a planter to put it all in. So this year my winter indoor garden will include Paperwhites. Today I was very excited because they are starting to burst forth! Sorry for the bad washed out photo; I was too excited. I will try and share more pictures as they grow.



The Co-op also has Amaryllis and if you are a member and want some you better go now because they are programed to explode within the next week! Also, there will be no more shipments.

Let the Festivities Begin

On Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember my family always had a raw cranberry relish on the table with the turkey. This is by far my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal. Yeah, most people go for the turkey or mashed potatoes. Homemade apple stuffing with giblets is a close second for me and I guess that is less unusual, but I have been able to do Thanksgiving in New York without the stuffing - I can't go with out my cranberry relish though.

I find it to be an excellent addition to the table, helping to cut the richness of the rest of the meal. A very tangy and tart sensation, over the years I have tweaked and changed the recipe from the classic cranberry orange relish you used to be able to find on your average bag of Fresh Ocean Spray Cranberries. As I have gotten older I found the sugar addition to be just too much and really just made the relish sweet and sour. I hope you like my changes which I believe give the relish more complex flavor and tamper the tartness without letting it get too sweet. Let me know if you try it!


Cranberry Orange Relish
Makes 26oz. (fills to regular jelly jars)

Ingredients:

One bag fresh cranberries

One large navel orange or two small oranges such as Satsuma, Mandarin, Tangerines, etc.

1/4 c. raisins (golden or regular depending on your aesthetic)

1/4 c. sugar (you can use honey instead as long as the cranberries are thawed)

1 tsp. Cinnamon

Method:

1. Wash the cranberries and orange well (since they are not cooked you want to get any junk off them, especially pesticides if you are not using organic).

2. Cut the orange in to hunks and make sure you take all the seeds out, but DON’T PEAL IT. You don’t have to cut it up much since the food processor (or blender if you prefer) will do all the work for you.

3. Put the whole bag of cranberries and the orange in and process until practically pureed (If you use a blender usually the mixture needs a little coercing at this point and an occasional well placed stir will do wonders to keep the whole thing moving along. My mom would make it in a blender and usually there was a sacrificed wooden spoon involved. Now I use a food processor and it makes the whole process very easy.)

4. Add in the raisins and process until you only see little chunks of raisin at most.

5. Mix in the sweetener and the cinnamon. This is what the consistency should be like:

6. Spoon into a bowl or cute jar. I start saving jelly jars when the weather gets cooler so that I can reuse them for this then I don't have to worry about getting my bowl back at the end of the night!

Notes: You can add more raisins, sugar and cinnamon at you leisure, these measurements are just a good starting place. If you find it's too tart for you I recommend adding more raisins before you add more sweetener as they do a better job to tamper the tartness than the sugar.