Picture of Christmas breakfast here.


I spent the whole day in the kitchen with my Dad. We made Bolognese sauce and Ribollita and I have four loaves of bread rising overnight for a small Christmas gathering we are having tomorrow.
2011 has been a pretty bad year for many many people we know. Ben spent New Years day at a funeral and it has been a crazy roller coaster of a year from there on out. I continue to hold out hope that this next year will bring good things. Let's talk resolutions.

I could make this list a mile long but then it would be more like wishful thinking rather than resolutions.



1. Learn to play the concertina. ( Already working on this one but YouTube could use some more tutorials. All you awesome anglo style concertina players out there stop showing off and make some tutorials, dammit!)

2. Brush up on my Italian.

3. Live out of a suitcase for some of the year. Getting that travelin' bug again.

4. If I grow my hair out, do something fun with it, corn rows, etc.

5. Read Moby Dick.

6. Pray the morning office before the kids wake up.

Okay 1 and 6 are probably the most important.

Good riddance 2011!

Buon Natale! We are having a lovley Christmas with my parents and here is a little angel I made for the Christmas tree.

Between midnight mass and learning to play my Christmas concertina and chasing my dad around the kitchen and Ronia away from the ornaments and the staircase I am beat!

Happy Santa Lucia! (photo taken yesterday)

Advent is passing quickly and I have been immeasurably busy getting Christmas gifts knitted and sewed. For the first time this year everything the girls are getting is homemade plus one item from an antique store. I have wanted to do this every year but have always ended up ordering a little something here or there.

Angelica and I did a big journey up to the Asian market and bought fish for our Christmas Eve soup. Their fish section is about the size of most grocery store produce section with big vats of eels, crabs, lobsters, etc and red snapper as big as a four year old sitting on ice head and all. You can pick out your fish whole and they gut it and cut the head off for you. I also picked up some smelt for frying which I can never find here and are a wonderful memory from my childhood. I used to love to crunch on the crispy little fins. Also bought a whole bag of salmon heads for fish stock for five bucks and a whole vat of kimchi to add some much needed fermentedness into our winter diet. Its a bit spicy for the kids but Ben and I will consume quantities.

Only frustration . . . looks like Christmas duck this year instead of goose. Next year I will get my act together and order some goslings.