Postcards from the Capitol

My brother-in-law accepted an invitation to attend a holiday party at the White House.

Best. Christmas.Present.Ever.

Unless it would be a digital camera that takes way better pictures than his iPhone.

(Dear Santa, please make sure Kevin gets a Nikon 10.2-Megapixel DSLR Camera with 18-55mm and 55-200mm NIKKOR Zoom Lenses before the next White House holiday party. Thank you.)

Clearly, Aaron Sorkin's set for The West Wing was astoundingly accurate.

Kevin is a keen student of history and loves architectural details. (We have that in common.)

(Isn't this where Michael Douglas tells Annette Bening, "Nice shoes" in The American President?)

Kevin writes: "Had about 7 Christmas cookies. Would have had more but they were watching."

I don't believe the hosts dusted off the Franklin Pierce china (1853-1857) for the buffet.

Dolley Madison was in attendance, however.

A view for the ages.

Haven't been to Washington, let alone a party at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in I don't know when. I think it may be time to plan a visit.

Have you been to the Capitol? What did you see? What do you recommend? Where did you stay? Did you see a POTUS/FLOTUS while you were there? Kindly check in in the Comments section. Naperville Now loves to travel, even vicariously, which is much easier on her feet.

With thanks to Kevin for sharing his photographs.

No Words

In memory

Fiscal Shmiscal

I have never had an aptitude for math, which is why I can be of little help with this fiscal cliff business.

I do know that if one's expenses exceed one's income, there will be a lot of yelling. But beyond that, I rely on Charlie to keep us on the financial straight and narrow (with emphasis on that last).

Which is why I propose the math teachers from my past travel to Washington to assist Congress and President Obama with this terrifying but surely fixable mess.

First up: Miss Owsley (7th grade geometry, with fractions and decimals thrown in somewhere): She was mad for dissecting shapes with a yellow grease pencil on an overhead projector. Students used string and chalk to draw their parabolas on the blackboard. (I remember the vocabulary but none of the concepts.)

Miss O. was quite old, having taught my brothers, 7 and 10 years older than I, in the same classroom. She may have trilled like the actress Deborah Kerr, but she knew her stuff and never gave up hope that one day, numbers would make sense to me. They didn't, but I propose that she go to Washington and start grease penciling her way through the country's budget mess. (I am fairly certain that I flunked her final but was allowed to move on because another year would've killed her. That, my friends, is called compromise.)

 

Secondly: Mr. Long, 9th grade Algebra. He had very nice hair and readily surmised that I was undone by algebraic (FOIL!) formulas. He arranged for a 10th grader, Carlynn, to be my year-long tutor. They were both enthusiastic teachers, convinced that I would eventually get this numbers thing. And while that never happened, they never gave up, so I'm sending Mr. Long and Carlynn to start the fix.

Lastly, Mrs. Barnes (10th and 11th grade math, the last remedial): With her sharp mind and New Yawk accent, she could definitely balance the budget (and yell loudly while doing it). I think what this country needs is more people like Mrs. Barnes. With humor, gimlet eye, and an astounding grasp of mathematics, she can make straight our fiscal paths.

Into the mix, I volunteer my brother the M.B.A. (definitely the right guy to be your numbers man) and Charlie (also with an M.B.A. but, more importantly,  having fiscally prudent DNA strands in abundance).

And there's Jan from church, who can launch a Vacation Bible School program for 300 kids on $19.99 because she knows how -- and where -- to source her deals. And there's Marilyn, who can create art from tinsel and fairy dust, sell it and raise buckets of money for charity.

It can be done, people.

Just not by me.



 

Dandy Cheesecakes

As most of you know, this blog is never about cooking, mainly because I come from a long line of writers.

Cooking is work. It is under appreciated and, thank you God, readily available outside my kitchen.

Genetics. Laziness. Call it what you will. I just don't see the point. (And besides, haven't we all eaten enough?)

In Christmases past, we've been known to enjoy gourmet Chinese in homage to Ralphie and his turkey-less family. Alas, our out-of-town company were scandalized, so I was compelled to dust off the roasting pan and deal with necks and gizzards. Yuck.

I admire all of you adventurous cooks out there, but from a distance. And with zero longing.

In honor of the season, however, we are hosting a petit gathering on Sunday evening. Everyone is bringing something, but I am doing dessert, thanks to the inspiration of my neighbor Beth. She owns nearly every gizmo purveyed by Sur la Table, including mini-cheesecake pans. Seriously. She served up a herd of these babies at book club. I have read the recipe and believe that even I can make these. Or not, which is why white fudge Oreo cookies are my back up.

Here's Beth's recipe:

source

Makes 24 mini cheesecakes. 

Ingredients:

Canned cherry pie filling

Lemon curd with blueberries or blueberry pie filling

Hot fudge with mixed nuts OR crushed peppermint candies (candy canes)

Orange marmalade with cranberry orange sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

For a simple graham cracker crust:

1 C graham cracker crumbs

¼ C butter, melted

¼ C sugar 

Mix the crust ingredients together. Spray pan lightly with PAM and divide the mixture equally between cups and press down.

 

1         8oz. package cream cheese, softened (OR ricotta cheese)
¾ C  white sugar
2         tsp. vanilla
2         egg whites
¾ C  sour cream 

Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in large mixing bowl with electric mixer until well blended. Add egg whites, mix well. Then add sour cream and mix thoroughly. Pour equally into cups , almost to the top.

Bake 20 minutes or until center is almost set. Turn off oven, leaving oven door open for another 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and refrigerate until chilled. When ready to serve, top each with a topping (or let guests fix their own).

I'm going to practice on Saturday. Charlie is an enthusiastic tester, so if quality is a problem, he will be mostly honest with me, I think.

Now, if I can just figure out where this whole project will go wrong, I'll be prepared with those cookies. And lots of champagne.
 

Naperville Now participates  each week in Mrs. Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday. Stop in and see what other bloggers are writing about the letter D.

Ready

Someone said there's a wedding. Can I go?

Christmas

 

 

 

 

I had the idea that these would be the perfect stand-in for actually putting up a Christmas tree this year.

Is it working for you?

And what do you think of Christmas in pink?

And what do you think of the whole rebirth of the 1950s elf phenomenon? (They were creepy to me even back then, though I confess to having watched far too many Twilight Zone episodes with my sci-fi-obsessed brothers.)

Each December, my pal Nancy and I like to roam around the Geneva Antique Market, which is where I took these tree pictures. If you are into shiny and tidy, this is the store for you. (They didn't pay me to write that, I just like shiny and tidy. Also stray Renoirs, but they were fresh out.)

I never seem to be ready for Christmas. So many stray ends, so much to do. Sidetracked in the stores and sidetracked out.

 

Just my 2-cents worth, though in this economy, everything's going up.

Each week, Naperville Now participates in Mrs. Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday. Check out what other bloggers are posting about the letter C.

My Old Kentucky Home

We were on the hunt for my Revolutionary War ancestor in Lexington, KY, over the weekend.

James, who had fought from Virginia, moved his family about 20 minutes south of where we were sipping bourbon at the office Christmas party. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am more of a white wine girl, should you be compiling your gift list.)

We carved out a quick look-see into what is now mostly horse country and grape vineyard.

I could imagine a barn just like this.

 

And a house like this.

Given the exigencies of the very early 19th century, it seems unlikely (and too Architectural Digesty) to be anyone's then-homestead.

But then! We found this very early house. Definitely more substantial than a dog-trot cabin. (Needless to say, the ancestral paperwork doesn't mention an estate.)

This is probably more along the lines of what's left.

 

(While I'm thinking of it, thank you to the residents of Fayette County for not shooting me as I tried to crane my neck around 200 years for a glimpse of James, or what might be left of his life in Kentucky.)

 

(#M.NightShyamalan check out your next movie set.)

 

 

Stacked stone walls range everywhere in this part of the country.

 

 

One-laner, just west of where we are deducing

James and his wife are buried.

 

I'll keep you posted if we catch a break with a homeowner who may remember seeing a tumble of rocks in the corner of his pasture.

 

So, anyone else out there drawn to this particular (or as my brother likes to point out, mind-numbing) past time? What exactly have you done with your genealogy? Do you see dead people? Leave me a comment.