The View From Mrs. Sundberg's Window

You have each other to love

November 27, 2012

Listened to the show Saturday and it was not bad. Felt good to laugh that hard during the monologue, especially while I was still cleaning up from several big meals celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday. I don't much mind cleaning up, and mind it even less when there's good music playing, or something is making me laugh. Felt good after a few days of the kind of tension the holidays bring.

Not that I don't enjoy holidays. I do. I love the anticipation, the preparation, the festivities, the people, the food, the ambiance. All of it. But holiday gatherings come with a particular stress impossible to deny, and resistant to precautionary measures. It comes and goes, true. But it's there and it can wear on a person. Because we want things to be right. We want the food to turn out well, the gifts to be perfect, our family to be happy, the plumbing to work properly, the weather to cooperate. Things a person doesn't think about in a given day can take on sudden importance. A boat of gravy spilled on a perfect table, someone arriving an hour late, the tag left on the gift, the completely wrong comment at the absolutely wrong time, the toilet backs up. Tension rises, and peace disappears, and we do our best to smooth it on over.

All because we love each other and want each other to feel good and be happy. The holidays have arrived, and soon will all of the relatives, and the beauty of it all is that nothing is going to be perfect, and people are responsible for their own happiness. Amidst the repeat gifts and the clogged toilets and inappropriate comments and the overdone ham, you have each other to love. And everything's going to be just fine.

Bacon is in my top ten, and this recipe works for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or at midnight -- when food often is most satisfying.

Bacon Cornbread

¾ cup yellow corn meal
1 cup milk
1 cup dairy sour cream
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp. soda
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
¼ cup sugar
1 egg
4 slices crisp bacon, crumbled

Blend cornmeal, milk and sour cream together. Set aside for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375. Sift together other dry ingredients. Beat egg lightly and add to cornmeal mixture. Blend in dry ingredients and beat until just smooth. Add bacon, pour into greased preheated 9-inch square pan. Bake in oven for 15-20 minutes. Serve hot with butter.

Enjoy!