You can always fax and call on Sunday but that’s the cut off for entry into the drawing. Get those enrollments in!
Of course, if you want to wait and enroll in Jan or Feb, that’s fine by us. Oh, don’t forget, Paul George is our first workshop and what a great workshop. Then Christine Debrosky! So far, the weather is mild.
And still be entered into our prize drawing. So, if you’re going to enroll, I’d do it now. Remember, all enrollments must be postmarked by Dec 31 2006.
Well, Momofuku called and said that they didn’t have the hat. It must have slipped off and now, one hopes, some homeless person is keeping warm using it.
Kim is busy knitting me another one. Sigh. It was nice of them to call. Well, I highly recommend it. So, go out there and give it a try. Just leave your hat at home. 😉
Next year we will be open for all the holidays. Here’s what you’re missing.
On Christmas Eve, we decorate our tree. To do this, I make eggnog and usually something else.
This year, I made pastries, dartois with frangipane filling.
Going…
Going…
Gone.
But before decorating the tree, we had our traditional late lunch. I made raclette sandwiches with potato bread.
Usually, one puts raclette over potatoes. In Vienna, we had sandwiches. So, I made potato bread sandwiches which you see here. I included traditional Holland style onions with Italian capers, sweet gherkins and white asparagus and a great eggplant rollade.
Kim likes open face sandwiches, et voila.
All this next to an open fire.
Then with nog in hand, we decorate.
Then we put the presents under the tree. We got a lot from everyone. Notice that nice big ornament from Monica? Beautiful.
Hudson made out like a bandit. He loved the candy canes Monica sent. Thanks. And we got him a dog bed. Luxury. Adina got him a squirrel flier, or frisbee-eque chew toy.
Christmas day is when we then open our gifts and presents.
Kim’s loot!
My loot!
And finally, the mess!
Kim and I then had a jacuzzi, it’s great owning a resort, and we broke out the cha-cha DVD and practice our cha-cha. Kim got me cha-cha lessons from the great Ron Montez from whom we used to take lessons. Our main instructor was Sherry Wu.
Oh, and last year we spent Christmas in Vienna at the Grand Hotel Wien. You missed that one, too. The year before we were in Virginia at my Mom’s house.
We ate at Le Ciel
And the Grand Cafe
There are pictures of our room somewhere on the blog.
We bought this tree from a neighbor down the road. The woman who lives there is charging people $20 to cut down a tree. She wants to clear her property. And we found this perfect, blue spruce! Isn’t it beautiful. We forget to take a picture of me cutting it down.
Kim has decided that we are going to plant a Christmas Tree grove. So we also bought a live tree. You know, we could just up root a tree and plant it on our property. Next year, I’ll get a picture of me cutting down a tree. There are so many great trees on her property. Next year, she wont be advertising but we’re invited back.
I’m making Raclette sandwiches and then I’ll make eggnog and pastry, probably some puff paste squares with some frangipane that I’ll make. Then we decorate the tree and drink my famous eggnog and my even more famous pastry. Don’t worry, you’ll get some of pastry next year. Tomorrow we’ll be eating my very famous Almost Welsh Pasties with demiglace and asparagus with Sauce Espagnole.
La!
And were we lucky to get Ruth for our first year of Art Quilt classes? You betcha. We’re asked her back. It’s up to her schedule at this point.
And they worked hard in our very large studio. This is a full class, 20 people, and they pinned up their work, and look at the space…
They worked, alright!
And Ruth mentored, taught and just was very hands on and wonderful.
They had fun eating…
We had a wonderful long weekend workshop with La Maestra:
in warm December,
Just look at the space in our studio. Wowza!
Oh yes, they had fun.
Look, a rare photo! How nice.
And even rarer photo of the Art Chicken! The Art Chicken is back! Ooops. It’s a fake.
What a beautiful flower and an even lovelier smile!
Now, back to work everyone!
More photos coming.
It’s back to being very hot here. Dang! No snow!
It finally went below freezing. We had some snow yesterday but it didn’t stick.
Sigh!
Well, we went to Manhattan after my Sunday practice of Shinto Muso Ryu (SMR) and hung out with my brother, John. We saw the Macy’s window display as well as the Lord and Taylor display. We hit the holiday market (advent market or Kristkindlmarkt, as they call it in Austria and Germany) in Grand Central as well as a couple of others. Stopped in at the Algonquin, one of my favorite hotels, and ate at Momofuku Noodle Bar which I had heard about from my Food Arts trade journal, which I love. It’s a great mag.
Momofuku was great. The food was spot on. I loved their Heritage Pork dish and liked, but didn’t love, their sweetbreads. I’m afraid that the deep frying masked too much of the delicate flavor. However, the sauce with the sweetbreads was great and I used it on the rice that came with the Heritage Pork dish. Kim had the zucchini hash and my brother and his girlfriend had the one vegetarian option. All of the food was very good, reasonably priced and the ambiance was fun. The sake list was fantastic and the rice beer was incredible. I’d eat there again but I wont bring my hat. I lost a ski hat that Kim knitted for me. Bummer. I hope I get it back.
They have a mixed reputation. Johnny, my brother, thinks it’s the wait. I think it’s the issue they have with hats. Will I go back? Probably. But then again, there are so many restaurants. Maybe I’ll go to Ssam, their other restaurant first.
We went down to the Frederick Vanderbilt house. A nice little house, not too much bigger than this one. It’s his Spring house I think. Probably double or triple the square footage of this one, maybe more but it isn’t ginormous. However, it had 750 acres and one mile of Hudson river frontage. The owner, Daisy, tried to sell it for $250K in the 30s but no takers so she donated it to the town of Hyde Park or the State of NY. I forget which. We’re more curious now about William Vanderbilt the original owner of this house.
The Mansion, as it is called, still has the one mile of river frontage. That’s very nice. I wish we had that. Plus it has a great creek, which we have. The house was done up like Versaille or Schonbrun. As a matter of fact, I said this to Kim and Voila, the guide said that they loved everything European back then and had the Steinway that they bought in NY shipped to Europe, I assume Italy or France, painted and then shipped back. The place was over the top. Nice curtains though.
Well, our cards are on order and we should be sending them out next week. So, hold onto your hats. Keep your fingers crossed. They are coming.
Thank you one and all for sending us these wonderful cards, letters and gifts. They are beautiful. Monica, Bunny, Ron, Diane, Clark, BJ, Mom(1 and 2), Colette, Donaldo, the Children of the Corn, and many more that I am sure I am missing, thanks for the artwork, the thoughts and we hope to see you all in the future, yes, even you Mom(1 and 2).
Have a Happy, Snappy, Winter and a colder New Year. (It is HOT ere! What a time for a Winter Workshop. Next year we will be open. We’re using Winter to go visit area attractions. We just got back from the Vanderbilt Museum.)
Thanks.
The workshops are over and don’t begin again till Feb 8th. We lead off with Paul George. The winter so far is VERY mild. So, come one, come all. We only had two days of cold weather during Ruth McDowell’s workshop. Just enough cold to have hot cocoa!
If you’re not in the mood for a workshop, come up or down or over and stay with us at the Greenville Arms. Don’t forget to book dinner in advance.
And we’re all having a good time. It snowed today too. But nothing stuck. “-( Boo. Hoo.
Well, Judith Trager is in the house and we’re having fun. We go from Judith to Ruth McDowell. There’s one slot open right now. Hurry up and grab it.
We had a fun time in Texas. Only part of which was spent in Houston. Austin is my old stomping grounds and we have friends in Dallas. And we stayed in the Four Seasons. How nice is that?
What did BJ Adams’
class do? Well, they had a great time eating:
And then they sewed…
a machine needling and bob-bobbin pulling thread
and that brings me back to butterflies!
