Thankful Thursday: Gimme a K!

A few weeks ago, I started a weekly countdown of six things I am most thankful for, each of which begin with the letters of the word "THANKS".   So far, I've covered:

Today
Health
Abode
Necessities and niceties

This week, I am once again thankful for two more things.  For one thing, it's hard to limit myself to just one idea per week, and second, these words always sound good together, (especially when Chevy Chase lisps them, "The most enduring traditions of the season are best enjoyed in the warm embrace of kith and kin. Thith tree is a thymbol of the the thspirit of the Grithwold family Chrithmath.") Yes, today I'm thankful for ...

kith and kin

Or better known in modern English as friends and family.  We choose our friends, but fate has a hand in things, determining our pool of potential acquaintances based on where we live, go to school, work, work out, worship, etc.

We have even less say about who's in our family:  we're all born into one, and many of us marry into another.  We get what we get (and they get us, too.)

No matter how we wind up with them, friends and family provide the stuffing that makes our lives full and rich:  love, laughter, tears, even heartache, pain...and the hope of reconciliation.  The story of the prodigal son in Luke 15 shows us the enduring and fierce love of family, which is only a mere reflection of God's love for us, and I especially love imagining the scene where a humbled, broken son returns to find his father was always waiting and watching for him:

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him..."

Norman Rockwell never met the Griswolds.

Friends and family can and will disappoint and aggravate us to the breaking point.  But our family members also put up with our quirks  and eccentricities, and they (usually) forgive us of our transgressions.

Maybe that's why I'm so fond of this particular Christmas movie: it shows the best and worst of holiday togetherness, and in the end, love for family trumps  everything else.

Because no matter what, the bonds of family and friends are the ties that bind us until we are loosed from this earth.

Have you hugged or called a friend or family member today?  Whatcha waiting for?  Only two weeks left before the tryptophan hits and you'll be too tired to do more than slouch on the couch and dream of pie!

Happy thanks-giving,
 

Recipe of the Week: Cheesecake Bars

This is another recipe from another Oklahoma friend. (Good friends and good cooks, all of them!) Dana made this for a progressive dinner at the holidays many years ago, and it was love at first bite.  I have lost her original recipe but not the memory of what it tasted like, and I've tried many times to re-create it - this comes pretty close, I think. Or maybe it's totally different and she'll see this and l send me the real recipe and then I can make them both. Either way, we all win, right?

Sorta-like-Dana's Cheesecake Bars

Crust Ingredients:
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup slightly softened butter
1 cup flour, sifted
1/3 cup finely chopped nuts (I like pecans, but walnuts are good too)

Filling Ingredients:
3, 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened (you can substitute some or all low-fat or no-fat cream cheese)
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
8 tablespoons buttermilk  (or 7 tablespoons heavy cream, half and half or milk + 1 tablespoon lemon juice)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.  Line 9x13 pan with parchment paper (you can serve from the pan, but this makes it easy to lift them out and cut them into squares for serving.)

In a bowl, cream butter and brown sugar. Add flour and work in well.  Add chopped nuts and blend; press into bottom of pan and bake for 12-15 minutes.  Let cool slightly.

For filling, beat cream cheese and slowly add sugar until it's blended in. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each. Add vanilla and buttermilk or cream/milk and lemon juice and mix well.  Pour over crust and bake for 25 minutes - do not overbake; you want the filling to remain creamy and moist.  Let cool completely and cut into squares.  Makes 18 cookie-size servings or 36 bite-size squares.

I like serving these with slightly sweetened fresh fruit (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries or cherries), or set out a DIY topping bar with an array of sauces (chocolate and caramel are good), plus fruit and whipped toppings.


P.S. - A very happy 23rd birthday to our middle child.  One turtle cake coming up just for you! (Maybe I'll post the recipe to it one day soon, too!)

Spring (or planting!) fever

Every year for four years, a group of men and women from Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee mark their calendars for one Saturday in April, and agree to meet up at Rita Randolph's greenhouses in Jackson, Tennessee.  We do our best to clean out her inventory (don't worry - she's got plenty more where that came from...we think!), and we giggle and gossip and snatch plants left and right.  After we all tally up our bills (we usually don't compare notes on spending.  What happens at Rita's stays at Rita's), we head over to Casey Jones restaurant to continue the fellowship over a leisurely lunch before reluctantly parting ways.

You may be wondering, WHY?  We all have nurseries and garden centers much closer to our homes - we probably all drove past one or more on our way.  So why drive for hours to this one nursery?  Is it that special?  It's true that Rita has some of the most fabulous container ideas around.  But more than that, it's an excuse to visit and catch up with each other.  Some of the travelers make plans to stay overnight and visit several more nurseries before heading home.  (I've been known to haul unsuspecting passengers through extremely rural parts of Dickson on our way back from Jackson, in search of Marianna's tomato plants.)

You may also be wondering how we know each other.  High school or college? Nope.  Work? Nope.  Sports? Still nope. Church? And no again..  Give up?

What brought us together was a website called Dave's Garden.  Over the years, we've shared gardening tips and tricks, recipes, ideas, and recommendations.  We've also shared stories about our lives, weathered many storms, from Katrina to last year's Tennessee floods, and more tornadoes than we can count.  Always, there's someone in this group making sure everyone in an affected area is okay.  What started out as online acquaintances has deepened into abiding real-life friendships.  I rarely mention my day job here because I try to keep work and blog separate, but I've been privileged to be able to work for this website for several years, as well as be part of this vast but tight-knit community.  What a treat it is to work with and for such a great group.  And get to see some of them at least once a year, and ooh and ahh over gorgeous plants all ready to be tucked into containers to  welcome visitors to our homes and greet us on our decks and back porches.

This year's trip is tomorrow.  And it has an added benefit:  it gives me an opportunity to get away for a day before we start moving next week.  I have already vowed to not buy as many plants as usual, since we're going to be betwixt and between over the week. But those plants have a siren's call that is difficult to ignore.  So I will probably come home with plants a-plenty, as always.  The containers are ready and waiting at the new house.  An advanced thank-you to Rita for her graciousness in letting us use her site for our annual soiree.

Happy planting!