early december

yesterday was an incredibly stressful day. today was *much* better. i took samuel and eva to the last art class in a series they have been attending wednesday mornings for the past several weeks. last week they did miniature natural worlds with plants, each building tiny houses and putting in fairy-sized pathways among the plants. this week they each made a geoboard. the project was complete with sawing, sanding, designing, hammering and finally rubber-banding. i was worried about it when we arrived late to the class and everyone who was already there had been sawing for a half hour already, but eventually everyone had their wooden square and the rest of the project proceeded well.

then we went out for lunch with good friends from the class and met another friend at the park for some lovely december sunshine. tonight eva and i made both {our annual} pomegranate granita (technically, a sorbet this year {again}) and meringue puff {cookies} for the tween holiday party we are attending tomorrow. the tween group is a new group for us and is specifically for the westside of portland. we went to a book club last month sponsored by another woman in the group. it's funny to me calling samuel a tween. not since my kids were preschoolers-although i don't remember using that term often, so maybe it goes back all the way to when i had toddlers?- did we have a specific label for one of my kid's age range. so tween it is. at least in this group.

incidentally, i doubled the granita recipe this year and used 4 pomegranates (for 2 cups pomegranate juice) and added that to 1 cup water combined with 1/2 cup sugar (cooked until dissolved) and put in the ice cream maker until done. you can make a true granita by pouring it into a bowl and setting it in the freezer. periodically go in and break up the forming chunks so that it doesn't freeze solid.

the meringue cookies are 4 egg whites with 1 cup sugar added 1/4 cup at a time after the egg whites have been beat to stiff peaks (but not dry- because they always say that, although to be honest, i have never actually seen dry peaks, that i know of...). when you have stiff peaks with the sugar, spoon onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets and cook- watch carefully- at 200 for an hour or so. remove before they darken, although it's not the end of the world if they darken. i'm going to experiment with drizzling chocolate onto them tomorrow after they have cooled. should be a fun experiment.