I asked Mel for my Christmas present early this year. He had asked me what I wanted and I never have any idea what I want – I really don’t need anything. Except this year – I did need something. The arthritis in my hands is getting worse and I haven’t had an electric mixer for over 10 years. Stirring batter for cakes, cookies and other things was starting to be more of a pain than the end product was worth. So, I asked for one of those electric mixers with the bowl attached that goes around and around while the beaters do their job. We walked over to a local appliance store, looked at the three or four that were in the store and I chose the one I wanted. He went over to the cashier, paid for it, then the sales woman started boxing it up. Along the way she pulled out an extension cord and plugged it in for me to prove it actually worked. She popped the big box into a bigger plastic bag and we toted the thing home. Ok, I confess – Mel toted it home for me while I walked happily by his side.
I put it to work two days ago and made three different kinds of cookie dough. One batch of cut-out cookies, two batches of one kind that were one chocolate and one vanilla, and two batches of anther kind that one was tinted red and the other was tinted green. I rolled out the chocolate and the vanilla, cut them into similar sized strips and then stacked them (chocolate, vanilla, chocolate in two stacks and vanilla, chocolate, vanilla in one stack), stuck them side by side and then froze them (when cut they have a checkerboard look). The red and green I rolled out, put the green on the red and then rolled them up like a jelly roll and popped them in the freezer, too (these look like pinwheels when cut). I was very glad that I did not have to do anything except refrigerate the cut-out dough. By that point I was heartily sick of cookie dough!
Ira came over Wednesday night while Mel was having his Russian lesson. She and I were in the kitchen while I made dinner and I remembered her telling me once that she had never made cut-out cookies in her life. So, I pulled the bowl of dough out of the fridge, gave her general directions on what to do and let her at it. After the first sheet was in the oven I thought – I don’t want to make frosting tonight – so, I got out two glass containers, put some sugar in them and added some food coloring and showed her how to shake it up to make colored sugar. She then sprinkled the sugar on the remaining cookies before baking them, getting more and more creative as she went. After dinner I sent the whole batch home with her (there are 7 people living in the house where she currently resides). And then after she went home (around 11pm) I got out all the ingredients and made another batch. I am so thankful for my Christmas present!
After doing a quick dust and vacuum through the livingroom, moving the tree over out of the way, and getting the table set up for company, I got out my crockpot, spices and the apple juice and started them heating together. Then, I made spinach pesto (with regular Russisky cheese instead of parmesean), egg salad and got out some cherry jam and peanut butter. After that I got real creative – and cut the bread with cookie cutters into different shapes. Fortunately, Olya got here around 3:15 and helped me actually make some open face sandwiches with the bread shapes and the afore mentioned ingredients (the spinach made really nice Christmas trees and the egg salad made nice stars!). We were just finishing when the first women showed up for the Women’s Bible Study.
All in all there were 9 women here tonight and Mel. For some reason it seems that his life is full of women all the time. He gets frustrated sometimes, but I see over and over again how God has given him a personality that does well working with women. He respects us, treats us as equals and intelligent, and sees us as just “people.” Every woman who reads this understands what I mean by that. Sometimes women are afraid of him when they first meet him because he is so tall, but soon find out he’s ok. So very nice!
So, 9 women. I asked Olya to read the Christmas story for us from Luke, and then we all gave our prayer requests. This takes quite awhile because health and politics must be discussed, good and bad news shared. But it is wonderful to listen to the women pray for each other and others in our church and families, sincerely from their hearts. Then it was ‘snack’ time. While everyone ate, Lyuda read her term paper aloud to the group. She had to do this for part of her final grade at a local Christian institute (she is graduating). The subject was “The History of Reformed Churches in Ukraine.” I didn’t hear very much of it, but Mel said it was interesting, what little was translated for him – it was all in Ukrainian, not Russian. After dinner and the report it was Cookie Time!
I spent most of the evening walking back and forth between the livingroom and the kitchen, carrying hot cookie sheets of baked cookies into the livingroom to cool, and bringing unbaked cookies into the kitchen to pop in the oven. We have a teeny little stove and it has only one rack, so I can bake only one sheet at a time. In the livingroom, though, the ladies were having a fun time. As I was standing in the doorway waiting for a batch to finish baking, Svyeta looked up at me and smiled. Then she said in very broken English “This first time!” I responded back again, in broken Russian, “you have never frosted cookies before??!!” And she shook her head and said, “no, never – this first time.” Svyeta is in her 60’s.
After the cookies were all finished, Lydia begged me to sing Silent Night. I do not have that great of a voice and did not want to, but finally I got out a hymn book and sang Silent Night in English while Olya sang with me in Russian. Then inbetween talking about different Christmas carols and music, I thumbed through the hymnal and sang the first verse of several more. Valentina told me then that she had never heard any of them. I was shocked. I told her it was really sad for me to hear that because almost all of them were European – from Great Britain or Germany or France, etc. She responded that for so many years they were kept behind the wall of silence, they really know very little about Europe. I still have a very sad feeling when I think of that.
But the night was great. It was fun and I’m exhausted. I sent almost all of the cookies home with them. Can you believe it – I’m planning to do this all over again on Saturday with another group of gals, from my craft class and a couple others I’ve invited. Hopefully it will go as smoothly.
I need to go back to the store and buy some more butter, flour and ….. Think Mel will want to go with me?? Heh heh heh.
update I just reread this after posting and I wonder, what is a "two liter quart??" I think I'm tireder than I thought...that's supposed to be "a two liter box" :):)
