Salvation Sisters: November 2017

Monday, November 27, 2017

Linda's Double Chocolate Cookies

by Michelle

I have a confession to make. Until last week, I haven't made cookies in years. So many years, in fact, I can't recall the last batch of cookies that I baked. This lapse in cookie baking is due to my daughter, Maddie. Once Maddie was old enough to bake, cookies were her thing. If our family and friends wanted cookies, Maddie happily obliged their cravings. Maddie makes excellent cakes, too. Me? I continued on with the fussier side of baking, making delicious pie crusts and triple chocolate meringues. But now that Maddie's away at college, if I want cookies, it's up to me to make them.

I was invited recently to a photography event and the hostess asked for all the attendees to contribute to a potluck meal. I adore chocolate chip cookies, but I wanted to shake things up a bit and that's when my mind began wandering through the halls of time to recall other superb cookies from my bygone cookie baking days. It didn't take long for me to fondly recall my sister Linda baking up batches of cookies when my daughter was small and we all lived together for a brief time in 2001 before our world got permanently turned upside down after September 11th. This browniesque cookie is our favorite from that time.

The recipe is adapted from a Baker's chocolate recipe called Death by Chocolate Cookies. Linda changed the recipe a bit, which she always seemed to do, based upon her years spent as a pastry chef in the Santa Ynez Valley. The recipe couldn't be easier. All the kitchen equipment you need is a large glass bowl, a whisk, some measuring utensils, a couple cookie sheets and an oven and your on your way to producing an excellent batch of cookies. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Linda's Double Chocolate Cookies

Creamed Baby Peas with Leeks and Bacon (Naturally Gluten-Free)

by Michelle

This is one of my favorite holiday side dishes. I have been making it steadily since 2004 when the recipe appeared in the Thanksgiving issue of Food and Wine Magazine. Aside from the traditional holiday menus that include oven-roasted turkeys and big ol' hams, the peas are spectacular all year long with Danny's Beer Butt Chicken, and tortellini tossed with my basil pesto. The dish also pairs quite beautifully with Beef Bourguignon.
I have modified the recipe over the years to make it even easier to prepare. The author, Grace Parisi, calls for frying most of the leeks as a garnish, which sounds like a great idea. However, much as I have tried, I cannot get the leeks to crisp properly and I dislike cleaning the stove after the frying. I now sauté the leeks and don't bother to garnish the final dish unless I already have some minced parsley on hand to shower over the top. I did flirt with the idea last year of making spiralized crispy onions to sprinkle on top of the dish, but I was too busy and directed my attention elsewhere. Such is the life of a hostess; always mentally computing what to add or discard to a recipe, to a menu, to a table setting. With or without a garnish, this simple, satisfying recipe is delicious.

You can substitute dried thyme if fresh isn't available.

Creamed Baby Peas with Leeks and Bacon

El Día de los Muertos and Juliette's Tamari Pepitas

By Linda and Michelle

"After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." —J.K. Rowling

El Día de los Meurtos celebration in Petaluma, California.

By Linda

November 1, 2015—I thought it only fitting that I start to tell the story of my breast cancer journey-battle on this—El Día de los Muertos—the day celebrated throughout Latin America as the day the the veils of the world thin, allowing the worlds of the living and the dead to interact for a short time. This day is thought to be the time in which one just might be able to connect with those loved ones that have now passed through this realm and on to the next. We sisters have celebrated the holiday with gusto and reverence for many years now.
Each year we devote a Salvation Sisters' blog post to an aspect of the holiday. My sister Juliette outdid herself this year, by creating an amazing sugar skull that was featured on the current issue of Edible Baja—a regional magazine in Southern Arizona where my sisters both reside. Although I just remembered that I am forgetting about the year that she handmade such an amazing community altar to honor our sister Maria who died of a cerebral aneurysm at the age of 31 in 1992, leaving two young daughters behind. The Red Cross asked if they could take Maria's altar on a tour of the United States as part of a program to educate the public at large just how valuable it is to be an organ donor. Our sister's body helped over 300 recipient families to have better lives with the donation of her organs, bone and tissues.

Even celebrations of the macabre need sweet treats.

In my 58 years on this planet, I have experienced the death and disappearance of many that I have loved dearly. My beloved grandmother Maxine, my sister Maria and my son Joshua have all departed this Earth plane for the realm of the spirit, and each has moved on to the next great adventure. In reflection I should add that I feel it is significant in my present circumstances that I have been abandoned by several lovers—traumatic events that each left me feeling bereft, scarred and alone. They had all been relationships that I was convinced would stand the test of time, and yet they did not. In contrast though, I have known great and lasting love—a life-long bond with my remaining two sisters, Juliette and Michelle, both of whom have provided me with a solid connectedness—firmly anchoring me with the living.

As I begin to write on this holy day, I wonder if I will have departed planet Earth for the next realm by this time next year? There is really no way to know, but I have already begun in earnest to try and wrest the reigns from death, and stay here among the living for awhile longer.

I walked downtown this afternoon for a pedicure, thinking that I would not go this year to the procession for El Día de los Muertos—too macabre even by my liberal sensibilities. For the last seven months I have thought about death a considerable amount—an inordinate amount even. Enough already, I said to myself this weekend, no more dwelling on death and dying, and yet when I turned the corner onto Kentucky Street which bisects the historic downtown of Petaluma, I was greeted with a Mexican Día de los Muertos street festival in full swing, and I had to laugh, the joke being on me.

"Welcome to the Día de los Muertos Celebration of 2015, Linda. It's quite possible that you might be the honored ancestor at next year's festivities." I said to myself.

I can only describe it as a very sobering experience. However I did not weep, nor did I not feel sorry for myself. Instead I did what I am sure I will be doing until I draw my last breaths, or am just too weak to put the viewfinder to my eye—I pulled out my camera and started shooting.

Linda captured these photos in 2015 in Petaluma, CA.

My daughter Maddie is proud of her Auntie Juliette for making
the sugar skull featured on the October 2015 cover of Edible Baja Magazine.

Three skeletons and a selfie-stick at the All Souls Procession 2016 in Tucson, Arizona.

By Michelle

Last November my sister Juliette, her daughter Sonora and I attended the All Souls Procession in Tucson like we have in year's past. Linda had been living in Tucson with my husband and me since April of 2016. After enduring both chemotherapy and radiation, and almost dying, she had regained her mobility and was getting out and about with the aid of a walker. The oncologist advised that while Linda's breast cancer was not curable, it was treatable, and that the "virgin" cancer cells might take a wollup of a beating after meeting chemotherapy for the first time. As the saying goes, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. After receiving treatment in February and March at UCSF, before moving to Tucson, Linda did rally over the summer months and steadily improved, albeit temporarily.

In September, Linda was dealt an emotional blow when a brain MRI revealed multiple small tumors. With this gloomy news, Linda could not bring herself to attend the All Souls Procession, suddenly developing an aversion to a celebration that was once near and dear to her heart. When pressed on why she didn't want to attend, Linda snapped, "You wouldn't enjoy either if you were dying."
Juliette replied, "That's the point, none of us know when our number is up. Día de los Muertos is about paying our respects to our loved ones that have died." They're dead. You're alive. Let's go remember them, together, while we still can. Then, that was that. There wasn't any more conversation about it. We went, Linda didn't.

The irony is that Juliette, Sonora and I totally missed the procession. The three of us met in the late afternoon to mill around the starting point for the Procession. We wanted to see how participants were dressed and the late afternoon light afforded me the opportunity to take about a million photos without having to attach a flash to my camera.
The three of us eventually got hungry so we wandered around until we found a restaurant to get a bite to eat. We found a nice place to sit outdoors on a patio under a large tree that shielded us from the late afternoon sun. We ordered food to share from a food truck parked in the beer garden. One thing lead to another, one topic of conversation flowed into another, and by the time we picked ourselves up and walked to a nearby street on the parade's route, we discovered much to our chagrin (and embarrassment) that the Procession had already passed by.

Top photos, Juliette and daughter, Sonora. Bottom photo, Sonora and me.
Juliette decorated hats for herself and me to wear specifically for the Procession.

Not wanting the evening to end too quickly, we walked to Hotel Congress, which has been a popular destination in downtown Tucson since 1919. We were lucky, once again, to find seats on the outdoor patio under a large, beautiful tree with sprawling limbs. A talented band was playing for our entertainment, so we happily ordered a round of cocktails and effortlessly picked back up our conversation. I can't imagine the weather being nicer anywhere in the world than a desert evening in Tucson in the first few days of November. The majority of the crowd was dressed for the Procession. Faces decorated as sugar skulls illuminated the night under the dim yellow-hued lights strung above the patio and swagged across tree limbs.
And while I may not have time this year, due to recovering from a surgery (yes, it has been quite the year), to make sugar skulls or throw a sugar skull decorating party or make Sonoran Hotdogs or Dead Man's Party Cookies, I will certainly without a doubt pay my respects to my all my loved ones, but especially to my dear sisters, Linda and Maria, whom have gone before me into the great beyond. I hope they will always feel my continuing love and devotion wherever they might be.