Sunday Breakfast

 

I take very good care of this little green book because this 1950 edition of the 1922 book by Abbie Graham is only to be found for around $170 now. I bought it decades ago when Sarah Ban Breathnach quoted from it in her early Simple Abundance book. Probably many of her readers bought Ceremonials of Common Days and so now copies are scarce.

Graham writes of Sunday:

Sunday is my Festival of Beauty, of Loved Things, of Leisure, and of Worship. I reserve for it whatever I most enjoy--flowers, blue china at breakfast, books, important letters, special walks, colored candles at supper and waffles, pine incense and colored flames in my fire. On Sunday I would not do any work, nor say nor think nor do unworthy things. I may this day announce to the people whom I like the fact that I do like them.

It was easy to set aside Sunday for worship when our children were at home. Even when they all grew up and left home, RH and I still attended and Sundays were special. Then came the post-hysterectomy days for me of insomnia, always made worse when I knew I would have to be somewhere early the next morning. 

One blessing to me in these days of  pandemic has been the live streaming of church services, and I'm careful to be ready to sit down and watch Nashville's Covenant Presbyterian's service, enjoying hearing the hymns and anthems that I grew up hearing before the sermon.

RH and I try to have a special Sunday breakfast. If he cooks it's going to be pork chops and the grits he does so well, low and long for the creamiest grits ever. I do the scrambled eggs and bread of some kind with it.

When I cook, it's going to be either waffles or pancakes and he fries up the bacon for it. 

The Sunday after Thanksgiving I made buttermilk waffles and set the table with my favorite breakfast dishes, this restaurant ware we bought over 40 years ago in an old warehouse on the river in downtown Nashville that is now full of the music and dining places that draw tourists here year round.

When I uploaded the pictures, I was surprised to see that the Moravian Star that hangs over our dining table showed up clearly in the dish.

They go well with pieces of brown drip-edge serving pieces we have. When we have company for a pancake or waffle breakfast the taller pitcher hold maple syrup and the shorter one holds melted butter but this morning they were just for show. I was out of the special blackberry jam I prefer with pancakes.

 These vintage pheasant glasses were perfect for fall but got put away with the other fall things in December.

We look forward to this one unhurried morning to eat breakfast together and usually watch the CBS Morning show. And I enjoy setting a pretty breakfast table that morning and I think RH enjoys it too. Or maybe he just humors me! 

Abbie Graham's Sunday Festival of Beauty is good for the soul. And our bodies need a day of Leisure. That's hard to pull off but I do try never to do laundry on that day, my one line in the sand. Not saying or thinking anything unworthy is more difficult, so thank God there is Grace for that! 

Graham says that on Sunday she will "announce to the people whom I like the fact that I do like them." And I would like to say to those who continue to visit me here that I do like you, very much!

Thank you, and have a safe and lovely Sunday! 

A Dumb New Year's Day Question

Whoa! This ad from a 1928 magazine made me do a double take. I flipped back to the page several times.

How many years older will I be next New Year's Day?

Well, God willing and the creek don't rise, I'll be another year older, right? And you will be too?

Of course I get it--if I drink Postum instead of coffee then I'll be younger than otherwise, that's what the ad is trying to say. 

If I give up this and give up that, I'll age more slowly. If I do this and don't do that, ditto.

But, in January? The month that follows Christmas?

As Abbie Graham says in Time Off and On, "I am not wholly committed to January. I do not entirely trust it as a month." Can I at least wait until Easter's carrot cake is made, frosted with cream cheese, and nibbled, savoring each bite?

But I'm willing to approach this question from another tack. How many wonderful healthy things can I cook in January? 

Lots of things, beginning with the traditional New Year's Day dish of Collards!

  
Say you don't like collards? Maybe you'll like my recipe that is an old Gourmet magazine one:

 
I skip the bacon now and jump straight to cooking chopped onions, any color. Then I stir a tablespoon of brown sugar into the onions and caramelize them a little, stir in a good sprinkle of dried hot red pepper flakes--have you tried this brand?

 I get them from Amazon and they are amazing!

Then I add a little apple cider vinegar and a box of good chicken broth. You've already washed your collards, of course. Triple washed them because who wants to get any grit in their collards?

 Cut the toughest part of the stems out, bunch and slice them and add to the hot pot and toss and wilt and slow cook all afternoon, add salt and pepper and you have one fine mess of greens and pot liquor that will put strength and vigor in your body. 

 Don't believe me, just read here!

Just don't be like Fred Sanford and eat them when they're eight days old. They don't last that long in our house.

On New Year's Day we'll have a pork loin roast with sauerkraut (sharing an extra one with family), black-eyed peas, and Pioneer Woman's Stuffed Baked Potatoes, and some Cranberry Jalapeno Relish. And collards, naturally, with a spoonful of my hot pepper vinegar over them.

What are you having for New Year's Day?

Blessings in 2020, dear friends and family! And all kidding aside, I wish for all of us to be as young as healthily possible next New Year's Day. 

 

  

Dear Nora,

My dear granddaughter, I know you've grown so much since your daddy took this photograph a few years back. Now you share this little white Christmas tree with your little sister. Your mommy and daddy gave it to me before you were born, and I gave it back to you the year this picture was taken. 

That look of wonder in your eyes as it's lit in your bedroom makes your Mimi's heart skip a beat.

But someday you will be your mommy's age, or even my age, as hard as that is to imagine. So here's a little advice about Christmas from someone even older than your Mimi that maybe you'll find handy when you celebrate Christmas as an adult someday.

Christmas is not the time for attending to one's duty; it is the time for having attended to it. If duty must be done, do it early. If there are letters that ought to be written, cards that should be exchanged, packages that must be gotten off, do all these things in that first burst of Yuletide spirit engendered by the merchants in late November.

Abbie Graham

Time Off and On

So just remember, dear Nora, do what I say, not what I do. Don't save everything that should have been done in late November and early December for those final few days before the Christmas festivities begin. 

I wish someone had told me that way back when I was near your age, lying under our Christmas tree.

My love to you and your little sister,  sweet Nora! See you soon,

           Mimi

To my dear friends reading Dewena's Window, I know all of you are just as busy as I am this near to Christmas, probably more busy. But I am so behind in preparing for Christmas that I ask you to excuse me from the wonderful world of blogging until after Christmas. 

I do have a Christmas Eve post already scheduled, put together one night when I couldn't sleep, and I'll let it run as it's about family and for family, but please know that I want each of you to devote yourselves to your own holiday celebration and the family and friends around you and not even think about having to leave a comment here then, or just a hello if you feel so inclined.

I will return to visiting everyone after Christmas and RH and I wish each of you the most joyous times with your loved ones.

Love to you all as I pause to celebrate the birth of Christ with dear ones,

Dewena