When I think of my great-grandmother, Grandma “Bridge City,” I think of the color red. I think of the blessings she had in the form of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren who she got to meet. And at Christmastime, I think about her candy making. I remember standing in her kitchen – a kitchen that would one day be my own – and watching her set out plates of divinity, fudge and bon bons that we would portion out into little tins to give away.
Food is a love language in my family, one that we all speak fluently, one that clearly communicates across the generations. We’ve passed down techniques and recipes to use for pork roasts, gumbo, and even a “birthday cake” for baby Jesus. And although the family is split into two factions over how dumplins should be made (Flat! NO! Puffy!) we still unite in our love for all things foodie.
This year I thought I’d resurrect my great-grandmother’s Christmas candy craze and try my hand at making divinity. It’s basically a cross between a pure puff of sugar and a meringue. Some people put nuts in theirs, some like to add food coloring to make a pretty pastel presentation. Either way, divinity should be smooth and melt in your mouth. It might be one of the most delightful things you could eat for the holidays.
It’s also one of the most dreadfully difficult things to make just right.
I mean, sure, there’s a recipe. Recipes are fail-proof, right? Just follow the directions. Pffffttthhht. Not with divinity.
With divinity, you have to get lucky. You have to be blessed. You can’t make it on a humid day. You have to beat it just right. Otherwise, you just end up with polar bear poop.
Sadly, I was neither lucky nor blessed at my first divinity attempt. I followed Paula Deens’ recipe, cooked the sugar to 248 degrees, beat the sugar and egg whites until glossy and…plop.
Paula Deen, you are drunk.
According to the rest of the internet food world, there is no way your recipe will work because A) the sugar never got hot enough and B) you’re supposed to beat the cooked sugar and whipped egg whites until they STOP being glossy. You beat them like a redheaded stepchild. You beat them until your stand mixer begs you to stop.
I had better luck with my second try – cooking the sugar mixture to 260 degrees and beating the ever-loving hell out of the cooked sugar and whipped egg whites. When the candies set up and cooled and took a nibble off of the end of one and was instantly transported back to my great-grandmother’s kitchen. They were perfect, and I felt triumphant and somewhat redeemed.
Christmas Divinity
2 1/2 cups white granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
2 egg whites, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
nuts (optional)
food coloring (optional)
There are a few really important techniques to remember when making divinity. First, make sure all bowls and utensils are clean, dry and free of any debris. Second, don’t make this on a rainy day or if you live in Florida. Humidity equals polar bear poop. Third, make sure your eggs are at room temperature. Fourth, get a candy thermometer. Don’t even try to eyeball this.
Clip your candy thermometer to the side of a saucepan and boil the sugar, corn syrup, water and salt to 260 degrees. It will look like boiling glass.
While you are waiting for the sugar to boil, beat the egg whites in your mixer until they begin to form stiff peaks.
Once the sugar has reached 260 degrees, slowly stream it down the side of the bowl into the egg whites while the mixer is on high. Continue to beat the mixture until oh, about Tuesday. Seriously, beat it forever. I’m not going to give you an exact amount of time, just leave that sucker on high and go paint your toenails.
Ok, maybe not that long, but you get the drift. When the mixture starts to become a little less shiny, turn it off and lift up the beater. The candy should form a column from beater to bowl on its own. If it drizzles back down into the bowl, it’s not ready. Beat it some more. Read a magazine. Take the dog for a walk.
WAIT. STOP. IT’S READY.
Add your vanilla. Stir it in along with any food coloring or nuts you want to add. Quickly, take the beater out and set the bowl down next to some non-stick foil or wax paper. Dip a spoon in cold water and scoop out some of the mixture. The texture will be unlike anything else you’ve ever scooped – sort of marshmallowy, kind of souffle-ish. You can make messy little dollops, or you can try to make them pretty by placing a pecan on top.
Let the divinity sit out and dry until you can handle it without it sticking to your fingers. Now, you can box it up and share it, or you can store it in an air-tight container in your nightstand where Santa can’t get his fat fingers on it.
Union Station is one of my favorite places in Kansas City, especially during the holidays. Every year we go downtown to see the model train display and marvel at the Christmas decorations. The majestic architecture of the train station is beautifully complimented by the brightly lit trees and sparkling snowflakes hanging from the ceiling.
This year we figured Monkey was old enough to enjoy the Kansas City Southern Holiday Express, a train “unlike any other train in the world, with its smiling engine “Rudy”, gingerbread boxcar, flatcar carrying Santa’s sleigh, reindeer and a miniature village, snow covered stall filled with model train displays, the elves’ workshop and even a little red caboose.”
If you want to catch the Holiday Express, you have the option of standing in a three-hour-long line OR, if you’re quick with the internet skills, reserving VIP tickets online so you can enjoy the not-so-cheerful glares of others as you skip ahead to the front. We got lucky this year and snagged reservations before they ran out.
We did not get so lucky with the Santa picture.
My son HATES Santa. HATES HIM.
But he loves trains, and so through the Holiday Express we went.
At the end, Monkey received a big red bag of candy which he later enjoyed, minus the parental chocolate tax. We posed for a quick picture in front of Rudy the locomotive, checked out a few Extreme Gingerbread Home Makeover Prize Winners and got home in time for dinner and snuggles and (unfortunately) another football game on tv.
Next weekend, Texas invades Missouri and we’re looking forward to the house full of chaos with my mom, sister and our nephews. Our chances of a white Christmas are slim, but no matter the weather we’re expecting a festive holiday full of food, friends and family. We wish you all the same!
Christmas preparations have been extra fun this year because Monkey is old enough to really pay attention to what’s going on and enjoy it. He dances to the holiday tunes (Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song is his personal favorite), sneaks candy canes off the tree and today got to decorate his first gingerbread house.
We got off to a really great start. I assembled the walls and roof then gave him the candy to decorate. His chubby fingers managed to place a few round candies on the roof without smearing icing everywhere.
About five minutes in though, it clicked in his head that this stuff was edible. He popped a candy in his mouth and then it became, “One for the roof, one for my belly.”
That lasted for another couple of minutes until I broke out the gum drops and then it was, “Screw the house, gimme ALL THE CANDY.” I shut that down pretty quick and managed to decorate the rest of the house myself.
While I was taking pictures of our final product, a little fat arm shot into frame, plucked a peppermint off the back of the house and shoved it into a little mouth that was already full of gummy spice leaves.
I got one more picture before the ravenous look on my kid’s face convinced me that it was best to slowly back away from the house before someone huffed and puffed and swallowed it whole.
What holiday fun are you having? Link up your camera phone photos with Greta and me at #iPPP!
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It’s just another Monday. My husband has returned to work after a nearly-week-long vacation. The mercury has dipped below temperatures that I consider appropriate and we (mom, kid, dogs and cat) are all snuggled up inside staying warm.
I enjoy Mondays as a stay-at-home mom. They are usually non-eventful. Business as usual includes picking up the clutter after my husband’s much-deserved slothful Sunday football binge, removing sticky handprints from surfaces and setting out something to thaw for dinner.
So terribly exciting, I know. But I enjoy the peace the routine brings. I know these years at home are finite and that one day I’ll rejoin the rat race and be up and at ‘em and in the car with the rest of the commuters. So I savor each second of domestic bliss that time affords me.
Most days I think my kid enjoys the peace as well, but there are some afternoons where the glint in his eyes gets a little sparklier and I can tell I’m in for it.
Today he was a little ornery – pilfering a candy cane off the tree – but mostly laid back. We played “store” with his cash register, talked endlessly about circles and ovals (something he is inexplicably obsessed with, he points them out wherever he sees them: Dishes, patterns on clothing, indentations left by laundry baskets on the floor) and learned our ABCs with Elmo on the iPad.
When naptime rolled around, we walked hand-in-hand up the stairs and to his room. He let go of my hand, giggled, and then threw himself on the bed upside down, his legs crossed at the ankles and his feet flopped onto the pillows.
“No, goofy, turn around!” I told him.
He smiled and flipped over onto his stomach.
“Ha HA, smarty. I mean put your head on the pillow, not your feet.”
He flips over to his back again and smiles at me once more, dimples in full effect. He picks up the pillow between his feet and tosses it with monkey-like dexterity to the foot of the bed where his head is. Then he tucks it behind him and stares innocently up at me.
This mama knows when she’s been outsmarted, so I covered him with his blanket, kissed his forehead and wished him sweet dreams.
“Sweet dreams!” he replied, adding one more giggle to show he was clearly pleased with himself.
That’s my Monday in a nutshell.
Mostly predictable.
Certainly ordinary.
And peppered with the most amazingly cute moments.
I am blessed.
My husband operates a movie theatre and is understandably opposed to taking me to see movies on his nights off. In our five years together, he’s taken me out to a movie one time – to see Twilight. He did that because he knew that not taking me would negatively impact his sex life. Looking back, I can’t believe I wasted my “cut off” card on that craptastic movie, but hey, live and learn.
Now, I can go see movies at his theatre any time while he’s there and he’ll pop in to give me a hug or bring me a drink, but it’s not the same as going to a movie with him. Plus, now I need a babysitter so it’s really just not worth the hassle, especially in the age of $1.20 Redbox DVDs.
So all of my movie dates are women now. Sometimes I catch a Saturday matinee with my bestie, GFunk. A couple of times I’ve taken my mom to see a flick. But mostly my movie nights are reserved for my last remaining single, footloose and fancy free friend, T.
T doesn’t have kids, and although she loves my little Monkey guy she really doesn’t want to come over on her night off each week to watch him do cute things like smash Cheerios into the carpet and giggle after he farts. So we meet up for movies instead.
She’s obsessed with the rapid expansion of my belly and is always sneaking in snacks to the movies (shhhh, don’t tell my husband – that’s a big no no) in a redundant attempt to fatten me up. This last time, we went to see Breaking Dawn and she brought me…a burrito.
Yeah. A burrito. To the movies.
Awesome!
So we sit in the back row of the theatre with our purses full of burrito goodness, waiting for the lights to go down so we can commence chow, but the previews are forever long and I can feel my snack getting cold. Cold burritos are not nearly as tasty as cold pizza, so I decided, meh, screw it, there’s hardly anyone in this screening room anyway so I’m eating my burrito with the lights on.
But first I had to capture this gem. Yeah, I can totally balance a burrito on my baby bump now.
Twenty-five weeks and counting…
Share your camera phone photos of the week with Greta and me! (Yes, it’s totally supposed to be “Greta and me.” When in doubt, remove Greta’s name and read the sentence. You wouldn’t say, “With I.” Also, it’s so annoying to see people write things like “Billy Bob and I’s kids.” THERE IS NO SUCH WORD AS I’s. Ugh. Sorry. Pregnant Grammar Nazi rant over.)
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I love information. There’s way too much of it crammed into my brain, which serves as an organic file cabinet that probably could star in its own episode of Hoarders.
But it’s not just the knowing of things with which I’m obsessed, it’s the origins, communication and effects of that information that completely enthrall me.
I’ve spent time in several newsrooms and watched how gatekeepers uncover and disseminate information. I’ve been a gatekeeper myself. And perhaps the biggest lesson I learned from those experiences was that the sheer immensity of the responsibility that comes with knowing and sharing information can be overwhelming.
Before the advent of social media, that responsibility was easier to bear because timeliness was manageable. Information did not necessarily have to be instantly available because people understood what it took to prepare, fact check and present it.
But now in the age of Twitter where information is immediately accessible, easily searchable and instantly disseminated and corroborated, timeliness is all but impossible to manage.
This morning, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher shot his girlfriend at home, drove to Arrowhead Stadium and committed suicide in front of his coaches in the parking lot.
A HUGE story in any market, not just sports.
I found out about it when one of my friends tweeted a link to another tweet from someone with firsthand knowledge of the situation. It was just after eight in the morning.
It took another 15 minutes for me to find a second reputable confirmation of this event using Twitter. Another ten before a local news outlet posted a story.
At least a full hour before the news made it to the ESPN ticker on television.
And about sixty seconds before people started bitching at ESPN about not having the player’s name available when it had been known on Twitter for at least 45 minutes, and for taking so long to even break the story in the first place.
What most of these people don’t understand is that the levels of professional responsibility differ greatly from your average newshound on Twitter to your national news desk.
On Twitter, speculation is accepted, if not expected. Twitter is information and thoughts with no filter, with virtually no responsibility. This is what makes Twitter both great and terrible.
Great because its unfettered nature allows for unbiased dissemination. Great because it makes everyone a gatekeeper.
Terrible because there’s no collective agreement to hold anyone responsible for the effects of releasing sensitive information too soon. Terrible because fact checking isn’t really a priority for this army of “First”ers.
On ESPN, however, producers have to be absolutely sure of facts before they report them in a situation like this. They are held accountable for releasing a victim’s name before the family is notified. They hold themselves and are held to a higher standard of journalistic integrity.
This means that national sports news networks such as ESPN as well as broader networks like CNN no longer have the market cornered as breaking news sources. Instead, they’ve adapted to provide more in-depth coverage. (Some say this has forced them to become nothing more than a sideshow of talking heads.)
So, as the heir to the kingdom of breaking news, does Twitter need to police itself more carefully regarding sensitive information? Or is this just the future of news?
And what about sites like Wikipedia? Jovan Belcher’s death was updated almost immediately on that site. As several of my friends asked, “Who appointed themselves Wikipedia death updater? What kind of person thinks to immediately do that?”
I’ve done some soul searching this morning in regard to these questions. I know that I love seeing news break. I’m amazed at watching the rate of dissemination that’s possible these days. I like to be the first to know. And yes, I like to be the one who breaks the story first.
But what is my responsibility as a blogger and social media participant? Am I required to wait for the authorities to confirm details on a separate news source before I can share information? Or is there a point where I independently evaluate the credibility of my own sources and post as I see fit?
If I get it wrong, a 140-character retraction is probably enough to satisfy my followers. No one is going to be calling for my job or writing angry letters to my superiors. As fast as my online world changes, people probably won’t even remember my mistake an hour later.
But I’ll know, and since one day I do want to return to the newsroom – or at the very least be a part of the journalism world in a freelance position – it would behoove me to not form any bad habits.
How do you think Twitter can hold itself accountable for accuracy in its spread of information? Is that even possible? Or does the commerce of Followers, Retweets and Favorites keep people loosely in line?
