French Onion Soup

My recipe for French Onion Soup is based off Julia Child's in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, with a few edits and more explicit instructions in places. 

This soup takes a lot of time and attention (and a tireless stirring arm). End-to-end it takes me about 2 hours and 45 minutes. I think it's worth it, though, and the soup reheats well for about a week after.

One of my favorite parts is watching the onions slowly break down and turn into liquid gold.

The flavor of the onions becomes rich, deep, and caramel-y. The other key to making this soup really special is the time under the broiler. My thick, sturdy supper club bowls withstand the heat but get very hot to the touch. We have to eat off hot pads. 

For cheese I like to use Gruyère or Asiago.  

The One about a Storm at the North Pole

One day up at the North Pole, Mrs. Claus looked outside and noticed that it was storming. "Santa!" she called. "Come and look at the rain, deer."

Christmas Camping at Ottawa Lake

I like to go camping the weekend before Christmas. This was our third year in a row at Ottawa Lake in Wisconsin.

Our winter camps can be quite cold, but we quickly warm up by hiking around the lake and building a fire. (There is no such thing as bad weather - only inappropriate clothing!)

Cubby dog wears her horsey blanket (fleece coat) to help her stay warm. 

At night she burrows into our down layers inside the tent.

Ottawa Lake is beautiful and quiet in the winter time.

I was quite taken with this white tree. It stood out among all the grays and browns. I think it is a paper birch.

This year the leaves are perfectly frozen underneath the clear shallow end of the lake. 

I love this old Jeep. It's been very good to me even though I've been hard on it, and every time we take it on a camping trip I worry that it will be its last time.

Here are five years of Wisconsin State Parks stickers.

This year our campsite was on an overlook over the lake. 

I love these quiet moments I have before the craze of the holidays, spending time with Geoff in the beauty of the outdoors, and talking about the year behind and the year to come.

The One about the Newspaper Announcement

A man and his wife tried and tried to have a baby, but without success. Years went by and they went on trying, but no luck. 

They liked each other, so the work was always a pleasure, but they grew a bit sad along the way. Finally, she got pregnant, was very careful, and gave birth to a beautiful eight-pound-two-ounce baby boy. The couple were beside themselves with happiness. 

At the hospital that night, she told her husband to stop by the local newspaper and arrange for a birth announcement, to tell all their friends the good news. First thing next morning, she asked if he’d done the errand.

“Yes, I did,” he said, “but I had no idea those little notices in the paper were so expensive.”

“Expensive?” she said. “How much was it?”

“It was eight hundred and thirty-seven dollars. I have the receipt.”

“Eight hundred and thirty-seven dollars!” she cried. “But that’s impossible. You must have made some mistake. Tell me exactly what happened.”

“There was a young lady behind a counter at the paper, who gave me the form to fill out,” he said. “I put in your name and my name and little Teddy’s name and weight, and when we’d be home again and, you know, ready to see friends. I handed it back to her and she counted up the words and said, ‘How many insertions?’ I said twice a week for fourteen years, and she gave me the bill. O.K.?”

--with credit to Roger Angell

A Winter Day at the Beach

So far, December has been mild and the lake has been peaceful and calm.

Cubby dog came to the beach with me on a temperate day to get a closer look. 

Here is a big brush pile, waiting to be burned. 

Right now the water is teal and cloudy. So is the sky.

And so many smooth stones have washed up onto shore.

Cub perched on the big rocks and ran around the edge of the water until we had to go home.

I know it will get colder, but in the meantime I'm enjoying how easy it is to be outside.

Lagunitas in Chicago

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I met some friends at the Lagunitas Brewing Company taproom in North Lawndale. The facility is huge, and so impressive!

The entrance to the taproom is trippy, with Willy Wonka music playing:

This wall art was made of bottle caps.

We tasted some beer:

(OK, a lot of beer.)

And enjoyed the view over the floor.

My favorite was the Brown Shugga. We bought a growler of it to take home. We had a great time, and it was really fun to catch up with friends over the holidays.