Posts filed under ‘Celebrations’
January Ice Mantel
My January Ice Mantel tribute to crystalline purity.
January Ice Mantel by night.
January 2017 chez moi
Happy Holidays from my heart(h) to yours!
Happy Holidays from my Heart(h) to yours!
Angel Chimes. A tradition at my home. Not Christmas without them.
Intimate Thanksgiving featured in Beauty & the Feast, Life Choices Magazine
My column on food and table art in Life Choices Magazine
The new autumn edition of Life Choices Magazine is out with my feature column Beauty and the Feast focusing on an intimate Thanksgiving with all the fixings. Take your time reading all the wonderful articles submitted by a bevy of lovely ladies. You’ll find my column Beauty and the Feast on page 52.
A simple Thanksgiving celebrated among an intimate foursome of friends. That’s pink champagne in the vintage coupes.
Roast turkey bursting with oyster cornbread dressing.
My great grandmother made pumpkin pies like this back on the prairie.
A page from the Walkertown NC Ladies cookbook with recipe for the most heavenly sweet yams ever.
An altar to January purity, peace and beauty
When all the hustle and bustle of Christmas is over, I usually strip my mantle right down for January austerity. This year my hunger for richness lingers on well into the new year. In these troubling times of world pain and conflict, I offer my altar to peace and beauty.
Christmas means gløgg season at the Nielsen house
Nectar of the Gods. The Nielsen Christmas gløgg bottled, labeled and ready to gift
Every year we put on a smashing party and pack in 50 or 60 friends to imbibe Danish spiced (mulled) and fortified warm wine known as gløgg. In case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced a little like water gurgling down a blocked drain. Glug. Glug. But with a kind of caveman growl. Put your whole body into it! Imagine how a Viking would sound.
We bottled the remainder, and I created some labels. Voila! Hostess gifts for those lovely friends who invite us this season.
Merry Christmas! Glaedelig Jul! Skål! Godt Nyt År. Happy New Year!
Countdown until guests arrive. Gløgg warm. Glass cups, raisins and almonds ready. House smelling divine.
Cautionary note: Gløgg must be served warm – but never boiled. The boiling will not only burn off the alcohol but also dampen the spices. We’ve learned the hard way.
In each glass cup, put a spoonful of raisins and blanched almonds that have been soaked for days in brandy.
The key to the spicing is to use only fresh, be very generous, and let “mull” for at least two days. note: I buy only from Penzeys which sells the best spices in America. If you can’t make it to one of their many shops, order on line Penzeys.
Ingredients in our gløgg:
Red wine (mainly)
Port wine (generously)
Brandy (a little less than port)
Rum (go easy as this is what gives it real punch. You want your guests coherent)
Cinnamon sticks
Cardamon pods
Whole cloves
Fresh ginger root
Orange peel
Lemon peel
Sugar boiled in water to create syrup
The very beginning. Start with red wine and a bottle opener.
Prep time with Jesper, Rex and Dawn
A Christmas gift from my kitchen to my parents’ table
Instead of wracking my brain to think of yet another Christmas gift for my 90 year old mom and 91 year old dad who don’t need anything, I was inspired to cook up a bunch of homemade meals. The chicken in sherry and mushroom sauce is my mom’s recipe. I’m thinking they can have that for Christmas Eve. Or maybe the stuffed Cornish hens. The soups will be perfect on those cold winter evenings when the ground outside is icy. Ozark winters can be br-r-r-r cold.
It’s a win-win-win kind of gift. My dad will be happy eating. My mom will be free from cooking. I had a lot of fun in my kitchen, listening to Gregorian chants and filling the house with delicious aromas.
My Christmas gift to my parents. A box of home-cooked meals from my kitchen to their table.
What’s in the box?
– Chicken in sherry mushroom sauce with wild rice (enough for at least 2 meals for 2 people).
– Italian meatloaf (2 meals for 2)
– Mexican meatloaf (2 meals for 2)
– Bolognese spaghetti sauce (2 meals for 2 – probably 3-4)
– Cornish hens stuffed with cornbread, scallions, celery, sage, mushroom, raisins, walnut & water chestnut dressing. (2 hens) Sides of sweet potato delight with garnish of cranberry chutney.
– Turkey soup (1 liter)
– Minestrone with beans and ham (3 liters)
– Split Pea soup with smoked bacon (2 liters)
I put 10 lbs of dry ice to keep the already frozen meals icy cold for the 2 day UPS air trip from Coastal California to the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri.
It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas…
There are few things I enjoy more than decorating for the holidays. Any holiday, actually. But there’s something about Christmas that truly sets me free to be as extravagant and outrageous as I desire.
The heart and soul of Christmas is my mantel. I never know what will evolve. Last year I craved purity and focused on white. This year I went “Borgia” with over-the-top opulence. The mood is quite changed from day to night, yet always lush.
Antinous must be adorned as all gods demand of us. He’s sporting a gold necklace of stars this year to go with his Dionysus hair wreath.
The Ghost of Christmas Present from A Christmas Carol is a favorite.
My grand piano with glitter and shine in mirror mosaics accented by golden angels.
We gave up on big trees and now recycle a lovely little fake tree that I picked up at Marshalls. I change the lights, use different ornaments – or none at all – and wrap the base in leopard or silver or gold. For the first time in ever so long, I strung garland. I’d forgotten how hard it is to hang just right.
The end product turned out to be one of those old-fashioned trees you might see on a Christmas card.
Wrapping the base is a bit of an art form itself.
Apollo Belvedere regards the room from the golden glow of a Greek god.
Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season filled with warmth, joy, peace and love. “Gods bless us everyone.”
Wishing you a wonderful Easter and Passover!
Easter at my house is a time for yummy food, delicious wines and good company.
Ruby Wedding Anniversary – 40 years of bliss that started in Mexico City
40 short years ago in the colonial suburb of Mexico City, Coyoacan, an adventurous Dane and a crazy American promised to live their lives together. So far, so good!
There’s a bit of an interesting story surrounding this picture. And I’m not talking about the wild adventures through Central America that led up to this moment. We had planned a wonderful wedding and dinner at the San Angel Inn, a beautiful 16th century colonial restaurant now in southern Mexico City. Just one month before the wedding, I came down with hepatitis, amoebic dysentery and salmonella. With the doctor’s assurance that I’d be fine for the wedding date, we didn’t change our plans.
Three days before the wedding, we accepted the reality that I was not going to stand out of bed for more than an hour. Jesper quickly arranged for the Mexican judge to come to us instead of the San Angel Inn. BTW, all marriages in Mexico are civil. The religious ceremony comes after and has no legal status. My girlfriend rescued the dress which I had intended to sew myself, finishing the last touches at the last minute, and our friends crowded into our apartment in Coyoacan overlooking Mexico City.
I literally stood up, got dressed, inked my thumbprint into a massive ledger, gave the appropriate responses in Spanish to the questions posed by the judge – and then went back to bed. As you can imagine, there were quite a few jokes about the bride waiting in the next room.
What easily could have been taken as a terrible omen didn’t turn out that way. 40 years later, we’re still holding hands. And still smiling.
GONG XI FAT CAI – HAPPY NEW YEAR (of the Sheep)
Happy Chinese New Year!!!!
Best Wishes for a wonderful 2015
Antinous, Jesper and S.L. Gore sends you wishes for the best year ever. Happy 2015!
My Christmas mantel for 2014
My Christmas mantle this year reflects my yearning for purity and peace in the world.
Wishing all of you the most beauteous of holiday seasons. May the gods bestow peace and grace on you and yours. May your December radiate with white light and love.
Peonies – Joy of June
Peonies – Joy of June
It’s June again, and with great joy I find once more the fresh-cut peonies at Trader Joe’s. The lush buds in white, pink or fuschia are here for a blink of the eye and then PUFF! gone again until next season.
Antinous as Dionysus or the Ghost of Christmas Present?
Antinous, beloved of Hadrian, cherished by me, festooned as Dionysus – or the Ghost of Christmas Present?
Inspired by my recent real life odyssey to the ancient Roman world:
Ephesus (Turkey),
Herculaneum,
Pompeii,
Oplanti,
the Villas of Stabia,
Tiberius’s Villa in Capri,
Hadrian’s Tivoli Compound,
and glorious Ostia Antica,
my dear Antinous is festooned this Christmas in ivy and gold.
Is he Dionysus? Or the Ghost of Christmas Present from my all-time favorite classic film, A Christmas Carol?
Either way, he is still history’s most beautiful man. At least, he gets my vote.
Mother’s Day in the Lake of the Ozarks
My grandma’s house today. No longer owned by the family, it’s been allowed to decay. She built it herself from solid stone with help from my uncles & cousins in 1940. In the old days, she grew glorious roses and strawberries sweet as jam.
My grandma’s house from the road. She’d get snowed in every winter and have her projects – weaving rugs, tooling leather, embroidering tapestries. I remember when she got running water and indoor toilet, then a telephone and finally TV.
I took a hiatus from The Black Scroll to fly/drive to the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri for Mother’s Day.
The Ozarks was the home of my Dad’s mother and many of my extended family. I used to spend the summers and school holidays there, roaming the woods, fishing and hunting with my cousins.
It was in the Ozarks that my imagination flourished. Lying on a warm boulder beside the lake on a hot summer day with dragonflies zooming round my ears, I’d imagine I was an Indian princess or a pioneer girl about to be kidnapped by a handsome brave.
Swinging in a hammock at my Aunt Jerry’s house, I devoured her romance novels with one man and two women – the angel and the not so angelic. Even then, I thought – why can’t a woman have two men?
My Mom and Dad. Ages 88 and 89. Married 66 years. On the deck of their house in the Lake of the Ozarks on Big Buffalo Creek. 47 miles to nearest Walmart & hospital. 20 miles to nearest town Cole Camp, population 1200.
You have to cross four of these fords to get to my parent’s place. If it rains hard, you wait til the water goes down. This is road WW. You get there first from B and then W. Those are paved roads. WW, the last 5 or so miles to my parents place, is dirt/gravel.
Entrance to the Eagle Club where we ate Mother’s Day Breakfast prepared by the menfolk. Note warning, “No firearms allowed.” But smoking was. No windows at all in the building. We gobbled down our scrambled eggs and sausage in a cloud of tobacco smoke.
Here’s where my mom and I drank coffee in the mornings and had our bourbon in the evenings. The strip of water you see in background is the Big Buffalo Branch of the Lake of the Ozarks. My parents own the land on this side of the water. One man owns all the land on the other. Can’t see the nearest neighbors.
Here’s my Dad on his new toy. He has cleared about 5 acres of forest around the house just with a chain saw. Will be 90 years old October 2014!
Big Buffalo Creek as it narrows from the Lake. The water can rush over the concrete slab ford in heavy weather, washing pickup trucks downstream. Note the clear water naturally purified by the gravel bed. You can drink right from the creek.
The roads never had names when I was a kid. About 10 years ago, streets signs appeared. This one is named for my family.
Buzzards looking for prey. I saw foxes, coyotes, deer, tortoises, rabbits, raccoon, wild turkeys, ducks, geese and many other species of birds including cardinals, my favorite. Heard the whip-o-will and owls at night.
My parent’s house from the road. The hardtop iced over last winter, and they had no power for 2 days. This is called Gore Hill, BTW 🙂
Sex and the Zen of Shopping now in COLOR ebook for Kindle Fire
Now available! Full color ebook for Kindle Fire or equivalent.
I’M EXCITED! Technology has caught up!
Now I can offer Sex and the Zen of Shopping in a full color Kindle ebook that looks exactly like the color print copy.
We were able to create this Kindle edition with a new software that will revolutionize epublishing for picture book and how-to authors.
The costs of Amazon print-on-demand for color are steep. I’d say prohibitive in today’s market. I really disliked the $25 we had to charge for my shopping book, Sex and the Zen of Shopping: Live Rich by Shopping Smart.
This is, after all, a book about bargain shopping!
Until this latest Kindle technology, the best solution was to produce a Black & White Bargain print edition.
You can now get the layout, the embedded text and the vivid color of photos in an ebook! You’ll see exactly the same format as the print edition – IF you have a Kindle Fire, an equivalent tablet or Kindle for PC.
Check it out. There are sample pages you can “leaf through” here: Amazon Sex and Zen of Shopping Kindle Version.
Caution: This Kindle Fire edition is for tablets and Kindle for PC only. It will not work on older Kindle readers.
Wishes for a peaceful and prosperous 2013
From my little corner of the world on this bright sunny morn of the eve of a New Year.
S. L. Gore 