First Sunday of Advent

Koppangen
(Holy Night)

There is silence around me
In the peaceful winter night.
From the church down in the valley
I can see the candlelight.
And I stopped for a moment
In this winter paradise,
when I heard a choir singing
through the darkness and the ice.

And the rays from the lights behind
the window's vaulted frames
have united the souls in hope
that something great is waiting.
And I know that those who have left us here
had the same thoughts as I
we're like flames in the darkness
and stars up in the sky.

And I can see how they sparkle,
and they fade before my eyes,
and the truth is coming closer
like a wonder in disguise.
We are caught here for a moment
like an imprint of a hand
on an old and frosted window
or a footprint in the sand.

For a while I'm eternal-
that's the only thing I know,
I am here and we share our dreams
about our destination.
It is cold out here, and the snow is white
but I am warm deep inside,
I am warm 'cause I know that
my faith will be my guide.

Now there is silence around me,
I have heard those words again
in a hymn of grace and glory,
saying: nothing is in vain!
I can sing - and I believe it,
let the message reach the sky.
Oh silent night,
let your promise never die!

And I long for the others,
It is peaceful in the church.
He was born for a purpose,
and that's why we're here together.
Holy night, I feel like a child inside,
and believe he was sent.
So I'm lighting a candle
each Sunday in Advent.

~Py Backman

It's A Romp!

I have a very vivid memory from when I was around six years old of watching tv at my grandparents house. The show we were watching (probably Hee-Haw) ended, and a movie started playing.

The actors were all in period costumes and the opening scene was of a public square with a guillotine and people were getting their heads chopped off. My mom quickly realized what we were seeing and sent my sister and me off to bed, but not before the images of headless bodies and bodiless heads were seared onto my sheltered, six-year old brain.

Luckily, I recovered from seeing the shocking images, and somewhere along the way I learned that the movie was an adaptation of the novel The Scarlet Pimpernel.

I’ve always wondered more about the story, so for my November classic, I read The Scarlet Pimpernel, written in 1903 by Baroness Emmuska Orczy.

The story moves quickly and is filled with intrigue, betrayal, romance…just about anything a reader could wish for. The setting is France and England during the French Revolution, hence the beheadings in the opening scene.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is an unknown hero, who works between England and France to bring the condemned French aristocracy to safety, using his wits and disguises to outsmart the French authorities. As the plot thickens, he is betrayed by someone close to him, and a cat an mouse chase ensues between The Scarlet Pimpernel, the lovely Lady Blakeney, and French agent Chauvelin.

The only problem I have with the story is near the end of the book when a Jewish man comes on the scene. He is sorely mistreated by the French officials, just because he is a Jew. In this age of political correctness, I find the author’s characterization and treatment of him to be rather uncomfortable to read.

Otherwise, this book is a really fun. As one of my college literature professors used to say “It’s a romp!”

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorite novels. Apparently there is a new movie version coming out next year. From this trailer, it looks really well done. I'll definitely be first in line to see it.

Pumpkin: It's not just for pie anymore.

Around this time of year I love cooking with pumpkin. It's so good in recipes both savory and sweet.

I saw this recipe for Salted Pumpkin Caramels on a food website a couple of weeks ago, and I've been obsessing over it ever since. Yesterday, I finally got around to making it.

I'm always a little leery of candy making. It can go wrong so quickly, but I count yesterday's attempt as a huge success.

Click here to go to the recipe.

I really stuck with the recipe on this one, with the exception of doubling the amount of pumpkin pie spice. I also found already toasted pepitas which saved me from having to toast them myself.

Crunchy from the pepitas on one side and salty on the other, with spicy, pumpkiny goodness in between. These are delicious. I'll definitely be adding this to my permanent recipe collection.

No Sparkly Vampires Here.

I’ve had vampires on my mind lately, probably because they are everywhere: TV, movies, books, Sesame Street…

This is my favorite vampire, Count Von Count, in one of my favorite Sesame Street segments, The Batty Bat.



Anyway, I recently read two kind of serious and creepy vampire books. The first was The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which I read on the recommendation of several people, and the second was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, my classic reading for the month of October.

The Historian is really long, but worth reading, even though I think that at least a third of it could have been edited out without really affecting the story. Basically, it tells the story of a father and daughter and several academics who unwillingly get pulled into researching the history and myths surrounding Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula.

The story is told from several different points of view, often in long letters, and moves back and forth between several decades and many countries, Even so, it isn't hard to follow.

It is kind of creepy, though. There are vampires, and they are gross. Definitely not all sparkly and appealing like some other writers might suggest.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is often referenced throughout The Historian, so I thought is would be an appropriate follow up.

It begins with an English man, Jonathan Harker, being held prisoner in Dracula’s Transylvanian castle after being summoned there for business. He escapes and makes it back to England only to find that Dracula has also moved there and is terrorizing the people Harker associates with. So, Harker, along with his wife Mina, vampire expert Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and a few others, set out to destroy the monster which is Dracula.

I really like this one. It was pretty tame for being a “horror” story, but that's all right with me. Supposedly, it is full of social commentary regarding things like progressivism and threats of female sexual expression in the Victorian era. I chose to read it just for entertainment purposes, so I didn’t really look for those themes, although some of them were hard to miss.

However, by the end I was confident that I could kill a vampire if I had to, the process was described often, and I also learned a few good uses for crucifixes and garlic.

Also, I learned that if I ever see a bat fluttering outside my bedroom window, I should not let it in, as it will probably end in gruesome results, or at least the need for a blood transfusion.

A Cold, A Cake, And A Tragedy

I have a cold.

This is bad enough by itself, but something terrible happened yesterday because of it.

I was feeling kind of sorry for myself, because I felt so lousy and there was no one around to give me any sympathy, and was trying to think of a way to cheer myself up. The first thing that came to mind was cake. I know the thought of a baker with a cold is kind of gross, but I did my best to keep away the germs, and I went into the kitchen and whipped myself up a little chocolate cake.

It turned out lovely, which is amazing since I was a little cloudy from some medication, but I noticed as it was baking, I couldn’t smell it. After it had cooled, I cut myself a piece to give it a try, and might as well have been eating plain old rice cakes. You know, the unsalted kind that are like styrofoam. It had no taste whatsoever.

Stupid cold. Zapped my taste buds. And my sense of smell. And I couldn’t enjoy my chocolate cake. Tragic.

So, I wrapped it up and put it in the freezer to save it for a day when I can enjoy it’s chocolaty deliciousness to the fullest.

In the meantime, can somebody get me another tissue?