Trivia Advent Calendar

[L Verge]

(12-03-2014 03:43 PM)Gene C Wrote:  I'm with you on the thin mints Roger. We put a box in the freezer and try to save them for a month or two.
I have found a decent substitute. They are pretty good.
http://www.dollargeneral.com/product/ind...d=43435816
Get free shipping with an order of $40 or more. Your wife will love that. The more you order, the more you save!

OMG, Gene, I wish you hadn't alerted me to those Thin Mints. I'm like Roger - bet you can't eat just one...

Eva - Another one of our historic house museums in our county has done a gingerbread house/store/garden scene/etc. contest for about ten years now. Some really fantastic creations.

As for gingerbread, put me in the same category with Abe. I love regular gingerbread (cakes) and have an old family recipe for what is termed "Soft Gingerbread." The note in my grandmother's cookbook says that the recipe came from Mrs. Minnie Naylor of Washington, D.C. ca. 1880. Mr. Naylor was the Presiding Elder of the Methodist Church in D.C. and later became Bishop. When you serve this with either a lemon sauce or applesauce on top, you'll think that Mrs. Naylor had divine guidance in making this.

I also have an old recipe for Molasses Gingersnaps that is excellent. Even my mother-in-law wanted the recipe for that one! I made one slight change, however, because I don't necessarily like "snappy" cookies. In order to have them a little lighter and softer, I used to pack them away while they were still ever so slightly warm. I'll never forgive my mother-in-law (God rest her soul) because she gave the recipe to the next wife of my former. We're on good terms, but do you have any idea the amount of gall it induces to eat your recipe baked by "the other woman?"

Up until about five years ago, Surratt House did three nights of candlelight tours and served punch and homemade cookies in the family dining room. Our volunteers made some scrumptious cookies, but there was one lady who made the most wonderful Lemon Squares imaginable. No one has come close to duplicating them.

Finally, another fond memory of Christmas fare is the fruitcake. I'm one of those idiots who loves fruitcake - as long as they take out the currants and the citron. I never could convince my grandmother to eliminate them from her recipe. Every year while I was growing up, we made at least two big fruitcakes around Thanksgiving time so that they could sit and get drunk for at least a month before consumption.

During the Christmas season, slices were enjoyed with family and friends in the living room accompanied with a glass of homemade locust blossom wine or store-bought Christian Brothers or Mogen David wine. Even my abstaining grandmother had wine at Christmas.