the delight they took in saying it

 A little more sugar was thrown around this afternoon. With the help of a bit of butter, some flour, a teaspoon of this and that, and finally some cardamom the dough was made. This one wasn’t rolled out, or spooned out, instead I made a thin log that was then flattened slightly on the pan. Three giant Scandinavian Cardamom cookies came out of the oven, resting only for a minute before being cut into slices. 

The first taste was disappointing, in fact neither of us really cared for it… but never one to give up quickly, I waited till they were cool before tasting again. Oh! Nice! Crisp, not too sweet and with a faint hint of cardamom. I wonder if a bit of orange zest would zoosh them up? I’ve put them on the official Christmas cookie list. So that’s number 5… 6 and 7 over the next few days.

It was still cold today with the sun far from sight until late afternoon.

The ancient turkey from my Mom’s freezer finally thawed enough to be disassembled today. With Carm’s help it’s been carved into usable chunks, mostly to be made into a meaty bone broth for the dogs. The turkey bones will need an extra few hours in the instant pot to soften the bones enough to be edible.

We went for a lager from Ireland today. It was good, for a lager, but not good enough to make it onto the first tier favorites list. 

“I began to understand that there were certain talkers--certain girls--whom people liked to listen to, not because of what they, the girls, had to say, but because of the delight they took in saying it. A delight in themselves, a shine on their faces, a conviction that whatever they were telling about was remarkable and that they themselves could not help but give pleasure. There might be other people--people like me--who didn't concede this, but that was their loss. And people like me would never be the audience these girls were after, anyway.

Alice Munro