A calm, white Christmas Eve with an inch or two of morning snow, clearing up late morning for a brief hour of sunshine. Then back into the doldrums with the lightest possible snow fall waning by mid-afternoon. A high of 37F.
Today, December 21st, is Winter Solstice, officially the first day of winter. The northern hemisphere of the earth is pointed the farthest away from the sun and, tonight begins its slow return towards it until the June Solstice of 2019. The ancient tradition of Yuletide, one of the oldest winter celebrations in Europe began this morning and will end on January 1st, 2019. Yuletide was a fire festival celebrated by the Northern Europeans. Pre-Zoroastrian Persians and ancient Romans, who celebrated something similar before the common era. Diwali is another festival of lights that begins earlier in the year. Basically any community in the dark, forbidding northern hemisphere, on this shortest day of the year, celebrated fire.
The most enduring British tradition from Yuletide is the Yule Log, a small firestarter from a larger bonfire that was shared with many households by landowners in England. Evergreen trees were fashioned into wreaths and other decorations for the interior of the house for their refreshing smell. The Brits still make cakes fashioned into Yule logs and, of course, we still bring in fir or pine trees, decorate them with lights. Happy Solstice!
The Catskills are home to many great chefs, one of those being Liza Belle, chef at the Blue Deer Center in New Kingston, Upstate New York. A native New Yorker from Long Island, whose mother was an English immigrant, Liza Belle got her start as a short-order cook and found a mentor early on who revolutionized her perspective on food. A prolific baker, especially during this holiday season, Liza shares a Christmas recipe, an English favorite: Sticky Toffee Pudding made with dates and locally-grown wheat that we cooked yesterday. When the cake came out of the oven, it glistened with the sticky dates. The local grain gave it a reddish, grainy finish. Some tips: when you “toast” butter in a milk pan, swirl it around and save the brown, caramelized part that sticks to the pan because it gives the sauce a nutty flavor.
Today is the first day of Yuletide, a 12-day winter fire festival starting today – on the shortest day of the year, December 21st, the winter solstice – with origins in Northern Europe that pre-date Christianity. (This is where the saying “12 Days of Christmas” originated). Most settlers of the northern hemisphere, a dark place that’s frigid this time of year, have always celebrated fire at the start of the winter season and share food and stories with friends and neighbors. Find The Guardian’s version of the traditional Yule log cake here.
Cake
1/2 Stick of Butter
1 1/2 Cups of Flour
1 1/2 Cups of Chopped Dates
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon of Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon of Sea Salt
1 Cup of Brown Sugar
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla runneth over
2 Eggs
© J.N. Urbanski – Usage prohibited without consent
If you’re having a Catskills Christmas this year, there are a few places in the Catskills where you can source a freshly-grown fir for your house and one of those places is family-owned Robson’s Tree Farm in Bovina Center, NY. They maintain a couple of acres of thick, gorgeous trees – that won’t quickly lose their needles – that have been specially grown for Christmas: a sustainable option for the eco-conscious.
Very friendly, helpful and engaging staff give you a saw and send you into lines of trees to pick your own fir in the thick snow. Only pick the trees with the red price tag on. All the other trees without tags have not finished growing. The tree below was $35 but prices range from $25 to $75 for trees of different sizes. Most trees are 6′ to 8′ and are $30 to $55. Freshly-made wreathes were also available for $23. There is a fire to warm you up after you’ve finished sawing and hauling. Continue reading
38F at 9am, mostly cloudy rising to 43F by 2pm.
© Erik P Johanson
© Gavin DuBois
47F at 10am rising to 52F by noon. Humid, wet and cloudy.
© Gavin DuBois
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
61F at 8.30am, humid and gloomy with foggy wafting over the mountains, but brightening up by the afternoon. 66F by 2pm.
© Erik P Johanson 1pm
52˚F by noon. Shimmering morning clouds turning gloomy by the afternoon. Sumac still hanging on.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm