New Years Day is more than just a national holiday — it’s a very important day to my family because it’s 1) Mom’s birthday…
… and 2) the day of our annual Fried Sourdough open house — inscribed on my Amber genetics as a “Do Not Miss” event! Starting at about 11 a.m., all of our family and friends gather at my parents house and my Dad fries squares of sourdough bread that has been rising near the wood stove since midnight. Dad cooks until there’s no bread left, and the general schedule of the day is eat, drink, be merry, work on a jigsaw puzzle, watch football, chit-chat, head back to the table for “one more piece” — which might just be repeated about two or three times!
The sourdough starter itself is one that Mom got in California — it dates back to the goldminers and is about 180 years old. This year, the bread was particularly delicious! Sourdough gets better the more you use it, and we had been consistently making biscuits, dumplings and bread. It was so good, that I had to work hard to keep busy visiting with people instead of buttering up another piece and slathering on the blackberry apple jam. But while Sarah S-E was playing with my new camera, she caught me eating my fourth (or fifth?) piece!
That handsome feller in the foreground is her hubby, Keith, and (from left) there’s Mom, me, Catelyn and Sarah Jones. Catelyn turned out to be the entertainment of the afternoon this year! My sister, Jaci, discovered that she could pick her one-eyed cat Willy up by his armpits and Catelyn would “hug” him. Then together, the two of them — baby girl and very patient cat — would walk across the living room. Repeat as needed for laughs:
Willy was dubbed The Best Cat In The Entire Universe that day! And for those of you who might say something along the lines of “that poor cat…” Well, explain why — for the rest of the afternoon — Willy stayed near Catelyn?! He truly just loves kids, and came back to Jaci after each walk with Catelyn instead of hiding in the bedroom with Ben (presumably to go for another walk?!) 🙂
We had a wonderful mix of old family friends, newer friends and a veritable zoo of animals for the better part of the afternoon. Things calmed down enough that I got to work on the puzzle a bit too, and around 5:30 Denise, Sean, Jaci, Jason, Ryan and I all bundled up and headed out to catch the 6:00 p.m. showing of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. (Excellent movie!)
As we drove back to my house after the movie, Denise sat back against the seat warmer and sighed, “Well, that’s it. The holidays are officially over!” I grinned, “Yep.”
The thought of getting a good nights’ sleep never sounded so good!
My mom made us fried sour dough bread for us when we were visiting. It is also.a bit of a family tradition but we have to eat it with chili…that’s the only catch.
*sigh* I’m so sad I missed it, though admittedly, I wouldn’t have been able to eat any of that delicious bread as all the alcohol was still churning in my body and my belly from the night before… Ugh…
Any chance I can sweet talk you dad into frying some up during my next visit to SoMD?…. Hmmmmm….. 😉