Come in from the Cold, Josiette, Josiette!

Today and quite suddenly, our wee early morning, earmarked as a the start of a Satchel Packing Day, took a turn! Presently, Josiette and I would be at the close of her and her shiny new, black kitty Clarinet’s makereadies for

(A "something" about Josiette that you might otherwise would not have known, unless this little birdie told you: Upon her return to her charges, she will be celebrating her happiest year yet (number six) as their loving nanny! A well-deserved congratulations be yours, dear “Miss Poppins”!)
their road trip home,

as they shall point themselves in that direction, come bright and dawny Friday. (O the funs and frolics we have pulled from each others pockets during her memory~album~pages~filling, several~weeks stay with me, here, while I am caretaking at Gemmama’s!) Instead, and as if mysteriously triggered by the unlatch of the first suitcase we intended to make thick with freshly foldeds, Josiette did ACHOO! And, then, again...and again...and AGAIN! “Oh, no!” to the very thought of such an untimely, respiratory echo!

All matters regarding the making fluffy of

Josiette’s luggage

were put on ice, as I chop~chop gave answer to her “What ever shall I do?!” “The Brick,” I assured her, “The Brick!” And with scurry in both feet I did trot off to my grandmother's kitchen.

After red~hotting by oven Gemmama’s medicinal ashlar, I placed the block in a pan beneath Josiette’s chair with a flannel covering the seat. Whilst a back~into~her~pajamas sneezer claimed sips from a large cup of ginger and yarrow tea, the minder nurse (<~~~ That would be me!) poured hard humming water over the brick, until the tin it be in was full to the half~way. Swaddle~wrapped in a blanket fat and heavy was my dear Josiette, who I had sit down upon this healing throne.

Spoons of orange Royal
I did nourish her with,
until dew of her own body’s making
began on her face.

Afterwhichbe, a hasty but careful ---so as not to egg on chills, not even those of the slightest rank-–- cleansing rinse of warmed vinegar and water was next called for, followed by a blot~off completely. Then, straight to bed Josiette did go.

At her side and on Gemmama’s famous hilled~ottoman puffy~fabricated from a rich red upholstery with dotting white velveteen tuffs <~~all to mirror a toadstool’s look, ~~~> I perched. As my grandmother’s

phonograph played,

I listened with Josiette to special spots of Truman’s The Thanksgiving Visitor, till Dreamland kindly took her over. Despite delay, her sniffles~in~sleep became purrs of a kitten, and

the hovering Florence Nightingale
that I be
at last breathed a sigh of sweet relief!

In minutes short I will return to Josiette in the cozy Pink Room where she rests, to re~tuck and make coverlets to her chin. As her Nose Nasties continue to shift and lift, at her bedside I shall attentively sit. There and by then, since the knowings can now be counted on as All Is Wells, I will

cast on thirty stitches,

those of which I next shall knit one, purl one, knit six, purl two, (purl one, knit one) five times to make a first row. Row two will behave likewise, only a tadly reversed. So forth and so on but only a little bittle more my needles shall play clicky. Then begin again and finish again two times mair this mesh I’ll make from toty amounts of worsted~weight wool gray.

Once

catnip~stuffed and sewn into closed, I’ll have Mousies enough to treat Gemmama’s Spot, Josiette’s Clarinette, and my very own pointy-eared, fur bundle Puddle! I love when meowing faces smile! And I love happily ever afters, don't you?

Dearest Josiette:

Be well soon.
Love, E.

Postscript: Meant not only as remedy for that which calls for many consecutive geshudteits, vapor baths work their wonder on days when you think the water’s going to carry you away, as well!

Picture Book Illustrations: Mary Poppins by Mary Shepard for P.L. Travers' classic series, Harry Whittier Frees/Kitties!

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Cup your ear and give a listen.
Do you hear what I hear?
A Christmas Belle is ringing!

That would be my dear pal,

Lolly,
a self~described Cow Belle

ever since moving to America’s Dairyland a few winters gone by. Year 'round is how often Yuletide songs are playing at her house and an O Tannebaum, wealthy with trims, is a perpetual in her parlor! I know no one who loves Christmas as plentiful much as Lolly! And the day after Halloween is when I can without exception see coming a pre~Holiday parcel from my forever walking in a winter wonderland friend. She calls this special delivery her Jolly Jumpstart to me, a ‘Tis~the~Season~to~be~Ho! Ho! Ho! reminder, if you will, and yet another one of Lolly's ratherish ways to say words about it.

Penned in white~as~the~"driven," rolling script that had looks like the “Over the River and Through the Woods” song sounds, Lolly had written this “Open Me! Open Me! lure:

“I’m Dreaming of a....”

Depluming fingers of mine went fast to pluck free the small box from brown postal paper wrap, and then layers of illustrated candy cane tissue that amounted to oodles! Afterwhich, my eyes joyfully met up with a cartonned, “Lolly” two~word finish that would complete the package’s front side inscription, and begin a delicious Christmas story from her house to mine (whose “sips of” I take, amazingly taste like the North Pole itself!):

Noël sous la neige the blanc!
(Christmas in the snow white tea!)
What a lovely song
my unpolished French does make sings of!

Miss Lolly? Cup your ear and give a listen. Do you hear? Another Christmas chime resounds, this time, belling a plethora of Thank~yous in a direction that leads to you!

Have yourself a
Merry, Little Christmas!

She Can Bake a Cherry Pie, Quick's a Cat Can Wink Her Eye!

(Endora’s voice is the only one wearing

an All-Hallows-Even costume: French! Give listen:)
L'Halloween Heureuse,
mes chéris, mes chéris!

This summer’s late June, I made certain an extra two pounds~worth of Sour Cherries found themselves riding home from The Local (farmers' market) in my bicycle basket, jiggety~jig! At the kitchen table, my dearsweet friend, Soose, and I did set ourselves down and, then, making with the hasties, we stems~stones~and~all turned the fruits out onto cookie sheets headed to the deep freeze to hibernate the cherries for freshness, purposefully.

At last, their long anticipated, circled~and~starred in orangest~glitter~on~the~calendar day has finally arrived! (How lucky~stars lucky we are that someone took it upon themself to invent my close pal, the irrepressible hyphen! Thank the heavens and the planets, too, that I most times have the presence of mind to touch this punctuation mark that I call favorite, with my FullOfFancy paintbrush, causing it to ruffle-- a keyboard~artistc stroke that renders it helplessly beautiful! Wouldn’t you have to agree? Looksee! There go by a few strays as we speak: ~ ~ ~ ~ !)

This morning, I ceremoniously opened the Arctic part of Gemmama’s fridge (Yes, indeed I did not forget to suitcase the bagsful of the rock~solid~frozens, when I packed my things to come to my grandmother’s house to custodian it while she is Across the Pond.) to thaw the main integrals of a time~honored tradition: The Spirit Night Pitting!

It was Gemmama’s younger brother, Ned, who twice~bounced this about to be mentioned ball before getting it to roll for me, when I was a teen~ager learning pies: It was Halloween morning and I was in a snit. My needs and wants were all about baking a pie for the Trick or Treat Afters. But thoughts of making a pumpkin or sweet potato or apple or any other expected harvest pie, tired me. In addition to that particular sulking, I was upsetting over the fact that I did not yet have Halloween ringing in my heart, then right down to the tips of my striped~socked toes and back again. At this game’s stage, I would have been happy merely to hear it chiming in my ears!

Suddenly, my Great Uncle Ned appeared in the doorway. Wearng a crisp white laboratory jacket and an enormous “Nedward”~grin on his face (Nedward is my Fond Name for him!), he would announce: “Methinks I have the cure for your No ‘Boo!’ Boo Hoos!” As he plopped onto the kitchen table a bucketful of saved back from summertime cherries and two silver pitters not unlike Frankensteinian surgical instruments, he went on to say, “What is best needed here, is to do

a big ‘something’ mad scientisty!”

As that proclamation’s loom did take over the room’s mood and mine, I exchanged my flowered apron for the pristine lab coat that my Great Uncle merrily was teasing my undernose with.

An InDeppth Look at Mr. Todd
OR
A Beyond Dark Johnny About to Cut Loose !

Quicker than

a bat indoors
can conjure up a fiercely swinging tennis racket
aimed in the direction of itself,
the kitchen was

a red~splashed scene

straight out of the Victorian penny dreadful, The String of Pearls! Crimson cherry juice was not only here and there, but everywhere! And harmlessly macabre Neddy and I (the Sweeny Todds behind it all) were giddy for it!

Indeed and positively, on Samhain 1999, a miracle did happen: my curious Great Uncle Ned gave birth! To a new Halloween tradition, that is: The Spirit Night Pitting!

Which in turn---upon his kind and a hungry~tinged suggestion, as Nedward does wear a bottomless belly, when life is all about pies and tarts!---brought forth yet another annual practice:

She Can Bake a Cherry Pie,
Quick's a Cat
Can Wink Her Eye Tart!

It pleases me, it does,
to share with you this:
my once a yearly baked receipt!

She Can Bake a Cherry Pie,
Quick's a Cat Can Wink Her Eye Tart

Filling:
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, but not together
2 tablespoon measures of cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 cups whole pitted Sour Cherries (when unpitted cherries, 2 pounds it will be)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 tablespoon of mik, aboutish

For crust and topknot: Use the Do Ahead, chilling in the refrigerator ever since two days ago.

For filling and "bakes":
Position your range shelf to set in the lower third of a preheated to 425°F oven. Move quickly together and in a bowl a bit less than large 1 cup sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Disturb the blend with the cherries, lemon juice, and vanilla; keep back.

From its fridge hold, kitchen counter the pie crust and a short while more make it wait.
On a flour~sprinkled work board, roll a Do Ahead dough puck into an 11-inch round whose thickness belongs to 1/8 measure; aside it. Spoonfeed the Sour Cherry filling to the pie~panned Do Ahead evenly. Make cut-up pieces of butter be dots on top. Blanket the patient uppercrust. With water, make damp the top and bottom crusts where they happen on, then under turn the top crust to be under the bottom crust: make edges flutey (I much raher the pinches as big as biggest.). Steam slits numbered five or six are next cut into the tightened dough lid. Like Fairy dust, sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.

Place pie on a dribblecatch (baking sheet) and bake 15 minutes before making lower the oven temperature to 375°F. Until the filling is bubbling and crust is golden brown, bake some more, with foil coverings edges if browning does not behave (about 1 hour longer). Rack cool completely. Wedge and serve with vanilla~laced ice cream.

Merriest Halloween!

Credits:. pitter, winker, pie,

No Time Like the Presents!

Although yesterday’s Sun was being shiny, in chorus a softhearted, steady~down rain arrived –-a light-footed pouring, that of which all-at-once took me by surprise with its impulsive swings: this a way and that a way, then back into a quiescent state it did once more situate itself.

Meanstwhile, our Brightest Star had not taken leave of his senses and glowed he still did. In and out, his brilliance was now more akin to glitter. All of these together-weather bits put this wondering into my head: was I soon to stand under a rainbow?! A fabulously magical rainbow?!?! Lo and behold! Just like that, I was! Because my Thomas was on the front door knocker, turning it into all gentle brass poundings in order to deliver Gemmama and Luella’s cards to me with a parcel ever so carefully barnacled beneath them!

I think I’ve made before mentions of Thomas? He is my grandmother’s postal carrier and my intended Romeo, but, thusfar, only from afar! My feelings for him are unbeknowst to Thomas. Thence, a deadline I have set for myself to ask him, “Scotch Broth is a filling soup of which I am stove-simmering. Please do feast with me this night?’ or “A dessert of Molasses~Ginger cookies so nicely goes with my special receipt Chicken Barley Stew. Please, might I share both with you on an evening of your choosing?”

Too forward? “Heavens to Betsey” be my oath! My internal planning of such an event makes for tizzies and pretty, winged creatures who give me stomach ruffles during this time that the Nervousy Bug does take big bites of me! Courage, Cellar, courage! Deep, deep breaths be mine, and “All in good time” are words I speak to me for the calming. Secretly I do pine for dear, sweet, unaware Thomas. I long also for the day on which the “un” easily drops away from his descriptive.

Goodness! How my mouth is a dash-about! Tee~hees then be yours and mine, since this Cellar Door chapter is to be not about the whys, wheres and howfores of the romantic brew bubbling in my caldron. Here be the instead:

Two days after yesterday marks my being on this lovely Earth for twenty-six years in all! (“Nearly born on Halloween, was I,” my voice gives. “Wouldn’t you agree, that measures for something?” lol) And sweethearts are Gemmama and Luella to

for-get-me-not!

When Thomas handed me the birthday package (at which time, flutters hastily replaced the beating of my heart as his hand did brush mine!), I was profoundly green at the start, as the postmark divulged Gemmama and Luella’s corking whereabouts. Their Halloween holiday has taken them to Amsterdam (where, conceivably, they will conjure up the spirits of Vincent van Gogh, Johann Vameer, Jheronimus Bosch, and Rembrandt van Rijn. With both girls wearing a Master on each arm, because so very much do they enjoy the Arts (“The finer, the better,” claims Luella.) and are quite fond of accessorizing as well, they will go for the Dutch gusto, to be sure! Oops! Please not to disremember Gemmama’s funnyman Jan Steen, who is as gay and animated as any of the party~goers in his paintings! For that, Gemmama has nicknamed him The Carouser. What a fun ‘n frolic his spirit be! O how his humor ensorcels! Many are the times she has called upon Mr. Steen, which makes him a frequent ghosty guest in her home. Positive I am that she will enlist him whilst Netherlanding.

Upon opening my present box, instantly, my envy would turn into ear-to-ear smiling that crossed my face again and over and again! Luella had made for me one of her

signature “ variegateds”: a cozy, hand-knit scarf with an accompanying notecard on which was written:

“Dearest E. That Ever Be:
Best Birthday Wishes!
I love you in the ‘worsted’ way!
Smooches, L.”

(Not about to put into place a case of the Left-Outs, because “It makes for hurts that truly linger,” generously, Miss Luella did send Josiette one of the same, only in yellows!)

And great HUZZAHS to the sends
Gemmama lovingly full-chocked into

the carton’s bottom half:

(Second only to pie, Jimmies are my life!)
Dutch Chocolate Sprinkles!

(A custom of edible letters goes back to Germanic times when, at birth, children were given a runic letter.)
A Sinterklaas Chocolate Letter
molded to be an

the initial of my given name!

And last but not least (because it is best of all!):

(A Barbara Wiggins notebook)
A foiled amethyst Spellbook,
bearing a secret castable created by Gemmama especially for this Birthday Girl, penned in her delightful nervous-pigeon-walking scrawl!

By the by: most possibly
could I interest you in a hardy slab of

Pre-Birthday Cake???

Credit where credit is due: Birthday Cake: ColettesCakes.com

Anything Can Happen Night! (Tea Party Under a Halloween Moon)

Hat up top?

“Manicure” complete?

Then gather 'round and make hands joined, as we do

Sing a song of teacups
A pocketful of nigh,’

Four
and twenty berries black
baked in

a pie!

The last grain of hourglass sand
has made its trickle!
HUZZAH! and give nods of approbation:
At long last, let the merriment commence!

In celebration of

“Follow me along a moonlit path.
Into the deepest heart of the autumn woods.
Where burnished moonflowers and twinkling lanterns light our way”
--Frosted Petunias
Tea Party Under a Halloween Moon,

ever so graciously hosted by Frosted Petunias, along with her sweets Lucinda, Fiona, Luna and assorted witchy kin, whose furtherance is nothing short of sterling, and because pie is my life, I have baked a Four and Twenty, Then Some More (an old-fashioned blackberry pie), truly whose dressing is as indigo as the night’s sky during this auspicious All Hallows' Eve Moon’s tea~feast!

How howling that whatever streams from Gemmama’s teapot nozzle is the exact tea blend your tongue bits have tastes for!

What be your pleasure then?

Dragonwell Green? Blue Oolong? Or mayhaps my old trusty, Bergamia~Chamomile (hinted with Spearmint)? O what a magic this night owns! ‘Neath a Moon, whose fullness belongs to this Halloween, it is lovely to know that its moonlight is a “same” we are sharing!

Now, have your fork be lively, for I shall serve pie! (<~~ A pause that most certainly promises to be toothsome!)

Pie-seconds and teacup morepours must make waits, as some unsecretting is what I have forthcoming. Perchance not really a hush ~~likened it more to an at last happening of an opportunity to impart the how-tos regarding a little “something” that makes for happy catch and carry. Your curiosity is what I’ve piqued? Let us then put hoof to

a hoot~lit path,

leading us more to than fro, yet a mere four pumpkin luminaries from the garden’s open-edge, where Moonlight is its shiniest.

Whilst we find our way, your ears be open to my spill:

Halloween Moon

Ago two Octobers, I was passing the time in an apothecary that offered magazine reads while orders were put to prescriptions. My paging-through was lackadaisy, being that I was seized with thoughts of Full Moon charged water, before all else, using clear jars to hold the in progress water. “There simply must be a prettier way to contain water go-abouts and its transfer,” said my thinking. Straightaway, the next article featured in the Garden Gate I was strumming, was one concerning the making of a sand-cast birdbath, that of which we are standing before presently, and that of witch which is not a feathered-friends’ tub, but my

(Ever so nicely does the Full Moon Water drizzle from the folio’s “pointy” into a decanter! Not to mention, this rhubarb is portable as well. From my home to Gemmama’s I brought it with me, at the time in which she crowned Cellar Door her Household Custodian, while away she is Across the Pond.)
Drawing Down the Moon Leaf!

Although a mix of jumbles did infect my plan, kind Mr. Google did save this night. Originally, I was to picture “leaf” doings and list jottings of most important instructions. But Josiette and her camera had before now vamoused the coop (a weekend’s holiday on her horizon be), and then not for the life of me, could I conjured up the sand-casting proceedings, specific. Determined not to begin this sentence with “alas,” but most probably due to a happening by a lucky chance, I was able to locate the precise tutorial that did guide me twice-years back! You’ll discover the need-to-knows on THE VERY PAGE (<~~Please see the outloud-printed link at this post's end, if this "click" leads you to an "Oops!") that I’ve turned to for you, in the Garden Gates magazine archive.

Since its season has come and gone, sand-casters might be hard-pressed about their edges to find a rhubarb leaf for the picking. Thoughly, methinks

a Catalpa “fan”
might whole-heartedly be up to the task.

. . . . . .

Shall we reappear at the awaiting tea table?
LET'S SHALL!

Hm.

Now where were we?

Ahhhh, yes!

Seconds!
(Hopes be you kept your fork?)

CREDITS:
If the above link to Garden Gates is best described as out of commision, copying and pasting would best do the trick: http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/extras/53birdbath1.php

How To Build Hooty Luminariums: Martha Stewart

Witches Sipping Tea found at Visual Arts Center of New Jersey

Blackberry pie

Enchanter Claire de Lune Is About to Be!

Make ready, make steady...

Hourglass sands shall
soonly sprinkle their glad tidings:


“Follow me along a moonlit path.
Into the deepest heart of the autumn woods.
Where burnished moonflowers
and twinkling lanterns light our way”
--Frosted Petunias.

Tea~Party~Under~a~Halloween~Moon Telltale:
The more, the merrier!

O Witch Who Emboldens Me, I Am Beholden to Thee

On bended blog~knee, a plenty humble pardons I do beg. Even so it be but a mere wiggle-worm after the calendar’s circled day intended, I am nevertheless tardy sans excuses. A College Witch’s Experiences (who has since bibbity-bobbity-booed into Confessions of a Couuntry Witch) merrily hosted an

“Inspiring Witches Halloween Blog Party” on October 13 (one day x three ago = the wiggle-worm span). Presently, please do consider my late-to-the-table? I send lacey~hearted thank yous!

Ever and again --and consistently, too– it is the little things in life that this Cellar Door draws sweet inspiration from! A perfect illustration: the wee witch I did first encounter in one of my Mother’s well-savored comics, saved back from her early years. With all my heart and soul and, in all likelihood, several select eyes of newt, I wanted to mirror the hocus-y pocus-y do~gooder that

Wendy the Good Little Witch was!

Her certainty to use her magic powers to do all things charitable only, would leave an impression of the most forever lasting kind on me. Miss Wendy, my rooftop let~loose remains uninterrupted: “Estimable” be thy middle name!

Latterly, she would be

realized "live,”
top billing with friendly ghost friend (but and thus farly, not so “live”),
Casper, in the bewitching television movie,

Casper Meets Wendy,
over again and gently reminding me of where I needed to be.

HUZZAH! In the wave of a wand, Miss Wendy has grown up, and guesses be yours? She has flown her besom high plumb! My meaning: again inspiring and delighting, she has successfully navigated another air path yet! This go, it be the literary one called “Authoress”:

(Look what found its way into my shopping basket, today, it did!)

O the courage and sugared inspiration “Wendy” unknowingly and constantly offers! Perhaps, then, my time be the nowly, too?! YES and YAY-HOO! I shall gather my inked snippets and coral my many savings of jottings~downs, and weave them together, because *sniff-sniffle* methinks I might finally be catching scent of a Cellar Door page-turner, bubbling in that shouldered caldron I call “topknot”!