Happy Solstice 2010!
Last night I was fortunate to have clear skies in which to see the full lunar eclipse and celebrate the winter solstice. My companion while viewing the celestial spectacle was Ernie the goat (I don’t know where Bert was, probably in the shed):

I’ve also been blessed to be celebrating the holidays with family. There has already been a ton of great food, dancing in the kitchen with my 98-year old grandma and my mom (see below), and the unexpected gift of finding out this morning that The Locavore’s Handbook is number fourteen on The Daily Green’s 20 Best Cookbooks and food books of 2010!
Here’s my dad, Kelly Johnson, with an uninvited lunch guest a few days ago:

And here’s the start of a holiday spread I helped put together for some of my mom’s vegetarian friends.
The hit of that meal was definitely the agro-dulce butternut squash. Or maybe it was the skordalia (Greek garlic dip). Whatever; it was all good:
The following day my mom’s husband, Frank Coberly, balanced out the vegetarian night by roasting a leg of lamb, and he was on chef duty again the next day making a Mexican-style meal with homemade tortillas (note to self: must get tortilla press. We’ve got good corn meals, if not masa, from locally grown corn at home in BK. Should work, right?)
Tomorrow I’m going to learn how to make my Dad’s pumpkin-pecan pie and we’re taking it over to Gideon and Anne’s.
Anyway, all the feasting and celebrating has meant lots of time in the kitchen. This is a video of me, my mom Penelope Lagios Coberly, and my Grandma Nea (Eugenia Kilgore) in the kitchen, but there’s very little cooking getting done:
3 Generations Dancing in the Kitchen
Here’s wishing you a Happy Solstice and New Year!
Cheers,
Leda
The Locavore’s Handbook: The Busy Person’s Guide to Eating Local on a Budget
Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes



The only thing I’ll do differently next time is roll them out even thinner in hopes of getting a lighter texture.