On the Third Working Day of Christmas…

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me…Three French Hens!

I’ll be perfectly honest with you…I have nothing very clever to write about in regards to three French Hens so I decided to post a recipe on how to prepare Cornish Game Hens with a Sweet Onion Compote.  I hope you all enjoy!

Ingredients

• 9 tablespoons butter
• 3 large onions, chopped (about 6 cups)
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 3 Cornish game hens, quartered, backbones removed

• 1/4 cup Sherry wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock or canned low-salt chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

• Chopped fresh parsley

Preparation

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and 3 tablespoons sugar. Cook until onions are golden, stirring often, about 15 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add wine and cook until onions are very tender and mixture is reduced to thick jamlike consistency, stirring frequently, about 40 minutes. Set compote aside.

Preheat oven to 450°F. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add hen quarters and brown well on all sides, about 8 minutes. Place hen quarters on rimmed baking sheet (do not clean skillet). Sprinkle hens with salt and pepper. Bake hen quarters until cooked through, about 20 minutes.

Transfer hen quarters to bowl; cover to keep warm. Add drippings from baking sheet, vinegar and remaining 3 tablespoons sugar to skillet used to brown hens. Bring to boil, scraping up any browned bits. Add stock and bring to boil. Mix remaining 4 tablespoons butter and flour in small bowl, forming paste. Whisk paste into stock mixture. Boil until thickened to sauce consistency, about 3 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Rewarm onion compote; spoon onto center of each plate. Arrange 2 hen quarters around compote. Spoon sauce over. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve.

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On the Second Working Day of Christmas...

On the Second Working Day of Christmas my True Love Gave to Me... Two Turtle Doves!

This theme is rather significant to me – the turtle part anyway. For as long as long as I can remember, I always had a turtle as a pet growing up. Tom Turtle was my first. My dad picked him up off the road for me when we were moving in to our new house – about 22 years ago now. Tom lived in an aquarium in my bedroom for a number of years. He was a great first pet! Easy to take care of, quiet, low maintenance. Tom was even friendly with my other animals – Michi, my rabbit, and Buttons, my dog.

Tom was a box turtle and was pretty old when we found him (apparently you can count the rings on their shells, much like a tree’s rings). Tom was adventurous – he managed to make his way off my deck (a 15ft drop) and survive… He made it all the way to the front yard where we found him making friends with a small child who was on a walk with his mom. Tom came to school with me on various occasions for show and tell. He would spend most of the day in a shoebox, but I felt so cool none the less.

Unfortunately, Tom made his way to greener fields one Christmas morning when I was in third grade. Not-so-Merry Christmas to me…

After Tom, I had other turtles… Tom II, Tammy… but none of them were the same as my original Tom, and I would end up releasing them back to the wild.

I took a hiatus as a turtle owner for a while, but when I headed to college, I decided to invest in a baby Red-eared Slider. Ferrari was about the size of a silver dollar when I got her. She lived in a little aquarium in my room and swam happily around! Two years later, on a whim I purchased another aquatic turtle, a Map Turtle, named Porsche. He was about the size of Ferrari at this point, and they lived happily together for the next year or so. Until… Ferrari quadrupled in size. Porsche; however, remained the same. They had to be separated.

Recently, Porsche passed on, joining his older brother in greener fields. He was a little trickster, that turtle. Always looking for the great escape. He must have “jumped” (for lack of a better word) out of his aquarium at least five times. He was lost in my parents’ basement for almost two days. He escaped during feeding time on a number of occasions, and twice Nick and I came home to an empty aquarium, only to find him in the bathroom and in the back spare bedroom.

I have a feeling Ferrari is going to live forever. She is the size of a dinner plate now, and continues to grow out of every aquarium we put her in. I make fun of my friends, saying that they will be crazy cat ladies when they are older, while I… I might be the crazy turtle lady.

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On the First Working Day...

"On the first working day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree."

I am not an expert on the Partridge family, partridges or pears, but I do love dessert. So in honor of the holiday season of baking, here is a recipe that includes pears, as well as gingerbread and a little bit of booze. Although I usually don't care for fruit desserts, this might be worth trying!

Enjoy!

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The 12 Working Days of Christmas

So we've made it to the holiday season...my favorite time of the year! Sense the sarcasim people- I am a summer girl. I love the fourth of July the most, but regardless, Christmas is nice, when we don't have snow in Pittsburgh!

To celebrate the holiday, the WWB girls will be giving you a taste of our own 12 Working Days of Christmas. Think of the song...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8. Do you really know the true meaning behind the 12 Days of Christmas? We didn't either, but here is what we found out.

A long, long time ago in England (like serious, 1558), Catholics were prohibted from any practice of their faith by law, in the privacy of their own home or in public. Basically, it was a crime to be Catholic. If caught, they could be imprisioned, hanged, shortened by the head (which would make me like 4 foot 5...midget status), or even suffocated to death.

So as a way to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith, they created the 12 Days of Christmas song as a memory aid. The songs gifts have hidden meanings to teach the faith. The true love mentioned throughout the song is God, the partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ, and me is every person who is baptized.

The other symbols mean:

2 Turtle Doves: The old and new testments

3 French Hens: Faith, hope and charity, the theological virtures

4 Calling Birds: The four gospels and/or the four evangelists

5 Golden Rings: The first five books of the old testments, the "pentateuch" which gives the history of man's fall from grace.

6 Geese A-laying: The six days of creation

7 Swans A-swimming: The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments

8 Maids A-milking: The eight beatitudes

9 Ladies Dancing: The nine fruits of the Holy Spirit

10 Lords A-leaping: The ten commandments

11 Pipers Piping: The eleven faithful apostles

12 Drummers Drumming: The twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle's Creed

Did you have any idea there was so much meaning to a song that we grew up singing? I honestly can't ever remember singing it in church or Sunday school. Can you? See if others know the meaning, or what the song means to them.

Follow us for the next 12 Working Days of Christmas for what each means to us. We will have great group photos to share that I am sure will make your day. Please let us know what each day means to you when we post. We always enjoy feedback.

Happy Holidays!

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Sweets & Boutiques

This Sunday, December 11 at 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., please join me for a unique holiday shopping event featuring local crafters, businesses, artists and a great raffle to benefit homeless dogs. Come and shop for all those important people in your life...2 legged and 4 legged! There's something for everyone and admission is free. The event is at Epiphany Catholic Church, 185 Washington Place, next to Consol Energy Center.

For more info please visit: www.hellobully.org.

My friend is a great artist and will be selling some awesome handmade things such as: upcycled jewelry, picture frames, artwork, holiday decorations, vintage bird cages and more. Together, she and I will be selling hand painted wine, shot and regular glasses. Several years ago, wine charms entered the marketplace and became all the rage. They were cute little charms that you slipped onto the stem of your wine glass during parties, making it easier to determine which glass was yours out of the sea of glassware on the coffee table. Instead of being like everybody else, try something different! I've seen chalkboard glasses before, and always thought them to be a fun and chic way for guests to keep track of their glass throughout the night.

The wine glasses are mixed with cool designs and chalkboard areas on the stemless glasses as well as on the foot of our stemmed glasses. Use them to play games with your guests or you write funny messages on them. All glasses are reasonably priced, $7 for a single or 4 for $25. Order more as needed, price adjustments will be made for bulk orders. Here are some photos of what we will be selling on Sunday, hope to see you all there! If you cannot come to the event and would like to order any items, please contact me at hil0348@gmail.com.

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Hard to Say Goodbye!

When my husband decided that he wanted to open his own bar, I knew it was going to be hard but I absolutely 100% supported him.  For those of you who currently work in the service industry or have in a past life, you know it’s the most absurd environment.  The “rules” of every other normal business just don’t apply to this industry.  Perhaps it’s because you’re usually up all night and sleep all day.  Perhaps it’s because you’re constantly dealing with drunks and idiots and playing shrink to pretty much everyone who walks the door.  I don’t know what exactly it is but having worked in “corporate America” for the last 15 years; the service industry blows my freaking mind!!!

When we opened the bar almost five years ago, our very good friend (of almost 12 years) joined the team pretty much on day one.  Even at the beginning, when the staff was light, he was always willing to pitch in and work a double or check beer in.  He was a huge help to my husband at the beginning.  Then things started to change…

My husband has always run the bar with the idea of everyone having fun.  Like most bars, this means allowing your bartenders to have a shot or two if customers buy you one.  Now this doesn’t mean every time you make a shot or a drink, you get to make one for yourself, it means having one or two throughout the night to make a customer feel good.  Most of us have no problem with this.  However, our good friend…the one who’s been with us since day one…just couldn’t stop.  His drawers started to be off, his temper was short and we tried everything with him.  We talked nicely to him; we yelled at him, we suspended him.  Nothing was working.  Then about two weeks ago, we received an anonymous email through our website from another bar owner outside the city limits.  They came down to see the “‘Burgh’s Best Neighborhood Bar” and most of the email was glowing with compliments.  I was literally grinning from ear-to-ear and couldn’t wait to show my husband and the rest of the staff.  Then…they mentioned our bartender.  They said he was visibly intoxicated behind the bar and running off to the bathroom every 10 minutes or so.  They said he was very friendly but being bar owners themselves and having just paid a very hefty fine to the LCB for the same problem, they wanted to give us the heads-up.  So…I sat our friend down again.  This time, the proof was in the pudding.  He read the email and like me was grinning from ear-to-ear.  Then he got to the part about him (which they did say his name in the email).  He started to cry and I told him that he was suspended this time for a whole week and that if he were caught drinking and or drunk behind the bar one more time, he would be fired!  I had had it.  My husband and I didn’t work our asses off to have someone destroy it (even if they are our friend). 

Well, this past Saturday, we had to fire him.  It was the hardest thing to do and it truly broke my heart.  I honestly never want to do it again but I know that just goes with the territory when you own your own business.  The part that kills me is that our friendship may not survive but what could we do…he became a liability and if we lose the bar, we lose everything.

I know everyone in the service industry drinks a little more than most and probably “parties” a little more than most but, I find that most everyone in this industry uses “the industry” as an excuse…”I’m in the service industry and that’s just what we do.”  I call bullshit!!!  I’ve now been immersed in it for a couple of years and I’m not an alcoholic or drug addict.  I still manage to get up when the sun is shining and although there are days when I’m freaking exhausted, I’m still an adult with responsibilities.  So if that means I lose a few hours a sleep to get everything accomplished and still work at the bar…so be it!

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All We Need Is Love

I'm guessing if you looked at my family, from the outside in, we look, well, perfect. A mom, a dad, two healthy boys, two (stupid) dogs. A white picket (alright, it's vinyl) fence. We even have fish. An all-American family. But by whose definition?

I'm not trying to pat my own back, but my marriage is something to be envied. I'm lucky. The first guy I married will be my last. I don't doubt that. Rob and I have an unexplanably amazing relationship that truly, most can only hope to have. I am blessed. Truly blessed. But not because I married a man, but because of the person he is. He makes me a better me. He enriches the lives of our kids and anyone who meets him. He's a really, really special person. And don't even get me started on my kiddos.

The funny part is that we were both raised by divorced parents. Mine divorced when I was two and remarried by the time I was five. For all intense and purposes, I grew up with four parents. Four happy parents who loved one another as opposed to two miserable ones who just stayed together "for the kids." I also have a sister named Kelly and her husband is named Rob! (I couldn't make this stuff up!)

Rob's parents divorced when he was a teenager. His mom remarried and he went to live with his dad, brother and sister.

If you look at the "broken, shattered" homes we come from, how could we possible make it (hint: that remark is chock full of sarcasm)? Truth is, it isn't the container but the contents.

What it comes down to is being raised with love. No matter from whom or in what fashion, Rob and I grew up knowing we were loved, valued, disciplined. And it shows in how we live our lives and how we raise our children.

I know scores of people who feel the same way, only their situation is a bit different. Raised by two moms who adore one another. Raised by a mother and father who were high school sweetheats. Raised by a single parent or divorced parents or adoptive parents. The list goes on and on. We all have different family backgrounds and dynamics. Those raised by warm, loving parents may wind up getting divorced. Those raised in broken homes may go on to achieve great things. Again, it isn't the container, but the contents.

Most people, upon meeting them, you would not be able to access their family background, because, as long as they were loved and cared for by someone, they are hopefully making their mark, making a difference and moving forward.

Let's not judge the book by it's cover, but the contents. My biggest dream for my kids is love, acceptance and understanding. Not college degrees or who they marry (and they will be able to marry whoever the hell they love). That the world love them for who they are and where they came from.

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