Pocanos

You probably wouldn’t even be able to find it

Given that it was so off the normal path. But if you knew about it, or made one fortituous wrong turn, there you would be. The area was so plump with ski runs that at dusk the roads would be full of hungry skiers disgorged and looking for food. And yet so few ever found it.

And yet there it sat, surrounded most winter days, by pines covered in snow,  a place unknown.

Christmas Tea & Fruitcake

I made my first pot of Christmas Tea this afternoon. And like the proverbial Madeleines dipped in Tisane, it’s taste and smell sent me into a melancholy reverie of times past.

When I was younger, my Grandmother would spend weeks before their annual Christmas visit, baking a stunning variety of cookies and sweets to bring to us. They would all be boxed in cookie tins and packed into the trunk of their sky blue Ford Granada. It was a magic moment when they finally arrived at our house and the trunk would pop open filled with all those tins and wrapped presents.

But Christmas holidays would end, my Grandparents would depart, and the long days of January winters would begin their monotonous slog. But many of those cold afternoons also held a treat. Along with everything else she baked, My Grandmother would always bake a bunch of rich, dark fruitcakes. Nobody else seemed to like them, so my Mom would wrap them in aluminum foil and stick them in the back of the refrigerator.

And my Mom and I, would slowly work our way through them, slice by slice, on icy afternoons all winter long, accompanied by a hot mug of tea. I don’t really remember the tea itself, but the tea that always invokes this memory is tea spiced with orange peel, clove, and cinnamon. The real end to my Holiday season was when the final slice of fruitcake was gone, and all the delicious crumbs were picked off the now very crumpled foil, which was unceremoniously squished into a ball and discarded like an unwanted Christmas ornament.

A Spiced Holiday Tea

A Fruitcake Recipe close to my Grandmother’s