January 15, 2004

At first light on the feast day in the Christmas kitchen, cookbooks lead to familiar paths: "Sauté the chopped onions until golden, add the garlic before the onion turns, slowly dribble the oil for the broth down the sides of the pan, preheat the oven.

Next, the "hunt and chase" phase; must stop mixing and turn the knob to see if the pilot flickers on the burner; where are the gosh-a-mighty hot pads — oh, hiding under the tongs; and aside and apart, rush to the east door to see the sunrise over the mesquite plains.

Once too proud to allow guests to bring food, I now all but beat on a tambourine and ring bells over a swinging pot asking for help. For every mile of distance between the ranch and a grocery store, I save four or five dollars a mile staying home and imposing on my friends and children. The hardest items to remember or find in San Angelo hit a mean of between two and three dollars an ounce. Wild rice and piñon nuts, for example, are hard to locate, yet white hominy and crushed red pepper flakes all but fall over in the cart.

Big void in the menu is wines. The package store close to Angelo is on the wrong side of the highway going to town and sets off the road too far coming home. I don't drink wine, but lots of recipes call for wine.

The ones who drink wine, I've learned, have to have long-stemmed glasses and a piece of paraphernalia to lift the corks. Have to have red and white wines. Can't be mixed into a blend of colors to make a pink. All the wine drinking I ever knew was just breaking the seal and unscrewing the top to take a swig.

Told my friend who buys the wines that if I have to add high-priced glasses and a fancy corkscrew especially for wine drinkers, I am going to charge a corkage on every glass, like, say three dollars on the first glass and six bucks on the next one.

Cooking, however, wasn't all that was happening Christmas morning. The last 10 heifers to calve grazed around the yard fence in stillness so profound the clipping of the dry grass crunching was audible at the back door. As I dumped the trash, it seemed the only concern a first-calf black bovine has the last term of pregnancy is tormenting her nurse to the very last hour of her time.

Guests began to arrive early. Grease popped in the roast beef pan. Bright tissue paper checkered the living room rug like a ribbon race at a Scout camp. Foods hit the serving table. The welcome speech and the blessing of the food came swift and abbreviated. At family gatherings, yielding the floor may mean making a choice of hearing, say, the story of the Grandfather and Frank Harris roping a bear on Devil's River and eating a congealed gravy over cold bread, versus praying so long the gang is speechless.

Our after dinner tradition is to read A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. Mother left the book when she moved to town as her eternal gift to civility and love. We set a fine holiday scene gathered in the living room, passing the book from reader to reader. My sister napping in her wheel chair; her driver nodding on the couch. Red tapers burning on the big table. The dishwashing crew rejoining the circle to give a smug glow of service and sacrifice to the backsliders shy of soap and water.

  There are no fireplaces. No firecrackers popping, however, a cork exploding interrupts my train of thought, but that might just be an idiosyncrasy, not a real distraction. The white mountain sheep skin the Boss left comes the closest to having a dog sleeping on the living room floor. Sprigs of mistletoe serve for pine trees, wreaths and music. We aren't heathens, just country people who seek the solitude of the ranch to celebrate in our way.

I am sorry, but passages are too long to read you a portion from Mr. Capote's book. When my friend and I were in the San Juan Islands in the fall, we bought an extra edition at a bookstore in Friday's Harbor. But if you want a copy of The Christmas Memory, bookfinders.com might be the place to order one.

January 15, 2004

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