Hot Cross Buns

 There is a song about this! Link! (Sorry it starts with an ad but you can click that away soon.)

James, growing up in England, has fond memories of "Hot Cross Buns". Every year on Good Friday somebody is sent to the bakery early in the morning and each family could enjoy one warm bun. Good Friday. And that is it.

Every year here in the USA we had trouble finding them to purchase. Sometimes we were lucky to find some. Sometimes we were very lucky and they were good. Sometimes effort were in vain. One year we were told (on Good Friday) that they had had them but stopped a few days ago because they were now "out of season". Oh yeah?

This year I decided to try to bake them myself. How difficult can it be? Ha-ha, we were watching lately the Great British Bake Off. I found Mary Berry's recipe HERE. Mary Berry is one of the stars in the show.

I printed it out and followed it faithfully. Mind you, good thing I had printed it some days ago because we had to order sultanas and mixed spice online. Halfway through I had a question and went online again. This time I watched the video (highly recommend it) and found I could have done it a little easier. 

But here is the result:

 

Well, it was fun. The dilemma: It was not Good Friday yet but we had to try them. Didn't we? 

As you can see it was a success. 

We both enjoyed the tasting but James decided there was a taste which he didn't know. We came to the conclusion that it must be the Mixed Spice which Mary Berry said she preferred. When we read the ingredients in it there were two which James usually doesn't care much about.

Well, this means I have to try making them again. I already have found the recipe from Paul Hollywood, the other star of the British show. He doesn't use this same spice. 

I do want to report though that I froze most of the other buns (in twos) and we have tried how they fare that way. Take them frozen and put them into the microwave for 30 second each = 1 minute for two. They came out like freshly baked. Super!

Happy Times - part 2

Yeah, Helen and William had arrived. Now we have two full days to enjoy. Friday Helen has to teach though. We discuss where the best place in the house for her to do this would be, where we don't disturb her but we still can have activities with William. We find a pretty good place. 

First we need to go shopping. James, William and I are down the hill. A notepad is needed. Which one?

It's raining, it's pouring today. So William is cooking. Helen and William had not tried the Moroccan Kefta yet. Helen had brought her fill dough. The filling is easy and delicious ...

... but doing the filling of the dough? Not so much. The filo is so paper-thin and, of course, rips easily. He kept at it until there were all 16.

The ping-pong table in the basement was William's favorite though. Incredible Papa just never could say "no". They were both rather proud of the fact that they both got better at it.

The valley we could see yesterday is nowhere to be seen today. 

Saturday, glorious Saturday. What a difference from yesterday. And we have decided what to do. Helen has three friends in Nashville which happen to be 100 % Native American. When they heard where she was going they suggested the Museum on the Cherokee Reservation. The drive was about 22 miles and lovely.

The museum was very interesting. 

So much information. Lots of history. Here are games to see which are similar to some games of today.

A Cherokee man, Sequoyah invented the written form of his spoken language (in the late 1810s and early 1820s), allowing the oral history of a people to be written down. Sequoyah used versions of characters from the Roman alphabet and modified others to make new symbols. Each one signifies a syllable in the Cherokee language.

In a glass case was a bible in the Cherokee language. 

The story of the brutal relocation of so many people of course makes one very sad. 

There were stations where craftsmanship will be demonstrated sometimes. Today there was only a potter.

There were lots of masks and of course they are quite fascinating.

Back to the car and what is next? It is a nice looking village next to the Oconaluftee River with footbridges to a small island. But there were lots of people about. We had seen people on the parking lot with ice cream cones and went on a search to find the shop.

Looks like we found it, ha-ha.

Of course the museum had a gift shop and William saw a bin with all sorts of gem stones. He loves those and Papa let him fill one of the bags. 

Omi across the room saw pea shooters and thought that all 4 boys might like them. We got one for each of them.

William and I had a shooting match from the deck into the woods. We had fun.

We even had somewhat of a sundown that evening.

Sunday

How fast the time had gone. We were supposed to vacate the rented house at 10 am. That is not a problem since we are all eager to get on the road for the drives. Since Helen had to work next day and William school again we saw them off of course. 

                                                                    And there they go. 

James and I were not in such a hurry but soon were on our way too. It was another lovely sunny day. We raided one of the coolers for a picnic lunch. 

Everybody got home safely and had a good time. Grateful. Thankful. 

PS: Sarah had a nanny-problem in the following week. Of course we helped out. We had something we could surprise the boys with. All 3 were so happy with their pea shooters. A win for Papa and Omi. Yeah.

Happy times - part 1

Oh yes, lots to be thankful for. This probably is going to be a long blog. Since we are away for about a week I had to have a good look at my amaryllis. It's a collection from several years. I noticed there are 3 different white ones, ...

... and orange one, ...

 

... and red ones.

We also received a large envelope with two home-made cards from William and his Dad Ben. So fun! Yes, James had an fully Irish grandmother (but never knew her). That gives William an Irish great-grandmother.

Tuesday March 16 - the day! We drove again to Blacksburg and got our second Moderna shots at 12:30pm. At the end of the month we will be fully vaccinated against this horrible virus. What a wonderful feeling.

Jeremy, the pharmacist, warned us that in about 12 hours we could experience some side effects which should not last more than 24 hours.

From there we drove straight to Waynesville, NC, to a rented cabin. We had packed a lunch and enjoyed that at a highway rest area. Nice.

At 5:30 pm we were not too far from our destination. It was so pretty and easy driving ... for a car like ours. Look at the runaway truck ramp in the middle photo. There were several of them.

Next day, Wednesday, we took it easy. James did experience some side-effects starting surprisingly about 12 hours after the shot. But we both had a good nights sleep ... after we figured out how to get the house warm. We don't think it gets rented a lot (if at all) in the winter. 

The automatic gas fireplace in the living room is really very good. The heat it turns out is tremendous. It makes James feel better when he has "the chills". 

This is upstairs which of course is a wooden structure. This is really the main floor with two bedrooms. Downstairs (the walk-out basement) is what looks like cinder blocks. There is another bedroom with living room/kitchenette and a bit colder. We decided to lodge there. We found a really nice plug-in heater in the closet for the nights.

Of course after breakfast we looked a bit around. Nice view while there are no leaves yet.

From the upper deck we see the fast running creek and the statue of St. Francis. I have not seen much wildlife or birds yet, only one squirrel.

In the afternoon we decided that we should go down into town to find a grocery store. We found a Publix. Coming back up I "needed" to take some pictures of the very steep winding road but it is difficult to give an impression of the hairpin curves. Luckily there are lots of mirrors to see oncoming traffic. It seemed a bit "adventures" every time we (James) made this drive. 

Close to the house was this waterfall. I commented last evening at arrival that we need to walk to it to take a good picture of it. 

Next morning the weather was better. Before lunch we decided to take a little walk. James suggested that we should go further uphill since we didn't really know how much I could actually walk and especially on these hills. 

Looking back not far away. Can you see the roof?

It was fun walking and I felt good about it. Unfortunately we could not go as far as I could have gone and had to turn around because it started raining.

After lunch though the sky was blue again and it was lovely to have our coffee outside on the deck.

As you can see I tried to take selfies. This time though I tried to use the timer because my arm was not long enough.

I had not used the timer in quite a while and didn't make it into this photo:

But this is my favorite. Ha-ha, I was trying to figure out what was going on. 

After the coffee we decided that the morning walk just had not been enough and went out again. Since I knew now how I was faring on this we decided to go downhill so we could look at that waterfall, the Bristlecone Falls.

... and take the photo of course.

And then we were waiting for Helen and William's arrival. It is William's Spring Break but Helen had to teach in the morning so an early start was out. 

James and I played our card game. I should have ventured down the hill and bought a lottery ticket. I always got the right cards just when I needed them. And poor James never got any helpful cards. When I finally got some "bad" points he was somewhat relieved. 

Google told us how long the drive what be from Nashville to the cabin but of course that doesn't include rest stops or the stopped traffic around Knoxville.

We were happy that they arrived when it was still daylight. They settled, we had dinner and of course William and I had to play a game. 

Time to go to bed. Helen has to teach two classes tomorrow. But we are looking forward to spending time together. Part 2 will come.