Listened to the show Saturday and it was not bad. It was coming from Duluth, one of my favorite places in the world. It’s a city of the wilderness, if you ask me, and all about lake and trees and occasional bears and deer roaming the streets. It’s a fine place to be in any season, and a place Mr. S and I like to visit often when we have some down time. The lake walk is lovely, especially in the evening with all the lights, and there’s good food all ‘round, and there’s Bentleyville, the Christmas village, down there by the water over the holiday season. Hot chocolate and campfires and people singing and mingling and lights strung up and Santa with laughing children, and snow falling over it all.
Can’t wait to visit up there again, but before I do, there’s good work to be done. Douglas Adams, the writer, said he loves deadlines, and likes the sound they make as they go whooshing by. Makes me smile. It’s true. I love deadlines, too, and they do “whoosh” and it happens fast. Thing is, and I don’t know whether this is about my birth sign (Virgo) or my personality in general, or my response to my environment, but I’m a perfectionist AND a procrastinator, and a good deadline is exactly what I need. It provides me with the red flashing lights of adrenaline that let me know I may have procrastinated long enough, and it gives me a reason to temper my perfectionistic ways. Of COURSE I know that nothing is or can be perfect, and I accept that. I know that beauty lies in brokenness, and the flaws in us are a great part of who we are. Yes. But I was raised to work hard, and do good work, and I’m not one to slap anything together. You won’t find Haphazard and me doing the tango.
So, with that, as the snow falls heavy and the wind blows hard, I set aside my longings for a road trip north, for the lights of Bentleyville, for how a mug of hot chocolate warms a pair of red mittens, for the sound of sleighbells and the smell of cinnamon and campfire and the taste of roasted marshmallow. I have a deadline; the deadline doesn’t have me. The house is clean, the laundry done, chicken prepped for dinner and the shoveling can wait. I’ve got work to do, pages to gather together, stories to write, a recipe to find. I have a cookbook to finish, and I’ll finish it. Not because I have a deadline, or because I may be snowbound for a day or two, or because I have to finish. Nah. I’ll finish this book because I can’t not do it. It’s important to me, and it’s what I love to do. Kind of like breathing, now that I think about it.
Here’s the answer to “What’s for dinner?” on a snow blown day. Serve it with soup, or make it a meal on its own. German or not, you’ll love this recipe, and you may wonder where it’s been all your life.
Reuben Loaf
1 can of crescent rolls
½ lb of sliced corned beef
½ lb Swiss cheese
1 can sauerkraut, drained
8 oz tomato sauce
¼-⅓ cup Thousand Island dressing
Mix together sauerkraut, tomato sauce and dressing.
In an 8×8 baking dish or cake pan, spread a layer of half the crescent roll dough and cover with half the cheese. Next, layer half of the meat, all of the sauce, the rest of the meat, then the rest of the cheese. Top it off with the other half of the dough.
Bake 350 degrees 20-30 min until the top is golden brown. Cool 10 min before serving.
Cut into squares.
Enjoy!
