Williston Observer

Nov. 26, 2008

Black Friday in the kitchen

By Kim Dannies

No smack-down shopping in the superstores for me on Black Friday — I’ve declared this a retail-free season.

Instead, I’m preparing and sharing delicious consumables for family and friends. Friday will be a culinary cooperative in the kitchen whipping up gingerbread house parts, soups and sweet treats with my mom, sisters and kids. I found cute containers and bags at the craft store and deli to package and store the goodies. For my quick hit gifts, I find holiday-themed cellophane bags perfect for filling with pistachio nuts, trail mix or homemade granola: pop on a big, bright bow, and it’s a treat good to go anywhere.

There are several food-gift recipes on my Web site (kimdannies.com) that have become holiday classics over the years: gingerbread houses (Nov. 25, 2004); cream cheese sugar cookies (Dec. 18, 2003); chocolate almond bark (Dec. 9, 2004); Green Mountain chocolate chip cookies — I freeze the dough in quart containers (Oct. 13, 2005); healthy holiday quick breads (Nov. 20, 2003); crunchy granola (March 13, 2003); and BBQ marriage sauce (July 22, 2004). I guarantee that loved ones will be thrilled with any one of these mouthwatering treats.

Last year, pal Sherri George made these fragrantly delicious vanilla nuts for friends, and I loved them so much I’m adding them to my repertoire this season.

Vanilla nuts

You’ll need: 1 pound of walnut halves; 3 tablespoons of corn oil; 1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract; 1/2 cup of sugar; 1/4 teaspoon each of ground coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice and salt; 1/8 teaspoon of white pepper.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Bring a large pan of water to a boil. Blanch walnuts 1 minute. Drain well. Transfer to a bowl. Blend corn oil with vanilla extract. Pour over hot nuts. Sprinkle in sugar and toss to mix well. Let stand 10 minutes. Arrange nuts on a rimmed baking tray. Bake 30 to 35 minutes until nuts are light brown and crispy. Stir nuts a few times during baking. Combine remaining ingredients in a small bowl. When nuts are done baking, transfer to a large bowl while still hot. Toss with seasoning mixture. Return to baking sheet and spread in a single layer to cool. Serve at room temperature. (Double or triple the batch.)

Kim Dannies is a graduate of La Varenne Cooking School in France. She lives in Williston with her husband, Jeff; they have three college-aged daughters. For archived Everyday Gourmet columns go to kimdannies.com.

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Nov. 26, 2008

An eye-opener for Williston

Due mostly to the exacerbation and relentlessness of the media creating a sense of doom, yes, local revenue has taken a hit. Lest we forget who is being hit the most:  local businesses, especially your local Mom and Pop’s.

In the past, Williston officials have taken for granted the revenue it pulls in from the local 1 percent sales tax. Most recently, your Williston representatives opted to have local business bear the brunt again by imposing a tax on all business utilities.

Williston continually bites the hand that feeds it and keeps residential property taxes stable. Is this really in your citizens’ best interest? Keep in mind your revenue is directly connected to how well Williston businesses do. Things have been less stressful since the resignation of D.K. Johnston, the obsessive ordinance official that made many of us miserable and contemplate relocation. But then Williston rewrote the ordinance rules to make them more confining.

We have always contributed generously to the community and now we do it every time we turn on our lights and heat our stores. With a window front restriction it will be hard to decide on supporting a local events poster or leaving an ad up for potential store revenue. We are not all corporate giants, we just want to make an honest living in a very nice town. So a little show of respect for those silent contributors to the success of your community.

Angela L. Emerson, owner

Amarah’s Chocolate Company

Williston

The band played on

Not the Williston Town Band, but ours, here in Williston Woods, a small community nestled away up on a hill off North Williston Road. Our float, “The Band Played On,” won the blue ribbon in the Neighborhood category on the Fourth of July.

We prided ourselves on that achievement and anticipated the barbecue to be hosted by the Williston Rotary Club on the 9th of September. Good food was cooked and served by Rotary members, including our very own Town Manager, Richard McGuire, and Director of Parks and Recreation, Kevin Finnegan. A local DJ provided the music that kept us dancing.

My point? The coverage of the event was a misnomer that needs to be corrected in order to preserve the integrity and well-deserved reputation of our Williston Observer. One picture of a dancing couple, with the title, “Dancing Days,” did not tell the true story in the Sept. 18 edition of the paper. Yes, we do have dancing feet, but the occasion was the kicker — the celebration of the Blue Ribbon! So now you have it — the whole story.

Williston Woods is only one of many neighborhood communities in our jewel of a town. I count 15 neighborhood communities in the Williston Resource Directory. What a parade of floats, or festive walkers, or stars-and-stripes cars overflowing with community members could grace the 2009 Fourth of July parade that celebrates our Williston and our USA. See you there.

Alice Bowman

Willison Woods

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Nov. 26, 2008

Now that the election is over

By Spencer M. Wright

Like so many others, I am relieved, proud of the choice America has made, and hopeful that the next eight years can bring about the growth of a new spirit and some new wisdom in this country.

My biggest fear is that the nation will not have the patience or the trust needed for President Obama to initiate improvements in our economy, in social justice and in our international stature. I am convinced, though, that he has the “right stuff” for the job. He will necessarily ask us to make sacrifices, and he has promised to tell us what we need to hear rather than what we want to hear.

We will no doubt have to re-think the meaning of the right to the “pursuit of happiness,” for it has acquired increasingly flexible boundaries. This right — perhaps not as it was envisioned in our Declaration of Independence — is often the primary but unacknowledged justification for what the powerful and the rest of us want to do. Self-interest drives a free-market economy, and social justice is not the concern of the “military-industrial complex.” For all of us, the credit card and the information highway have opened vistas of opportunity for immediate gratification, while the potential for painful costs often remains unobserved. Those of us whose cupboards are not bare have done little beyond clucking our tongues over the rampant consumerism in the richest (for now) nation in the world. We know that we face tremendous challenges to our economy, to our security, our stature in the world community and our environment. There is a real danger under those challenges that complacency, turning into outrage over unavoidably leaner measures of well-being, could overwhelm the fortitude we need to sustain our hope for change. President Obama will indeed be tested by us.

My second fear, not to be dwelt upon, is based on the reality that hate — and in particular, racist hate — is a real threat to our next president. It exists, and thrives, in enclaves of ignorance and prejudice that may wither or die but inevitably re-emerge.

Barack Obama’s broad grasp of things that matter, and his fluency and gravity in addressing them, particularly since he secured the election, give me hope that anyone who is willing to pay attention will be able to set aside ideological, racial and other prejudices long enough to permit his emergence and survival as a leader in fact as well as in hope. To the extent that he can broaden the vision of those who view him too narrowly, he will enhance his own safety and ours.

I hope he will speak to us openly and often. I hope he will help us respond not too grudgingly to the reality that our total national indebtedness is not just a few trillion, but $53 trillion, as revealed by the Peterson Institute and known by distinguished Obama advisors who have validated that finding. A $700 billion bailout and a budget deficit in fiscal year 2008 of $455 billion are small pieces of the total picture. There is, unfortunately, no effort by the mainstream media or by government to present this astounding reality to the public, a reality that reflects rising and unsustainable health care costs and other unfunded liabilities that necessitate lowering our expectations regarding our “entitlements.”

We can’t yet absorb the full implications of our fiscal crisis. Still, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on our expectations with regard to health care, compared to our expectations regarding other aspects of quality of life. Most of us would agree that any citizen is entitled to at least a minimally acceptable standard of food, clothing and shelter. When it comes to health care however, we tend to think that everyone is entitled to the maximally effective options that exist. That way of thinking has already created unsustainable health care costs, and can no longer be justified. Health care will have to be rationed in ways other than it already is.

Despite the economic and other challenges that have thrived on national complacency, I am excited and hopeful. I hope that President Obama will nourish a new pride in us as Americans, not just because we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, but because the label means we have acquired a new understanding of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” that gives more weight to responsibility and restraint and tolerance. To be sure, I don’t want to give up my right to complain when things aren’t going as I think they should, as long as I have done my best to understand.

Spencer M. Wright is a Williston resident.

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Nov. 26, 2008

Defensive driving

By Kayla Purvis

Most school days I ride the bus twice — to school and back home. And almost every day my bus driver honks at at least one person who drives straight through her stop sign. The only way someone could miss a giant yellow vehicle with flashing lights is if he or she is not paying attention; and if you’re not paying attention, you shouldn’t be on the road.

I’ve been driving for about seven months with a learner’s permit, and I always make sure to pay attention to what’s happening on the road around me. I can’t imagine hitting anyone just because I received a call on my cell phone.

During my school years I’ve heard various reports about accident causes: cell phones, eating while driving, applying make-up while driving. If you’re driving, you should only be driving; not talking on the phone, texting or fiddling around with knobs and buttons. To be a safe driver you should have two hands on the wheel and your mind focused on the road and surrounding things. I think a lot of drivers have forgotten that.

If a phone call is important, pull over to take it. If your favorite song comes on the radio, turn it up a little, but don’t blast it. If you receive a text message, wait until you’re at a red light or your destination before you check it.

I got the idea to write about this topic this past week after observing the different things drivers do when they have to stop for the bus. Some drivers do exactly what they should do: slow down immediately and stop with a good-sized space in between their car and the bus. Others slow down and roll or crawl toward the bus, but never actually stop. And some people only stop after the driver has honked at them. Last time I checked, a red sign with eight sides and the word “Stop” written on it meant that a driver had to come to a complete stop.

Honestly, the bus won’t be stopped for more than 30 seconds — there’s no need to break the law just to save half a minute.

I have to cross Route 2A every day when I get off the bus. Now, I’m a big girl and I can cross the street all by myself. But I know that not all drivers are nearly as careful and aware as they should be, so crossing one of the busiest roads in Williston isn’t something I look forward to. I know that parents have written about this before, but I thought that it might make a bigger impact coming from an actual bus rider, someone on the other side of the stop sign.

Remember, all lanes of traffic have to stop for a school bus’ sign.

So turn down your music, ignore your cell phone, and just pay attention to the road. Come on, Williston. When you’re driving, just drive. It’ll help keep your students, citizens and fellow drivers safe.

Williston resident Kayla Purvis is a sophomore at Champlain Valley Union High School.

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Nov. 26, 2008

Turkey and tips

By Katherine Bielawa Stamper

Thanksgiving is upon us.

Millions of Americans board planes, trains and automobiles to gather with family and friends. Aunts, uncles and cousins trade stories for simmering bowls of sweet potatoes and stuffing at holiday meals simple and grand. Young cousins play and tumble underfoot, offering up moist thumbs and runny noses to the “great germ exchange” in which viruses seamlessly cross state lines. Thanksgiving reminds us that, even in challenging economic times, we have much to be grateful for.

My own family’s holiday will be quiet. We’ll drive south to Hancock in Addison County for our annual hike around Texas Falls. We’ll clip a patch of fluorescent orange fabric to our clothes before hitting the trail, lest we be mistaken for deer among the trees and branches. It is hunting season, after all. The path might be slippery from snow or rain passing through a scant canopy of leaves. We’re drawn to this patch of land for the gushing water falling and flowing over rocks, filling the air with life-giving exhalations.

After the hike, we’ll spread our worn travel tablecloth on a picnic table at a shelter overlooking a stream. Sandwiches of thick Ciabatta stuffed with fresh mozzarella and summer pesto emerge from our backpack. A thermos offers up steaming cups of hot chocolate, adding warmth to our traditional Thanksgiving lunch.

Hours later, we’ll convene with friends for a collaborative holiday feast that’s veg-, carn-, and celiac-friendly. I’ll pass on the turkey and eagerly indulge in cranberry relish, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie crowned with dollops of homemade whipped cream.

When I was a small child, I felt jealous of friends who travelled “over the river and through the woods” to grandma’s house for Thanksgiving. My grandma lived across the ocean; she didn’t even celebrate Thanksgiving. My immigrant parents did their best, preparing turkey with all the fixings and letting us linger in our pajamas lazily to watch Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on television.

By the time we were young teens, my sisters and I worked on Thanksgiving, serving up meals and bussing tables at the restaurant where our father moonlighted. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Frankly, I needed the money. I liked the waitresses and cooks with whom I worked. I only felt awkward when a classmate came in for holiday dinner with his or her family and there I stood in my black and white uniform waiting to fill their water glasses.

The owner of the restaurant treated staff to a holiday meal. We’d arrive at10:30 a.m. — no time to watch the parade — to prep the dining room for the onslaught. We’d sit down at 11:30 and eat quickly. Reservations started at noon.

Although the owner offered a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving to guests, he always served us prime rib. I remember greedily digging into thick, juicy slabs of beef cooked to perfection and Delmonico potatoes smothered in cheese.

The next several hours would be a blur as the hostess peppered me with requests: “I need a deuce at table 12; set up table 14 for seven; the bar needs more ice.” I made a game of working as fast as I could, clearing and setting tables. I placed a red linen napkin on my strong shoulder — the one I carried trays on — to keep from marring my white blouse with kitchen grease. My father was busy at the bar preparing Tangueray and tonics and Shirley Temples all afternoon.

By 6 o’clock the dining room was usually empty except for one or two parties that seemed to linger endlessly. The cooks would be gone, as would most of the waitresses. We learned from experience that customers who made us wait weren’t necessarily good tippers. As the person charged with cleaning and resetting their table, I too had to wait, as did my father, who was my ride home.

While waiting, I’d empty my pockets on the steel counter in the kitchen and count out the crumpled dollar bills — tips from the waitresses. I could make $60 or even $70. The waitresses were extra generous because it was a holiday, even if customers sometimes were not.

Tables cleaned and lights out in the dining room, we’d pile into dad’s car for the short ride home. I’d heat up leftover turkey in the microwave and help myself to a thick swath of my mother’s pumpkin pie for dinner.

Growing up in a restaurant family, I learned about teamwork and how to serve people with a smile even if I didn’t always feel like smiling. Folks I worked with on Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve, Easter, Mother’s Day and Christmas Eve were generally there because they needed the money. So, if you’re out over the holidays and the service is good, tip often and tip well.

Katherine Bielawa Stamper lives in Williston. Reader comments are welcome at [email protected] or [email protected]

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