Lights, Flames, and Turducken

Warning: There are no quilts in this post.

Seems like the quilting blogopolis in awash in the red and green of Christmas.  Jewish quilters are a rare breed, it seems!  But there are a few of us around, and here are a couple of pics to show what we've been up to - last night marked the beginning of the fourth day of Chanukah.



Here's the back of a chanukiyah my daughter made when she was five.  It says "Dear Family, this is for us.  Happy Chanukah and Love, Eve.".  I love that all the words are there, but squished in wherever she could find space, never mind about the word order.

Chanukah is not a religious holiday.  It celebrates a military victory of the Maccabees over the Syrians and the reclamation of the Temple.  The miracle of Chanukah refers to the story that when the  Temple had been rededicated, and Judah Maccabee went to light the eternal flame, there was only enough oil to burn for one night.  By a miracle, the flame burned for the entire eight days that were required to obtain a new supply of oil.  The letters on the sides of the dreidel represent the words Nes gadol haya sham, or A great miracle happened there.

 As you know, the Winter Olympics are in Vancouver this winter, and the torch is making its way across the country.  Last night, the torch came to our town, carried by Vicki Keith, best known for her swim across Lake Ontario.  Seems like the whole world turned out!  There was such a crush I wasn't able to get my camera out in time to capture Vicki lighting the flame from torch, but here's a nice photo from a better photographer than me.  Lots of proud Canadians in market square last night. I love this guy.

Oh, and I couldn't end this blog post without telling you about my experience cooking a turducken!  On Saturday night I hosted my students and their significant others in our tiny, tiny house for our lab holiday party.  It was presented to me that it would be an excellent idea to roast a turducken, which is a boned chicken stuffed inside a  boned duck, stuffed inside a boned turkey, all stuffed with dressing.  It weighed 25 pounds when Winnie, one of my students, dropped it off on Friday, with the instructions written out by the butcher:  "Cook for 4 hours at 325.  Internal temperature must be 180."

Huh.  Four hours, eh?  I was a bit skeptical, so I figured I should allow a bit more time.  It's a good thing I did, since the dratted thing took eight and a half hours to reach 180 degrees.  Here you see it in all its glory (with a piece of chocolate Chanukah gelt to show scale?)


We were all assembled at 6pm, but the dang bird(s) wasn't ready until after 8pm.  Never mind, although we were hungry, we whiled away the time playing poker dreidel and eating the chocolate money that we won.

I lost all my money before I could eat it, so that was good for my waistline.  The Incredible Shrinking Quilters will be proud of me!  Happy holidays -- no matter what kind -- to all of you!