AWG Book Club

Friday December 10, 2010 Day 163

I forgot to get powered sugar, so I sent Roger out to Carrefour to get some to finish off the Chewy Noels. He brought back exactly what I had seen in the store prior to this - a box marked “Sucre Poudre.” I opened it up and prepared to sift the powdered sugar over the bars, and discovered to my surprise that the box did not contain powdered sugar at all, but a medium-grained sugar, not much finer than the sugar I already have for baking! (Indeed, I have seen finer sugar in the U.S. called superfine sugar, which is very fine-grained but still not powdered.) Disaster! Well, not really, but I feel that it is the powdered sugar which completes the bars, soaking up some of the caramel-y butter and giving them that final delicious touch. Sigh.

After a morning of cleaning the apartment, this afternoon I took the bus to Anne’s house for the Christmas meeting of the AWG book club. Instead of discussing a book, it had been decided that each member would share brief Christmas readings of her choice.

Anne’s apartment was cozy and welcoming. We set our eats on the table and indulged in coffee or tea while waiting for various members to arrive. We finally started, still three members short. Katharine opened, reading a poem by John Betjeman entitled, simply, “Christmas,“ describing a picture of Christmas in London in verse.

Katharine reads her poem

Rosie read a piece by Clare Bevan called “The Christmas Play,” narrated by the quintessential little boy who wasn’t chosen for the Christmas play, where he wanted to be a soldier, but would have settled for being a tree, or even in the chorus. But alas, he only gets to help with the curtain and the setting up of the chairs. Such a woeful glimpse into a little boy’s heart.

Rosie reading from School Year

Pat read a little piece called The Twelve Days After Christmas by Frederick Silver. It opened “The first day after Christmas, my true love and I had a fight. And so I chopped the pear tree down and burned it just for spite.” That set the tone for the rest of her reading!

Pat, making us all laugh!

Anne shared a beautiful piece from The Frozen Thames, by Helen Humphries. The book opens with the introduction In its long history, the river Thames has frozen solid forty times. These are the stories of that frozen river. The book contains vignettes spread between 1142 and 1895, each of which brings us into the lives of those who experienced the phenomenon of the frozen Thames. Anne chose to read one narrated by the personal attendant to Queen Elizabeth I who, at the Queen’s bidding, put on trousers and assisted the Queen in target shooting with a bow and arrow on the ice. It was delightful, almost exotic in its descriptions of how different the world - and even the Queen - is when everything is frozen solid.

Anne took us to Merry Olde England

Laurence read a Russian tale from a dual-language book - French and Russian. Laurence read her own translation of the piece, in which an old person describes Christmas in Moscow to a younger person, perhaps a grandchild, and contrasts it with Christmas in Paris. Laurence also shared a Russian Christmas music CD with us.

And with Laurence, we traveled to Russia

I read Francis Pharcellus Church’s “Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus” from the 1897 New York Sun. I opened with a brief history of the piece, gleaned from Wikipedia, then shared the piece, which the most reprinted editorial ever to run in any newspaper in the English language.

Peggy graced us with her presence, but did not read.

Peggy

Maggie put on her Christmas hat, complete with braids, and read Longfellow’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Before reading it, she shared some of its history, including the fact that it was written in the shadow of the Civil War, and that two of the verses, which are usually omitted when it is sung today, specifically reference the sound of cannon thunder in the South which drowned the sound of carols, “as if an earthquake rent the hearthstones of a continent.” Such a different take on the song! The British members among us were unfamiliar with the carol, so Maggie and I sang the first verse.

Maggie, complete with costume

Chris shared with us Talking Turkey, by Benjamin Zephaniah. “Be nice to your turkeys this Christmas, because turkeys just want to have fun.” A wickedly funny commentary on politics and veganism turkeys!

Chris, making us sympathetic to turkeys

Mariannick closed with a Christmas quiz, testing our knowledge of Christmas lore and fact. We were quick to shout out some of the answers, but occasional questions stumped us. For instance, across the entire twelve days, how many gifts did the recipient receive during the Twelve Days of Christmas? 364! In what piece of English literature did St. Nicholas first appear? Who wrote the poem? “Twas the Night Before Christmas” by Clement Moore. It was a lovely ending to an afternoon of Christmas memories and Christmas sharing.

Mariannick, challenging our Christmas knowledge

Once the readings were complete, we delved into the goodies everyone brought, including red velvet cake, a buche de Noel, traditional Christmas tree cookies, pecan bars, finger sandwiches and too many other goodies! We left completely stuffed! And since Anne’s birthday was the day before, we sang Happy Birthday to her.

My Chewy Noels were a big hit. I discussed with the group that they had not come out as well as they should have, due in part to the faulty oven, in part to the lack of powdered sugar, and because ingredients are just different here in France from those in the U.S. Here, eggs are not refrigerated before marketing because they cannot be sold as “fresh eggs” if they have been refrigerated. Flour comes as Type 45 or Type 55, and I am not certain what the difference is. (I think Type 45 is akin to cake flour, Type 55 akin to regular but unbleached flour, and higher numbers to coarser grinds.) Anyway, Rosie remarked that if these were the “failures,” she couldn’t wait to taste the successful bars! I promised to send everyone the recipe.

I took the bus home with Peggy, and dragged her in to give her a Christmas gift and carrots which will not be good after two weeks in our refrigerator while we are gone. I also gave her a squeegee. When she dined with us at our apartment a couple of months ago, she commented on the squeegee in our bathroom and asked where we got it. Ours came with the apartment, but I was pretty sure I had seen one in the Euro Store or the 2 Euro Store, but when I looked, I was unsuccessful in locating one until last week, so I bought one for her. Unfortunately I left camera at Anne’s, so I arranged to get it tomorrow at the carol service at the International Chapel.