Christmas Dinner 2008

This is f*cking serious. Here's what we had:

Beef Sirloin Roast with Chipotle Cherry Glaze
Baked Ham with Maple Glaze
Twice Baked Potatoes with Sweet Potato Mole Filling
Steamed Vegetables with Butter
Savory Corn Pudding
Spinach Salad with Pears, Lime and Mint

The wine:

Three Saints Syrah 2005
(insanely good, very rich, half-and-half consistency with smoky, roasted blueberry)

And to top it all off:

Pumpkin Pie
Blueberry Pie
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Mango Peach Sorbet

Over that we drizzled Guatemalan pharmaceutical-grade chocolate sauce made in the dusty tombs of the last emperor of Tikal. Hallucinogenic! Amazing!

Merry Christmas to all!

Holiday Letter

A dream for 2008, now departing. Our little family spending the year in anticipation of changes not yet fully arrived, a long drawn out year of work and not enough money and worries and hope. The long hot summer one of the wettest, the plants dancing all around. Our summer party—everyone was invited—with kids running wild in the sprinklers and music in the air as friends and family gathered together waiting for the rain, which nearly arrived as winds lifted the umbrella and blew the blankets off old yard sale tables while Van Morrison played. And days later, when the rain finally fell: a steady soaking of the land that didn’t let up; the resulting lushness of the desert glorious to behold. And us getting out there as much as we could, to see it, feeling a renewed sense of place and connection, but still not sure, not fully arrived at our destination. Then buying a new/old truck that belonged to Matthew first and Crissi second (good pedigree, oil changes by hand and thousands of miles of honorable, righteous hauling) which we renamed ‘the adventure truck’ and drove to Lyle for a Thanksgiving of grilled turkey and drizzle and juniper smoke, the kids itching to walk through the tall, wet grass. And while reflecting we realized that the world had begun to improve—in spite of the doomy, gloomy forecast—for all of us (whether we believed it or not, agreed with it or not). Other things, smaller things of lesser concern: work going well for Tyler and Kariman; money being made; Aiden and Rowan happy and healthy; Aiden in kindergarten (a kinder garden?) at Second Street School and Rowan growing taller by the moment, already thinking he’s a preschooler. The cats doing fine, too. The house, basically livable with a new rain barrel mostly attached. And Tucson, our desert town, muddling forward as it always has, half-dreamed and forever undernourished, until all that is left is for us to thank all of you for being part of the story, because it is you who make everything possible, who replenish us and sustain us, as regular as rain, inspiring us to push upward through the recalcitrant soil toward the bright, bright sunlight of 2009.

Best wishes to you and those you hold dear!

-The Pierces