Christmas Kitchen

I love bringing out my Grandmother's old red transfer ware this time of year. These were her 

everyday dishes so many family meals were shared using them. When I left Los Angeles and moved to Maine to go to college, I was able to enjoy those meals much less frequently.

But when my Grandmother was alive, I never once missed a Christmas Eve dinner at her house. My father was my Grandmother's only child, so my brother and I were her only grandchildren. 

We felt very, very loved. 

Pomegranates never stay in the fruit bowl for very long. 

These evergreen cuttings look like holly but are actually a Northwest native plant called Oregon grape. Lili used a few clippings for the photo shoot (it's visible in the magazine), and I thought it was such a wonderful idea that I've been using it all over the house lately. 

Due to my complete and utter weakness for pomegranates, we have been consuming them 

non-stop. I love them on pancakes or french toast on the weekends, but 

also crave them on my weekday morning oatmeal as well. 

This sort of consumption, as you can imagine, is logistically challenging. I am rarely 

without a baby in my arms (they too are too delicious to not want to hold them all the time), so seeding 

messy pomegranates takes some orchestration. 

But wonderful news - I've found a miracle process by which to extricate the juicy seeds - saving 

a lot of time and mess! And just who on earth could know such a secret? 

Yes, that's right, it's Martha Stewart. 

Watch her tutorial here. 

It does work but I would recommend doing it in the sink as 

this process, although very time-saving, is not splatter proof. 

Here is one of my quarters after using a wooden spoon. 

Here is what the work area (inside my sink) looked like afterwards.  All of the 

splatters stayed in the sink basin due to hitting the pomegranate face down. 

For once, I had not one tiny splatter on my clothes! 

xo