Thanksgiving Menu 2019

When I plan parties, especially big family dinners, I have a method. Step One: Focus Keeping the party focused helps to make everything flow most naturally. A central theme or specific inspiration helps with honing the focus in. For this year's meal, I was inspired by the multi-course Thanksgiving menu in the White House cookbook …

When you’re thankful for Jesus

Happy Thanksgiving. For those of you not from America, today is supposedly a day dedicated to gratitude. I am not even going to attempt to touch on the dubious historic treatment regarding Native Americans. That could definitely be a post of its own. As with most celebrations, the primary focus has strayed and has become …

Advent 2017: Christmas: In the spirit of hope and a future

Merry Christmas from the Alsums. I'm going to keep this one as simple as I can. We spent Christmas eve with Daddy Alsum's family. He smoked a whole salmon which he then presented on crackers along with neufchâtel cheese. I'll be using our leftovers to make a smoked salmon chowder, so keep an eye out …

Advent 2017: Sinterklaas: In the spirit of giving

As I kneel down at the side of the beds in our kid's room, all I hear now is the sound of the clockwork music box from my Grandad's house. It's dark and past their bedtime. "Take me home, country roads" chimes out loud enough that I can't quite hear their soft sleepy breaths. This …

Leavenworth Christkindlmarkt

So, we did it. We almost put the trip off until next year so that we felt better prepared, but on Saturday we decided to just go for it and leave on Sunday for the day in Leavenworth to commemorate the trip that we had planned to take with my mum. Daddy Alsum was incredible. …

Taking it easy

Today would have been the day when Daddy Alsum and I would have picked up Grandma England from the airport. Lark still talks about her often, but she understands that we aren't going to see her again this side of eternity (well, as much as a 2 and a half year old can understand any …

​Pacific Northwest Sunday Roast

This recipe is based on one which my mum would make at Christmas for my vegetarian aunt. Our little family are intermittent meat eaters - for financial and health reasons rather than moral or ethical ones - so I thought this would be a great approach to take for our locally-inspired Sunday roast. This is …