Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m so glad you’re here!
Yesterday, we entered week three of Advent, which is symbolized by the rose-colored candle, the shepherd’s candle and is the week of joy.
What does joy mean to you? Is it being with family and friends? Is it doing for others? Being a part of a group? Curling up with a beloved pet on a rainy day? Taking a walk with your best friend on a beautiful day? Looking forward to meeting with your bestie for your weekly coffee meeting?
I guess I would say that all those things fall within my definition of joy. But I also think that joy is deeper than that. Joy is found in the familiar as well as in the new. Joy is the familiar and comforting sound of Mr. Stone Soup’s snore in the middle of a dark night. Joy is also the delight of hearing the call of a Great Horned Owl who is far from home, but visiting in my little urban neighborhood on a cold winter night. Joy is the ability to be in awe of all the wonderful things that are given to us each day–both familiar and new. Joy is found when we allow ourselves to surrender to that awe, discovery and delight. It renews us and lets in the light–the light of a new day, of new hope and new dreams.
The third week of Advent is about joy, but it is also the beginning of the look forward to the celebration of Jesus’ birth.
This week, I commend you to allow yourself to surrender to being in awe of beautiful things–both familiar and new–to surrender to the feelings you have when you experience comforting and familiar things, as well as those things that may be new or perhaps uncomfortable, but still beautiful.
This week, I will continue with my observance of Advent by celebrating foods from around the world. I’m going to be publishing some new and some old recipes, all of which I will be embracing for their beauty–be it familiar and comforting joy, or from something that is perhaps outside my culinary comfort zone.
I’ll start with a perennially favorite food from my home state of Texas: pecan pie:
Pecans are the state nut of Texas and in my opinion, there are no better pecans than those grown in my home state. Pecan trees grow wild all over the state and we had them growing in our backyard when I was a kid. The pecans that grow kinda wild tend to be “native” pecans, which are very small and mostly, the squirrels got them.
Pecans are familiar, sweet and delicious, and it is always my great joy to introduce California natives to really good pecans, and particularly to pecan pie! The recipe above is the one I always serve for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.
I always order my pecans Gilbert Pecans in Santo, Texas. The orders arrive quickly and are always of top quality–and you can get both “native” and “mammoth” variety of pecans from Gilbert. Oh…btw–I’m not getting any compensation from them–this is just my opinion 🙂
