Island Parent December 2020 / January 2021

WHAT’SFORDINNER
Connecting
Through
Food
For many of us this holiday season is going to be difficult.
It is a year of keeping our distance, unable to touch
those we feel closest to. While it was easy to pretend that
everything was fine during the warm summer months, Thanksgiving
was hard. And the winter is going to be even harder.
Perhaps the most important family connection is sharing
food. While it might not be possible to sit down to a shared
meal this holiday season, it is still possible to connect over
food.
Here are a few ideas that my mother and I are considering
trying this season. (She is a therapist who is frequently called
into hospitals and care homes to deal with individuals in a
crisis. While she wears PPE for all interactions she also is very
careful about potential COVID exposures outside of work.)
• Get take out coffee and go for a walk along the ocean.
• Order individual take out meals and eat outside.
• Cook a big turkey dinner and deliver portions to local family
members.
• Share a big family meal over Zoom. My mother-in-law’s care
home has set up special computers for family Zoom meetings,
which is great because she wouldn’t be able to figure it
out on her own.
• If your kids are squirrely at the dinner table, then have an
appie hour on Zoom instead. Turn it into a fun event with a
dance party or holiday quiz game.
• Send homemade treats in a care package. It’s like a longdistance
hug.
• Give yourself a break. If it feels like too much to cook a big
dinner, then just make spaghetti or ribollita (see the following
below). As long as you serve it with some holiday music,
your kids won’t notice that it’s not the usual turkey.
Here are two holiday treats that are easy send in the mail,
along with a simple and delicious recipe for ribollita. Turn on
“Jingle Bells” and get your kids to help in the kitchen. It’s the
best way to get into the holiday spirit!
Emillie Parrish writes from Victoria and Saturna Island. She is the
author of the Pacific Northwest lifestyle blog BerriesAndBarnacles.com.
Pfeffernusse (German Gingerbread)
Pfeffernusse are deliciously spiced cookies that are fairly similar
to gingerbread. They are ball shaped which means they are super
simple to make and won’t break while shipping across the country.
This recipe makes about 60 small cookies.
Dry Ingredients
1 cup of flour 1 ⁄4 tsp baking powder
1⁄8 tsp baking soda 1 ⁄8 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon 1 ⁄2 tsp ground cardamon
1 ⁄4 tsp ground cloves 1⁄4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 ⁄8 tsp black pepper
Remaining Ingredients
1 ⁄4 cup of butter 1⁄2 cup of sugar
3 Tbsp molasses 1 egg
1⁄4 cup ground almond 1 tsp lemon zest
1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
2. Melt the butter. Stir in the sugar and molasses.
3. Beat the egg into the melted butter mixture, then add the
ground almond and lemon zest.
4. Mix with the dry ingredients, kneading to form a smooth dough.
5. Cover the dough and refrigerate for 1 or 2 days to blend the
flavours.
6. When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350˚F and
grease 2 cookie sheets.
7. Either roll individual balls about 2 cm in diameter, or roll the
dough into a long log and use a butter knife to slice off a cookie
every 2 cm.
8. Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes, until lightly browned.
Let them cool slightly then roll the still-warm cookies in icing sugar
(about 1 ⁄2 cup for the whole batch).
24 Island Parent Magazine IslandParent.ca