I didn’t care for trifle, either.
A friend who regularly bakes scones has made clotted cream, but he’s also bought it, in a jar. The jarred stuff was really good. So i know it can be purchased ready-made in the US.
Bob and I made a Christmas pudding one year. However, I put my foot down and refused to allow cherries in it, so it was really good.
Mom made trifle whenever there was leftover cake. We loved it.
I want to argue that banana pudding is a deep south variant on trifle. You’ve got pudding, fruit and and vanilla wafers are just a step away from stale white cake!
Ah. Possibly I shouldn’t have checked bread pudding.
For the estrangement, it was my sister. My wife had asked me for a divorce, and I thought I was close with my sister in Chicago (me son and ex were in California). My life had just changed dramatically and I expected her to support me, but not choose me or ex, nor asked her to.
Cut all of 3 weeks and I was driving and got a call from sister. “Hi, I’m in town!” “Oh, cool, will I see you?” “No, I’m going to see your ex, no time!” “Um, okay, cool”. Very very hurt. After losing my spouse, my house, etc, my self image was in the dumps so I didn’t say, “you horrible b-word” as perhaps I should have. I tried to let it go and mostly did. She’s my sister. But I never forgot it.
Then maybe five years later she did it again. OK, it’s over sis. I wrote her a polite and reasoned letter outlining what I just wrote. Then stopped taking her calls. We’ve seen each other since, but it’s coldly polite. For a while the hurt consumed me until another friend insisted I had to forgive her - hanging onto this was poison. Her point was “you should forgive her. You don’t have to tell her you forgive her, just let go.” So I did.
Estranged from one cousin. (What is it with cousins?} He was poor with money and always expected help from family. OK, until it turned out he was not honest. I held my tongue until my mother was gone, let him rip us off one last time, and then just quit . Now turns three of five of his own kids don’t speak to him. Some people never change.
Estranged from my step-father. He’s a hard man to love, and he and my mother had numerous difficulties together. They ended up marrying mostly because I have a half-brother that was no planned. He was very attracted to the life he lived in the late 80s as a seller of higher end real-estate in resort communities, and as that move on to other things, he always felt it was because he was ‘tied down’.
While he wasn’t physically abusive to the best of my knowledge, he was at times verbally abusive, and as he got older he tended towards “doing his own research” on any topic under the sun, often verging towards CT land. He’s been separated from my mother for years now (not divorced because otherwise he wouldn’t have health insurance) and my half-brother has a very troubled relationship with him. Him having several bouts of Covid without vaxxing, and being a quiet but solid Trumper made the difficulties with the whole family worse.
Oddly enough, in “I’m On Fire,” Bruce clearly pronounces fire as one syllable, despite rhyming it with higher.
But in “Fire,” he definitely pronounces it with two (rather drawn out) syllables.
I’m not a fan of the holiday trilogy of Christmas pudding, mince pies or hot cross buns, but a good cream tea is one of the joys of life.
And although they run to the excessively sweet, I still think Battenbergs are underrated.
I make bread pudding occasionally and really like it My gf buys hot cross buns yearly (easter? I think).
I never thought of either as British, though.
I celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday. So I haven’t eaten Thanksgiving dinner yet.
Also there will be lamb and chicken, but no turkey this time. And my “pumpkin” pie is made with butternut squash.
Traditionally eaten on Good Friday to commemorate the Cruxifixction of Christ.
I’ve made hot cross buns. The recipe i had was subtlety flavored with cinnamon, and came out really well.
Right now I’m brewing turkey broth, from last night’s sacrificial animal. I left it on the stove to summer over night, but i turned the flame down so low that it equilibrated at 140F, which was hot enough to keep it from spoiling, but not hot enough to make broth.
The price of hot cross buns has skyrocketed. I recall when you could get one or two for a penny.
ETA: we eat them not to commemorate anything, but just so we can sing the song.
My favorite sports team is the Green Bay Packers. I’ve been able to watch them win the Super Bowl twice (after the 1996 and 2010 seasons). I’d be happy if they won again, but I’ve found that, over the past decade or so, my general enthusiasm and interest in football has waned: partially due to just how overexposed and over-marketed the NFL is now, and partially due to knowing more about the physical toll (particularly brain injuries) that playing the game has on its players.
And you probably spell ‘Cruxifixction’ better than I do too!
It is a fun song. Around here in the windswept recently settled hinterlands of America the bakeries make them out of sweet roll dough and the cross is commercial cake frosting which ends up being too misbegotten sweet and cloying to me so I enjoy thinking about them and humming the song but I pass on buying any. The same bakeries ruin kolaches too, sigh……is nothing sacred?
Since there is generally just the two of us, we have simplified it down to Turkey, stuffing, taters, and gravy. Sometimes some broccoli. No pies, no yams, none of that other stuff.
We used to have rolls, but then- so much starch anyway.
I don’t have a favorite sports team.
I said I had “green bean casserole.” But it was actually just green beans with sliced almonds, onions, and a bit of citrus.
Green bean casserole done correctly is sometimes my favorite part of the meal. Done poorly it is pitiful.
ETA: it is written.
Steelers/Pirates/Pens. But I gotta admit when the penguins sucked (before Mario) I was in heaven. I could show u at the Civic Arena and get cheap tickets 15 minutes before the puck dropped, and watch the Bruins, Red wings, Maple Leafs, or Canadiens.