Elmhurst Christmas

I gaze out at fire escapes and rooftops, my mind far away in a Kansas farmhouse kitchen. I’m helping mom cut out and decorate sugar cookies, rolling peppernut dough balls, or watching the candy thermometer while stirring the ingredients for peanut brittle. Mom cuts the rich, dark fudge and layers it between wax paper in a Folger’s coffee can. It was, as it should be, the traditional childhood Christmas. It included, besides special foods, caroling. Christmas programs, family gatherings, and gifts from parents, grandparents, and cousins.

Rooftops and fire escapes move in, and the smells of a Country Christmas dissipate; the Child of the Nativity displaced, perhaps, by the lights of Diwali and the candles of Hanukkah. In this city of multi-ethnic cultures, Laurence and I establish a tradition of our own by making stuffed apricots, the energy balls carried by climbers in the High Pamirs.

Laurence and I work together in our tiny kitchen. He makes a small cut in ten large unsulphered dried apricots that he bought from an Uzbek grocery in Forest Hill, Queens, and then uses the handle of a spoon to form a cavity in each apricot. I pound 1/3 cup walnuts to a fine rubble and mix in three tablespoons black raisins and one tablespoon honey. Laurence stuffs the apricots with this mixture. I plug the opening with a walnut half.

While we appreciate our childhood Christmas traditions, we do feel greatly blessed to taste the food of a people who walk the Roof of the World.

Berniece

Laurence and Berniece live in Elmhurst, Queens, where they have the privilege of sharing Christ with the nations.