Catherine Nicolai
speaker
319 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Jan 2025
Catherine Nicolai’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep · Merry Much Happens - 2024 · 16 Dec 2024
podcast
We'd invite half a dozen or so friends, make a big buffet of snacks, and clear off the dining room table to make space for fun. Remember fun? When we were kids, we woke up each day with a deep-seated need and an insatiable appetite for it. We sought it out and often found it a hundred times a day. We made up games in an instant. Played them until we thought up a better one. Then played that.
Game night always reminded me how vital fun was. How good it felt to laugh until my cheeks hurt. And now, Instead of waking up bleary-eyed and head-achy on New Year's Day, I was guaranteed to wake up feeling like a kid again. We had a bit of cleaning to do before our guests arrived, and we divvied up the jobs.
There was firewood to be brought in, food to prepare, and a few scraps of wrapping paper still kicking around under the sofa in the living room to be picked up. I volunteered for all kitchen-related chores and left my better half to attend to the rest I always opted to be in the kitchen if I could. It almost never felt like work to me.
Not when I could turn on some music and dance around in my socks and chop and sauté. and wind up with something delicious at the end. I started by making a soup, something thick and hearty for a cold December night. I took a couple of leeks from the fridge I thought they looked like green onions that had grown up and lived adult lives now.
I sliced them into coins and dropped them into a colander to rinse in the sink. Leeks are grown in sandy soil and need to be washed carefully before they're cooked Some might find that a pain, but I liked all the small, fiddly parts of cooking. Dicing things into even pieces, snipping herbs from stems, and even washing leeks. Once they were squeaky clean,
I sauteed them in the bottom of my giant soup pot with olive oil and a pinch of salt. While they cooked down, I overturned a bag of golden potatoes onto the counter and started peeling and chopping. then in with the potatoes and broth and fresh thyme and black pepper. I had a grandfather who believed wholeheartedly in the healing properties of black pepper.
and I always added an extra pinch for him. I set the soup to simmer away and turned to the next task. The soup would be perfect to serve up in cups between rounds. But we also needed finger foods that wouldn't interrupt our all-important play. For this, I made muhammara, a delicious dip of Syrian origin that felt pretty fancy but came together in a flash.
It was made with roasted red peppers, walnuts, breadcrumbs, chili flakes, and pomegranate molasses, all blended together in my food processor. It was a beautiful, rich red color, and I spooned it into a few bowls. which I could set around the table, surrounded by fresh veggies and toasted flatbread. The soup was nearly ready, and our friends were expected soon, and I had one more thing to make.
It was a treat. A bit rich in flavor, but one of those snacks that folks just can't leave alone. Truffle popcorn. I popped a huge pot of popcorn. And when the kernels stopped pinging in the pan, I tipped all the fluffy hot pieces into a big brown paper bag. I drizzled truffle oil in a tiny stream over the corn and added a good bit of pink salt
Then I folded the top of the bag up and shook it for all I was worth. I heard the fire crackling in the grate and had a feeling I was being watched in my dance of the truffle corn fairy, but I didn't mind. How's that fire going? I called out. and just heard a laugh come back at me. I tipped the popcorn into a few bowls and set them out with a muhammara.
I stuck a few stacks of napkins around the place and turned on some music. I had a couple bottles of bubbly for toasting the new year, And I pushed open the door from the kitchen out to the backyard and stuck them neck deep into the nearest snow drift. This is a handy part of living somewhere with plenty of snow. Any snow bank can be an extension of your refrigerator.
As I was coming back in to stir the soup, I heard a friendly knock and the jingle bells on the front door ringing as our friends began to pile in. Oh, the loveliness of having friends dear and old enough to treat your home as their own.
As soon as coats were hung up and hugs exchanged, folks were reaching into cupboards for glasses, knowing just where the corkscrew and bottle openers were, and setting themselves down at the table, rolling up their sleeves and getting ready to play. I turned off the soup and set the lid ajar to let it cool, and poured myself a glass of something.
The popcorn was disappearing just like I knew it would, and everyone wanted to know what its secret ingredient was. but I was stubborn about sharing. It's special to my house. You'll have to come here when you crave it, I finally said, and set down a few board game boxes and decks of cards on the table. As we debated what we'd play tonight,
Last game night, I had taught them a card game that my family had played when I was young, and once everyone had caught on to its breakneck pace. We couldn't quit till nearly midnight. We'd called it Nutsy, or sometimes Peanuts. But I'd heard it go by a dozen funny names, including The Racing Canfield, Peanuts Pounce, Scramble, Squeal, and Scrooge. We all agreed.
After last time, we had a few scores to settle and decided to make it another night of cards. We cleared away the game boxes and passed around decks of cards and all started to shuffle. Card games had been a big deal in my family. I knew how to shuffle cards like a blackjack dealer by the time I was seven years old.
And as I watched my friends mix and count out the first thirteen of each deck, pass them over to the person on their left, I had a strong memory of being the littlest one at the table with all my aunts and uncles, my feet not yet touching the ground as we set up our hands and waited with excitement for someone to shout, go.
Then, the sounds of flipping cards, cards slapped onto the table, and grown-ups elbowing each other out of the way to get that seven of spades onto the six. Now, to be in my own home, my own family of friends, the smell of popcorn and soup in the air, and all of us grinning around the table at each other, drumming our fingers and waiting to turn that first card.
I guessed we'd probably forget to count down at midnight, too busy laughing and playing, And then, at some point, run out into the snow to retrieve the champagne. We'd raise our glasses and make a resolution. This year, more fun. Sweet dreams.
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