ISHBELL's SHORTBREAD ...

She was my mother's best friend. For always and forever. She was a talented artist. She had a family. She laughed and believed in the goodness of people. She loved my mother, and my mother counted her as her best friend. My mother fondly called her "Ishbell". She knew my dad. After he was gone, she told me how "Davy" as one in a million, about his generosity and kindness. I only knew him for a short while. Ishbell made him come alive.

My mother was godmother to her daughter, Marie, who became one of my best friends, my "god sister". To this day, Marie and I share a unique bond with each other, a friendship that has lasted through thick and thin. Ishbell gave my mother her the recipe for shortbread one year. Mum made it every year, squishing the tops with silver dragees, then  filling up the glass cookie jar with the  sugar showered rounds. I used to sneak them at midnight knocking off the silver dragees into the sink, pretending  they were marbles... 

                                         

 ISHBELL's SHORTBREAD ( updated with plant butter)

1 pound plant butter (you can use butter), 1 cup brown sugar, 3 3/4 cups flour ( maybe a tad more to get the right consistency of dough) 

"Christmas is the day that holds all time together..." -Alexander Smith

Beat the softened plant butter with the brown sugar till combined like pudding.

Add the flour and combine like pastry.

My mother and Ishbell were  so good for each other. So good for us.  She spent many Christmas evenings at our house, by the fire, listening to me dutifully scraping away at carols on the violin, then playing the same ones on the piano. "Wonderful, dear," she'd say encouragingly, no matter how I sounded. 

Combine dough well, and press into an ungreased, lined, cookie sheet. I used foil, because I ran out of parchment paper. Works just as well. 

Bake at 325 for about 12 minutes, for the first half of baking.

Score the hot shortbread into rectangles, or squares. Place back into oven and bake till brown and baked through. About another 8 or 9 minutes. I just keep an eye on it and lift up a piece to see if it's baked through.

It was always exciting when Ishbell and her family came over. She told stories with my mother, sipped sherry, and munched on fruitcake and shortbread. 

Lovely, sweet lady. I can still see her,in later years, long after mum was gone, surrounded by paintings, drawings, sketches, cards, and wonder. She  was full of wonder and grace. She still called me "dear". I can still hear her soft voice saying "Wonderful, dear..". But she was the dear one, for always and ever....

       "At Christmas, all roads lead home..." -Marjorie Holmes

Photographs 2025   "Ishbell's Shortbread" For Marie.......

                                                  
                                   

          ( "Ishbell" with her daughter.)     Mum walking on Government Stret, Victoria B.C. 1940's

WINTER is COMING...

                                             "LISTEN...

...with faint dry sound like steps of passing ghosts,

                                 ...the leaves, frost-crisped, break from the trees

        ...and fall." -Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914)

"Beyond the murky hill, the great sky darkens overhead...

                  ...and the great woods are shrill.

...the breeze from the embalmed land blows sudden towards the shore....

                             ...the night at Your command comes. 

...I will eat and sleep and will not question more."

-Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1994)

"From shadows shaken on the snow, I saw Orion in the east burn steadily as long ago.

                                           ...from windows in my father's house, 

...dreaming my dreams on  winter nights.

Years go, dreams go, the world's heart breaks beneath its wars

                                                                    ...All things are changed...

          ...save in the east...


                                                     

...the faithful beauty of the stars." -Sara Teasdale(1884-1933) 

("WINTER STARS",excerpts, written in 1920 after WW1)

Photographs 2025 Campbell River, B.C.

LUCI'S 10,385 KMS BUTTER COOKIES...

          "Our roots will always be tangled..." -Ally Condie

Melt in your mouth butter cookies. Reminds me of whipped shortbread, only different. Can make the dough ahead and freeze in rolls till ready to use.

Recipe from my friend, Luci, 10, 3185 kms in the Phillipines. Her dad’s favourite treat.  Thanks, Luci, for sharing it with me. My NEW favourite Christmas cookie.  When I make them, it seems like she’s right here beside me, both of us munching away…

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cookie sheets with Silpat liners or parchment paper

2 cups flour, 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened, ½ cup sugar

2 egg yolks at room temperature, 2 tsp good vanilla extract

1/3 cup sugar for rolling dough

     "There is magic in long distance friendships..." -Diana Cortes

Lay out all of your ingredients ready to use. Soften butter by leaving out till pliable, or nuke in microwave 10 seconds here and there a little bit.

"Friendship is not something you seek, but something that finds you..."-M.  Mokhonoana

(Room temperature ingredients will blend better together, and be more stable. The baked cookies will have a lovely texture, because trapped air expands during baking, making them more tender with good flavour.)

      "No friendship is an accident..." -O. Henry ( Heart of the West)

Cream butter and sugar till fluffy and light.

Add egg yolks and extract and mix till combined.

Add flour till just mixed, then combine easily into a roll. This is beautiful dough.

Roll in plastic wrap and chill. Can also freeze for a later time.

I left the chilled roll of dough out for about half hour till I could easily scoop the dough. You don't have to roll in sugar, but when baked it gives them this  wonderful , crystallized crunch.

Next time I would do larger scoops, because the dough behaves so well when baking and doesn’t bleed all over.

I baked them about 10 minutes and had to add a couple more minutes till light golden. 

One batch makes  just two cookie sheets of butter cookies. Turn off oven at end and leave the door open a tad and let them dry out about 10 minutes. It makes them crisper.

Then pile onto a plate and gobble them up with a friend. Or just gobble them up on your own! These would be nice with additions like peel, or candied cherries, ginger, dried apricots, etc. 

"True friends are never apart. Maybe in distance, but never in heart..." -Helen Keller

Photographs 2025