The Pawtuxet General | Episode 9

Greetings and welcome in to the Pawtuxet General. I am your host, Jess. This episode, we have the second part of our holiday special, today, will have an appetizer trio and three apps to make your New Year's successful. Whether or not you have drop-in party guests Also, our drink this week is a raspberry limoncello, bubbly, just as yummy with booze or not. And, of course the continue station of our reading of a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. But first, I would like to thank our Patreon subscribers. You fabulous people made it possible for us to grow like this, just to thank you. We have put up extra content just for you. You'll have local and behind the scenes photos as well as recipes from the show. So check it out. If you would like to join our Patreon subscribers. There is a link in the show notes also. A holiday fund raiser came to an end, and we thank all of you who donated. We blushed with appreciation and felt the spirit of Christmas present from all of you. OK, let's get to it. Our winter white melts to color. Mint-tinted lichens define the tree limbs. Where is that dog's owner? That is not a dog.[coyote howl] Our first recipe today is lime-cilantro, chicken zucchini skewers. You will need, two chicken breasts, cut into one-inch squares, 2 small zucchini, cut into one-inch squares. One bunch of cilantro. For this, you could substitute mint or basil if you don't like cilantro. Either of those would be perfectly delicious. You will also need one pack of bamboo skewers, soaked, or metal skewers. You can soak them, but you don't have to. 2 limes, zested and juiced. Two tablespoons of your favorite oil. I use grapeseed oil, salt and pepper to taste into a bowl or gallon resealable plastic bag. Put the chicken and zucchini well-chopped cilantro, oil, salt and pepper, right before grilling or boiling skewers, add lime juice and zest, as you build skewers. One zucchini on each end and alternating with chicken, throughout. Put them one by one into a rectangular glass pan and cover with the leftover marinade. Then, you can take the skewers as many as you want and cook at a time. Put them on a tray and either put them under the broiler or grill them for 5 minutes on each side. If your cubes are a little larger, rotate and give another 5 minutes or until golden on all sides. Move to a decorative dish and serve hot. This is the appetizer version. It can also be done with whole chicken breasts or turkey breast and zucchini or patty-pan squash, cut like two inch steaks. That is my favorite way. Served on a bun. Our next appetizer recipe I like to call "feta-bites" I, first, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. For this, you will need, one quarter cup of melted unsalted butter, one box premade phyllo shells or a box of frozen squares. If you're using a box of frozen phyllo sheets, cut them into squares that fit in your muffin tins with each leaf buttered. You should have enough for about 12. You will need feta, in oil, cut into small chunks and for the filling you will need one quarter cup fine grated romano, three quarters of a cup, finely chopped kalamata olives, three quarters of a cup, finely chopped sun dried tomato, two eggs, beaten, and a garlic clove, chopped fine, brush melted butter onto the phyllo cups, fill each one 3 quarters of the way with filling, and bake, eight to 10 minutes, until golden, serve right away. Two colorful bites of heaven and our third is my staple five second your friend just popped in appetizer. I call them lavender-lemon berry bites. You will need, one box Meyer Lemon Cookie thins, any brand, one container Nettle Meadow honey-lavender goat cheese, I get mine from the Edgewood Cheese Shop. One container of blackberries, fresh spoon or with a tiny scoop. Put a bit of goat cheese on top of the wafer and then top with a BlackBerry done and done. Keep ingredients around the house so that you'll never be caught wanting any berry or cherry will do so. Tasty. Our drink today is a limoncello raspberry bubbly for the mocktail version of this drink, you'll need to make a lemon simple syrup But that is a gift that keeps on giving, especially in the summer when it's the best iced tea sweetener ever. For that, you will need two cups of sugar, one and three quarter cups of water, and a quarter cup of lemon juice from two lemons. Zested and juiced, also, the zest from two lemons. Simmer the sugar water and lemon juice until clear. Cool it and, then, add the zest. At this point you may want to chill the champagne glasses. You will need limoncello OR lemon simple syrup, prosecco, ginger ale or seltzer and fresh mint sprigs. Fill the glass one third of the way with limoncello and then with prosecco on top. Put frozen berries and a mint sprig on top and you are ready to go. So light and lovely enjoy them your way. I want to tell you about my friend Mike and his Electromagnetic Pinball Museum and Restoration Arcade. It's an all inclusive place to relax and share anything related to modern pinball EM pinball and arcade games. A group of pinball and arcade fans with an addiction to games of all kinds and Lego,too.$10 gets you free play on pinball and arcade games all day. You can find them at 881 Main Street, Pawtucket, Rhode Island or online at WWW.electromagneticpinballmuseum.com. Our ghost story today is a continuation of our reading of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. So, cuddle up with a comforting drink, let's go! Scrooge closed the window and examined the door by which the ghost had entered. It was double locked as he had locked it with his own hands. And, the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "humbug" but stopped at the first syllable and being from the emotion he had undergone or from the fatigues of the day or his glimpse of the invisible world, or the dull conversation of the ghost or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose.

The first of three spirits. When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark that looking out of his bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes when the chimes of neighboring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour. To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, then from seven to eight and regularly up to 12, and then stopped. 12? It was past two, when he got into bed. The clock was wrong, an Icicle must have gotten into the works. 12? He touched the spring of his repeater to correct the most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat. 12, then stopped. Why? "It is impossible," said Scrooge."That I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It it isn't possible that anything like that happened to the sun." This is 12 at noon the idea being an alarming one. He scrambled out of bed and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with his sleeve of his dressing gown, before he could see anything, and he could see very little. Then, all he could make out was that it was still very foggy and extremely cold. There was no noise of people running to and fro and making such a great stir as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off another bright day and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief because three days after site of the first exchange paid to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order and so forth, and so on would have become a mere United States security if there had been no days to count by. Scrooge went to bed again and thought and thought and thought it over and over and over and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was, and the more he endeavored not to think, the more he thought Marley's ghost bothered him exceedingly every time he resolved himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back, again, like a strong spring, released to its first position and presented the same problem to be worked all through. Was it a dream or not? Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more when he remembered on a sudden the ghost had warned him of a visitation. When the Bell told one, he resolved to lie awake until the hour passed and considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to heaven, it was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power. The quarter was so long that he was more than once convinced that he must have sunk into a dose unconsciously and missed the clock. At length, It broke upon his listening ear ding dong a quarter past, said Scrooge, counting. Ding dong, half past, said Scrooge, ding dong, a quarter to it, said Scrooge. Ding Dong. The hour itself said Scrooge triumphantly, and nothing else. He spoke before the hour Bell sounded, which it did now with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy one light flashed up in the room in an instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand at the curtains at his feet nor the curtains at his back! But those to which his face was addressed, the curtains of his bed were drawn aside and Scrooge, starting in to a half recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew him as close to it as I am to you now, and I am standing in the spirit of your elbow. It was a strange figure like a child, yet not so like a child as like an old man viewed through some supernatural medium which gave to him the appearance of having receded from the view being diminished to a child's proportions. His hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white, as if with age, and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin, the arms were very long and muscular, the hands the same as if its hold were of uncommon strength, its legs and feet most delicately formed were like those of the upper members bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white and round its waist was bound a lusterous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand, and in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem had its dress trimmed with summer flowers that, from the crown of its head, there sprung a bright, clear jet of light by which all of this was visible and which was doubtless the occasion of its using in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap which was now held under its arm. Even this though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality, for as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant at another time was dark. So the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness, being now a thing with one arm now with one leg, now with 20 legs, now with a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body of which dissolving parts. No outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this it would be itself again, distinct and clear as ever."Are you the spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" asked Scrooge."I am," the voice was soft and gentle singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, you were at a distance."Who and what are you?" Scrooge demanded"I am the ghost of Christmas, past." Long past?" inquired Scrooge, observant of its small stature."No, your past." Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody. Why, if anybody could have asked him. But he had a special desire to see the spirit in its cap. And begged him to be covered."What?!" Exclaimed The Ghost,"Would you so soon put out with worldly hands the light I give? Is it not enough said? You are one of those whose passions made this cap and forced me through a whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow." Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having willfully violated the spirit at any point in his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there."Your welfare," said the Ghost. Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but he could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking for it said immediately, "For your reclamation, then, take heed." It put out its strong hand as it spoke and clasped him gently by the arm."Rise and walk with me." It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather in the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes. That bed was warm and that the thermometer was a long way below freezing, that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing gown, a nightcap, that he had a cold upon him. At that time, the grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted, he rose said, finding that the spirit made towards the window clasped his robe in supplication."I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable to fall.""There, but a touch of my hand there," said the spirit, laying it upon his heart."And, you shall be upheld in more than this." As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall and stood upon an open country road with fields. On either hand, the city had entirely vanished, not a vestige of it could be seen. The darkness in the mist had vanished with it, too. So it was a clear, cold winter day with snow upon the ground. Good heaven, said Scrooge, clasping his hands together as he looked about him."I was bred in this place. I was a boy, here." The spirit gazed upon him, mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odors floating through the air each one connected with a thousand thoughts and hopes and joys and cares. Long, long forgotten "Your lip is trembling," said the ghost."And, what is that upon your cheek?" Scrooge muttered with an unusual catching in his voice that it was a pimple and begged the ghost to lead him where he would, who recollected away. Said the spirit."You remember it?" Cried Scrooge, with fervor,"I could walk it blindfold!"Strange, to have forgotten it for so many years, observed the ghost."Let us go on." They walked along the word Scrooge, recognizing every gate and post and tree, until a little market town appeared in the distance with its bridge and church and winding river. Some shaggy ponies, now, were then seen trotting towards them with boys on their backs who called out to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits and shouted to each other until the broad fields were so full of merry music that the crisp air laughed to hear it ease, that shadows of the things that have been said. The ghost, "They have no consciousness of us." The Jackson Travelers came on, and as they came, Scrooge knew them and named them everyone. Why, he was rejoice beyond all bounds to see them. Why, did his cold eye glisten and his heart leap as he went past. Why, he was filled with gladness when he heard them each give each other,"Merry Christmas" as they parted at crossroads and byways for their several homes. What was Merry Christmas to Scrooge out upon Merry Christmas? What good it had ever done to him?"The school is not yet quite deserted," said the ghost. A solitary child neglected by his friends is left there still. They left the high road by a well-remembered lane and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick with a little weathered surmounted cobbler on the roof and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortune for the spacious offices where little used their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken and their gates decayed, and the coach houses and sheds were overrun with grass. Well, was it more retentive of its ancient state? Within for entering the dreary hall and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold and vast was an earthly savor in the air, a chilly bareness in the place which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candlelight and not too much to eat. They went the ghost in Scrooge across the hall to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them and disclosed a long, bare melancholy room made by are still by the lines of plain deal forms and desks. Of one of these, a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire, and Scrooge sat down upon a form and wept to see his poor, forgotten self as he used to be. Not only an echo in the house, not a squeak, and scuffled from mice behind the paneling, not a drip from the half thawed water spout in the dull yard beyond not a sigh among the leafless boughs of a one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door. No, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence and gave a freer passage to his tears the spirit touched him on his arm and pointed to his younger self intent upon the reading. Suddenly, a man in foreign garments, wonderfully real and distinct to look at, stood outside the window with an ax struck in his belt and leading by the bridle and asked laden with wood lights, "Alibaba!" Scrooge exclaimed In Ecstasy,"Dear, old, honest Alibaba.""Yes, I know.""Yes, yes, I know.""One Christmas time when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come for the first time, just like that poor boy and Valentine and his wild brother, Orson. There they go.""And, what's his name? Who was put down in his drawers asleep at the gate of Damascus. Don't you see him? And the sultan's groom turned upside down by the genie. There he is upon his head. Serve him right. I'm glad of it. Business. Did he have to be married to the princess to here?" Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects as a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying to see his heightened, exalted face would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city."Indeed, there is the parrot," said Scrooge,"green body and yellowtail, with a thing like lettuce growing out of the top of its head. There he is. Poor Robinson Crusoe, he called him when he came home again after sailing around the island. Poor Robinson Crusoe. Where have you been? Robinson Crusoe. The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the parrot, you know. There goes Friday running for his life to the little creek. Hello? Who? Paul." Who then with a rapidity of transition, very foreign to his usual character, he said in pity for his former self, poor boy, and cried again."I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket and looking after him after drying his eyes with his cough."But, it's too late now.""What's the matter?" asked the spirit."Nothing," Scrooge said."Nothing...There... There was a boy, singing a Christmas Carol at my door, last night. I should like to have given him something, that's all." The ghost smiled thoughtfully and waved its hand, saying, as it did,"So, let's see another Christmas." Scrooge's former self grew larger at these words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panel shrunk the windows cracked, fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laughs were shown. Instead of how all this was brought about Scrooge knew no more than you do, he only knew that it was quite correct. That everything had happened, so that there he was alone, again. All the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. He wasn't reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the ghost with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. It opened and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in and putting her arms around his neck and often kissing him, addressed her as her dear dear brother,"I have come to bring you home, dear brother," said the child, clasping her tiny hands and bending down to laugh"to bring you home, home,""Home, little fan?" "Yes," said the child, brimful with glee."Oh, for good in all home forever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be. And home's like heaven. He spoke, so gently, to me the other night, when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him, once more, if you could come home. And he said Yes, you should, sent me in a coach to bring you in. You are to be a man and never come back here. But first we're going to be together all Christmas long and to the merry is time in the world.""You are quite a woman, little Fan," exclaim the boy. She clapped her hands and laughed and tried to touch his head. But being so little laughed again and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him in her childish eagerness towards the door, and he not loathed to go accompanied her. A terrible voice in the hall, cried, Bring down Master Scrooge's box there, and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the various old well of a shivering best parlor that they had ever seen, where the maps upon the wall and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the window were waxy with coal here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine and a block of curiously heavy cake and administered installments of these dainties to the young people. At the same time, sending out a meager servant to offer a glass of something to the post boy who answered that. He thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap he tasted before he'd rather not master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on top of the shades, the children bathed the schoolmaster goodbye, ripe willingly, and getting into it drove gaily down the garden sweep, quick wheels, dashing the horse frost and snow off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spring, always a delicate creature."My breath might have withered," said the ghost."But she had a large heart.""So, she had," cried Scrooge."All right, I will not gainsay it, Spirit.""God forbid she died a woman," said the ghost,"and had, as I think, children?" "One child," Scrooge returned."True," said the ghost."Your nephew." Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind and answered briefly."Yes," although they had. But that moment left the school behind them. They were now in the busy thoroughfares of the city where shadowy passengers passed and we passed where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way and all the strife into mall to the real city where it was made plain enough by the dressing of the shops that here too. It was Christmas time again, but it was evening and the streets were lighted up. The ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door and asked Scrooge if he knew it,"know it?" said Scrooge."Why, I was apprenticed there!" He went in, had sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig sitting behind such a high desk that, if he had been two inches taller, he would have knocked his head against the ceiling. Scrooge cried, and great excitement,"Why, it's old Fezzywig! bless his heart. It's Fezzywig, alive again." Old Fezzywig lay down his pen and looked up at the clock, which pointed at the hour of seven he rubbed his hands, adjusted his capricious waistcoat, laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence, and then called out in a comfortable oily, rich, fat, jovial voice."Yo ho there, Ebenezer, Dick!" Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow apprentice, Dick Wilkins. To be sure, said Scrooge, to the ghost, "Bless me. Yes, there he is. He was very much attached to me was poor Dick, dear, dear." "Yo ho, my boys," said Fezzywig,"No more work tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick, Christmas, Ebenezer. Let's have the shutters up," cried old Fezzywig, with a clap of his hands before men can say, "Jack Robinson." You wouldn't believe how these two fellows went at it. They charged into the street with the shutters. One, two, three. Had them all up in their places. Four, five, six. Barred them, in tandem, seven, eight, nine, and came back before you had gotten a 12 panting like racehorses spirit."Show me no more. Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?" said Scrooge."One shadow more," said the ghost."No more, no more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more!" But, the relentless ghost pinioned him in both his arms and forced him to observe what happened next! And, thank you, once again for joining us in another episode of the P.G. If you'd like to reach out with a question, idea, or local ghost story, you know how we feel about ghost stories. Our email is Jess@PawtuxetGeneral.com, we'll give you a shout out and share your info. So, thanks, again, and I'll join you back here, next time, on the Pawtuxet General. A Something for posterity production. prerecorded in Pawtuxet.