Caleb turned one on Thanksgiving and now Christmas is coming and this boy is going to be SPOILED. Not by me — I'm a military wife on a budget; my gifts are practical and modest. By DONNA. Mom has sent three packages so far and it's not even December 15th. The UPS driver knows our apartment number by heart.
Package 1: clothes. Twelve outfits. TWELVE. For a child who grows out of things in four weeks. But they're adorable — little jeans and tiny flannel shirts and a onesie that says 'Grandma's Favorite' which is technically untrue because Megan hasn't had kids yet and the competition hasn't started. But Mom is staking her claim early.
Package 2: a toy kitchen. A small, plastic, play kitchen with pretend pots and pans and a fake oven. Because of COURSE Donna Abernathy is giving her grandson a kitchen. She's starting the training at one. 'It's never too early to learn about cooking,' she said. 'You were in my kitchen at two.'
Package 3: care package for ME. Cookies, jam, dried herbs, and a recipe card for something new — her eggnog recipe, for Christmas. Homemade eggnog: eggs, sugar, cream, milk, vanilla, nutmeg, and 'a generous pour of bourbon if you're not nursing, Rachel.' (I'm still nursing. The bourbon will wait.)
The blog has passed 100,000 total views. One hundred thousand. I wrote a post about it — a meta post about what 100K views means when you're writing from a military kitchen — and it got another 10,000 views on its own. The internet is a perpetual motion machine of attention.
I've been approached by a second military spouse website about a regular column. A COLUMN. Regular writing. Possibly paid. Not much — maybe $50 per post — but paid. Someone wants to pay me to write about cooking.
'Take it,' Ryan said.
'It's $50.'
'It's not about the money. It's about the legitimacy.'
Legitimacy. A $50 column gives me a title: columnist. Writer. The thing I've been becoming since Professor Kim said 'publishable' in a classroom I dropped out of.
I said yes. I start in January.
Mom's eggnog recipe is on the counter. The toy kitchen is under the tree (the tree is bigger this year — a real one, from a lot, our first real tree in California). Caleb is standing at the coffee table, banging a toy pot with a toy spoon.
The training has begun.
He's going to be a cook. He's an Abernathy. He has no choice.
Mom’s eggnog recipe card is sitting on the counter, and I’m not ready for it yet — the bourbon will wait until I’m done nursing, just like she said. But the spirit behind it, that idea of a warm, homemade holiday drink that fills a small apartment with something that smells like Christmas, that I can do right now. This slow cooker cider is my stand-in: it goes in the pot in the morning, it perfumes the whole place by afternoon, and when Caleb bangs his toy pot against the coffee table, at least the kitchen smells like we know what we’re doing. Donna would approve. It’s never too early to start the training.
Slow Cooker Cider
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 3 hours | Total Time: 3 hours 10 minutes | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 1 gallon fresh apple cider
- 3 cinnamon sticks
- 1 teaspoon whole cloves
- 1 teaspoon whole allspice berries
- 1 orange, sliced into rounds
- 1 lemon, sliced into rounds
- 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed (or to taste)
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- Optional: apple slices and additional cinnamon sticks for garnish
Instructions
- Combine. Pour the apple cider into a 5- or 6-quart slow cooker. Add the cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, allspice berries, orange slices, lemon slices, brown sugar, and ground nutmeg. Stir gently to begin dissolving the sugar.
- Slow cook. Cover and cook on HIGH for 2 to 3 hours, or on LOW for 4 to 5 hours, until the cider is steaming hot and fragrant throughout your home.
- Strain. Using a fine-mesh strainer or a slotted spoon, remove the cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice berries, and citrus slices. Discard the solids.
- Taste and adjust. Taste the cider and stir in additional brown sugar a tablespoon at a time if you prefer it sweeter. A pinch more nutmeg is welcome here too.
- Serve. Ladle into mugs and garnish each with a fresh apple slice and a cinnamon stick if desired. Keep the slow cooker on the WARM setting to serve throughout the evening.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 145 | Protein: 0g | Fat: 0g | Carbs: 36g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 20mg
About the cook who shared this
Rachel Abernathy
Week 194 of Rachel’s 30-year story
· San Diego, California
Rachel is a twenty-eight-year-old Marine wife and mom of two who has moved five times in six years and learned to cook a Thanksgiving dinner with half her cookware still in boxes. She married young, survived postpartum depression, and feeds her family of four on a junior Marine's salary with a freezer full of pre-made meals and a crockpot that has never let her down. She writes for the military spouses who are cooking dinner alone in base housing and wondering if they're enough. You are.
