Greetings!

As I am writing this month’s newsletter, the snow is falling and the weather forecasters predict 8-15” of snow on the Metro area and Northern Minnesota. Warm up the hot chocolate and snuggle in with a good book or watch a classic movie. Although each Christmas season seems to produce new Christmas theme films, I haven’t seen any that match the classic Christmas movies “A Christmas Carole”, “Miracle on 34th Street”, “Christmas in Connecticut”, “White Christmas”, “Holiday Inn” or "Little Shop Around The Corner". While the remakes of those classic films attempt to lure its viewers into their stories, they seem to fall short and somehow pale next to the originals.

Zonta’s November event was hosted by Phyllis and Erma at the party room in their condo building in St. Paul. As Evelyn and I drove up to the building on Cherokee Avenue, our thoughts turned to memories we had about Marj, who had lived in their building for many years. We felt as if she would come walking through the door at any moment. Our heartfelt thanks to both Phyllis and Erma for the delicious dinner of “Mom’s pork chops”, wild rice casserole, “Shirley’s bean salad”, chocolate rice krispie bars as well as appetizers and beverages. Everything was delicious! Phyllis is sharing her recipe with us.

Mom’s pork chops:

4 lean 1” pork chops (remove bone)
1 onion sliced
1 cup of Italian dressing
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup catsup

Place pork chops in Pyrex baking dish, cover with sliced onions, sprinkle brown sugar over onions, drizzle catsup over brown sugar, and pour Italian dressing over entire mixture. You may need to add more water as it cooks.

Cover and bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour; uncover and bake an additional 30 minutes. Add more liquid if necessary (water).

Salt and pepper to taste.

The dinner earned $120 to use for our service projects. The six members and two hosts produced seven warm fleece blankets, with promises of six more from Shirley, Romelle and Evelyn. We hope to deliver the blankets to MVNA along with the holiday bags.

And, speaking of Holiday bags, thank you so much to those who brought goodies or gave money for the much appreciated and needed bags. Judy, Evelyn and I will be shopping and assembling the bags on December 6th. If you have items that you planned on donating and weren’t able to bring them to the November meeting, please call Peggy or Judy or drop them off at Evelyn’s before December 6th. If you wanted to give cash towards the bags, please bring it to the December Christmas get-together at Dorothy’s on December 11th. These bags are given by MVNA to those needy families who would otherwise have no other holiday goodies. We have already gotten some salon hair products (donated by Lakes Hair Design in Lindstrom, MN), toothpaste and mouthwash (donated by Dr. Kenneth D. Salo, DDS) along with the candy and goodies we collected at the November meeting.

Since Women’s Advocates already has a group of women making fleece blankets for their residents on a regular basis, we will plan on giving our fleece blankets to MVNA families.

                                                                                                                            Peggy