From our family to yours.

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday filled with friends, family and lots of delicious food!  We are now in the holiday season full swing! This is such an exciting time of the year and we look forward to sharing some great holiday information with you throughout this special season.

Our November Product of the Month is an addition to our Nick family. Big Nick now has smaller cousins.  They are martin gourds, and even the noses and pipes are gourd pieces!  Big and Medium Nick glow, too.

Add these lovely gourds to your Winter collection…

Mixed nuts make great holiday snacks.

A lot of people set out bowls of nuts and seeds when they entertain.  They’re a healthy snack that most people like, and can take no more preparation than opening a can and putting them into a bowl.  With just a little more effort, you can produce some wonderful snacks that are still pretty healthy and even more tasty.  The November issue of Real Simple magazine has some good recipes.  One of them follows, and here is a link to one for Rosemary Pecans.

Sweet and Spicy Nuts:
In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 large egg white, ¼ cup packed brown sugar, 2 teaspoons paprika, ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper.  Add 2 cups of lightly salted roasted mixed nuts and toss to coat.  Bake at 350ª on a parchment-lined baking sheet until the coating is set, 12 to 15 minutes.  Let cool.

Now, serve these nuts along side some wrapped candies displayed in one of our Winter Candy Dishes? Your snack display will be tasty and lovely!

Two of our Winter Candy Dishes

from realsimple.com

A holiday table centerpiece we found in the November issue of Real Simple magazine uses gilded fruit.  In the magazine, they are in a shallow bowl, but any decorative wood, glass, or – yes – gourd bowl will work just as well.  They refer you to their web site for instructions on how to guild the fruit.  It’s fairly, you guessed it, simple, and yields beautiful results. Here are the steps from the Real Simple website…

1. Clean and dry fruit. If you’re using fresh fruit, the firmer the better. You can get the same look with fake fruit, if you want it to last.

2. With a disposable paintbrush, apply a thin, even coat of water-based gilding adhesive like Rolco Aquasize ($15 for 16 ounces, fineartstore.com). Let dry until tacky (about 15 minutes).

3. Press sheets of faux gold leaf (available at crafts stores) onto the fruit with a soft cotton cloth. Overlap sheets slightly, and remove any loose pieces.

4. To give the fruit an antiqued look, use another soft cotton cloth to apply brown or black shoe polish. Buff to a high shine.

part of our Nature's Centerpiece Collection

While you’re at it, why not gild your dried gourds for a beautiful decoration that will last for years to come?

You can find dried, cleaned raw gourds on our website. Try placing gilded fruit and gourds in one of our gourd bowls. Try filling the bowls with other items, too. Nuts, autumn leaves, and other seasonal items would make a beautiful table scape as well.

Here are some more decorating ideas for your Thanksgiving table.  Most of them are very simple, yet look lovely. Maybe they’ll spark your creativity!  Try variations with any old container you have around, or bowl or vase.  Maybe throw in some nuts,dried fruit, gourds, or arrange autumn leaves around it.  Small dried gourds can be painted (try gilding them!) and used in this same way and they will last for years to come. Be sure to Have fun! We especially love the cute gourd used as a name place card.

marketminila.com

seedaholic.com

viette.com

As a name plate. fotobank.ru

countryliving.com

Some Petite Splendors, shown here in a wooden bowl.

Thanksgiving will soon be here along with the traditions we have all grown to love so much.  Most families have traditions.  They all gather at Aunt Mary’s house, or oyster stuffing is always on the table, or dessert must include both pumpkin and pecan pie, and so on like that.  And you mess with tradition at your own risk.  But sometimes you can tweak it a little, can’t you?  Maybe a sweet potato souffle instead of just candied yams, for instance.  (And just coincidentally, we will be giving you a recipe for that soon.)

Or maybe make the table look just a little different.  You know, get creative with centerpieces, or hostess gifts if Grandma has said, “Don’t bring anything, just yourselves.”   We have a lot that would fit the bill perfectly.  Look at our Small and Petite Splendors, for instance.  Just put them in a vase or wooden bowl and you’ve got a great centerpiece.  In fact,

the petites are small enough to use as favors at each place setting.  That page on our site can also give you ideas on how to create your own decorations, too.

Here's the issue, with pumpkins on the cover.

Here’s another source you might want to check out: This month’s issue of Woman’s Day Magazine. Here are pictures of some of their designs, but you’ll have to buy the magazine to see all of them and get the step-by-step instruction.

Nut Sphere

Indian Corn

The October Open House was a great success!  Everyone had a lot of fun.  The Create Your Own Jack O’ Lantern event was very popular, and brought out some amazing artists!  Here are the five finalists in the competition.  Ya gotta love the noses.  The overall winner was the cat in the center. Very sleek, don’t you think?  She will be part of our 2011 catalog, so you can have one of your own soon.

We have Winter Open Houses, too, starting at the end of November. Stay tuned for more on those.

Our Five Finalists (the cat is the overall winner)

We were excited to see that one of our gourds made it into the pages of Susquehanna Style Magazine’s November/December issue!

on page 42!

The November/December issue

For those in Central PA, be sure to pick up your copy of Susquehanna Style Magazine! It is also available to view online here.  This issue includes wonderful recipes, holiday tips, fashion, and much more. Not to mention, their Silver Spoon awards for fine local restaurants are also in there.

The martin gourd continues to dry out quickly.  It’s getting good and ugly, developing a good layer of mold.  It’ll start smelling soon (Which is why we strongly recommend setting them outside to dry.  And the other gourd, the gooseneck, is now showing real signs of drying.

Here’s a question: How do they dry out?  How does the water get out through that think, hard skin?  Well, thick and hard as it is, it is still a plant and the skin is porous, so some gets out that way.  A lot of it, though, goes out through the stem, which is very porous.

When you see raw, fresh gourds, take a look at the stems.  They’ll have about 2” of stem, and it will be a clean cut.  The stem will not look like they were twisted off the vine.  That’s because twisting the stem renders it useless for helping dry the gourd, and twisting the stem can allow infection in, which will make it even more difficult for the gourd to dry.

Here they are, right off the farm.

November 2