It’s ironic. My grandfather was from Bohemia, but his German wife, my grandmother, never baked kolaches, the “national” pastry of Czechoslovakia.

My husband’s Scotch-German mother, on the other hand, was a stellar kolache baker, learning the art from her Czech neighbors. She would bake batches of these delectable treats whenever we visited and would double the recipe for Christmas. None of the Xmas kolaches ever saw the New Year.

Last summer my great nieces asked if I had any family recipes. I did, but, not being a yeast baker, I never got a copy of the famous kolache recipe. “I’ll see what I can do,” I promised.

My daughter is a pro in the kitchen – literally. She was the former manager of the Ford Foundation Executive dining rooms in New York. I inquired about the kolache recipe. She did have a copy, and I asked her if we could attempt to duplicate her Grandma Vera’s famous kolaches.

“We can do it,” she replied. She was not deterred when I told her that my first attempt at yeast baking many years ago greatly resembled an “I Love Lucy” episode.

We did the great kolache experiment in my daughter’s beautiful and well equipped kitchen. We carefully followed the original dough spattered recipe.

I am happy to report that all went well. The dough rose (3 times), the prune filling set and the final product was luscious, although naturally not as good as the original.

We only had to rely on our baking knowledge twice. The original recipe called for a streusel topping which none of us remembered. When we mixed together the 3 tablespoons melted butter, 3 tablespoons flour and 3 tablespoons sugar we did not get streusel – we got a sweet roux. We knew that was a mistake. Since we couldn’t call Grandma and ask, “What’s this all about?”, we simply dumped it. My daughter mixed up a powdered sugar and milk glaze which worked perfectly.

The other challenge was the baking time… the instructions simply said “bake”. We guessed well at about fifteen minutes. The kolache tradition lives on.

You know you’re out West when the downtown streets are named Iron, Coal, Lead, Silver, Gold and Copper. Specifically, you would be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, named after “His Grace, Juan Luis Carlos Adelberto ‘Chato’ Limon y Mas Cerveza de Alburquerque”, The Duke of Albuquerque. Time has mangled the spelling of the Duke’s name.

I count Albuquerque as my second home, even though I don’t own a square inch of it. Home is where you can find just about anything without a map and where friends will take you in at any hour of the day or night.

Albuquerque has no secrets. The city is sprawled out along the Rio Grande Valley. When you drive out of the airport at night, the entire town is glittering below you. The Eastern side is the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The oldest part of town is down in the valley next to the river, and is appropriately called “Old Town”. The main street, Central Ave, is a nostalgia trip: it’s the old Route 66.

Contrary to some guide books, Hispanic Old Town is not just for tourists. Ironically, one of my favorite French cafes is tucked into a charming Old Town plaza. The head chief at La Crepe Michel has been turning out exquisite meals in her diminutive restaurant for 22 years.

No visit to Albuquerque is complete without a stop at a Flying Star. The food and drink at the 9 “Stars” is wonderful and affordable, the decor is atomic. Order the “Red Stuff” to drink. Yes, that’s its real name – this town is casual.

Between the tramway, museums, biopark and hot air balloon ascents, boredom is not an issue here. Mention must be made about the beach. Residents of the Duke City love their Tingley Beach. I couldn’t fathom what these desert dwellers were talking about, so I followed the signs to the beach. It’s hard for a Midwesterner not to laugh. The “beach” is a bulge in the river with a heap of playbox sand at its side. You have to give these folks credit for trying.

An American toy store is the last place in the world I want to be. The merchandise in these ear-splitting emporiums of Chinese junk falls into two main categories: dolls that are sex symbols for girls and weapons of mass destruction for boys. All are designed to break quickly, and some are even toxic.

I’ve had the good fortune to have visited toy stores in European countries. These shops are small and filled with delightful, hand-crafted playthings that are made to be passed down to the next generation.

I can spend hours looking at the gentle, sweet toys on display. My favorites are the wooden animal farm sets, wooden doll houses and Steiff stuffed animals. This German toy maker has been in business since 1880. The animals are so charming they could make Scrooge smile.

When our children were little, the rule was, “If it’s advertised on television, you probably can’t have it.” Our children managed to survive and flourish. Our son’s favorite toy was Legos. He was thrilled every time he opened yet another Christmas gift of them. Our daughter loved her play kitchen complete with happy face pots and pans. Many of these toys survived into the next generation and may make it into the third.

Young visitors to our house consistently head to the upstairs closet, take out the bin of dollhouse furniture from my childhood dollhouse and play happily for hours. My original dollhouse (made from orange crates) was donated to charity years ago. The kids simply set up the rooms of furniture on our carpeting or stairs. Sometimes a cat enters into the fun.

Most American children suffer from an overabundance of toys. The bins at thrift stores overflow with discarded teddy bears and their friends. But I still have faith. No matter how many plush animals children receive, they usually have only one favorite. It’s the one that is bedraggled, threadbare and truly loved. You might even still have yours.

I won’t be getting a GPS for Christmas. Everyone who knows me realizes I would rather be hopelessly lost than take directions from a disembodied voice on the dashboard.

I’m a born traveler and a lover of maps. My road atlas is dogeared, coffee stained, marked up and tattered. I agree with Van Gogh who wrote, “The sight of stars always sets me dreaming just as… those black dots on a map set me dreaming of towns and villages”.

My very ancient ancestors were capable of navigating by the stars. I figure the least I should be able to do is read a road map. Not only do I want to know where I am on the planet, I also want to know where I am in relationship to the other places on the sphere.

The only way to get map smart is to use maps. Practicing anything involves taking some wrong turns. I’ve seen plenty of interesting new scenery and places thanks to my map reading errors… no permanent harm done.

My work of the last 23 years has involved driving about 800 miles a week and showing up on time at hundreds of different schools and libraries in three states. I pour over maps beforehand, plotting the best routes. Then, I add extra travel time to accommodate detours, rotten weather, traffic jams and unforeseen events such as an entire tractor trailer of green peppers dumped out onto the highway.

One of Robert Frost’s famous poems includes the line, “But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep…”.

I hope so. There are many more maps and miles I want to explore.

There will be no knife problem this year. We are celebrating Thanksgiving in California with our son who undoubtedly has a carving knife in his kitchen drawer.

When we host the meal, our daughter always brings the knife. It is long, sharp and scary. Not being red meat eaters, my husband and I can’t justify owning a carving knife that would only be used once a year to dismantle a turkey. We’ve tried carving the bird with a paring knife with poor results.

I love to cook a feast for family and friends. Thanksgiving, however, does offer some unique challenges. I’m not comfortable around a big, dead, bluish-tinged bird. I should probably let the cats prepare the bird, giving me more time to fuss over the pies and side dishes.

Through the years, I’ve worked out a deal with the turkey. I leave most of him at Piggly Wiggly and just bring home the breast. Armed with a large roasting bag, a bottle of mustard marinade and a quarter pound of butter, I wash the bird and gingerly jam it into the bag with the above ingredients, plus one tablespoon of flour. Six slits in the top of the bag guard against explosions.

Once the bird is safely in the oven, the fun can begin. Corn souffle, Waldorf salad, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish and pumpkin and pecan pies are a pleasure to concoct.

If it weren’t for my belief that traditions define us, I would skip the turkey. My vegetarian granddaughter surely would approve.