[Sca-cooks] Xmas dinner and loot

[Jennifer Carlson]

Our family has a tradition of eating tamales for Christmas breakfast, and this year we had three kinds - pork, beef, and chicken; with a fritatta, deer sausage, bacon, bread and butter, and brie and crackers.  For dinner, my sister-in-law went all out with smoked duck (oh, the duck legs!), green beans almondine, cheese grits, pecan and pumpkin pies, homemade fruitcake (my contribution), madeleines, and assorted homemade candy.  My brother sidelined himself from carving when he sliced a finger open, and I had to step in and on the fly figure out how to carve a bird I'd never addressed before - I kept replaying the boning-a-duck scene from "Julie and Julia" while trying to figure out exactly where the thigh-hip joint was.
 
I didn't get any culinary loot this year, but I am enjoying the enormous treat of transcribing a 1720 handwritten household book from the University of Tulsa library that is chock-full of recipes for everything from collering eels to cleaning gloves!
 
Talana