[Sca-cooks] Holiday dining and Santa Stuff

[Patricia Dunham]

Christmas dinner was plain as plain: turkey, roast potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, etc; plain beef meat handpies & KFC wedges for Mr Picky. I made some 2-bite sized mince pie-lets, about a tablespoon each. Also tried "Butter tarts" from Best Thing I Ever Ate. Supposed to be Canadian, but my West Coast Canadian never heard of them. Raisins & brown sugar for filling. I used craisins. Way too sweet; although both the "butter tarts" and the mince are a lot better after resting for a couple of days in the cold. Made brown sugar-or-almond biscotti, and that went well. The Head Cook got the turkey brining PERFECTED this year! By Sat nite, the remaining scraps of breast are still moist and SOOO tender! We've actually eaten more than usual, this bird, because the meat has stayed so nice, and it was a big bird for just the two of us to finish off. 

Relevant cookery type prezzies: Got Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads, Greco & Rose's Good Wife's Guide AND Crossley-Holland's Living and Dining in Medieval Paris. Cocatrice and Lamprey Hay came in sometime last fall. Got myself the Tasha Tudor Cookbook, partly for the illustrations; will have to see how it cooks. (Also got the 3d iteration of TT's Night before Christmas, which is $500 for collector's editions on-line - the family store is re-printing things again, hurrah, what I got was a paperback for about $9.) Stocking edibles included various Mozart marzipans, lots of nuts, chocolate, local-made flavored nuts (sweet & salty coconut hazelnuts, and sweet cardamom almonds) from "Nuts Around the World" in Corvallis, the 2d-best-ever (Crystal brand) dark chocolate almonds, some dried fruit, and it's gonna' take WEEKS to get weight back to normal!

Probably not going to do anything particular for New Year's; the Christmas guest will be gigging like mad on the Eve; maybe we'll do a Doctor catch-up-thon on Tuesday. Going to leave the tree up til the 6th this year. probably.

Chimene et al

On Dec 29, 2012, at 4:45 PM, Johnna Holloway wrote:

> The List has been rather quiet. Maybe like me, most of you have been traveling. 
> 
> I am reminded that We used to celebrate and share what we were served and ate over the holidays.
> To get that ball rolling, we had lamb for Christmas lunch, pannetoni, stollen, cookies, and meringue mice for munchies, and for supper ate popcorn while at the evening showing of "Les Mis" that evening. 
> 
> New Years will be at home with either steaks or a prime rib roast, depending on the weather. Can I grill or not? We arrived home to snow.
> Salad, potatoes, maybe a pie.
> 
> Santa brought me the six volume set of A Cultural History of Food and Modernist Cuisine at Home for which I am very grateful.
> 
> Johnnae
> 
> Sent from my iPad
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