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Da's Christmas Food Roundup
It belatedly occurs to me that I've talked a lot in my recent entries about family and fun, but very little about food. I suppose that's because there wasn't as much emphasis on it this season as in recent years. I had planned to hit the Christkindlmarkt and Piron right before I left, but then I got sick. So I showed up without chocolates for my hostess and bereft of German cookies.
Not that it mattered. As I said before, all it really took to make Christmas come was my sister's sugar cookies and e.'s polvorones. We also made chocolate pops from a great bar of Ghiradelli for the wee ones at the Family Christmas Party and a dessert for the grownups that was really half chocolate cake, half chocolate ganache. It was my sister's and my first experience with ganache because we never realised how gosh darn simple it is--it's really just whipped cream with roughly equal parts chocolate and cream.
Like the tres Rei Magi,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bunj and e. came bearing gifts, including Basque and Galician cheese, a mongo star of Christmas cookies, and, of course, the fabled cheesecakes. I made the gooey butter (a St. Louis specialty) for Christmas day and had another revelation: It's really just a poor man's cheesecake with way too much sugar. (How much? When my mom first gave me the recipe, I could not bring myself to put that much sugar into a dish I was going to set before people I liked.)
The only restaurant meals I ended up having were some takeout from BM on the first or second day and lunch with my dad on the 23rd. We went to a place with mediocre Italian and American food and a phenomenal beer selection. My brother and I also picked up lambics for lunch one day and insisted everyone try them. My sister had the same reaction I always did to coffee until I discovered Meinl: "It tastes like beer."
That was one of several lunches we had from leftovers from the party. I wasn't as taken with the caterer's food as e. (although we were all terribly pleased with their professionalism and polish overall, random blazes notwithstanding), but I did find the roast beef very tasty. On the little rye rolls with the Butterkäse she brought melted over it, it was irresistable. We also had plenty of ham from Christmas morning, and I lamented I could only make one sandwich from it. My sister wanted to give me more to take with, but I don't like the idea of taking perishables on the four-hour journey from her door to mine.
My sister, btw, should plan every family get-together from now on. For Christmas brunch, she served simple dishes that she prepared in advance and just popped in the oven that morning while she was getting dressed. I insisted on soaking the ham overnight to desalt it, and I'm very glad I did. We also had "roadside spinach" (basically, half-spinach, half-cheese, and 100% delish), a breakfast casserole that e. compared to a frittata, the gooey butter, and a bûche de Noël brought by my stepmom.
She had actually called while I was lunching with my dad to ask if that was okay. I had to think a moment, because in the past we've often had a surfeit of Christmas cakes. (One year, I brought a Stollen, my mom brought a panettone, and someone else brought something, too.) Astonishingly, we didn't have a single one this year. The roscón (okay, technically rosca) de reyes that e. had planned to pick up wasn't going to be available until almost reyes (i.e. Epiphany), so I gave That Woman the go-ahead.
I was glad she was able to contribute something, since this was the first Christmas in years without her lasagne. (I think I've explained before that she's a Jew from the Bronx, so of course she makes lasagne every Christmas eve.) We had dinner with her and my father a day earlier than usual to simplify things. All in all, we did a great job of trimming the fancy meals to a bare minimum so we spent time together in the living room instead of brushing past each other in a frenzy in the kitchen. Even Mom's somewhat last-minute decision to fix dinner Christmas eve was streamlined by reheating leftover green beans and potatoes from the banquet. (Unfortunately--since they were pretty yummy--her cranberry mousse in chocolate dishes got forgotten about until Christmas night.)
As it turns out, I'll get my German goodies after all. Monshu called on Christmas morning (I was in the bathroom at the time, and the conversation with my brother, who had been sent to get me, went something like this:
bunj: (knock, knock) Da[...]?
muckefuck: I'm so totally in here!
bunj: [Monshu] is so totally on the phone for you.
muckefuck: Tell him I'll so totally call him back.
bunj: (into phone) He'll so totally call you back!) to let me know he'd made it to Daley Plaza both Sunday and Monday. Since the latter is closeout day, I shudder to think of the mountain of sweets awaiting me at his place tonight. He also got busy on Christmas and started a sauerbraten. (For years, my sister used to request one of these from me when I was home over Christmas.) Maybe we can devour it for New Year's, depending what our plans end up being.
Not that it mattered. As I said before, all it really took to make Christmas come was my sister's sugar cookies and e.'s polvorones. We also made chocolate pops from a great bar of Ghiradelli for the wee ones at the Family Christmas Party and a dessert for the grownups that was really half chocolate cake, half chocolate ganache. It was my sister's and my first experience with ganache because we never realised how gosh darn simple it is--it's really just whipped cream with roughly equal parts chocolate and cream.
Like the tres Rei Magi,
bunj and e. came bearing gifts, including Basque and Galician cheese, a mongo star of Christmas cookies, and, of course, the fabled cheesecakes. I made the gooey butter (a St. Louis specialty) for Christmas day and had another revelation: It's really just a poor man's cheesecake with way too much sugar. (How much? When my mom first gave me the recipe, I could not bring myself to put that much sugar into a dish I was going to set before people I liked.)The only restaurant meals I ended up having were some takeout from BM on the first or second day and lunch with my dad on the 23rd. We went to a place with mediocre Italian and American food and a phenomenal beer selection. My brother and I also picked up lambics for lunch one day and insisted everyone try them. My sister had the same reaction I always did to coffee until I discovered Meinl: "It tastes like beer."
That was one of several lunches we had from leftovers from the party. I wasn't as taken with the caterer's food as e. (although we were all terribly pleased with their professionalism and polish overall, random blazes notwithstanding), but I did find the roast beef very tasty. On the little rye rolls with the Butterkäse she brought melted over it, it was irresistable. We also had plenty of ham from Christmas morning, and I lamented I could only make one sandwich from it. My sister wanted to give me more to take with, but I don't like the idea of taking perishables on the four-hour journey from her door to mine.
My sister, btw, should plan every family get-together from now on. For Christmas brunch, she served simple dishes that she prepared in advance and just popped in the oven that morning while she was getting dressed. I insisted on soaking the ham overnight to desalt it, and I'm very glad I did. We also had "roadside spinach" (basically, half-spinach, half-cheese, and 100% delish), a breakfast casserole that e. compared to a frittata, the gooey butter, and a bûche de Noël brought by my stepmom.
She had actually called while I was lunching with my dad to ask if that was okay. I had to think a moment, because in the past we've often had a surfeit of Christmas cakes. (One year, I brought a Stollen, my mom brought a panettone, and someone else brought something, too.) Astonishingly, we didn't have a single one this year. The roscón (okay, technically rosca) de reyes that e. had planned to pick up wasn't going to be available until almost reyes (i.e. Epiphany), so I gave That Woman the go-ahead.
I was glad she was able to contribute something, since this was the first Christmas in years without her lasagne. (I think I've explained before that she's a Jew from the Bronx, so of course she makes lasagne every Christmas eve.) We had dinner with her and my father a day earlier than usual to simplify things. All in all, we did a great job of trimming the fancy meals to a bare minimum so we spent time together in the living room instead of brushing past each other in a frenzy in the kitchen. Even Mom's somewhat last-minute decision to fix dinner Christmas eve was streamlined by reheating leftover green beans and potatoes from the banquet. (Unfortunately--since they were pretty yummy--her cranberry mousse in chocolate dishes got forgotten about until Christmas night.)
As it turns out, I'll get my German goodies after all. Monshu called on Christmas morning (I was in the bathroom at the time, and the conversation with my brother, who had been sent to get me, went something like this:
bunj: (knock, knock) Da[...]?muckefuck: I'm so totally in here!bunj: [Monshu] is so totally on the phone for you.muckefuck: Tell him I'll so totally call him back.bunj: (into phone) He'll so totally call you back!) to let me know he'd made it to Daley Plaza both Sunday and Monday. Since the latter is closeout day, I shudder to think of the mountain of sweets awaiting me at his place tonight. He also got busy on Christmas and started a sauerbraten. (For years, my sister used to request one of these from me when I was home over Christmas.) Maybe we can devour it for New Year's, depending what our plans end up being.