Comfort & Joy Food

Cookies for Santa: British Hobnobs,
Frosted to resemble Christmas Puddings!

What do we all want for Christmas? Comfort & Joy Food! Not just regular ol' Comfort Food -- but sweets and tea! First Gerry organizes all the British must haves: Christmas Cake and Sherry Trifle (his specialties); Figgy Pudding and Tiny Mince Pies (we have evolved our own British - American versions of these two).

And, lastly, for the boys-- the one and only Celestial Seasonings Nutcracker Sweet Pie. We always make a couple of these holiday favorites at Thanksgiving and -- though we don't really need it -- yet another one at Christmas!

Celestial Seasonings used to print this recipe on the inside of every box of Nutcracker Sweet Tea, but I haven't seen it there in awhile. Luckily, I have it written down; and the tea is still available. If you don't see it in your store, try amazon -- you may have to order six boxes at one time, but that's okay because a box of Nutcracker Sweet Tea makes a good Christmas present, so you can give some away!

Here are the easy instructions:

Make yourself a cup (or an entire pot!) of Nutcracker Sweet Tea

Now, boil one cup of water in medium saucepan; take two additional tea bags from the box, add them to the boiled water, and turn off the heat; steep for 4 minutes

After 4 minutes, remove tea bags, turn heat back on to "simmer"

Stir in

1/3 cup butter
2 oz. of unsweetened chocolate (I use two 1 - oz squares)

Stir until melted, remove from heat, cool for 10 minutes

Then add

1 1/2 cups white sugar (or less according to your taste for dark chocolate)

2 beaten eggs

1/2 teas. salt

Pour into an unbaked pie shell and cover with 1 1/2 cups of pecan halves (or smaller pieces, if you like)

Bake at 375 F, for 45 minutes.

I hope everyone will try it and love it! After my nephew Dan and I started making this 10 years ago or so, I gave up all other pecan pie and chocolate pie recipes. This is it for us!

Thanksgiving Rendition, Flanked by Large Mince Pies**Tradition at our house requires
large mince pies for Thanksgiving / tiny mince pies for Christmas

Three Soups & Thirteen Desserts

Christmas Cake and Village
Yesterday was the Twelfth Day of Christmas and last night, everyone's favorite Shakespearean festival: Twelfth Night. That makes today the Epiphany, otherwise known as the Feast of the Three Kings.

If the Epiphany happens to fall on the weekend (not the case this year), it can be the perfect occasion for inviting your friends and neighbors over for an end - of - season soup fest -- The Feast of the Three Soups! -- any three you like, e.g., good old Football Chili, New Year's Good Luck Soup (with black-eyed peas for vision & spinach greens for prosperity), and Giblet Soup (a Christmas Eve tradition in Gerry's family).

************

GIBLET SOUP
for CHRISTMAS EVE, NEW YEAR'S EVE,
TWELFTH NIGHT or EPIPHANY
BRING TO BOILING:

about 6 cups of chicken broth (can be canned, bouillon cubes, or home made)

ADD TO BROTH:

2 onions, chopped up

5 carrots, sliced round or diagonal

5 celery stalks with leaves, sliced medium thickness

1 lb. pkg. of chicken livers, cut in bite - sized pieces

1 lb. pkg. of chicken gizzards, cut in bite - sized pieces (I try to cut away the gristle, but it's not always easy & it doesn't really hurt to leave it in)

any other giblets, hearts, or necks that came with the turkey (I randomly use turkey & / or chicken, whatever happens to be in the freezer)

FOR SEASONING:

1 teasp. of pepper (I like a lot of pepper; you can use less)

2 teasp. of salt (can be regular, garlic salt, seasoning salt, chicken seasoning mix -- whatever you like)

plus any other spices that you like with chicken (I sometimes use dried basil from our garden, but not always)

IF YOU WANT TO SHARE WITH CHILDREN OR JUST HAVE MORE REGULAR MEAT:

add 6 - 12 chicken drumsticks (and more broth if needed)

LET EVERYTHING COOK

on a low simmer, 1 - 6 hours, depending on your schedule

ABOUT AN HOUR BEFORE EATING

add barley or rice (1/2 cup if you want it to float loosely in the broth; 1 cup if you want to thicken up the soup to a stew like consistency).

I think that's about it! It's okay if it turns out a little bit different every time. This year's soup was made with 6 bouillon cubes, 8 cups water, 2 cartons of chicken livers (no gizzards because I couldn't find any at the store that day, and no other giblets or necks because I had used them all up on Christmas Eve), 2 teaspoons of "CVS Chicken & Meat Seasoning" and 1 teaspoon of regular ground black pepper (no other spices), all the usual vegetables (carrots, celery, onions), and one cup of barley.

************
You may also be familiar with the French custom of serving thirteen symbolic desserts on Christmas EveIf you ask me, this is another celebration / menu idea that works just as well on Epiphany. After all, it is the Thirteenth Day of Christmas!

Feasts and Seasons

Christmas Cake and Village
The Frugal Gourmet Celebrates Christmas (1991) by Jeff Smith (1939 - 2004) is the best holiday cookbook I know of. Both my latkes and my mincemeat are from this source. One of my sisters gave me this book for Christmas back in 1996, and I gave a copy to one of my brothers a couple of Christmases after that.It's that good. Once you've read it, you'll want to give it as a present to someone else!

More than a collection of recipes, it is also a fascinating narrative of cultural history and seasonal tradition, ingeniously illustrated and creatively organized. Each chapter presents a dish for a different character from the traditional manger scene: angel hair pasta for the angels, green olive soup for the shepherds (I tried this recipe one year -- odd), lamb chops for the tax collector, Persian meatballs for the Magi, right down to milk and honey for the Baby Jesus.

Then there's The Frugal Gourmet Keeps the Feast: Past, Present, and Future (1995), a book about food as sacrament and celebration. Smith was an ordained minister as well as a chef, and the first half is a collection of articles about theology and feasting. The second half is organized into chapters such as "Old World Soups," "Salads from the Ancient World," and "Eggs on the Biblical Table." All things are ready! Come to the feast!

RED DINING ROOM, PHILADELPHIA, 2003
Which brings us to another favorite, The Feast of Christmas: Origins, Traditions, and Recipes (1992) by Paul Levy (b 1941). Filled with beautiful food photography, vintage illustrations, and lots of narrative, this book asks: "What is it that distinguishes the attitude of the feaster from that of the ordinary eater?" Answer: Sensory expectation, social pleasure, and intellectual reward. Levy says that "Instinctively we know the importance of feasting," but only rarely do we practice the art of eating reflectively: "Once a year [Christmas!] our dismal diet disappears, and . . . we are given a glimpse of what food can mean" (7).

In the same vein is The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection (1967) by The Rev. Robert Farrar Capon (b 1925), an ordained Episcopal minister who combines theology, food, and digression. How so? "It is easier than you think" says Capon, "the road from temple to kitchen is quite plain. It lies through the subject of knives. . . . The oldest fingerprints in the world are those on tools: and of all tools, the knife remains supreme. . . . the one tool used by more people, more of the time, than any other. All the kitchens . . . are filled with knives. With your permission I shall" . . . digress! (53 - 54). You get the idea.

O CHRISTMAS TREE, O CHRISTMAS TREE!
Along with these books I must mention the culinary goddess Laurie Colwin (1944 - 1992). How we miss her! What a gift she had for keeping the feast! Whether or not you like her fiction, you just have to read her two narrative cookbooks Home Cooking (1988) and More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen (1993). The recipes are great, but even better is her sister - to - sister commentary. Totally engaging! Recommended by Jes. I have been touched and inspired by the honor Colwin ascribes to the custom and ceremony of food preparation:

"These two delicacies ["Spiced Beef" and "Country Christmas Cake"] have that profound, original, home-made taste that cannot be replicated, no matter what you spend. They make the person who made them feel ennobled. After all, it is holiday time. Aren't we meant to draw together and express our good feelings for one another? What could be better than to offer something so elementally, so wholesomely down-home and yet elegant? And both go a long way: You can feed a lot of loved ones with them. . . . If I did nothing else, I would still make this cake and spiced beef and fill my head with visions of candles and pine boughs. The sun goes down at four o'clock, the air is damp and chill, but in the pantry my cake is mellowing, and soon I will spice my beef as centuries of people have done before me" (More H C, 209 - 210)

CHRISTMAS 2001

Christmas Tea for One, Two, Three

Lovely Past Times Holiday Teapots (above & below),
presents over the years from my British Sister - in - law, Tina McFadyen

Strange how a teapot
Can represent at the same time
The comforts of solitude
And the pleasures of company

~ Zen Haiku Quotes ~

"I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude,
two for friendship, three for society."

~ Henry David Thoreau ~
American author and naturalist, 1814 - 1862
~ from Walden ~

Close - Up with David Winter Houses, on Platter by Gien

“Outside of the chair,
the teapot is the most ubiquitous and important
design element in the domestic environment
and almost everyone who has tackled the world of design
has ended up designing one.”

~ David McFadden ~
Canadian poet and novelist, b. 1949

"Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea."
~ Author Unknown ~