Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
We're also a mimosa family.  Only we often forget to get oranges for
the juice.  And so we're also often the weirdly-intense afternoon
Christmas nap family.

Otherwise, for Christmas morning, we make yeast-and-sourdough-risen
buckwheat pancakes, with creme fraiche and then salmon roe, or smoked
salmon.
  

    
SOmeone might bring doughnuts to the Hannukah party but I am not a
doughnut lover for Hannukah. I just hope people bring substantial
things. 

My weird holiday food story is the following:

I have a cousin from South Africa who used to work at a museum in San
Francisco. She had a very eclectic group of friends. One year she
brought two of these folks, food anthropologists, to our family
Thanksgiving. I think they were from England, or New Zealand, or
something similar. Mom asked them to bring pumpkin pie since she
figured they could buy it somewhere and it would be easy. They came
bearing a pumpkin pie that one of them had made.

Over dinner, they asked us (Jewish, immigrant family) about our
Thanksgiving traditions. They also asked if someone had ever brought
anything that was inedible, and if that happened what we would do. 

Then came time for dessert. Their pumpkin pie was completely inedible.
It tasted like they had left out the sugar and added too much spice of
some kind. We were never sure whether this was by design, to see if we
lived up to what we had said during dinner, or if it was do to
inexperience. We still talk about it every year.
  

    
Oh my.  THat is so uncomfortable.
  

    
For our offsite readers, please feel free to join in with your own holiday
plans.  Email your comments to <inkwell@well.com>.
  

    
And you all knew that "do" should have been "due," right?
  

    

What did you tell them you would do and is that what you did?
  

    
You have to remember that this was 15 years ago or more. I think we
said we would all be polite, not eat it but not say anything. I think
that is what we did.
  

    
Oh, my. That's no fun.

But holiday drinks, are another matter. We make, fresh, the world's best
eggnog, with egg white beaten by hand in the big copper bowl, Cognac, rum,
and peach brandy. Afternoon napping comes along for the ride at our house,
too. (Gotta make sure there's food in the tummy tum tums before we make the
nog, that's for sure.)

But I came for some advice from those wise souls gathering here. We've come
by a frozen duckling and are deciding how we might best prepare it. One of
the likely diners, for what it's worth, thinks she doesn't much like duck
("too greasy," says she).

Grand ideas?
  

    
I am a huge fan of duck smoked over alder, although few people have
the time and determination to tend a smoker for 10 hours in the winter.
  

    
But you aren't.  And I'm booking a flight!
  

    

Wait! You can't do that, tori! I'm planning on booking a flight to come have
Christmas morning at *your* place. I like that post-breakfast nap thing you
all do, not to mention what inspires it.
  

    
Ken will tend a smoker for 10 hours in December.  Of course, we live in
Florida, so December smoking is much more pleasant than say, late August.

I would share with you our egg nog recipe, which has become a holiday
tradition for all of our friends, but alas, it is a family secret.  And if
it were MY family secret, I would spill the beans, but since it is the
secret recipe of someone who only shared it with us with the promise that it
would go no further, I can not share.  Just let me say this about it,  the
first sip is a killer - every sip after that is as joyous and merry as the
season.
  

    
Ok I don't see how we have a choice.  We need a plan to extract the
recipe from lrph. Ideas? 
  

    
Perhaps you can ply <lrph> with duck confit, <tori>!
  

    

You mean like the duck confit featured on the Cooking conference's front
page right now?

 http://www.well.com/conf/cooking/
  

    
Ohhhhhhh.  Yes, just like that!
  

    
Iam celebrating on the 24th being in Denmark


25 and 26  December I may well be alone home
  

    
Well, that's no fun.  Seek ye out some revelers!

As for the eggnog recipe, I'm sure whoever gave <lrph> that recipe
never said anything about 20 Questions, right?
  

    
you'll never get it out of me.  The same lady who gave us the recipe has us
on her very special chocolate pie list for x-mas.  She makes about 3 dozen
very special chocolate pies (for which I do not have the recipe, but would
kill for it).  Only at Christmas.  And despite the fact that it has been
over two years since we have worked for her, she still keeps us on her list
for pies.  Ken just picked ours up on Friday.

I'll never spill the egg nog recipe, for if I do I will not be worthy of the
pie.  I love pie.
  

    
Mmmmm. Pie.

We don't typically have pies at CHristmas, though always at THanksgiving.
What's up with that?
  

    

Time to add a new tradition to your table, bumbaugh.

When I was a kid, my family always had both pumpkin and mince pies as our
Xmas dessert. And turkey was the centerpiece of the dinner. We never
varied the menu -- turkey with a bread stuffing, mashed potatoes and
gravy, sweet potatoes baked in their jackets, cranberry two ways (sauce
and jelly), julliened green beans, and tomato aspic. 

My family -- both the immediate one and the extended family of aunts and 
uncles and cousins -- has dispersed, so Xmas dinner is just me and my
husband. I can now dine on whatever I want because nobody's saying
"but where's the tomato aspic? I gotta have sweet potatoes!" and so on.

One year we had lasagna, another year it was fresh dungeness crab and
a big ceasar salad. Maybe I'll make a key lime pie, or perhaps a
blackberry gallette for dessert. 

In some ways I miss the tradition [read: comfortable repetition] of
having the same menu every Christmas. On the other hand, I find it
wonderfully freeing to create whatever I want in the kitchen, depending
on what strikes my fancy at the last minute.

How about the rest of you? Do you tend to have the same dishes every
year? Is there any particular thing you'd like to add to the table or
change about it?
  

    
I'm like you, Cynthia.  We just have a small family dinner without the
extended family, and we get to eat whatever we want and whatever
strikes my fancy in the market.  I love it!  

Up until about ten years ago, we had to go to (or give) two sets of
feasts for two sides of the family (divorced parents, you know), and
nothing could change without extended grumbling.  Once I made the
mistake of cooking the canned cranberry sauce up with some oranges and
walnuts instead of plopping it out, slicing it in half, and then
cutting it into 1/2 inch slices; you'd would have thought I'd served
boiled reindeer as the entree.
  

    
We mix it up these days, some classics, some new. Dungeness crab at
Thanksgiving is a relatively-new-but-now-required item, and the smoker
usually gets put into service on Christmas - although this year it appears
we're invited to a friend's house for fondue.

Please let it be Fondue Bourguignonne or Chinois, I've had enough cheese
fondue this month to satisfy two or three cantons.
  

    
TIme for a change of direction...Thanks cooking conference folks (Cynthia
and Jessica in particular) for your time.

For the next few deays, we'll be talking about the conference I hold near
and dear to my heart.  It's this one: Inkwell.vue.  I have the honor of co-
hosting this conference with <bumbaugh>, <davadam>, and <dana>,  There are a
few emeritus hosts, as well.  Each year we try to bring to The WELL and our
visitors interesting books with engaging authors.  This year, as in all, wew
were fortunate to have so many people come share their knowledge and special
passions with us.

Which one was your favorite?  Whose book changed the way you thought about
something?  What did you learn from one of our Inkwell.vue discussions this
year?

For me, the discussion with Hara Estroff Marano, about her book, "A Nation
of Wimps" was the most eye opening.  I had come across her book in the
library one day and thought it would be a good Inkwell.vue discussion.  The
various opinions of our WELLpern parents truly made for a lively discussion.
  

    

Thanks for inviting us, Lisa. I've enjoyed our session here. Of course, I
always enjoy talking about the culinary arts and food in general.

Which is probably why my favorite interview this year was the conversation
with Alec Lobrano, who joined us to talk about his book, "Hungry for Paris."
Alec's such a charming and lively conversationalist, and he had such
wonderful tips for good dining in Paris.

For those who are logged in, check out <inkwell.vue.327> -- offsite readers
try: 
 <http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/327/Alec-Lobrano-Hungry-for-Paris-page01.html>

or tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/47xveg