2 January 2008 re: holiday cooking

mb:

Now, I know you guys don't really get into the holiday spirit and celebrate Christmas too much anymore, but I can still ask ... did you make any special food for the holiday season?

m-c:

We may not deck the halls any more, but we're not going to give up on eating special food. For Thanksgiving we had a wee turkey from the Heritage Foods folks. Mark did even better than his usual magnificent job of making sweet-potato biscuits by flavoring them with crumbled bacon and minced shallots.

For Christmas he surprised me by requesting a beef roast (he's not usually the beefeater in the family).

The butcher at Whole Foods cut me a two-person portion of prime rib, which I macerated for three days with plain coarse sea salt, seared under the broiler, cooked at 350° for 20 minutes, and then let rest for another half an hour. Mark said he thought it was the best beef he had ever eaten in his life.

By New Year's Day we were meated out, so I made black-eyed peas, a traditional good-luck food for New Year's. I did my favorite version of African akra pancakes, with whole smashed black-eyes and minced shallots, and served corn-meal mush, roasted ripe plantains, and a bunch of other roasted vegetables as sides. Vegan, and yet not at all deprived-making.

And you?

mb:

We had a little celebration at our house on the 23rd (which is our yearly tradition) and I made lots of tasty food for it. The thing that made the biggest impact was some baked artichoke dip that I made from a recipe on allrecipes. I, of course, changed the recipe a little bit by using shallot instead of red onion and by adding a splash of worcestershire sauce and two cloves of crushed garlic. I gotta tell ya, I think this is going to become part of my party repertoire. It was unbelievably simple and totally delicious.

m-c:

Wow, that looks like it's right up my alley -- I'll try it soon and report back.

But oh, oh, I forgot to tell you that Mark gave me, as he often does, an exotic snack, and this year's was a winner, an Indian mix that's like rice crispies died and gone to snack heaven. It's sweet and spicy and crunchy, even sour, and I'm already addicted to it. Mark has packaged it up for us in half-size ziplock bags, like a controlled substance.

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