With Thanks to Squanto, Who Taught Us How to Cut and Peel Fish*

That's me, in the metal hat.

Dear Boo,

I know Thanksgiving is at this point old news, and we're full swing into the Christmas/Solstice/Winter wonderland season (though the weather doesn't quite seem to have gotten the memo), but I have to take a moment to revisit since you and I (for the first time ever?? Is that possible?) didn't partake in the same feast this year and I feel I must catch you up.

It is at this point that I have to hang my head and cower in the corner for a moment to confess that I have no pictures to share. I know, I know! Quel horreur! Let me tell you, in a small attempt at defense, that a) the fact that the Boyfriend and I managed to get out of our apartment, with at least one pair of underwear and an acceptable shirt, on time, without missing our plane or getting into a taxi accident on the FDR (remember that?), after handing in midterms and closing my show and tying up loose work ends and and and, is a minor miracle. Thus, the fact that I realized on our pre-dawn walk to the subway that I had forgotten my camera is a tragedy, but not entirely unexpected. And b) when you're spending the holiday with your Boyfriend's family and meeting some of said family for the first time, constantly aiming your camera at your plate each time a meal is set out, or following your host around snapping pictures whenever the fridge is opened might not be the first impression you want to make. That said, for you, I would have done it gladly had my brain not turned to mush in the packing process.

So, I will be brief and say that my first Thanksgiving away from our family, at the Boyfriend's oldest sister's home in Virginia, was fun, relaxing, and fattening beyond belief. The whole family had warned me multiple times to bring loose waisted pants and resign myself to gaining about 5 lbs over the weekend. Added to the fact that the Oldest Sister and her Husband both love to cook, is the inherent nurturing role that goes with being the oldest and usually translates to comforting, welcoming, and caring behaviors including constantly feeding ones guests and relatives, as well as the Southern influence of the Husband whose cooking often involved a tremendous amount of butter, and let's not forget meat. The Oldest Sister put the kibosh on allowing us to count the pounds of butter consumed over the course of the weekend (about 50% of which was used on Thanksgiving day). A wise move.

(Food) Highlights would have to include:

1) The look of horror on the faces of the Boyfriend's three nephews when told I had never had a breakfast of biscuits and gravy before.

2) Of course, the actual eating of this dish, which, for the uninitiated, consists of a fresh baked buttery biscuit split open and smothered--absolutely annihilated, by a rich white gravy studded with crumbled sausage and chopped bacon. A side of home fries is a given, of course. My stomach literally didn't know what hit it, while my mouth slapped me upside the head for waiting 29 years to indulge.

3) Cocktail/appetizer hour around the island in the gorgeous and enormous kitchen that the Boyfriend warned me I would covet, and which included such tastiness as warm crab and artichoke dip, enormous shrimp grilled with old bay, and pita chips with tzaziki (we snuck in a few carrot sticks under the radar, possibly the lone raw vegetable I had all weekend. why bother, really?)

4) The iron chefesque cookoff replete with silent voting procedures judged impartially by Papa in which the Boyfriend and Oldest Sister represented Team Leftover Turkey Potpie and the Oldest Sister's Husband and I represented Team Leftover Steak Potpie, the latter of which I can proudly say was victorious (there were au gratin potatoes under the top crust. I mean, come ON.).

5) On the morning of our departure at 6am for the airport, we tiptoed downstairs to find individual egg and cheese on biscuits warming in the oven for our homemade breakfast on the road. FYI, If you're planning a trip to Richmond, I've got the perfect little bed and breakfast for you....

6) The O.S.H.'s Thanksgiving teriyaki green beans. In a banquet of the traditional stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with pecan topping, turkey, gravy, and cranberry sauce, the green beans stuck out like a sore, asian-flavored thumb. Or so I thought. In reality they were the perfect addition, their salty/sweetness complementing a forkful of mellow mashed spuds and moist turkey. It perked up the triptophan-laden meat, went surprisingly well with the sourness of the cranberry, matched the garlic in the potatoes and balanced the sweetness of the yams. When I went back for seconds, I surprised even myself by going straight for the beans. And don't worry, there was still plenty of butter in them, so it wasn't just out of virtue.

I asked the O.S.H. for the recipe on I think three different occasions, in three different ways, and emerged each time with a list of ingredients but still really no concept of how to make it. I could attribute this to the plague of the home cook making their traditional holiday dishes which can now only be described as "some of this and some of that and you sort of taste it til it tastes right and then you add some more if it needs it." Or it could have been the gravy-addled fog I am only just emerging from.

Here's what I gathered: Maybe a cup of soy sauce and a cup of teriyaki (or was it less soy?), some sugar, maybe it was also a cup though that doesn't seem possible, boiled and reduced down. At some point corn starch gets added to thicken the sauce, and a couple of cloves of roasted garlic mashed and added in. I THINK softened butter gets added to create a thick sort of paste at some point. The beans are blanched--this I know for sure--and then tossed in a baking dish with the sauce and reheated through. Sorry, I know this isn't very helpful. Sometime soon, when I'm done with finals (will that ever happen??) I will experiment and come up with something more quantifiable for you. Or if you're drooling already (as I am as I write this), try it and let me know what you come up with.

Do YOU have pictures?? I want a recipe for the pomegranate martinis I heard rumor of....

On to figgy pudding!

Love,
The Mouse

*"I am thankful for Squanto, who taught us how to cut and peel fish" --The Youngest Cousin, circa age 8? in a book of thanksgiving made by his school, in which most youngsters mentioned their siblings, parents, puppies, homes, and favorite toys.

A Perfect Ganache: Christmas with A Mouse Bouche

Dear Boo,

Happy New Year! I am just now finally getting around to sorting through the many Christmas photographs taken during our 3 days of cooking and eating. On boxing day, as you know, I flew down to Florida to be with the Boyfriend's family and continue the eating fest, so its been a busy holiday week. Much material generated for future entries, and far more calories ingested in the process. By now I am wondering if everyone is so holidayed-out that this post has missed its chance. They say a picture is worth a thousand jelly donuts (or something), so I'm going to let these do most of the talking.

While we missed you for the first day and a half of major cooking, I'd say it was actually a rather smooth Christmas preparation. This year the motto was, "its only dinner" which of course is a flat out fallacy if you know our family, nothing is ever JUST a meal, but served to remind us that if the citrus-glazed carrots didn't get made, locusts would probably not fall from the sky. Sure, there was the chocolate sponge cake buche that was tossed in the trash around 1am when we realized the cream of tartar really was an essential component, and there was the port glazed onions with 5 (FIVE!) bay leaves in the glaze which oddly resulted in a fishy and altogether unpleasant taste that bit the dust in favor of a simpler balsamic glaze. But all in all, everything came together smoothly, even with one crucial pair of hands stuck on a snowy runway in Chicago. A Christmas miracle.

And speaking of miracles, look what I got! What a coincidence that I posted a wish list on the internet for billions of people to read, and it just so happened that I got exactly these items for Christmas! ;) (and, in a move no one saw coming, the Boyfriend got me an immersion blender!)

Braiser on right, french oven on left. Gorgeous blue to match my kitchen.

Our Christmas Eve dinner, amidst the cooking frenzy. It's always a feat to get everyone to sit down together next to the twinkling tree for one quiet hour while the beaters and mixing bowls idle in the sink. Lobsters are an elegant and festive tradition with an alternate agenda--the market steams them for us so dinner is ready to go.

Every year I try to convince mom to brine the turkey after all the reading I've done on the gospel of moist bird. And every year we get sidetracked and then realize we don't have a bucket and end up doing the usual. This year I came home to mom saying, "I read this great article about salting the turkey which is supposed to be even better than brining!" Basically, it's a dry brine, or as our aunt pointed out, what you're doing is essentially koshering the meat. The nice thing is that you don't need to buy a bucket or find room for that in the already packed fridge. The morning of Christmas eve we made a combination of herbs and kosher salt, washed the bird and spread it all over, then wrapped with plastic and refrigerated while we waited for the transformation.
I had high hopes despite the fact that mom kept saying, elbow deep in the neck cavity, "I don't like the looks of this bird." The way she said it I half expected the turkey to pull out a deck of cards and try to hustle me for $5. But look how lovely it turned out!

No doubt the salting helped with the perfect all around browing you see, as well as the moist and flavorful meat and skin. To go with the turkey was of course, the gravy which as usual was tended to like the newest grandchild with all three siblings--Mom, Uncle, and Aunt, crowded around the stove cooing at the stockpot. Our cousin Sam disturbing threatened to pour himself a glass, it was so good.

But first--the appetizers:

I know how you feel about pate, but this was truly incredible. Chicken liver pate made by our mother, with mustard and cornichons on the side. My mouth is watering just writing this. I think we all left with our cholesterol elevated by a few points, but oh was it worth it. There was also Barefoot Contessa caviar dip for which our mother sent our aunt on a christmas day search through the city for dill. Delicious with chips. Rounding out the elegant trio was mushroom crostini, made by yours truly which was nice if not earth shattering. What did in fact, rock the very soil beneath us was the tray of lumpia, made by our cousin, which you missed at last year's celebration.

But back to the main event:
Turkey and Ham, of course.

Ina's sweet potatoes, adapted by our mother, the queen of the Yam. Topped with apples. So good.

The fated port glazed onions, almost saved by the last minute balsamic glaze.

Tasty tasty potato and fennel gratin made by yours truly. Could have used a little salt. Or maybe it was that we were short on gruyere. What's with me and gratins?

Okay, let me explain. What you see here is a spinach ring. Something, I gathered, was very popular in the 50s. What happened was, originally our menu looked like this: sweet potato puree, mashed potatoes with fennel, and spinach gratin. Also known as: orange creamy mushy thing, white creamy mushy thing, and green creamy cheesy mushy thing. Perfect for people with dentures, but for the rest of us, a little more textural variety was called for. We found the potato gratin which fit the bill, but that left us with two gratins on the menu which even I can't handle, despite my passion for all things covered in cheese. So what to do with all the frozen spinach? A souffle? There are a surprizingly limited number of recipes for frozen spinach that don't include cheese and cream as main ingredients. This is where the spinach ring came in. light, (despite the 9 NINE egg yolks after doubling the recipe), cheese-free, and texturally like a firmer mousse. Made in the bundt pan, it resembled the ubiquitous jello mold at so many family gatherings, but somehow, it worked.

Also on the buffet were citrus glazed carrots (they made it to the table), and a slightly tweaked version of my favorite red cabbage. And of course, of course. the stuffing. sigh.

And for dessert? Just a light sampling of:


Black bottom creamy pecan tart, key lime cheesecake (made by our aunt), the perfect ganache, suggested by mom, not to be confused with the Hindu elephant god despite Mom constantly referring to it as "the Ganesh," made Christmas morning on a last minute whim in a--gasp--toaster oven! by me. Linzer tortes and Dad's most favorite ever ginger cookies by our Aunt, and mexican wedding cakes made by me.

Full yet?

Oh, we've only just begun. What followed was days of Latin food, the biggest porterhouse steaks you've ever seen for New Year's Eve, and chili and cornbread for New Years Day.

2008: a tasty year. Can't wait to see what's on the menu for 09.

Love,

The Mouse

Mousy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Dear Boo,

I am oh so thankful this year for you, my sister, this, our blogtastic creation, our wonderful family who appreciates the subtle superiority of a brined turkey, an aunt who makes a kickass Thanksgiving spread set on a table that would knock Martha's Wellies right off, the optimism displayed by our country in these hard and sad times, the awesome boots I just got for a fraction of the price, my nice cozy apartment on a cold winter night, a city with infinite answers to the question "what do you feel like for dinner?", a reasonable amount of disposable income with which to explore said answers, our aunt's recipe for perfect and easy pumpkin bread, the book I just finished that made me sob before I even had a chance to realize how good it was, you, dear readers, and other things too numerous to mention.

To celebrate, the annual parade of floats gargantuan, elaborate, and colorful:


The turkey. Brined in cider, salt, pepper, herbs. Moist and crispy. Usually it's all about the sides for me, but this year the turkey was where it's at.

Mid-carving.


The spread. Stuffing. Brussels sprouts with pecans. Sweet potatoes. Sunchokes (jerusalem artichokes).Turkeyleaf Mise en place.

Plate o bird.

Pumpkin bread. Corn muffins.

So good it deserves it's own picture.


Pumpkin log stuffed with gingered mascarpone.


Best. Pie. Ever.
You gonna eat that?
You gonna eat that?
You gonna eat that?
I'll eat that.

--"Birch" by Karen Shepherd

With love and admiration for auntie and uncle for feeding us all so darn well.

Love,

The Mouse

A Child's Christmas in Jersey (Second only to the literary epic, "The Goldbergs' Christmas", written by a very confused 6 year old Boo)

Dear Boo,

MMM, what a bacon-y and delicious first entry! As you mentioned, I'm sure half of our ancestors are davening in their graves while the other half are probably somewhere raising a pint and a bacon sandwich to your culinary adventures. Our christmas feast involved bacon as well, though in smaller, more contained portions than yours. I made the bacon wrapped goat cheese stuffed dates** (aka "Cherubs on Horseback", original name by Mouse,see below) which I am convinced are the key to paradise and probably peace in the middle east. The Boo: Speaking of davening in their graves...

I've heard a lot of vegetarians or former veggies say that bacon is the one thing they would either make an exception for, miss the most, or would run to first if the apocalypse were declared. (For me, my reconversion back to meat-eating came at my first job in New York in the form of little Old Bay roasted chicken wings* which I was serving day after day in the blistering heat at a certain painfully yuppified bakery-cum-restaurant to chelsea moms with enormous rocks and apparently nothing to do on a weekday except feed their brats $15 artisanal mac and cheese and generally make my life miserable. These chicken wings squawked at me day after day until I gave in and took a greasy and delicious bite...So. Chicken wings=delicious=bacon=the intersection between your Christmas and mine.)

Also in attendance at the appetizer party was the ubiquitous plate of shrimp with cocktail sauce, which oddly, was barely touched. that might have had something to do with the plethora of fried deliciousness that came in the form of many many little spring rolls made by our lovely cousins. They were stuffed with a combo of something like pork, cabbage, carrots, something something, and dried crushed angel wings. I ate about 12. seriously. Then there were the dates, (oh, the dates!), and ye olde baked brie with cranberries which I ate simply because I couldn't stand that no one else was eating it, especially since i'd made the topping. How I managed to eat a meal after this is a mystery even to me.

Mom had decided since we were 22 people, a 26 pound turkey was the only one that would do, so the enormous thing was heaved into the oven by our father who required a nap immediately after the effort. For the first time, we fell on the other side of the age old debate about stuffing in the turkey our out of the turkey. This year, due to the heft of the thing, we did out of the bird, which turned out to be easier and just as delicious. Even considering the fact that mother had made one of her first shopping mishaps and bought low-calorie whole wheat bread for the stuffing instead of white (i don't think it was ever detected. which just goes to show you, if you put enough butter and gravy on something, it ceases to matter what was underneath). On the subject of excess, there were not one but TWO enormous hams, one of which was never touched. Then there were minted peas (as a gesture towards something light and green), red cabbage (I refuse to ever do without this dish at Christmas), the best gravy yet, slightly soupy but delicious glazed balsamic onions, sweet potatoes which by some kind of odd chemical reaction, deflated and turned into a saucy kind of potato soup. Mom claimed she knew from the beginning that they were too liquidy and might end up with such a fate, but I suspect it had more to do with my discovery in the oven that they had been sitting at 350 to heat up with the saran wrap still sandwiched between the marshmallow topping and the tin foil cover. A chemical reaction between whatever frightening ingredients go into making and preserving a marshmallow and those that allow for a thin sheet of plastic to glue itself to all nearby surfaces is not all that surprising. Despite it all, they were a delicious saucy accompaniment to the turkey. The piece de la resistance was the brussels sprouts gratin which nearly gave me hardened arteries just from the smell. I think it involved a couple of sticks of butter, like an entire carton of heavy cream and a smaller one of light cream. Oh, and parmesan cheese. Oh, and proscuitto. Dad ate this and only this, which he declared "Brilliant!" and somehow got the idea that I had created it. So maybe I didn't deny it. What of it? Mom, aka Cholesterol-Party-Pooper found it slightly funky tasting and disappointing. But what does she know anyway.

For dessert, no pudding singing in the copper, as we decided to go light and simple this year. ahem. Remember that conversation, mom? So it was just a light snack of Ina's Outrageous brownies with ice cream, palmiers, a creamy lemon tart, a two layer coconut cake (baked by our fabulous aunt), and cognac balls which we made and then lost about 3 times somewhere between the kitchen and the basement fridge. I had a jolly old time wandering around yelling, "Mom! Where are my balls!?". Childish? perhaps. But it's only once a year.

Love,
The Mouse

* "Recipe" for Cherubs on Horseback (dubbed "Devils on Horseback" by the New York Times food editor, though his version involved stuffing them with almonds which i think sort of misses the whole point... Incidentally, "Angels on Horseback" are bacon-wrapped fried oysters with horseradish which is kind of amazing and which I had at a place called Fish in the west village).

Quantities are up to you--though I suggest making more than you planned since there was a near coup at my new years party when we ran out...
Use a soft goat cheese so it's easier to stuff into the dates. Take your pitted date and widen the hole with your pinky. take a pinch of cheese and squeeze it into one end until it's filled, kind of like spackling a hole in the wall. I use half a strip of regular-sliced bacon per date. Wrap around each stuffed piece and lay end-side down so you don't have to bother with toothpicks. Fill a tray with the dates about an inch apart. Put in the oven for about 5 minutes and when you're about to swoon from the aroma, use tongs to roll them over so each side gets crispy. I like my bacon on the well-done side so I'd leave them in another 7 minutes until they look browned and crispy and you can't stand it anymore. NOTE: people will want to grab these right out of the oven but for liabilities sake, dry them on a paper towel and let them cool SLIGHTLY before popping them in your mouth.

"* Recipe" for replicating Old Bay Chicken Wings (or drumsticks which I often use instead)

Take your chicken pieces. wash them. Yeah, yeah, I've heard you don't have to wash chicken, but come on. Gross. Dry and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Not too much salt because the Old Bay does a lot of that. Mince up some garlic and rub that on those birdies too. and some olive oil and maybe a squirt of lemon juice, but don't let it get too wet. Now, open a container of Old Bay seasoning (ask at the supermarket because I find they sometimes put it in a weird place, like by the ketchup instead of with the spices, or with the "ethnic" foods. (P.S., dont you just love that we still call it that??)) Sprinkle very generously with the Old Bay. Really, like go to town on those drumsticks because you really want them coated in the stuff. Now, stick them in the oven at like 350 or so. When they're partway done, squeeze a little more lemon on and maybe sprinkle more Old Bay on the bald spots. Then about 5 minutes before they're done, put them in the broiler to crisp them up. Serve with some glazed carrots or broccoli with butter and parmesan. Bring me some.