I have just returned from a 9 day winter vacation where I did a whole lot of nothing except drink and eat (more about that later), collect shells on the beach and read in the hammock strung across our balcony.  Interpret this as: bliss. 

I try to rotate my reading selections between non-fiction, what I refer to as “literature” and finally- fascinating fiction.  The fascination part changes according to whim.  Ever since my travels to Italy I have been on a kick of novels set in Italy but they must also have to do with food.  On this trip I read “Delicious” by Nicky Pellegrino which I will write about in the future.  Just before we left I read her “Recipe for Life”.  Those of you who know me well, will understand that her books are the perfect blend of many of my loves:  Italy, strong women, cooking, eating and the exploration of food as a means of expressing love.    

Her books are not available at the Winnipeg library so I actually had to buy a number of them.  Usually I rave about a book and then cannot pass it along because of my library addiction.  I won’t tell you a whole lot more about it; this excerpt will give you a sense :

“She smiled and went over to the sideboard where she retrieved a tattered old handwritten recipe book.  Its pages were frayed and falling out the ink faded and smudged in places, but she held it as though it were something very precious.

“This belonged to my mother,” she explained, turning the pages so I wouldn’t have to touch the book.  “She was an amazing cook and collected recipes all of her life”.  Many of the dishes we make come from here, others we’ve come across ourselves or concocted over the years,  Every day I learn something new about food.  That’s why I love it.”…

“Food is so important.  In my family its how we speak to each other, express gratitude, show we care, sometimes even say we are sorry.  Good food must be made with love.  You can taste if it’s not.”

“Even restaurant food?”

“Of especially that”.

Cooking with love was a new idea to me but there was certainly nothing stressful about working in the the kitchen of the trattoria.  Once customers began to arrive, Raffaella moved to the front of the house, showing them to their seats and taking orders.  I ferried food to the tables, cleared away dirty dishes and filled tall glasses with ice cream or tiramisu for dessert.  In the kitchen, Ciro seemed in control.  He worked with quiet concentration, occaisionally asking me to plate up a dish for him, making himself understood with the pointing and clicking of fingers.

Out in the dining room and on the terrace beyond it, customers were eating.  This was not refined picking over plates with knives and forks we saw at Teatro.  No one came here to be seen or to socialise.  They were solely for the food and they enjoyed it, bending their heads over the dishes, slurping hungrily, wiping up every last slick of oily juice with crusty bread. 

Once everyone had eaten and left, we stacked the dirty dishes and Ciro put out food for us.  The fish, as they had promised was all finished, so instead we had my herb ravioli drizzled in a sauce of crushed walnuts and dressed with shards of pecorino cheese.  There was a little of the octopus to taste , some of the chicken stew, a bowl of steamed greens dressed with lemon and olive oil and some crusty bread.

We ate it out on the terrace with a glass of white wine that tasted like apples and Rafaella told me about their lives.”

Can’t you just smell the smells of garlic and onions and feel the evening breeze on your face?  Can’t you hear the waves lapping in the distance and taste the crispness of the wine?  Ah, I love books that sweep me away.

Kath’s quote: “It is good food and not fine words that keeps me alive.”
Moliere

Last night my kindergarten teacher called me for my candied yam recipe.  So I got to thinking, if I am recognized for one dish, it would likely be my sweet potatoes.  This recipe was given to me by D’s Mom and heralds back to their American roots where you never had Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter for that matter without this satisfying dish.  I can’t imagine a bite of roasted ham without a slice of sweet potato on my fork.  The absolute perfect combination of sweet, salty and savoury that you will ever taste.

The basic proceedure is simple.  Cut and par-boil the spuds until their skins are visibly seperating from the vegetable.  Drain, cool and peel. 

The skins literally “pop” off at this point.  Cut into smaller pieces-this will vary depending upon the age of your guests and the other textures of your menu.  Loosely arrange in a shallow baking dish and add just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan.  Now dab with dots of butter and sprinkle with brown sugar.  Both of the latter are also according to your preference.  Now cover in foil and bake until the potatoes are fork tender.  How long depends upon what else is in the oven.

I have made a variety of toppings over the years including baby marshmallows when the kids were young.  More recently the most requested version is a crust of more butter, brown sugar and chopped pecans.  These get added to the last half hour of baking time.  But this year I am honouring the Frenchman and another family member who is nut allergic, and topping them with pure maple syrup.  I intend to drizzle it on just before we serve.  D made these recently for a Christmas dinner that he catered and they were a huge hit.  And the leftovers (if there are any) can be pureed for a post-Christmas soup!

This will be my last post before the holidays.  I am indebted to you my readers and encouragers.  I want to particularily thank Lori, Laura, Michael, Sisters #2 & 3, my Mom, all my kids and my precious D.  You make my life an adventure-in tasting and in love.

To my big brother Tom who will not be with us this Christmas…I love you so and miss you every day.  Go easy on the shrimp at that banquet table in heaven.

Muah!

Kath’s quote:  “Said Aristotle unto Plato,
‘Have another sweet potato?’
Said Plato unto Aristotle,
‘Thank you, I prefer the bottle.’”-Owen Wister

Huh?

My favourite kind of cookbooks are the ones that include personal reflections and anecdotes about a person’s life and their relationship with food.  I have received one such collection this Christmas from my Mom-in-law and I wanted to share this Christmas story with you.

“If everything special, warm, and happy in my formative years could have been consolidated into one word, that word would have been Christmas.  So, by the time the building blocks of my days had piled themselves into something as formidable as late adolescence, Christmas had a lot to live up to.

Christmas, by then, meant fireplaces and the bustle of a big, excited family complete with aunts, uncles and cousins.  It meant great smells from the kitchen, home-made bread, and cranberries bubbling on the stove, pumpkin pies and turkey. It meant Grandma’s cheery voice raising to be the first to holler “Christmas gift!” as we came in the door.  It meant real cedar Christmas trees, handmade foil ornaments, and lots of secrets.  It meant unfolding in the arms of our great family the lonely or forsaken of our village who had no place to go.  It meant all the good and lovely things we said about Christmas being in your heart and the joy being in giving.

Then came another year.

There were many things that conspired to bring me to the situation in which I would test all my glibly accepted theories.  Grandma was gone, leaving in my heart a vacuum that wouldn’t go away.  My sister was married now and had the responsibility of sharing her holidays with her husband’s family.  The other relatives were far away …… I wasn’t there when they moved from the parsonage to a tiny cottage at the lake that a concerned businessman had helped them build.  Nor was I prepared that winter day for the barrenness that can be found only in resort  areas build for summer fun.

There was no fireplace.  There was no bustle of a big excited family.  Gone was the sense of tradition and history that only the aged can provide, and gone was the thrill of the immediate future that comes with the breathless anticipation of children.

The dinner was going to be small, just the three of us, and there just wasn’t any ring in the brave attempt at shouting “Christmas gift!” that Mother made as I came in the door.  Daddy suggested that because I’d always loved it, he and I should go to the woods to cut our own tree.  I knew that now, of all times, I could not let my disappointment show.  I put on my boots and my cheeriest face, and off through the knee-deep snow we trudged into the Michigan woods.  My heart was heavy, and I knew that Mother was back at the stove fighting back the tears-for all that was not there. 

There was a loveliness as the forest lay blanketed in its heavy comforter of snow, but there was not a comforter to wrap around the chill in my heart.  Daddy whistled as he chopped the small cedar tree.  (He always whistled when there was something bothering him).  As the simple tuneless melody cut though the silent frozen air, I got a hint of the quiet burdens adults carry, and for the first time felt myself on the brink of becoming one.  So as I picked up the end of the scraggy, disappointingly small cedar, I also picked up my end of grown-up responsibility.

I felt the times shift.  I was no longer a child to be sheltered and cared for and entertained.  My folks had put good stuffing in me.  Now, as I trudged back through the snow, watching the back of my father’s head, his breath making smoke signals in the morning air, the weary curve of his shoulders, I vowed to put some good stuff back into their lives.  The day was somehow different after that.  We sat around our little table, stringing cranberries and making foil cut outs.  This time it was not the activity of a child but sort of a ceremonial tribute to the child I somehow could never again afford to be and the people who had filled that childhood with such wealth and beauty.”

Excerpt from Gloria Gaither “He started the whole world singing”

Kath’s quote:“There is nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.”-Erma Bombeck

I could be getting up to date on the Winnipeg restaurant reports that I have piling up but I can’t stop dreaming of our upcoming time on Isla Mujeres. 

Maria

One of the most wonderful aspects about our precious Isla Mujeres is that islanders are known by their food specialties: there is Tony the Rib man, D’s favourite Juice man, Maria the Pepita lady and The Flan Lady.  We pass the latter on our walk to and from the zocalo.  She has a cart which she parks outside of her house and it is illuminated by a single light bulb.  I am more inclined to go for a coconut ice cream or lime Popsicle but for some reason, I can’t stop thinking about the flan lady.

Juice Man

I am quite certain that this is not the recipe that she follows.  This one comes from Cocina Islena, Recipes from the Kitchens of Isla Mujeres-a fund-raiser by PEACE Isla Mujeres:

“Flan is a recipe that dates back to ancient Rome.  It was during Roman times that domesticated chickens were first kept for laying eggs.  The Romans, with eggs in surplus, along with the Greek’s knowledge of the art of cooking, developed new recipes-one of which turned out to be this custardy misture known as flan.  It was originally a savoury dish (not sweet but similar to quiche fillings and frittatas).  Flan survived the fall of the Roman Empire, medieval times, and eventually was taken to the new world by the Spanish.  The Spanish version is sweet instead of savory, and is now especially associated with Mexico.

1 c sugar

12 oz. evaporated milk

14 oz. sweetened condensed milk

3/4 c milk

3 large eggs

3 egg yolks

2 t vanilla

1 c Media Crema (substitute: equal parts sour cream & heavy cream)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Make the caramel:  Have ready a deep 9 inch glass pie plate and a pair of oven mitts.  Pour the sugar into a small heavy saucepan.  Set it over medium-low heat until the sugar starts to liquefy and form clumps.  Stir slowly and constantly; the sugar will eventually liquefy completely and then begin to colour.  Pay careful attention to the caramel at this point; once it starts to colour, it will darken quickly.  Remove the pan from the heat when the caramel is the colour of a bright, shiny penny.  Scrape all the caramel into the pan, put on the mitts, and grab the pie plate firmly.  Carefully but quickly rotate the pan so the bottom and halfway up the sides of the plate are coated with caramel.  Set the prepared pan in a shallow roasting pan.

 Fill a kettle with water and bring to a boil.  Meanwhile, combine the evaporated milk, condensed milk, milk, eggs, yolks and vanilla in a blender jar.  Blend on a very low speed a few seconds, just until the eggs are blended,  Add the Media Crema and blend a few seconds, until smooth.  Let stand for 1 minute, and then skim off any foam that rises to the surface.

Slide the oven rack out halfway and set the roasting pan with the caramel-lined pie plate on the rack.  Pour the custard mix into the pie plate.  Pour enough water from the kettle to the roasting pan to come halfway up the side of the plate.  Bake about 1 hour until the centre of the flan is set.

Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature in the water bath.  Refigerate until completely chilled, at least 2 hours or up to 1 day.

 To serve, centre a large plate over the flan and with one quick flip, invert the pan over the plate.  Give it a few seconds; the flan will slip right out of the mold and onto the plate.  Scrape any caramel left in the mold over the flan.  Serve chilled.  Serves 8.”

Kath’s quote: “Custard:  A detestable substance produced by a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook.”-Ambrose Bierce

Our first family Christmas of the season has come and gone.  It was a whirlwind of embraces, teasing, laughter and more embraces.  D’s family is knit together by one amazing women. 

Grandma J came home one day from her son’s basketball game to find that her husband had packed a bag and left.  She had no job, very little education and seven kids to fend for.  So she went looking for a job doing the only thing that she really knew how to do-cook for a crowd.

Fast forward thirty years and J is now remarried, spending her summers visiting various family members, kids and  grandkids and her winters in Texas.  If anyone deserves a quiet retirement it is Grandma J.  But J is not yet retired-she makes Christmas her full-time occupation.  She will start shopping for Christmas 2012, today.

We sat the dining room with three banquet tables (another 12 were sat up on the 2nd floor)

Six members of the family were not present this year and I am sure that she mailed those off to Phoenix last week.  The rest of us (32 to be exact) each opened a very large box and inside were a number of other little wrapped packets.  Mine included a book and book mark, a scented candle, bath gel, an embroidered nightgown and an aloe plant with a hand carved hovering hummingbird.  Imagine going to this much trouble with this much thoughtfulness, for 34 people! 

Part of the gang filing downstairs for grace

Another amazing thing about this year’s Christmas story was that we all fit into our just purchased 100 year old house.  I think D saw us gathered there before we had even signed the offer to purchase.

So this year it wasn’t so much about the secret ingredients in the stuffing (pecans and apricots) or the pumpkin, apple and pecan pies that Grandma J bakes and drives in from the county in a specially designed pie rack.  It was about being together in one place, each of us opening packets of love and remembering the reason for the season.

Kath’s quote: “This aniversary is memorable (apart from all religious significance) because it evokes a great slaughter of turkeys, geese and all kinds of game, a wholesale massacre of fat oxen, pigs and sheep; they envisage garlands of black puddings, sausages and saveloys . . . mountains of plum-puddings and oven-fulls of mince-pies….       On that day no one in England may go hungry …. This is a family gathering, and on every table the same menu is prepared. A joint of beef, a turkey or goose, which is usually the pièce de résistance, accompanied by a ham, sausages and game; then follow the inevitable plum-pudding and the famous mince pies.”-Alfred Suzanne

A gift of love was delivered to all mankind 2000 years ago