Holiday feasting (abridged)

Well, we ate a lot over Christmas and Christmas Eve, and there's a LOT more eating in the week ahead: Le Bernadin, Rice to Riches, La Bergerie, at a minimum. This will be a very, very brief account of the few things I actually prepared over the holidays, plus a shout-out for some Daly family Christmas cookie classics.

Gifts for work people this year were little baggies of maple-chile popcorn. While I thought this would be a great way to make a large volume of snacks for a big group, I think I either put too much of the maple sauce on or coated the popcorn a bit too much, because it shrank significantly and I ended up having to give our really miserly portions. Because the recipe called for popcorn popped without fat and salt, I don't have an air-popper, and it's impossible to find the microwave kind with nothing in it, I ended up popping my own corn in a big soup kettle. It was kind of fun! The recipe I followed closely, but used half red pepper, half chile powder because I ran out of the former. Tossed with some soynuts as well to add a little crunch. Went over pretty well, and Mary said it tasted a lot like a bar snack they serve at Rasika, so...score!

For Christmas Eve at Steph's house, I was responsible for the pancetta chips with goat cheese and figs appetizer. Because I'm me, and because they were on sale, I used persimmon wedges in place of figs, and I made a quick balsamic reduction instead of buying fig jam (which I was pretty sure I would have a hard time finding anyway). Interesting fact: Israeli sharon fruit is the same thing as persimmon--it's just a special variety that is apparently ripened chemically so that it tastes good even when the fruit is still hard. These were hugely successful and went really quickly. The only thing I would recommend is that you get pancetta slices that are a little thicker than the recipe calls for...they end up being really delicate and easy to break if they're too thin, which means either a) you will end up destroying many of them in the assembly process, or b) they will probably make a big mess when people try to eat them. The nice thing is, because they are large and a bit unwieldy, your guests will probably only have one or two each.

For Christmas I brought the brussels sprouts we debuted at Thanksgiving (which Pat's mom specially requested) and an appetizer of mascarpone stuffed dates, dressed with a little good-quality olive oil and a sprinkling of kosher salt. These were inspired by our Komi dinner a while back, and are easy to make. Just assemble as described above and heat at 350 degrees for 5-7 min. Not too long, or the cheese will melt, which I kind of screwed up this time around.

Finally, my mom sent me a gazillion cookies in the mail so that I would feel guilty about not coming home for Christmas this year. Chinese almond cakes, date-nut pinwheels, and pistachio biscotti. I believe the first two are McCall's cookie recipes and I'm sure the last is a trade secret of my mother's (she IS the biscotti queen...).

Of course, we ate a lot of really fantastic food prepared by our gracious hosts as well, but I'll let them tell you about that themselves!