GIFT GIVING

Polenta-Carrots-Kale Quiche

Agave and Nutmeg Scones

I cook
to surprise the people I love. A few friends this Christmas don't know I cook. But I don't distinguish it from a gift. The quiche box and the scones box are recipes in my head written on pan and patience. Food are tastes of descriptions - their flavor their words. Writing is cooked up. And that is why I can cook. And wrap it too. 

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CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER AND BANANA JAM CRÊPE

Folding was the best part. The combined use of cornmeal and bread flour, fifty-fifty ratio, made for a great texture to achieve a crisp "waffle" browning around the edges for this sweetie. I doubled down - meaning, two crêpes instead of one: the first layer with chocolate and the other with monkey jam (the producer, Jam Stand, called it that name; it made sense). Anyway, here's a tip: Make sure you prepare the crêpe straight hot from the pan so as to melt the chocolate peanut butter as you press down the second layer with the jam! Ready? Half moon the crepe, then to a quarter moon bite - like the picture. Don't forget the powdered sugar. We're not in New York this Christmas, and I wanted to feel home for the holidays before our trip. So, this morning I lit a pumpkin-spiced candle and turned on jazzy Christmas tunes (ambient sound low). And the crêpe breakfast with black coffee (Turkish style) was waiting for us - the family.

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THIS CHRISTMAS

On December 24, it's lights out. By noon on Christmas day, we will be in Paris. I'm taking a recipe (Fesenjan, a Mediterranean stew using pomegranate molasses, ground walnuts, saffron and squash) to cook as holiday dish with friends getting together in the countryside of Brive, four hours a way. I learned about the recipe from the Times Magazine food section; the article showcased holiday food traditions from different immigrant families (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/07/magazine/Diverse-Holiday-Feasts). The dish comes from Iran. Their table was decorated with late harvest watermelons and open halves of pomegranates, and dried fruits teeming over yellow-white rice. Very festive! Cultural food is very eye opening.

This Christmas, this cook has this abundance in mind. ("Abundance without  attachment." Read a piece about it in the Sunday Review: about collecting "experiences." So there I go.) 

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A PERFECT MARRIAGE

Chestnut-Clementine Soup

and  Chard-Red Potato Salad




I was going to make chestnut jam, yet in the process ended up with soup. It was an unexpected delight. (Just for the record: it wasn't a misstep that happened. I know roasted chestnuts aren't fruits or berries, yet I treated them like they were and added a little lemon juice for pectin and peeled clementine segments for juice and pureed them together in the blender, adding milk and heavy cream and water for liquefaction. I buttered a saucepan under low heat and stirred in constantly the mixture for 20 minutes or so - yet it's not thickening. I added cornstarch - and this ingredient changed the game altogether.)

Adding rock salt and vegetable stock and stirring, stirring made my jam chowdery, and I tasted and it was good, had a rawness to it yet balance that coated well. She will be a soup, I declared. (Remarkably the chestnuts and clementines married well, almost like tasting a prosciutto with cantaloupe hors d'oeuvre that you don't finish off with wine.) But some elemental flavor was missing to crown a "garland of love" to the two: sage. So what I did was, as soon as the soup was cooked, before turning the stove off and serving, I took a sprig of sage and used it to stir the soup as to "tie" the chestnut and the clementine together as one with the birds and the bees - and anointed the couple with virgin oil.

Speaking of birds and bees, why not invite chard and red potato over to the bounty - it's a Mediterranean autumn wedding after all!

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