Ann Seranne's High Heat Roast Beef: the Day After

You made and enjoyed the fabulous roast from the 500 degree oven.  So perfectly rare inside and perfectly brown and crunchy outside.  It was like a miracle.  If you planned ahead, you made extra potatoes.  If not, make some more.  Now.

Then click on this link:  Ungodly Good Roast Beef Hash

A bit of patience is required for the stages of browning.  It's worth every minute.  Some say,  just hold the beef for a day and make endless quantities of hash.  This recipes redefines hash.  Serve with a big green salad and maybe some fruit for dessert.  Or the leftover dessert.  We had a cranberry cake with an orange glaze and a cranberry-orange compote that was as good, in its way, as the hash.  The holiday lingers. 

Here is another photo of the roast.  Just to inspire.  Those at the table who aren't crazy about medium rare can eat the end cuts.  We had just enough fat for Yorkshire pudding.  These roasts aren't as fatty as they used to be.  It was well trimmed but not fat-free, never fat free.

I noticed something in the paper this morning from a group called "concerned" something or other blasting Guy Fieri, Paula Deen and the Neelys, even Christopher Kimball for promoting fatty food.  These people all promote vegetables, too.  And not everything Guy and Chris cook is "bad for you."

Whenever any group has a "concerned" in its name, run like hell the other way.  Fast. 

Three Cat Day

Thisbe, a tortoise worry-wart

Thisbe has met the visiting cat, three times.  Does not seemed as freaked out as I feared. 
Of course she would make 3 of the half-grown kitten who is sweet but frisky.

Beef Rib Roast a la Ann Seranne

Italian Apple Tart

All the presents have finally been unwrapped.  Two days of laden tables have come and gone.  The apple tart was beautiful.  Tarte tatin de Meli. Italian.  The beef was properly cooked.   Ann Seranne's Rib of Beef Tonight we're having hash.

I watched Green Bay beat Chicago yesterday, kind of a bittersweet victory.  A bit of shopping tomorrow and we want to see Hugo.  Was just handed a nice glass of rum.  Life is good.

Grapeshot

Happy Holidays to All

Christmas Kitten says "merry, merry," or was what meow? 

We have a house guest with cat now, who arrived with cat because the cat care pooped out at the last possible moment.  The cat, a half-grown adorable kitten is napping in the guest room (where else?) after her long ride from NYC.  The ginger cat, formerly known as the orange cat, is quite aware that there's another cat in the house.  Thisbe, the neurotic cat, has disappeared, probably under my bed.   A household with 3 cats and soon to hold 3 guests is a busy household, plus we're taking care of the neighbor's dog next door.   4 animals, 3 guests, 2 householders.   We'll have to see how it goes.  Some excursions planned too.   I'm just hoping it's not too chaotic.

Comings and going at Logan tomorrow.  Decent weather, still.  The Pats won today after a fingernail-chewing first half.  Food is under control, presents under the tree.

 The first Christmas I remember, in  Parsons, Kansas, I got a little toy cooking pot filled with pink mints.  Odd the gifts one remembers.  We also got a chocolate turkey and carved a slice off him every day.  My juvenile mind didn't understand why we couldn't just eat the whole thing.  Memory is weird, as Proust will tell you.  For 2,000 pages he can tell you.   Joyeux Noel, and Merry Christmas to all.

The best Mexican Wedding Cakes You Will Ever Eat

My mother always made these cookies at Christmas time.   This is the best recipe you will ever find for them, so don't lose it.  I'm not being modest.  Really.

Earla's Mexican Wedding Cakes
1 cup unsalted butter (do not under any circumstances use substitutes)
6 T. powdered sugar (this amount of sugar gives the cookies a not-too-sweet aura, and allows other flavors to come through)
1 t, vanilla (real good-quality vanilla of course)
1/ 4 t. almond extract  (the secret ingredient)
1/4 t. salt
2 cups sifted flour 
1 cup nut meats, finely chopped  (I use walnuts)

Cream butter, then add powdered sugar, vanilla, almond extract and salt.  Add sifted flour gradually and then add nut meats.  If too stiff to stir, mix by hand,  Refrigerate until the dough is firm. 
Roll into ball the size of a small walnut.  Bake in a medium oven (350 degrees) for 20 or so minutes. (175 degrees centigrade for any of my international readers.   Watch carefully, as they burn quite easily on the bottom.
Cool slightly and roll in powdered sugar.

Isn't that easy?  I notice most recipes call for more sugar (bad) and don't call for almond extract.  They also have you toast the nuts which is not necessary in this recipe.  Don't make the cookies too big.

Enjoy.  They're easy to make, so don't worry if your family and guests gobble them up.

Happy holidays.

Best Novels of 2011 from Publisher's Lunch

Publisher's Lunch has compiled the year's best novels from various sources.  Here is their list to date.  Some excellent reads here.  Load up  your Kindle or e-reading device or hie yourself to a bookstore and enjoy being snowbound, or just at home with a good book.  We're looking ahead to the  long New England winter, and a good read makes it bearable.

Publisher's Lunch

Top 10 Fiction
1. The Tiger's Wife, Tea Obreht (16)
2. 1Q84, Haruki Murakami (11)
3.The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
4. State of Wonder, Ann Patchett (10)
5. The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
6. The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitt (8)
7.The Tragedy of Arthur, Arthur Phillips
8. The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes (7)
9.Open City, Teju Cole
10.The Stranger's Child, Alan Hollinghurst

The Next Contenders
The Cat's Table, Michael Ondaatje
The Submission, Amy Waldman
The Pale King, David Foster Wallace
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

The Foxborough Casino

Will Foxborough become Reno East?

The juggernaut of Steve Wynn and Bob Kraft are pressuring poor little Foxborough to accept a large casino/hotel/resort/spa complex in the area of Foxborough stadium.  So far the arguments have been less than convincing.  The word "bucolic" was bandied about.  Now Route 1 (the highway that meanders from up north here to Florida) is not now and never will be bucolic unless you consider shopping centers, strip malls, biker bars, no tell motels, and 3rd and 4th rate restaurants "bucolic."To me, Gold's gym and Guardian storage are not "bucolic."   The immense Ziggurat of the stadium looming over the acres of paved parking puts "bucolic" to rest.
We're on the other side of town with the Highland Scottish cattle, the rooster, the fox, the slough and various other wildlife species.  Did I mention the wild turkeys?  We are bucolic.  We would like to stay that way, too.

The thing is, the juggernaut is hyping the spa and the hotel facilities and downplaying the casino.  Now I ask you this:  If you had the money to spend at a nice resort and wanted some spa treatments, would you go to Route 1 in Foxborough?  I think not.  I know not.  I'd head for Wine Country or Palm Beach. Mohonk Mountain House.  Even the Berkshires.  But not Route 1 in Foxborough. No siree, Bob.

Someone mentioned turning the World Trade Center in South Boston into a casino.  That got my vote right away.

I watched an advance preview of the HBO show "Luck," set at a California race track (Santa Anita, not the upscale Del Mar).  I have never seen a better portrayal of race track characters.  And Dustin Hoffman was great.     I would be happy to watch "Luck" every week and not take my chances on any games of chance. 

I have a scene from an as yet unpublished novel, Promiscuous Mode set at an Indian Casino in Wisconsin.  It was one of the saddest places I've ever been.  Senior citizens with oxygen sitting at the slots.

In Reno, we used to stay at the Hilton, now the Grand Sierra.  On weekdays the rooms were cheap.  Have you ever noticed how there are no slots called, "Losers Weepers?"  Funny about that.   Slots don't seem to take actual coins anymore.  You have to put bills or a credit card in.  No more dumping all my quarters on a "game or chance" on the way to the gate at the airport anymore.  Just as well. One night we left the Hilton restaurant and passed a group in the bar.  Maybe it was 10:00 p.m.  The next morning, I kid you not, on the way out to get coffee before our flight left, the very same people were still at the bar.  Stamina. Or maybe too drunk to move.  I do not consider this a recommendation for casinos.  And nobody has ever called Reno bucolic, although it does have a certain funky charm with its 50's motels and down-on-your-luck western ambiance.  I set some scenes from my just finished novel in Reno, too.
Does Route 1 have that funky "eastern" charm?  I think not. It's call urban blight.  What do you bet that the odds are still in favor of the house?  Even in "bucolic" Foxborough.
Dare I say, "let the chips fall where they may."  Nope.  Not anymore.  And please Bob and Steve, stop insulting my intelligence.

The discreet charm of Reno, another small town with casinos

Grapeshot

A weekend in Columbia County

House Party House with a great view of the hills and valley

New England never lacks for things to do, and that includes Colombia County, across the MA border into New York and even Duchess County, also in New York.  We traditionally drive the Mass Pike for a country weekend over Columbus Day, but this year we had just returned from Spain and our host was on his way to Ireland.   So . . . we planned an  early December weekend,  hoping for the best, weather-wise.  Of course, one might have planned a late October weekend and been in for a hideous surprise.

We saw lots of broken branches along the road almost all the way across Massachusetts.  Finally, on the far side of Springfield, the damage was less.  The leaves were gone, of course, and with them the color, but a wintry landscape of hills and bare trees has its own beauty.

On Friday the host cooked a lamb cassoulet,  accompanied by green beans, scalloped potatoes, and salad.  Mega-yummy.  Our friend from NYC brought dessert, a bread pudding to die for.  With it came a whiskey-caramel sauce that was so good one had to gasp.  Yes, all this after the lamb and side dishes and plenty of cheese and good bread as hors d'oeurves.

Saturday we drove to Bard College to see the concert hall:  Gehry's Fisher Center at Bard College    --almost but not quite as good as a trip to Bilbao but certainly cheaper.  We also visited the Hessel Museum of Art on campus,  Art Museum at Bard College which had some provocative art in a great exhibition space.  You can study to become a curator there.  Imagine my surprise to find a  copper and aluminum work by  sculptor by Carl Andre whom I had read about the night before in the New Yorker.  Talk about serendipitious.

Saturday evening we participated in the Winter Walk in Hudson, MA.  It was great, a nice family evening with a Santa Parade,   entertainment, food, and lots of open galleries.  Hudson's Christmas stroll

Back to our hosts to a chili supper, provided by moi.  The tapas appetizer was excellent, thank you New York Times.  More good dessert and bread pudding the next a.m. for breakfast.  Couldn't have been better.  We brought bread at The Loaf in Hudson, a whole wheat bread called Miche.   Very dense and delicious and with no sugar.  God, I hate whole wheat gunked up with sugar--a total abomination for sandwiches.   But don't get me started.

Geese always know when hunting season begins

We also visited the Aldi supermarket in Hudson and stocked up on Christmas Stoellen at a price you wouldn't believe.  I stopped at Agway  in Great Barrington and bought 50 pounds of squirrel food for our poor starving critters.

A good weekend, all told, with fun, culture, nature, good friends and good food.  You can't ask much more than that.  Hope to lose the  2+ pounds (eek!)  staring back at me from  the bathroom scale.  A vegetarian  lo-cal dinner last night.   Curried cauliflower and chick peas.  Thank you again, New York Times!

Hudson, NY:  Christmas Walk

Grapeshot

Ugly Christmas Sweater Links

I have never had a Christmas sweater.  For years I had a red cashmere sweater that I wore to holiday parties, but when that wore out I never replaced it.    Practicality or even frugality tells me that a sweater that you wear only six weeks a year is impractical.  I mean isn't it January and February when  you need a really warm sweater?    And many of them are truly ugly, so  I was amused a few years ago to hear about an ugly Christmas sweater contest.  And then a party.  What a hoot! It's nice when people can have some good clean fun and enjoy a few laughs.   I have seen some humdingers for sale at Walmart this season.  Just in time for the holidays.  Marketing is all.  I do wonder what people in other countries think of this particular way to celebrate.   Good old American know-how or truly bizarre. 

Ugly Christmas Sweater Links:

Make it Better Contest winners

My Ugly Christmas Sweater

Winner of the Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest

Yet Another Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest

Ugly Christmas Sweates on Ebay

Woman's Day Holiday Sweater Contest Winner