What Do You Eat In The Snow?

Well, it's December and I am very aware that I am still editing posts from October. I am letting October go though, and deciding if posting a photo of my Thanksgiving turkey is embarrassing or just another reminder of how time flies. For December, my family never goes back to Turkey as an option. Maybe it is because of my Gemini mother who has all these incredible ideas all of the time and does not do well with repetition in a creative world. So we change things up a lot. Then there is me, who can get incredibly sentimental over eating something once a year- for example, I will no doubt cook a turkey for Thanksgiving every year- the smell, the flavors, the tradition tug at my heart strings as soon as the bird comes out of the oven, a fragrant encore year after year. At one time I felt it necessary to start a food tradition for Christmas- everyone in our intermediate family is a seafood lover, so we started a cioppino tradition for a couple years for Christmas dinner. Big hunks of white fish, mussels, clams, crab and scallops in a decadent tomato, basil and fish broth all sopped up with crusty white bread. After culinary school though- I'm torn with Christmas dinner traditions-I'll vote to keep cream cheese and cherry blinis with Dad's coffee for Christmas morning breakfast and beef jerky and licorice caramels in my Christmas stocking -but embrace a bold Gemini presence from both my mother and two of my Gemini siblings and get creative. This year, a smaller bird --a Christmas Duck.

Potatoes Anna- one of those melt in your mouth French creations was a definate hit at the Issaquah cooking club. A marriage of yukon gold potatoes, butter and parmesean cheese with a slightly crisp crust. Yukons are peeled, sliced paper thin and slowly layered on top of each other in a flower petal design in a smking hot sautee pan, with melted butter at the bottom. Then, layers are continued with butter, salt and pepper and parmesean until the top of the pan. Next the pan is put into a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes- check for bubbling sides and fork tenderness. Finally, remove the sautee pan and quickly flip the potatoes out onto a sheet tray. The bottom of the potatoes should have a caramelized, brown crispy lovely crust and soft butter potato layers underneath. I served these potatoes with brined green peppercorn hanger steak medium rare.

October Cooking Club

Okay, I know I am suppose to be starting the wine making series and I will, but I do want to put up some pictures from the cooking class. I'll start with creating raviolis. With an avocado green kitchen counter top covered in flour, me covered in flour and the phone, my wine glass and later, the tv remote- People do tell me I "get into" cooking, and yes, my patient husband just smiles and often does my stacks of dishes not saying a word. So once you make pasta dough- you must let it rest for 30 minutes to relax the gluten- keep it covered with plastic wrap so that it doesn't dry out. Previously, I slow cooked a pork shoulder for 10 hours with tomato sauce, red wine and caramelized onions and I had that cooled and ready. I also had boiled and pureed parsnips with cream, butter, nutmeg and S+P. It was also waiting the rolled out pastry sheets. Using a pasta machine, I roll it from 1-6, keeping the dough a little firm. It is a given that some raviolis will be sacraficed to the boiling pot of salty water so it is a good idea to always over count.