Good Eating = Economic Stimulus?

We continue to prepare and consume more than our fair share of good stuff around here. The holidays, for those of us fortunate enough to still be employed and paid more than minimum wage (a dramatically decreasing population share, it seems), provide ample excuse for trying something new.

In the runup to the holidays Eric concocted a terrific batch of one-of-a-kind mac-and-cheese. Comfort food with a kick. I'm sure it had a lot to do with our surviving the ensuing weather debacles leading to rare Northwest White Christmas.

Our typical Christmas routine has involved a semi-fancy Eve dinner with friends, often at their place - but sometimes ours. This year we indulged ourselves sans friends. Or maybe I should say we dined with our most inner circle of friends, i.e., we three and our terrific dog companions.

Marg had procured a moderate-size rib-roast, and Eric assembled a mustard-horseradish paste. A friend called me on my joke about Yorkshire pudding to the point where I had to make the experiment, which seemed to turn out as marvelous as I could have imagined. But in truth, we wondered what the big deal was. It was fun to add a bit of snazzy and all, but I admit a potato would have suited me fine. Add a nice tossed salad with colorful dashes of pomegranete and grapefruit, some decent dinner rolls, a nice hoppy IPA, and a deep, dark, delectable native red home-made by aforesaid friends (h/t Jules and family), and you're starting to talk about something more than survival rations.

Which was good, because conditions outside at the time were periodically somewhat near the survival category. I spent almost as much time commuting as actually in manacles for several days there. Meanwhile, Mara, Sean, and Aristotle were parked on I-5 south of Portland. Elaine awaiting pickup. The foursome got here somewhere around 1:30AM, having left Salem about 6PM.

Our standard Christmas dinner entree for lo these many years has been corned beef. This year, as is common, I started dreaming of it in early November. We have scrambled at times to find vendors of quality CB, experimented with recipes (including, at least once, adding Coca Cola to cooking fluid!), and altered our starting lineup when it comes to the cooking and the carving. But truth be told, the stuff is too good for our talented bullpen to ruin it. "A bit tough" is probably the worst we have ever done. This year, Grandma conscripted Eric and me for the cooking, and Sean wielded the sharp sword when it came to the carving. Add in a dozen or so side dishes, and at least the lower vestiges of royalty might be content.

In the process of weaning ourselves off large portions of red meat, Eric took us through a recipe that involved baking scampi with a coating of garlic (duhh!), butter, shallots, parsley, rosemary, red pepper flakes, citrus, and panko. Oh have mercy. That's parmesan-roasted broccoli in the background.

And then we made a run up to join our friends the Baxters for New Years at their version of Fernando's Hideaway up near Mt. Baker, where they know how to do snow. And the Baxters know how to do hospitality like nobody's business. Together with mutual friends Diane and Bill we moved in on them for Holiday Number 2, with of course delicious food and beverages and the occasional snowy perambulation. But mostly food and more food. Our eve dinner included calamari with a wonderfully garlicy dip, a variety of cheeses, seafood manicotti, prawns named differently than the misleadingly-named BBQ prawns a la P. Prudhomme, yet actually remarkably similar and scrumptious - actually perceptibly more tangy than I have been gradually schooled as to put before my occasional scoville-challenged diner, devilled eggs, potato salad, and slow-cooked pulled pork with side of onion-carrot-cilantro escabeche. What a lot of excellent food and joy.

It was great fun when we were invaded post-dinner by a wild neighborhood contingent of a dozen or so bubbly Eve-celebrators, who kicked up the party atmosphere a good deal. We reciprocated with a visit later in the evening, returning barely in time to celebrate the new year.

Breakfast was no less over-the-top, though in this case almost exclusively Baxter-produced: eggs-on-a-raft, pancakes, cranberry bread, sausages, grapefruit, and mimosas. At least 4 inches of snow had accumulated overnight, and it continued to fall throughout the New Year. We worked off a portion of our accumulated body-burden via a snowy walk to clubhouse, scene of impending "polar bear swim," only to find pool occluded by a foot-plus layer of snow and slush. However, a few of us returned later to witness brave souls immersing themselves in reportedly 37 degree water. Oiks.

I suspect I am not the only one who has been focused on slightly smaller portions the last couple weeks.