Post-Christmas Fall-out

Christmas was extra lovely this year. Everyone seemed to be sprinkled with Good Behavior Pixie Dust, the weather was positively balmy and aside from a snafu with Red Envelope I managed to get everyone's gift purchased and wrapped with time to spare. Naturally there was a flurry of baking activities, none of which got photographed, but all of which turned out just tops. In no particular order, the baking menu included:

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti dipped in white chocolate

Cappuchino Biscotti with hazelnuts and semi-sweet chocolate chips

Orange Almond Biscotti dipped in milk chocolate

A double batch of Mexican Wedding Cookies that were my personal faves

Butter Shape Cookies

Mock Mince Pie with cream cheese crust

Mini Lemon Chess heart shaped tart made from left-over pie crust dough

Cinnamon Pecan Sticky Buns

BBQ flavored doggie biscuits

I think that's it. It certainly felt like a lot more than just that at the time but now looking at the list it doesn't seem like that big a deal. I did split it up over the course of a week and none of it was too onerous. Littlest effort for biggest reward has to go to the dog biscuits of course since the doggies are always appreciative of any and all culinary gestures in their direction. Frankie even rewarded me with a Happy Feet dance reaction to them, which was a huge compliment.

Biggest pain in the rear treat that will probably never be made again award goes to the Sticky Buns. Several hours of rising, fussiness and stickiness. They were good, but overall, not really worth the massive amount of effort involved. I was using an America's Test Kitchen recipe though, and they can be a perfectionistic lot. I did not use a metal pan, a pizza stone or allow the buns to rise a second time for 1.5hrs, just 30mins, but it all turned out ok. I put the extras in the freezer. Who knows how that will work out but I couldn't bring myself to just pitch them after all the chaos involved in making them.

Everything else was definitely a repeat, including the Mock Mince pie which turned out to not contain any beef fat or ox heart or anything else nasty, just raisins and apples, and was quite nice. Dad suggested next year that I not use honey but use sugar instead and to up the brandy level, ho, ho, ho. I think whatever makes him happiest is ok with me.

The kitchen has mostly returned to a semi-liveable state, if only looking a bit tired. What can I say, I am tired. Luckily it is now onto the new year, and with all the good intentioned resolutions of fresh fruit, flax seed smoothies and soy milk that it brings. Time to retire the baking pans until next Christmas!

Bread and Jam Pudding meets Jane Goodall

So tonight I discovered a great recipe for using up stale bread and found a very cool new Google feature called Google Earth. Maybe you've heard of one, maybe you've heard of both, but both of them have me pretty excited.

Google earth takes blogging to a whole new level, showing you just where on the globe the person writing is sitting. Look around here: http://earth.google.com/tour/thanks-win4.html to download the app (very quick install) and the bookmarks for the websites that are already trying it. Aside from the Jane Goodall Institute's blog there are other sites on the Wirefly X PRIZE cup which if you're an aeronautical engineering geek should be exciting. The Discovery Channel has a site, as does the Da Vinci Code guys. Get a look at this cool tool before it becomes overloaded with San Dimas High School Football Rulez!! type live feeds from your local junior high. I suppose unless it becomes something you can link MySpace to maybe that won't happen but for now it is still in its pure geek infancy. Anyone else remember the original Listserv discussion boards before they came up with IM? When people would actually reprimand other users for putting up advertising and correct grammar? No? Maybe it's just me then. I am sort of hoping to find Jane Goodall's official biography under the Christmas Tree this year, or barring that, a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble.

Along the lines of purism and childhood memories, I decided to make a simple bread pudding to get rid of some french bread from Saturday. Jamie Oliver has a fantastic one that I will not print verbatim in order to avoid copyright infringement. Much easier than it looks, and totally worth it. I thought I was full after dinner but I've now polished off a second helping (seen in the photo) and am contemplating a third. Plus it's made of eggs, which I normally hate, so it's a good way to get protein, right? Right? Right.

Ingredients: 4 eggs, 2 1/2cups milk, 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 3/4 cup + 2 TB sugar, 4 TB fruit jam, 1 tsp vanilla. Preheat oven to 300F. Separate 3 eggs. Combine yolks with remaining whole egg with whisk, then add milk, bread crumbs, vanilla and 1/4 sugar. Spread jam on bottom of baking dish (about pie plate capacity or little larger). I used more than 4 TB because I wanted to cover the bottom evenly. As it turns out this adds more liquid (duh) and so therefore you need to cook for longer but it didn't ruin anything. Pour egg yolk mixture over jam and bake in oven for 1hr or more until set and not wobbly in the middle. Beat egg whites until stiff, then add in remaining sugar. Cover custard with glossy, stiff egg whites and continue baking until meringue is set and lightly browned, 15-20 mins depending on surface area. Let cool before eating or you'll burn your mouth on the jam. Should serve 4 - 6 unless I'm in the house when it will serve 1 1/2 people. I am planning on saving this for breakfast tomorrow. It's eggs, bread and jam so tell me how it's not also good for breakfast? Oh and those two little brown blobs on the baking sheet are some left-over meringue that I made into cookies. After the custard is done, turn the oven up to 350 until it preheats, put blobs in and immediately lower heat to 250. Cook for 45mins or so. Make sure you use parchment paper or Silpat mats otherwise they'll just crack coming off the baking sheet.

Edited for clarity: The BREAD was used to make the BREAD CRUMBS via the Cuisinart, although you could just as easily cut it into cubes and do that instead.

MS Center on WNBC Early Morning News Show

Friends of mine who are involved with the NJ side of things MS related sent me this link. Be sure to program your TiVo's!

HUGE NEWS FOR THE MS CENTER AT HOLY NAME HOSPITAL!!!!!!

As you all know, Chris Cimino, WNBC-TV Meteorologist, has been one of our guardian angels since he became involved with our wonderful MS Center 4 years ago. Well now, he truly is our holiday angel. The great morning team at the Today Show, Rob Morrison, Darlene Rodriquez, Chris & Otis Livingston were all asked by the Today Show Producer, the wonderful Emily Raiber, to pick a charity to showcase for the holiday season that they felt was close to their heart. A charity that needs awareness, a charity that makes a difference in people's lives. Out of all the millions of needy organizations Chris picked the MS Center at Holy Name Hospital because he is truly amazed at what we do here! Chris, Emily and crew were here last Wednesday taping and it was such a special, emotional and honest interview. Even Chris got teary eyed! In case it ends up on the cutting room floor, Chris kissed Johanna on the cheek after she shared her incredible history of her life and her life at the Center!!!! We all know how special the MS Center is and how we make a difference in patients lives every day and now EVERYONE in the tri-state area will know!!!!!!!! Please tune in to Channel 4 next Tuesday, December 19th at 6:40AM to see the wonderful interview Chris did with our very own stars, June Halper, Susan Zurndorfer, Johanna Zurndorfer and Judee Rosenthal.

Entertain without strain

This is not so much a recipe, as it is a secret trick of caterers: no-one at parties pays attention to what the food tastes like, they only look at the plate. Spend 50% of your budget on your serving platters, 10% on food and 40% on booze. You can serve anyone frozen pigs in a blanket from a warehouse club if you put them on a pretty plate with fancy mustard in little bowl. Translate the name into French, Italian or Thai and you can get away with anything. Pigs in a blanket become Saucissons en Croute. Mini-quiches become, well, Quiche au Jambon (ham) / Bacon (duh) / Oignon (onion). Grilled chicken on wooden skewers with a dipping sauce of peanut butter mixed with soy sauce are Chicken Satays. Stick the non-chicken loaded end of the stick into a block of floral foam that you have put into a dish. Put plastic flowers or grass in first that are shorter than the satay sticks. Everyone likes shrimp cocktail, and you can buy a huge bag of pre-cooked frozen shrimp for next to nothing. Again, put it on shaved ice in a nice glass bowl and suddenly you're a genius. Take the sauce out of the jar and put it into something pretty. Make a cheese platter out of a cutting board with red & green grapes and those red cabbage leaves. Put strawberries on it even though people don't eat them when they're next to cheese.

You don't have to be a good cook to become known for good holiday parties. Just make sure there's enough booze for people to not notice the food, and be sure to throw out the boxes from the freezer section before the guests arrive. Have good music and pretty women in abundance. Follow the reheating directions on the boxes. Take a shower ahead of time. Enjoy the festivities but don't drive drunk! Happy Holidays everybody!

Apples, Oats, Almonds, Brown sugar and Cinnamon - that makes it healthy, right?

Apple crumble is very easy to make, and it makes a good dessert and a good breakfast. So make lots, and have two things covered at once. I thought I should throw in a picture of the finished product with a glass of orange juice just to emphasize that in fact it does make a nice breakfast treat. The original recipe can be found here, on the FlipFlopFlyin.com website, a lovely place to spend time if you haven't already discovered it. I spiffed it up by adding some rolled oats, sliced almonds and cinnamon to the topping and putting the crumble in individual baking dishes for portion control. You could also add raisins (ed. note: ewwww...) or use other fruits; it's a pretty forgiving recipe. Just be aware that fruit with liquid might need 1 or 2 TB's of flour mixed in with it to prevent it from getting soupy. Rhubarb & strawberries in the spring might be nice, or pears in the fall.

Topping:

1/3 cup flour

3 TB butter (1/2 stick or so)

3 TB brown sugar

1/3 cup rolled oats

handful sliced almonds

Combine flour, butter an' brown sugar in mixer or cuisinart. Stir in oats and almonds, unless you prefer them blended, then whizz away. Pre-heat the oven to 350F and coat the sides & bottom of your pan of choice with butter. Peel, core and cut up an apple or two depending on how big they are (you can also leave on the peel but add 1 tsp water to compensate if you do). Toss apple parts with cinnamon, schpritz of lemon juice and spoonful of sugar so they are equally coated and place in pan. Ungracefully dump topping over apple pieces without tamping it down. Bake in oven for 35mins or so until topping is nice and golden. Serve as is or with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, yogurt etc.

Overheard...

A friend travelling from NY to Florida today just told me about a most interesting cell phone conversation they overheard. Apparently they were seated near Ami James, owner of Miami Ink and cable-tv level celebrity and waiting for the same flight. In between signing autographs, Mr. James made time to have a phone conversation with an unidentified second party about some hot motorcycles available for sale. Did he forget that a)he is a recognizable personality and that b)he was discussing the purchase of stolen property? It never ceases to amaze me what kinds of conversations people will have out loud in public, especially celebrities. This same friend also had the (dis)pleasure of listening to Vince McMahon, head of the WWE wrestling federation, leave a startlingly pornographic and desperate voicemail for his girlfriend, again, in a very public location. I wonder if these people forget that they are famous for the period that they are on the phone. It certainly makes it easier to believe all those gossip columns that being, "We hear that..."

For the sake of your publicist's sanity, Ami, in the future try to keep those kinds of discussions limited to text messages. Not that someone couldn't break into your phone and read those if they really wanted to, but at least make it challenging.

5 Less Introspective things about me -

Ok, so when I wrote that other post it was probably too late at night, and i was taking myself just a bit too seriously. So here's 5 things you didn't know about me that aren't also likely to be topics of conversation on Oprah:

1) I have monkey toes. I can pick up anything I want with my feet, turn off the bathtub faucets, etc. I could even probably pick up a pen and write with it if I really wanted to.
2) My natural defense mechanism seems to be barfing. I throw up at the slightest provocation. I can't even get on an airplane without packing Bonine. The first sign of me having a cold is that I throw up. I throw up just thinking about roller coasters. However, I never get a fever. If I have an actual fever it probably means I'm near death.
3) I can wink really well. I can even walk around with one eye closed flat and the other wide open. The things you practice as a child.
4) I may be a hippie anti-gun person, but I am a very good shot with a .22 rifle. Very good.
5) I've met lots of famous people, but I was most impressed with Bill Gates. He was very normal. In fact, a little too normal. I kept looking at his hair and thinking, "The richest man in the world can't afford a $0.69 Ace comb?" He has very messy hair in person.

Other less introspective yet surprising things about me include my seeming failure to study for the approaching final exam that is motherhood. I spent my vacation reading time finishing Bones, by Douglas Ubelaker, a really fascinating collection of his observations and case studies as a forensic anthropologist. Did you know that bones burnt after they are dried will have a totally different cracking pattern than bones burnt with the flesh on? Death and its effects on the human body totally fascinate me. I was completely engrossed in this book the whole time I was in Mexico, and then I saw another pregnant woman reading by the pool. She had her "What to Expect" diary with her and another telephone-book sized tome on pregnancy and motherhood. She was actually writing in her diary. I don't think I've written in the diary since the first trimester ended. What is wrong with me? My rationalization/spin on this is that at least I won't be one of those crazy moms that makes their kids nuts fussing over them all the time. So maybe they'll have nightmares and messy hair, at least they won't feel like they're being micro-managed to death. Yep, keep telling yourself that chief...

Tagged!

I have been tagged! I am honored and blown away and totally confused all at the same time, all of which is compounded by the fact that it happened while I was out of the country for five days. I feel like Anthony Edwards in the first half of Gotcha! Suddenly my little game at pretending to be a writer has turned into an action-filled drama of cold war spies and espionage. No, not really. But it does explain why someone I don't know actually commented on my blog instead of it being just my sister calling me on the phone to comment on it.

According to the rules, I am now supposed to reveal five things about themselves that few people know and then tag five other bloggers to play. Sadly, though, both of these present a challenge to me as I have a big mouth and pretty much tell everyone everything anyway, and I don't know that I could come up with five lesser-known bloggers. However I can come up with a group blog created by at minimum five very creative individuals with whom I wrote some truly horrific comedy sketches for a piece of time. They very wisely lost touch with me a few months ago. Nonetheless, I am holding out hope that they will decide to respond to this invitation with creative elan and not flaming bags of poo instead. It is Christmas, after all, boys. What would the baby Jesus do? So please check out - http://www.boredfornow.blogspot.com/ - I promise it won't be a waste of your time.

Onto to the five things that no-one knows about me:

1) I am convinced I will die young, but I accept this and am in fact more ok with this concept than living beyond my capactiy for rational thought. I have always had this feeling and it explains a lot of bad behavior in my past. It also explains why being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis was not a surprise to me, but rather a moment of, "Aha! I knew it all along"-like enlightenment. I now take it to mean that I have to practice patience more seriously since wasting time yelling at crazy stupid people just takes away time I would have spent noticing better things instead. Very challenging mantra to keep to in airports, however.

2) When I was 11, I practiced having a mid-Atlantic accent and made non-dimensional Picasso like portraits of my classmates. Plus I wore L.L. Bean duck boots every day and started a Young Archeologists club with two other girls that involved one of us burying something and then the others going off to find it. I wondered why I was not invited to as many birthday parties as I had been in the past.

3) In my 20's I had a shamefully large number of terrible and unhealthy relationships with a wide variety of insecure and arrogant bastards. I thought they were the best that I could do and the most that I deserved. I didn't wake up until I was 30 and had the most abusive relationship of them all finally blow up on me. Not because I broke up with him; he dumped me. Via email. 90 minutes after he'd told me in person that he would meet me at the airport that evening for the flight to France for the wedding we were invited to. And it still took me a week to realize what an asshole he was.

4) I have a tattoo of a dog. I am seriously considering getting another tattoo of a dog but this time somewhere prominent and large. Check with me on my 40th birthday.

5) I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, I just know that I want to make a difference and that I should probably go back to graduate school for something in the sciences.

Mind you, the Good News is that I am seriously freaking happy with my life, the most happy and excited and self-confident I've ever been. I am married to an amazing man who really "gets" me, we are going to have a baby girl in a few months, I live in an adorable house with an adorable dog and I am more at peace with this flawed piece of humanity called Me than I ever thought possible. So you know, 2:05am tends to produce contemplativeness in me instead of a list of celebrities that I have spoken to, but that may be why I'm awake at 2:06am to begin with. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up and write about the food in Cancun airport and what happened to Vinnie's Christmas tree this year. It will entertain and amuse. Cheers, Subservient Worker for giving me a frame for Christmas.