I think I have the Christmas blues this year. Or at least I felt blue on Christmas day – not feeling Christmas-y, regretting the presents I’d given, the foods I made. Like I didn’t make a stollen or a Danish for breakfast, and nothing flaming for dinner. We had planked salmon, and roasted vegetables: squash roasted with the elusive Korean chile paste, Gochujang, that I’d been thinking I’d have to go to the Asian grocery store for, but found at Sentry on Christmas eve day; broccoli roasted with salt and pepper; and mashed potatoes with celeriac. We were too full to eat the trifle – Mark and I didn’t dip into it until the 28th, but we ate it in front of a Downton Abbey marathon, the last three episodes of season 4 back to back to get us all ready for season 5, next Sunday, so that must count for something. And of course, the UN-snowy, UN-Christmas-y, weather’s not helping.
On Friday, John and I ordered his new computer. I made Senate navy bean soup from the bone of the ham I’d had at the cookie party – and it came out too salty. Because I’m an idiot. I usually make ham bone stock, and then cook the beans in that – but this time, I just stuck the bone right in with the beans, the more traditional method, and didn’t taste before adding the two teaspoons of salt prescribed by the recipe. We had a big plate of leftover cookies out, and I kept eating them, so by dinner I had a bad cookie hangover, and the too-salty soup was not tempting. John and Megan went out – had a nice dinner at Pig in a Fur Coat, similar to, and better than, they said, the dinner we’d had at the Bristol in Chicago – and I sat with Mark while he had soup and salad. Then I think that’s the night we watched Love Actually, since it had been banned from Xmas Eve.
On Saturday, John and Al both went back to Chicago, and I finally did the decorated gingerbread, and baked the slice & bake fig swirl cookies that I’d made from the leftover nukhorn dough and cucidati filling. Megan went out with the ladies – the girlfriends of John’s gang – and Mark and I had pasta made from the leftover salmon. Then I think Saturday was the night we watched the Kate Beckinsale/Mark Strong Emma on DVD from the library.
On Sunday, I sent a big pan of cookies to the homeless, and boxed up a selection of the gingerbread, remade springerle, and other good leftovers for my brother & Jen & Mimi, and Worcesters, to get them thru cookie withdrawal. Mark and I had fried potato cake made from the leftover potato-celeriac mash, and a broccoli cheese egg scrambler, and toast. We went for walks – I walked to work to get a book, and to check for the green coffee cup on my desk (I think it must be at John’s apartment in Chicago) – and then, as above, had trifle, and Downton Abbey.
On Monday, I went out and mailed my boxes. I came home and did a bit of email catch-up, then showered, made a cookie box for Jane, and went to meet her for coffee at Starbucks. We had a nice chat, and I got back home in time for a phone call, planning the teaching academy winter retreat in January. I worked until about 4:30 – all I could stand. I watched a Sopranos, and then Mark and Ethan and I had dinner: the too salty soup, with scoops of rice in the bottoms of our bowls, that seemed to help a lot, and a roasted vegetable salad with parsnips, and leftover broccoli and squash, and hazelnuts, and a cooked vinaigrette with shallots and garlic and lemon juice and honey – based on the guidelines for such salads, in my new Fine Cooking mag, and in lieu of a crazy too-many-ingredient roasted parsnip salad in Saveur, with hazelnuts and blue cheese, and a wheat beer dressing, that I thought I might make for Christmas dinner. And little mini-biscuits. After dinner, I finished the last three tiny fruitcakes in front of another Sopranos, and now all the cookies fit in the basement fridge except the puppy chow (chocolate coated chex) and rice krispie scotchies from Megan’s mom, that are out in the vestibule.
