Christmas Dinner Chez Moi

Every year, Christmas dinner is a situation. As in, preparations start three days in advance with my dad brining a turkey. For the past few years his brine of choice has included soy, mirin, ginger, sesame oil, garlic, scallions, star anise...basically an Asian-inspired brine. At this point, three days out, I am just beginning to consider my contributions.




The day of, I generally wake up after noon to classical music blaring from the kitchen plus sounds of clanking pots and pans. Every once in a while there is a "VLASTA!" which means my dad is yelling at my mom who is probably picking at his caramelized onions or toasted walnuts.




It's still too early to break out the vino (or is it? according to my aunt, no), at this point I sleepily stumble into the kitchen asking for some sort of breakfast. Next, I am informed that we have no food to eat (putting aside the fact that the fridge, both the upstairs and downstairs one, is jam-packed, but all those lovely gooey cheeses, cold cuts, foie gras (if we serve it that year)...are NOT for me, rather for dinner which will probably commence around 6PM. Knowing my fam they will tell guests to expect to eat at 7PM, but the turkey will usually take longer than expected, so add on an extra 30 minutes.


First, I make myself a cappuccino (or two), then continue on with a papaya or some toast. This year I think I just went with cold macrobiotic soba noodles I bought the night before anticipating this situation. Such a great call.


Finally I am somewhat awake, which means it's time to start cooking. Since I started preparing recipes the night before, my cookies are finished, though I still have two savories and a dessert I planned to prepare. I also wanted to make a Nancy Silverton Buttermilk Crackers recipe (I actually bought this cookbook when I was in middle school not even knowing who NS was), but I ran out of time.


First order of business, finish my chocolate tart, which means rolling out the dough, making the filling, baking only the crust, adding the filling, then popping the whole thing into the freezer to firm up. Somewhere in there, factor in some worry about the recipe and the filling not solidifying (I didn't have the exact proportions and had to guesstimate).


K, tart is in the freezer. Next, moving right along to my Brussels sprouts. Peel off outer leaves and wash, sautee pancetta, remove pancetta from drippings, sautee BS in pancetta oil. Add fresh roasted chestnuts, thyme, pancetta, cream, and maple syrup. Hm, 1/4 cup, is this dish going to be too sweet? Ugh, hope not.




Brussels sprouts are on the sweeter side, note to self use only 1/8 cup maple syrup next time. Still delish though. On to the gratin. Recruit my brother Peter to peel squash for me, meanwhile I break out a baking sheet and start cubing the squash. Add to baking sheet, toss with S and P and olive oil, into the oven until golden. Meanwhile, sautee leeks, place half of leeks in bottom of baking dish. Top with roasted squash, add chevre, more leeks, squash, chevre (at this point Peter interjects saying, "hm, it's like a pasta-less vegetarian lasagna"), heavy cream, and toasted hazelnuts on top. Oven.


Meanwhile, my dad is dealing with the turkey, cranberries, potatoes, my mom is arranging cheese for guests, then preparing the table.


No time for crackers, bff Wes shows up with a rather unique bottle of vodka (just what I need) where you can actually program greetings to run on the bottle (another post), shower time for me.. Christmas 2010.

Also recounted on LA Weekly.