A Few of My Favorite Things

I am, as you might have guessed, not much of a moderate person. What I love, I love with consuming passion, and what I hate, I loathe.

In the latter category is New Year’s Eve, concerning which I’ve made my views amply clear.  And no, I haven’t changed my mind.  There’s not enough sparkly alcoholic beverage in the universe to quiet my inner grinch on this or any other December 31st.

Conversely, among the objects of an affection so unrestrained that any other day of the year they’ll put me in a near-narcotic state of bliss are rosemary, and Meyer lemons.  Rosemary I adore so shamelessly that I’ll fondle any rosemary shrub that crosses my path, running my fingers along the aromatic spikes to perfume my hands.  When they started marketing those tree-shaped topiaries, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.  If they made them big enough to use as actual Christmas trees, I would fork over however much money it would take to bring one home, and damn His Lordship’s anti-decorating bah humbuggery. As for Meyers, I still weep over the dwarf tree I had to leave behind with my father-in-law when we moved east, and my heart rejoiced at being briefly reunited with it on Christmas Day and receiving the two little fruits of this season.

Loving, as I do, not wisely but too well, I bought an unadvisable quantity of both this past weekend at one of my very favorite places on earth: the San Francisco Ferry Terminal farmer’s market.  I did manage to restrict myself to two very large bunches of fresh, organic rosemary, but you do not even want to know how much I blew on exotic citrus.  Let’s just say that if it were Schedule II drugs, I’d be in very big trouble with the feds.

So now I’m sitting on a stockpile of lemons and herbs and I’d better start doing something to use or preserve them before all that money and giddiness shrivel up and rot.  I’ve previously paired these two mood-lifting ingredients in an improbable but delectable cookie form, but frankly, I’m cookied out at this point, and I suspect you might be too.

Inspired by another market offering I found intriguing, I’ve decided to experiment with flavored salt instead.  The original product I tried was a lavender salt, and although I quite like lavender, it is nothing like my idolatry of its tiny-blue-flowered cousin.  I googled a few recipes for flavored salt, just to make sure I wasn’t going to risk botulism or anything, and then forged ahead with reckless abandon.  I am already enchanted with the sunny yellow and green glimmer of it in its jars.  I hope that, after a bit of a courtship period, the mature salt will capture and hold fast everything I love about the resinous, powerful punch of rosemary and the otherworldly fragrance of the lemons, and will remind me of home every time I sprinkle it on salad greens or simply-prepared vegetables or oil-drenched bread.

While I was feeling industrious, I also made Meyer-scented sugar, rosemary-scented sugar, and two little jars of preserved lemons.  If any or all of my other endeavors pan out, I’ll be sure to gloat report about it.

Meyer Lemon-Rosemary Salt
Makes slightly over 2 cups

2 cups kosher or coarse sea salt
6-8 large sprigs of rosemary, washed and dried
3 large Meyer lemons, preferably organic, washed and dried

Place the salt in the bowl of a food processor.  Pull the leaves off the rosemary and zest the lemons, and add both to the salt.  Pulse until the rosemary and zest have been minced finely but not pulverized.

Transfer to clean jars with tight-fitting lids.  Give jars away if you’re of a generous spirit, or hoard like a greedy dragon if you’re not.

Notes:

You could use regular lemons if you can’t find Meyers, but if you’d like to try the cheat I’ve used to try to evoke some of their magic, supplement the regular lemons with the zest of one or two mandarin oranges.

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More Holiday Cookies

This is the gingerbread recipe I’ve been making since I can’t even remember when, probably college or just after.  Its origin is in a long-gone December issue of Vegetarian Times, but I’ve made so many changes along the way that at this point I think it’s fair to call it mine.

Although there are a lot of spices, the quantities are such that these are just nicely spicy instead of obnoxious.  The addition of the orange zest and ground almonds further mellows things out and sets them a step above your average gingerbread people.

The dough is supple and easy to roll and decorate, if you’re so inclined, but it makes perfectly good plain slice-and-bake cookies as well.  It also freezes beautifully and makes a ton, so if you’d like to stockpile for later use, it’s a great choice.

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Hurry Up and Wait

I’m starting to suspect I’m the winter equivalent of Typhoid Mary.  All too often have I moved somewhere and it’s suddenly weather they haven’t seen in over a decade, and I regret to say it’s happened again.  Sorry, Pacific Northwest.

Part of me opens the door to the whole three inches out there and wants to laugh uproariously, since this feeble dusting is not enough to cause so much as a hiccup back east. The rest of me is in a snit because here it’s enough to cripple the infrastructure and set off paroxysms of “We’re all gonna die!” hysterics, and His Lordship, the monster and I need to hit the road tomorrow to spend the holidays down south with our families.  Someone is damn well going to pay if we’re socked in until Monday, I assure you.

I’m also cranky because I actually managed to get organized enough this year to finish up all the cookie baking and card writing, and I can’t get to the post office to mail a single item.  The one year I was planning on not taking advantage of the loosest possible definition of the holiday timetable (I’ve been known to temporarily adopt the Russian Orthodox calendar when necessary), and all my good intentions go to waste.  Sorry, Secret Santa giftees, you’re going to have to wait a little longer.

Their loss is your gain, though, since I have nothing to do but blog and pack, probably in vain.  It may ruin the surprise for my giftees, but I’ll share this year’s holiday cookie selection a little early in case anyone’s looking for some inspiration.  Each one is an easy and great last-minute entertaining choice if you’re not already committed to a lineup.  As I said, I know people get touchy about holiday food, so if you absolutely must make Grandma’s pfeffernusse, I totally understand.

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More North and South Stories

Cranberry-Quince Pastafrola

Thanks to multiple rounds of entertaining over the Thanksgiving, I only had about a cup of cranberry sauce left this time around. This was just the right quantity to allow me to write a tidy little epilogue to my American story about the melding of my Southern Hemisphere roots, my New England sojourn, and all the years between and since.

As I’ve mentioned before, pastafrola is a typically Argentine afternoon snack and casual dessert, somewhere between a tart and a bar cookie.  It’s composed of a thick layer of quince preserves (membrillo), sandwiched between layers of a slightly eggy pastry used extensively in Italian baking, pasta frolla, whence the name.  If you’d like to see what the real deal looks like, Pip’s and Katy’s are legit.

This, my friends, is not legit, but it’s closer than the bastard cousin deconstructed version I made during my pre-move pantry clearing efforts.  I’d like to think that if my grandmother ever had transplanted to Boston, she would have come up with a cranberry version like this. I rather suspect my mom would approve, too, since she disfavors highly sugary desserts.

I’m not perfectly content with the pastry here, since it was a little bit more biscuity and puffy than it really needed to be, but I do love how the tartness of the cranberries tones down the sweetness of the quince and pear and richness of the pastry, to say nothing of adding a seasonally-appropriate red sparkle.  I’ll definitely be engaging in further experimentation with the Christmas batch of cranberry sauce.

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