tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Christmas food, garbage espresso, and putting stuff in the waffle maker
Happy new year, friends. I know it feels totally arbitrary to celebrate the turning of the calendar when really, almost nothing has changed except we’ll all be cursing for the next five weeks while we write ‘2022’ on things. But the reality is that these markers of time can give us the hope or motivation we need to try something new, to pursue a change, to give ourselves a freedom we’ve been lacking. January is a tough month, and maybe having that little spark of knowing you’ve got a goal you’re working towards helps make it feel lighter, so be kind to anyone who’s talking about letting go of something, or starting a new hobby, or getting back into a routine, or trying to order less takeout. We’re all just doing what we can to make our lives feel a little more easy, joyful, and fulfilling.
That said, please feel free to ignore all the self-improvement junk we’re fed at this time, particularly with regards to ‘health’ (most of it is just fatphobia and misogyny and ageism stacked in a trenchcoat made of capitalism again). Your body is alive in the world and that’s already amazing enough.
Personally I’m going to try to read and write more— I really fell off the wagon in terms of reading books in the latter half of the year, something a lot of the people I talked to about it seemed to relate to. Reading has always been a source of comfort for me and I’d love to get that back. Similarly, I want to get back to making more new things in the kitchen, something I used to take a lot of pride in.
I was doing a lot of experimenting and food-related projects in 2020 and 2021, but last year I really leaned heavily on old favourites and things I could make without thinking about them too much. There’s nothing at all wrong with that— eating is something we have to do every day, so it’s natural to sometimes feel resentful or tired of having yet another task to attend to in order to keep yourself going. But I want to feel the sort of excitement I used to feel when cooking something I’ve never made before, anticipating what it might taste like, watching it come out of the oven bubbling and crisp, choosing the right condiment or garnish when plating. Maybe not every one’s a winner, but you never know until you try.
The holidays already feel like ages ago, but Jeff and I had a really nice Christmas with our families. His family is Swiss, so they celebrate on the 24th with a dinner that feels somewhat subdued compared to the chaos of dinner with my loud and enormous family on the 25th. The week before, we’d made some golden beets and brussels sprouts as a side for another dinner with some of Jeff’s family, roasting with salt and garlic powder. I’d intended to bring along some chili miso (which I’ve been putting on everything lately) to drizzle them with, but realised halfway there that I’d forgotten to grab it out of the fridge. I’m simply too much of a hedonist to serve them plain, so I raided my mother-in-law’s fridge and cobbled together a honey-dijon sauce with lemon juice and zest. Everyone liked it so much they asked if I would make the same thing again for Christmas Eve, which I did (I made extra to bring to dinner with my family, too). Jeff bought candy cane beets to make them extra-festive.
After dinner, tea, and an unnecessary amount of cookies and chocolate, we headed to my mom’s, where we sat with my other siblings at the kitchen table talking and laughing until the wee hours, drinking my stepdad’s good tequila and eating tortilla chips and chipotle salsa at midnight. My sisters live nearer to me so I see them often enough, but I don’t get to see my brothers as much as I’d like, and it feels as though I tend to forget how much I miss them until I see them again.
We always make too many baked goods for our Christmas cookie buffet, even when we try to scale it back, but a wide variety feels necessary (there would be riots if my mom didn’t make her lemon bars). My personal tradition is to spend the afternoon of the 23rd baking a few batches to bring along. Adam was visiting from Toronto, and he came by to keep me company and taste test while we talked about Star Trek, and then I made us vegan hot & sour soup for dinner, which was so comforting on a day that alternated between snow and ice rain. The wood ear mushrooms (also sometimes labelled with the ominous-sounding ‘black fungus’ in Chinese grocery stores) are my favourite part, and I love to add a little extra vinegar to the soup to make it even more sour.
In addition to the couple of favourite cookies I make every year, I usually like to try making at least one new one. This year I, like seemingly everyone else on the internet, tried Eric Kim’s gochujang caramel cookies, and they were an instant classic. The chewy-crisp sugar cookie texture is amazing and the sweet-spicy combo is a unique delight. And they’re great to look at too, with crackled tops and orangeish stripes. The only tip I have about making this perfect recipe is to swirl in the gochujang caramel before the refrigeration step, so the batter’s not so stiff. I’ve already been told by multiple members of my family that I have to make these again next year, so please, try them for yourself.
I don’t have any photos of our Christmas dinner because I was too busy having a good time (and everything is mostly very brown and beige) but it all came together fairly smoothly and very deliciously. I wrote about our food traditions at length last year so I won’t rehash everything since we made most of the same things, but I will say that the potatoes are always a huge hit compared to a basic mashed potato. The charcuterie lunch is really the part of our day of food that looks the nicest. Even though it’s hardly needed after a filling and usually late breakfast of eggs benedict, we’re always excited to eat a bunch of cheese and pickles (who isn’t, though).
The week between Christmas and New Year’s is always a weird one, even when you’re still working, like Jeff and I both were. Mostly we were making food to hastily finish off stuff we’d left behind before spending two nights at my parents’, and leftovers that my mom begged us to take home with us. Once we’d used up all the leftover turkey in sandwiches and still had stuffing left, I turned it into waffles in the waffle maker, which was fun to do and pretty tasty as well. Just mix the stuffing up with an egg or two and enough milk or broth that it softens and holds together, and put it in the waffle maker (remember it won’t spread like a regular waffle, so it should be fairly thin and reach to the edges). We had only gravy left, but some cranberry sauce would have made it even better. I found I was pretty full after about three quarters of it, but I still ate the whole thing, because who saves a quarter of a waffle?
For the remainder of the gravy, we picked up some cheese curds and revisited Cass’s tradition of New Year’s Eve poutine (we didn’t go out, but we did play Mario Kart online with some friends who also did not go out). I was too lazy to make real oven fries by preheating a cast iron and using lots of oil, but the baked fries were still good, as most things tend to be if you cover them in gravy and cheese.
This week I bought a cauliflower on a whim because the price, for once, wasn’t through the roof, and made this banger of a pasta, creamy cauliflower rigatoni with pecorino breadcrumbs. The biggest tip I can offer for this recipe is not to cook the cauliflower in the pan: unless you have a gas stove and an enormous skillet it will take a lot longer than the recipe says. Instead, I slice the cauliflower, roast at 400°F with oil and salt for about 20 minutes, until it’s slightly caramelized and nearly cooked through. Then I chop it up and add to the pan with the shallot to cook for another few minutes before making the rest of the sauce. This also gives you time to get the breadcrumbs— the best part of the dish— done while it’s roasting. I am generally a fan of multi-tasking, particularly when it means I spend less time in front of the stove and will bring the food to my mouth faster.
Lastly, I’m trying to get back into making sourdough as part of my routine, and not a guilt-induced task when I notice the starter beginning to deflate in the fridge, and made a fresh loaf on New Year’s Day, which came out great. I went back to basics and made grilled cheese and tomato soup to eat with it.
Also, the replacement parts arrived for the espresso machine Jeff found in the trash (read: in a free pile on someone’s lawn) so I’ve been attempting to get the hang of using it. It seems I’m either putting too much or too little of the grounds in, or not packing them tightly enough, because none of them have come out just right yet, but I’m sure I’ll get there eventually! I tried to make the Rebel Alliance symbol in the crema on this double the other day, but mostly it just looks like a butt. If you want to test out some macchiato or latte art, feel free to come over.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. Anyway, two weeks ago I didn’t know who Andrew Tate was and unfortunately I can never go back to that time, but at least it means I can really appreciate this tweet.