RECIPES FOR CALM

 RHYS BOWEN:  Who can possibly think straight today after what we experienced yesterday? To see our country turn into third world chaos with armed terrorists storming our Capitol and putting our lawmakers in jeopardy, egged on by the terrorist-in-chief is beyond alarming.

So I've scrapped the post I was going to put up today and instead I'm reverting to something we all find comforting: FOOD.  On one of the morning shows this week there was a discussion on how the pandemic has let us have time to try out new recipes and led to a love of cooking. One of the hosts mentioned that she had found a recipe from her grandmother (or was it great-grandmother) and was going to try it. This led to a discussion of whether recipes should be strictly adhered to or was one allowed to be creative?

We have plenty of recipes from my mother and John's mother and I have made many of them. We have my mother's apple crumble every celebration dinner. The family loves her shepherd's pie. The war-time ones are interesting because they are full of substitutes for good ingredients--mock cream, mock lamb, mock venison etc.Also recipes for things we wouldn't dream of eating now: heart, lungs, kidneys, pigeons??

 The pre-war ones are heavy on the butter, cream, sugar. But many are utterly delicious, if time-consuming. When I scan a new recipe if it has more than three stages it gets put aside.

Cooks in the time of my mother-in-law had plenty of time. She had a live-in maid and later a daily woman who did all the cleaning. The laundry was all sent out. So her only task was to make delicious meals for her husband when he returned home.  

This she did in abundance. After my father-in-law retired (as one of the heads of international airline) lunch was a full meal with a sauce for the meat and another for the vegetables. There was always a home-made dessert to follow. In the middle of the afternoon there was tea, on the lawn in summer, with homemade cakes and cookies.   I have to confess I have never had the time to make cakes and cookies, except perhaps for birthdays and then from a packet.

But if one goes a little further back in time--to Queen Victoria, the food was so completely over-the-top complicated and elaborate that it was quite unappealing. No ,I would not like to try LARK PIE for which the recipe called for 40 boned and skinned larks (little birds smaller than a sparrow).  Nor would I like venison surrounded by every kind of fish and fowl imaginable: grouse and hares and crawfish... Dishes that make the turduckin look absolutely boring and bland.

I did the research for Queen Victoria's kitchen when I wrote ABOVE THE BAY OF ANGELS. Some of the recipes took three days to prepare, which makes one wonder about food safety. There was little refrigeration , apart from cold safes for ice cream, so wouldn't the various layers spoil? How many people died of food poisoning?  Anyway, those old recipe books plus menus for dinners for twenty, make fascinating reading. So many courses and choices. So much food waste, one would think.

So I'm interested to know what you think about recipes: Do you have any prized family recipes you use on special occasions? How often do you try new recipes? Have you been trying more during this crazy time? Where do you find your recipes?

And just to show you what I mean by a complicated recipe, here is Mah's Christmas pudding recipe:

Hazelnut Wreaths for Christmas @barbross

LUCY BURDETTE: Hooray! Barbara Ross has a new book in her Maine clambake series out next week. And she agreed to visit us with tales of Hazelnut Christmas cookies and news of the book...welcome Barb!

BARBARA ROSS: Thanks so much for having me, Lucy. We moved this year. It was a big move and we’re still unpacking. We’re celebrating Christmas with our son’s family, so we’ve barely decorated our new house. No tree, no stockings hung by the chimney with care, no holiday mugs to fill with cocoa or eggnog.

Barb with son Rob

But there was one tradition I couldn’t ignore—cookie baking. I’ve been making six kinds of Christmas cookies for more than forty years. If I’d skipped this activity my family would conclude that something is terribly wrong with Mom.

So rather than face that, I found the baking sheets, the cookie cutters, the tins and other necessities. Five of the six kinds of cookies I make come from a book of recipes made by my maternal grandmother the year before she died. We are into at least the sixth generation making some of these, so I can see why my family has expectations.

daughter and granddaughter

One of the types of traditional cookies I make are the hazelnut wreaths. They are delicate and delicious with the flavor of the nuts, which some people call filberts. They’re cut with a donut cutter to make the round wreaths and decorated, in the absolutely worst job of the entire cookie-making extravaganza, with red and green dyed candied pineapple intended to suggest a bow. This involves sticky fingers and lots of cursing and everyone usually scatters when I am looking for volunteers. My husband Bill was kind enough to do the job this year.

The truth is I’m not much of a baker. Aside from seasonal fruit pies, the Christmas cookies are often the entire output of my baking year. My hazelnut wreaths look more like hazelnut flat tires and my butter cookie animals usually look like they come from a farm where someone is doing monstrous DNA experiments. The cookies aren’t as good as my mother’s, who was convinced hers weren’t as good as her mother’s, and so on through the generations.

Nevertheless, I persist.

Here is the hazelnut wreath recipe. May the more intrepid among you enjoy both the baking and, especially, the eating. They are worth it.

Hazelnut Wreaths

Ingredients

1/2 pound butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

4 ounces chopped hazelnuts

Directions

Cream butter and sugar and set aside.

Beat the eggs well.

Add flour, nuts, and the creamed butter and sugar to the eggs and mix until blended. (I use a food processor for this.)

Form the dough into flat circles about the size of a saucer. You will get four to six of these.

Wrap well in wax paper and place in refrigerator for four hours or overnight.

Remove one dough circle from the refrigerator and roll it out flat on a floured surface.

Cut into rings, using a cookie or doughnut cutter. Place rings on a parchment-covered cookie sheet.

When you have cut as many rings as you can, reroll the remaining dough and cut again until you have used all the dough. Then remove the next batch from the refrigerator and repeat.

Prior to baking, decorate as you wish. We use candied pineapple to form little bows on the wreathes with a red center and green at either side. However you choose to decorate, do it lightly. The flavor of the cookie is delicate and you don’t want to overwhelm it.

Bake at 350 degrees for ten to twelve minutes. The cookies should be lightly brown.

Readers: Do you have something you do or make every year that you just wouldn’t be you if you didn’t?

Bio

Barbara Ross is the author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries: Clammed Up, Boiled Over, Musseled Out, Fogged Inn and Iced Under. Stowed Away, the sixth Maine Clambake Mystery will be released December 26, 2017. Her holiday novella featuring amateur sleuth Julia Snowden is included with novellas by Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis in Eggnog Murder from Kensington Books.

Barbara’s books have been nominated for multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel, and RT Books Reviewer’s Choice Awards, as well as the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. She blogs with a wonderful group of Maine mystery authors at Maine Crime Writers and with a group of writers of New England-based cozy mysteries at Wicked Cozy Authors. In the summer, Barbara writes on the big front porch of the former Seafarer Inn at the head of the harbor in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

About Stowed Away

It’s June in Busman’s Harbor, Maine, and Julia Snowden and her family are working hard to get their authentic Maine clambake business ready for summer. Preparations must be put on hold, however, when a mysterious yacht drops anchor in the harbor—and delivers an unexpected dose of murder . . .

The Annual Holiday Madness: McKinlay-Orf Style by Jenn McKinlay

Last April, I blogged about the infamous bunny cake. How a cake pan on sale began an annual bunny cake tradition for Easter that I could not seem to break until my frosting shooter died. Well, the unexpected December tradition in our house began after we took our first family picture for our annual holiday card.

The McKinlay-Orfs at the (then) newly installed Robert Indiana statue.

It was fun so the next year I thought it would be 

cool to make a pop up card. 

That's when the madness began. People started expecting over 
the top cards from us and we didn't want to disappoint anyone, so...

It just kept getting crazier and crazier...

Zoom in on the candy cane. Yes, those stripes are 

people - us - in fact.

Every year I am convinced we'll never top the year before, but so far so good, although I do have a few that are forever favorites. It's become our family tradition to plot out the card and designate a day to put it together. In fact, I just sent the order for this year's card today. 

You'll have to check my Instagram or my FB page if you want to see it (it's the only time I ever put current pictures of the Hooligans on my professional page as I do try to respect their privacy and all). With Hooligan 1 headed off to college soon, I imagine that will be the end of it, but it has been a lot of fun for us and when I look back at the cards, I always smile.

So, how about you, Reds and Readers, do you have any family traditions that caught you by surprise? What are they?

What's Your Recipe for Thanksgiving?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today I'm packing, picking up the rental minivan, taking the dog to the kennel and girding my loins for the eleven-hour drive to Alexandria, VA. (That's eleven hours with stops but without traffic jams. It has been known to take up to 14 hours.) We're going to be sharing Thanksgiving with my sister and brother and their families and dogs. (We are all dog people, averaging 2 per household.)


We try to keep the holiday in Washington every third year or so. We love our visits. Ross and the kids and I stay in a suite hotel so everyone can retreat into their corners after a long, active day together, and we always do fun things in DC. There's a huge age spread among the cousins - from 26 to 2 - and one of the aspects of our visit Ross and I love is what we call "fake grandparent outing." That's when we take Max and Xavier, or baby Robbie (all of whom are young enough to easily be our grandkids instead of our nephews) to the zoo or the Air and Space Museum. Since we'll probably be in our seventies before we have actual grandchildren capable of enjoying tapas followed by a tour of the National Geographic headquarters, we're getting our time in now. 

 
There's always a football game at Uncle Pat and Aunt Julia's, the highlight of which is their dog, Dakota, who gives double high fives when anyone says, "Touchdown!" Truly amazing. We all eat at my sister's, where she never ceases to amaze everyone with her ability to pull a full-sized Thanksgiving Day feast out of a kitchen the size of a queen bed. The meal is always excellent, as is the one the next day we'll have at my brother's (he and his wife are gourmet cooks) but the food is never really the point. Instead, it's reconnecting with our far-flung family, giving the cousins time to know each other, and cracking jokes about events that happened in 1975.


How about you, Reds? What's the recipe for your Thanksgiving?


HALLIE EPHRON: That sounds like so much fun, Julia – it would almost get me in a car for an 11-hour drive. 

 
Usually we have Thanksgiving here with family and friends, but this year we’re going to our kids in NY rather than everyone coming here. Daughter #1 has the top floor of a brownstone in Brooklyn, Daughter #2 has the floor below her with her husband and adorable daughter. We’re getting there a day early so I can cook. With another grandbaby on the way, we’re looking to forge new traditions.

 
The food: Butternut squash soup, roast turkey, gravy, stuffing (Pepperidge Farm with celery and onions added), cranberry sauce (canned, whole berry, please), mashed potatoes, green beans, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. Champagne and sparkling cider. As a treat I’m making ahead and bringing frozen, ready to bake Regina’s Butter Biscuits.


 
LUCY BURDETTE: All those celebrations sound wonderful, especially Hallie's menu:). But travel on Thanksgiving weekend is so agonizing, we've kind of given up trying to force the family to meet up. (Many are coming to Key West for Christmas instead!) My mother and her sisters shared all the holidays, rotating who would host. But in those days, everyone lived within an hour of each other. Harder now with the family spread across the country. This year we will probably join a gang of John's tennis-playing friends for a potluck at the courts. It may sound odd, but it's very festive and the food is delicious!







HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Thanksgiving was a command performance for my family every year--with two kinds of stuffing, and black cherry jello , and champagne and Oysters Rockefeller. Now we've dispersed across the country, but some things will never change. There are certain must-haves that--no matter where we are--make it be the real holiday. And now I just email my brother Chip and tease him about black cherry jello.

 

This year , we may be going to a friend's house for the actual day. But leftovers are so key, I'll make the whole spread myself, just for Jonathan and me. A turkey, because it smells SO good, with the butter-in-cheesecloth method. Pepperidge Farm stuffing with celery and onions. Cranberry sauce, with orange peel and real cranberries, easy and SO tart and wonderful! Mashed potatoes, my one time of eating them per year.  Champagne and Oysters Rockefeller, toasting my mom for beginning the tradition.



 
and then--leftovers! And I can make my special secret Turkey Tetrazzini. Turkey white meat, sauteed-in-buttery-garlic mushrooms, all in white sauce. Put in casserole with pasta. Bake, topped with toasted golden parmesan. Oh, my gosh. DEE-licious.

 

RHYS BOWEN: Every other year we have the big Thanksgiving in Arizona and the whole family comes. This year it will just be daughter Clare's family, maybe our daughter Anne from LA and us, along with our son-in-law's mother and sister. Clare always makes the most amazing stuffing, roasting french bread and vegetables then combining it with good stock. I have to make my mother's recipe apple crumble. We buy pumpkin pie (because I'm not keen on it so won't make it from scratch). We usually play bocce ball on the lawn, corn hole toss and ping pong before sitting down to dinner. In Arizona we can pretty much guarantee fine weather. 


I suppose because I didn't grow up with Thanksgiving it doesn't mean as much to me as Christmas. I would hate it if the family couldn't all get together for the Christmas holiday.


SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Love, love, love Thanksgiving, which we'll be celebrating this year with a gaggle of puppeteers, a few odd Brits (in both senses of the word), an author, an actress, maybe a ballet dancer, and really anyone else who wants a place at the table (Hallie? Want to swing by for dessert?). We're in NYC for it, as Hubby is usually on the Sesame Street float for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as one of the muppets. This year he's going to be Big Bird.

 
The Sesame float is always one of the first out, so he's up by 4 a.m. and off to Macy's. Meanwhile, we've both prepped food the day before, so my job is basically to get everything in the oven at the right time. The menu includes turkey and gravy, homemade cranberry orange sauce, homemade cranberry-apple chutney, collard greens, corn soufflé, biscuits, sweet potatoes, and Pinot Noir (I like it with turkey). For dessert, we let guests bring things — true fact, Broadway actors/actresses always bring Junior's Cheesecake — there's one in Times Square. So we tape the parade, puppeteers come over, lots of them have been up since four, so they nap where they can.... Then we watch the parade, and then there's dinner! Much to be thankful for....

 
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, what fun, Julia! And Susan, how cool is it that Noel is in the Macy's parade. I'll be watching this year for sure. All this makes ours sound a bit dull, but still we are really looking forward to it. Many years we've done Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's, but my uncle passed away last year and the crowd is getting smaller. Things are changing in our family, too. With the grandbaby on the way, my daughter is wanting to establish her own traditions. So we're having Thanksgiving at my daughter and son-in-law's this year, just the four of us and our friend and neighbor. (Although I suspect that there will be open-door at their house after the meal with their crowd coming and going.) 


We're having honey-glazed ham and have ordered a smoked turkey from our local (terrific) barbecue place. I'm in charge of the dressing (Texas is the South in that regard, and it must be cornbread) and gravy. We're still planning the rest but there will be sweet potatoes, potatoes, broccoli/cheese casserole (from scratch), and my cranberry orange relish. And pies! As Susan says, much to be thankful for this year.

JULIA: When we watch the Macy's parade on Thanksgiving morning, we'll all be looking out for Noel! I may get extra cred with my young nephews when I tell them I know Big Bird's wife!

How about you, dear readers? Friends? Family? A restful day at home eating turkey breast and watching the National Dog show?