Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

It happens every Christmas

Posted on Written by

Every year, once Thanksgiving is past, a strange feeling comes over me. I’m filled with a desire for knowledge, a quest to expand my horizons, a need to expand my boundaries and improve my being, body and soul.

I speak, of course, of an extreme — and uncharacteristic — interest in fashion.

Every Christmas, man. Like clockwork I know this is coming. I page through Vogue at the supermarket. I pick up In Style and consider getting a subscription. I love it when my hairdresser is late for my appointment because that means I have that much more time to page through the catalogues and magazines laying around. I start watching What Not To Wear again and wish someone would give me $5000 for a wardrobe spree, dammit. I make lists of things I want to buy at some point, like leather boots (why in the hell would I buy knee-high leather boots?).

Why does this happen? I have no idea. The catalogues? Having to go to the mall to do some shopping and actually seeing what’s out there? Anticipation of spring and wanting a new beginning? I have a closet that is not at all filled with clothes; we dumped some ridiculous quantity of clothing on Out Of The Closet when we moved from LA and I’ve never gotten around to replacing it. I have an unfortunate uniform at the moment: jeans and some kind of over-the-head top. It used to be jeans and a t-shirt, until even I got tired of the way that looked, all shapeless and asexual.

And, of course, the other moms at kindergarten and preschool are snappy dressers. (I swear, the moms are thinner, blonder, and more fashionable here than they were in LA.) I feel so out of it being such a lump. I don’t want to be the Dowdy Mom.

We’ll see if anything comes of this — I’m one of these women that says, “When I lose weight,” and considering the amount of running I’m doing, that’s not an idle proposition. And given the amount of planning that’s going into my Christmas celebrations, buying new clothes is the last thing on my list! (Buying a rotisserie pan for the prime rib was number one, but I went and got that today.)

Christmas dinner plans

Posted on Written by

In a fit of who-knows-what, last year I told my sister that I’d be more than happy to host Christmas this year.

“Great!” she said.

So here we are, in December. I’ve had lots of cooking practice in the interim. Not so much large-party preparation practice though. (Note to self: host more parties in 2006, get practice.) I’m trying to come up with my dinner menu for Dec. 25. Here are the caveats:

  • We’ll have about 9-10 adults.
  • Plus 4 kids.
  • I have one oven.
  • I have a godawful electric stove (Note to self: get gas range next year!) that has three burners. Maybe four, but one seems to be blowing a fuse. Yes, I need to get this looked at before the 25th.
  • We have a small refrigerator. I could not keep lots and lots and lots of stuff in there before the big day.

There are three basic periods to any party gathering: 1) pre-dinner, 2) dinner, and 3) dessert. Here’s what I have so far:

Snacks, nibbles, appetizer type things

  1. Gingerbread. Or perhaps the Caribbean Rum Cake I made a few months ago, which was very tasty and meant to remind us of the cake we’d gotten on Grand Cayman. Gingerbread: traditional, Rum Cake: a known quantity.
  2. Something savory. I know, I know: what’s this with “savory”? A pointless taste. But still… some people prefer it. I’m thinking cheese twists (made from puff pastry) or gougeres.
  3. Scones. My mother loves scones. Of course, I’ll have to make them with currants or sultanas (thereby ruining a perfectly fine scone, in my opinion, but she swears she loves them!)
  4. My sister usually has a platter of prawns at her gatherings. I don’t know if I want to do that, because a) my father-in-law keeps nominally kosher, and b) there’s not going to be any damn room in the fridge for a tray of prawns. Perhaps I’ll go with a tray of meats and cheeses, like pastrami and salami and brie and whatever instead.
  5. Spiced apple cider. Damn you, Williams-Sonoma, for your stores that smell of tasty spiced cider! My biggest problem here is that you can’t get real apple cider in California. This makes no sense to me, given that stuff is flown in from Chile every day, for God’s sake, you’d think we could get some real apple cider from, say, Michigan. But no go.
  6. Coffee. And tea. I probably should make some hot chocolate for los niños.
  7. Wines and beers? I hate buying too much alcohol, because in the absence of the alcohol being port, it’s just going to sit around here forever and ever.
  8. Update: During Thanksgiving Uncle Bob suggested we get a wheel of Brie and heat it in the oven with a glaze such as horseradish and pineapple.

Dinner

  1. Mushroom soup. The Amateur Gourmet posted a lovely recipe for mushroom soup from Balthazar that I think I will try this weekend as a test run.
  2. Prime rib — Uncle Bob says it’s nigh impossible to get real prime rib any more. I’m going to go by a local butcher and check into this. Barring that, I will talk to the butcher at Lunardi’s, which has a fairly decent meat counter, and discuss a special order. I made a large roast a few months ago that turned out well. All hail the instant read thermometer!
  3. Yorkshire pudding/popovers. In bulk.
  4. Green beans, possibly dressed up in some way. I think I will blanch these on the 24th, then store them for sauteing on the day of.
  5. Creamed spinach. I’m not especially fond of the stuff, but I know all these terribly misguided people who are. Cook spinach ahead of time, cream on day. Can you do that with spinach?
  6. Salad. Somehow made interesting. Despite having a wider range of tastes these days, I still find salad terribly boring.
  7. Champagne, water, juice, milk.
  8. Update: How could I have forgotten potatoes! I’ve been thinking of something like potatoes au gratin or the wonderfully rich potato dish that’s in Baking With Julia (I think) Roasting – A Simple Art by Barbara Kafka.
  9. Horseradish whipped cream!
  10. Gravy! Or “au jus.”
  11. Asparagus! Squash!

Dessert

  1. Something lovely and professionally made from Fleur de Cocoa. This will be heavily chocolate.
  2. I do, however, have a niece who cannot stand chocolate. (I’ve asked my sister if they’re sure they brought home the right baby. She just sighs and nods.) So I need to pore over my collection of dessert books for something she’d like.
  3. Some kind of fruit dessert. Maybe an apple pie? Maybe a few smallish apple tarts. These can’t be pre-assembled — no room in the fridge.
  4. Whipped cream. Must remember to stock up on the whipped cream. In bulk.
  5. Coffee and tea.

Good lord. I’m not even that fazed by how much work that would be. I’m sitting here wondering if I have to get a smallish fridge to put in the storage closet under the stairs to hold things.

The new world order

Posted on Written by

So, we were in the security line at O’Hare and I was counting off the bags we’re bringing through and I suddenly thought, Oh crap.

Sophia was clutching a plastic bag, inside of which were the two presents she got at the Adler-Ostendorf family gift exchange: a plastic box of makeup and a tea set complete with checkered table cloth, creamer and sugar bowl, and toy cutlery. Including little toy knives that couldn’t cut butter, but they’re knives nonetheless.

“We have to check the tea set!” I said.

“Oh shit, you’re right,” Darin said.

My rolling computer case, the big one I take on vacations, can double as an overnight bag (for those overnight business trips, natch). We pulled the sub-computer bag (the one actually holding the computer) out and hurriedly shoved Sophia’s bag in. Then Darin left the line and went back to the skycaps to check the bag.

Sophia was very upset, as you can imagine — she has barely let that tea set out of her hands since she got it, and every single member of her extended family was treated to at least one tea party during our Thanksgiving. We tried to explain to her that if we didn’t check the tea set, what could possibly happen is that they take all the toy knives out of it and throw them away, or even worse they take the tea set away permanently. She was not convinced. All she knew was that she wasn’t having a tea party on the plane and we promised she could have a tea party on the plane.

But you know: better safe than sorry.

During the descent into SFO I heard a clicking noise behind me, and I glanced back to see what it was. Another passenger was calmly knitting.

With metal needles.

Huh. Interesting.

“Is the whole ‘no sharp objects’ thing over with?” I asked Darin.

“She would have lost her mind if anything had happened to the tea set,” he said.