Day 6

A cute little elf

Day 5

The Grinch: “The nerve of those Whos. Inviting me down there - on such short notice! Even if I wanted to go my schedule wouldn't allow it. 4:00, wallow in self pity; 4:30, stare into the abyss; 5:00, solve world hunger, tell no one; 5:30, jazzercize; 6:30, dinner with me - I can't cancel that again; 7:00, wrestle with my self-loathing... I'm booked. Of course, if I bump the loathing to 9, I could still be done in time to lay in bed, stare at the ceiling and slip slowly into madness. But what would I wear?”

...from the movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Day 3

This has Christmas written all over it:

Glühwein (Mulled Wine)

Ingredients:

1 bottle (750 ml.) red wine

6 whole cloves

4 star anise pods

2 cinnamon sticks

2 juniper berries

2 oranges

1/4 cup brown sugar

Preparation:

Pour wine into a medium pot. Add cloves, star anise, cinnamon and juniper berries. Bring to a gentle simmer over low heat, don't let it boil. Meanwhile, wash oranges and cut into 1/4-inch slices, toss into wine. Add brown sugar and stir until dissolved. Simmer wine mixture 10 minutes. Strain and serve piping hot in mugs.

From Cloud Nine Alpine Bistro, Colorado via Sunset Magazine Dec 2013

A sort of Advent Calendar Day 1

Waiting for Santa...

Real fiction

I was a kid that was constantly reading, whatever I could get my fingers on, from my father's extensive Readers Digest collection and his Bertelsmann Book Club books to our small town's library stack, reading my way through anything that looked even faintly interesting.

One of the books that fell into my hands was called The Egg and I which also had a few sequels. I couldn't get enough of these stories that quirkily describe a place that was completely exotic to me. Where ferns grow as big as umbrellas and mushrooms the size of my father's fist (which is a very big one!). Muddy egg farms house hundreds of chickens, thousands of eggs and cake recipes ask for 40 eggs at a time. There are comically eccentric neighbors that smuggle illegal alcohol, and the heroine has to wake up at 4 am to catch a ferry to go to work, and sleeps in her car when the one going home is unserviceable. Spunky skunks and raccoons bug the hell out of the residents. And always rain and more rain, every plant growing so fast that you can practically watch its progress.  

I would never have believed that this was real, until I got married and found myself with a family living on Washington's Vashon Island, the setting of the story. Whenever I visit and set foot on this darling little island, I can't help but feel like I am stepping into a work of fiction.

Vashon just has that dreamy, fairy-tale way about it, especially in the winter, with quiet and misty days and the comforting smells of moss and wet soil. And everything does grow like crazy!

My brother-in-law Steve just walks outside their house and picks plenty of rainbow chard that has taken over an empty flower bed, growing like a weed. He makes an awesome, stick-to-your-ribs kinda breakfast for everyone almost every day. It varies at times, but always involves some hardy sautéed greens, lots of slowly caramelized onions and an ungodly amount of finely chopped fragrant garlic with some fresh eggs from their chickens cracked on top. The cozy kitchen smells delish and the commingling of garlic with a cup of strong coffee works surprisingly well. Nothing fictitious about that!

The Egg and Steve Vashon Breakfast

Serves 2 - 4

1 bunch of red or rainbow chard, removed from stem and roughly chopped to bite-sized pieces

½ small onion, finely sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 TB olive oil

1 sweet potato, diced into ½ inch cubes

4 large eggs

Salt and pepper

Sharp cheddar cheese (optional)

Wash chard and dry well. In a large skillet, cook onion in olive oil over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes or until golden. Add the sweet potato cubes and garlic and cook for about 10 more minutes or until potatoes are barely tender. Add chard to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally until the greens begin to wilt and cook down but are still bright green, about 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Make four small dents in chard and crack eggs into it. Cover and cook until just set. Grate some sharp cheddar over eggs before serving.

Somewhere in Africa

Africa is damned far away. It took the better part of three days to get to our small Zambian bush chalet crafted of local thatch and reeds, complete with a romantic mosquito net and a floor made of packed earth. But it was a great journey by big and small planes, by bus and Range Rovers.

We drove by small villages boasting rondavels and brightly colored storefronts probably left by the Brits from the colonial years. I marveled at places with names like “God Gives Restaurant and Take Away“ and a club titled “Promises and Lies”.

Kids waved at us with shiny coffee-colored faces and toothy grins, adults rode their bicycles with poise and heavy loads, and then all of a sudden we were out in the middle of nowhere, breathing the warm smells of a different existence.

We felt hardly any resentment towards the person who woke us up at a pitch-black 4:45 am, because he always left a pitcher of hot water next to the sink. The mornings were surprisingly chock-full of the most unusual noises, and a handsome man named Special made us a cup of bush tea that we drank by the cozy wood fire. Which we welcomed at 5 am, but by 7 am, it was Africa hot, and by 9 am, all the animals were out of sight.

So bright and early, our cool guide took us single file through the bush followed by an even cooler looking national park guard in fatigues plus gun. We quietly walked by gnarly ebony trees and ancient Baobab trees and snuck up on evil-looking 14 foot crocodiles, noisy waddling hippos, messy elephants and eventually a few real! lions that were so close we heard them growl. My heart was definitely beating faster and louder, but it made me feel very much alive.

We were fed wonderful food: grass-fed beef, fish from the Zambesi river, grilled Boerewors and always spicy chutneys. Clearly, I needed to see the bush kitchen. It was spotless in its humble simplicity, the same hard dirt-packed floor as our hut. The ever-smiling adorable chef who was in all honesty wearing a huge white chef's hat cooked absolutely everything over an open fire with smoldering hard wood. He even baked his perfectly crusty bread in a hole in the ground.

Especially his Bobotie made me undoubtedly gain a few pounds. An indigenous dish from South Africa, to me it reflects some of the stirring African history using ingredients that were brought by Dutch East-Indian settlers and also by the British via India during the colonial era. The lean beef is pleasingly sweet from the raisins and slightly spicy from the aromatic curry and fruity chutney, and is baked under a lush layer of eggs and bananas.

What can I say but I heart Africa.

Bobotie

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:

1 lbs lean ground beef, preferably grass-fed

2 slices of day-old baguette

1 small onions, finely chopped

2 small garlic cloves, minced

1/3 cup raisins or currants

1/3 cup slivered almonds

2 tablespoons of Mango chutney

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 ripe banana

1 tablespoon lemon juice

sprinkling of nutmeg

4 teaspoons curry powder

Pepper and salt

Preparation:

Soak the torn bread in water until soft and squeeze out excess moisture. Mix well with the ground meat, onions, garlic, raisins (or currants), almonds, chutney and one of the eggs.

Season with salt, pepper, 2 teaspoons of the curry powder and the lemon juice.

Spread into buttered casserole dish (I use my well-seasoned cast iron pan) and bake by 425 degrees in pre-heated oven for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk the milk with the 2 remaining eggs, 2 extra teaspoons of curry and season with salt and nutmeg.

Slice peeled banana and distribute the slices evenly over the meat. Pour over milk and bake an additional 15 – 20 minutes or until set. Serve with additional chutney.

Burned and squashed

The summer I moved to California I lived inland, about 20 miles away from the coast. And it was hot! I wasn't used to a heat that made the candles in our apartment warp in their holders, and I found it a little unnerving. But the apartment building was equipped with a pool, and I spent many hours cooling off and getting burned.

I slathered on plenty of sunscreen, but as a blonde with pale skin, I got my share of sunburns that August. Yet one good thing happened at the pool, I met my very first American friends retired Jack, with a stomach as round as a soccer ball and his cheery wife Ginny.

They both liked to cook, and we bonded over food. When zucchini came in season, they gave me my very first American cookbook with plenty of zucchini recipes. They also told me a funny story about some friends who were so overwhelmed with the sheer quantity of their harvest, they left zucchini anonymously at people's front doors at night like abandoned babies on the steps of a church. I ate zucchini in Italy before, but never had I seen them in such abundance and in such sizes and colors. They were just about everywhere, a cornucopia in grocery stores, farm stands, backyards and even in the lunch room at work.

I find zucchini just plain beautiful, shiny green with tiny light specks. They have a subtle, slightly sweet taste and are a great partner to Italian ingredients like basil, rosemary, garlic, olive oil and parmesan cheese. For a light summer soup, I use small tender ones that I cut into rounds and quickly sauté in peppery olive oil. I simmer the zuccs in vegetable broth and purée them when tender. The soup has the loveliest shade of pale green, the flavor elevated by a squirt of lemon.

Over the years, I lost touch with my old friends Jack and Ginny, but I still have that very first, well-worn cookbook.

Zucchini Soup with Basil and Lemon

Inspired by the Nitty Gritty Cookbook

Serves 4

1 lbs Zuccini, sliced to ¼ inch thickness

1 small onion, cut in half and sliced

1 ½ tb olive oil

2 cups vegetable broth

3 medium-sized leaves of fresh basil

Juice of ½ lemon

Salt, pepper

Additional basil leaves for serving

Parmesan cheese to taste

Sauté onion in olive oil on low flame for about 15 minutes until golden and fragrant. Add zucchini and stir until slightly browned. Cover with broth and simmer gently for another 10 - 15 minutes until zucchini are tender. Let cool a little and blend with the basil leaves until frothy and creamy, adding an additional ½ cup of water or more. Season with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Serve hot with a chiffonade of basil and a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.