An opportunity for grace

It's been a remarkably cold December here, but we've managed to get in a few achingly beautiful beach walks. The sky is blue enough to stop you in your tracks, the water still warm enough to step through the shallows barefooted, and presumably the whales are gliding by, heading southward for the calving season. There are few places more perfectly suited to contemplative reflection, at least for me. My dear old person walks with me. Sometimes we marvel together over the minutely miraculous - brightly colored starfish or pods of dolphin dancing above the shimmering water - and sometimes we indulge our own interests. He looks for Spanish silver; I look for shark teeth, and let my mind wander. Perhaps because of the recent Season of Light, I've been thinking about the Biblical "more blessed to give than to receive" injunction. Because the MadriGalz were fortunate enough to carol for our patron Miss Dot this year, the theme was especially compelling to me.

The Dalai Lama said something like this (and I hope His Holiness will forgive me for paraphrasing him): Make someone else happy to find happiness yourself. Most of us know this to be true in one way or another. Research has been done indicating that humans are more or less hard-wired to donate generously when the recipient in need can be perceived with a human face. Statistics, no matter how heartbreaking, do not move us in the same way as personal appeals we can associate with real people. Appeals telling us that inumerable people are starving in Darfur are far less likely to move us than the very same appeal when it's delivered with the faces of the people or specific personal stories. And when we donate in response to such appeals, neurological chemistry rewards us. We feel good about giving. Spiritual texts and guides entreat us to do this, our brains reward us, and it's easy to believe that it is, indeed, more blessed to give. Certainly it is blessed to give.

But is it MORE blessed? The MadriGalz caroled this year for our friend and patron, Miss Dot, who is confined to bed, suffering a painful illness. It was a kindness, much appreciated by Miss Dot and joyfully welcomed by her family, for us to visit and sing some of her favorite carols. But I believe it was more blessed of Miss Dot to accept the gift with humility and patience. When Rodney's dad was afflicted with Alzheimers and had to accept care from his family, it was nearly impossible for him to do it gracefully. He had grown accustomed to dispensing such kindnesses as he could, but had never learned to accept the return of kindnesses from others. The folks I work with combine their treasure and talents to "adopt" a family during the holiday season. The outpouring of gifts to provide presents and a holiday feast is always moving. What always amazes me more is the ability of the receiving family to accept the generosity. In each case the recipients are, in truth, providing the givers with an opportunity for grace. We feel good about ourselves. We face our spiritual standards, our God by whatever name and in whatever language is native to us, with joy and a feeling that we've done something fine and good. And of course we have.

But it may be harder, and perhaps, indeed, more blessed, to receive. To allow others to care for us, to feed us, to visit us in our times of sadness or despair, to wash our bodies when we cannot do this for ourselves, to provide others with opportunities for grace...this may be one of the most blessed of all gifts human beings are able to grant one another. What do you think?

One more mistletoe kiss, and a last eggnog toast to 2010

How easily and quickly the routines and rhythms of everyday life are disrupted, sometimes seriously but often to accommodate the smallest of joys and graces. So it's been at Eat Here: all storytelling abandoned in favor of holiday cooking, MadriGal singing, friends and family visiting, and several long cold days when the lure of the fireplace was irresisible. It was purely heaven, my loves, and I dearly hope you had some of those days, too. It's time for me return to something like order, pack away joyful holiday chaos with the Christmas tree ornaments and get back to work. At Eat Here, with your indulgence, my dears, there's still time for a shared memory or two. This is a perfect sunset caught near the time of the Winter Solstice at Saltwater Cowboy's, where the MadriGalz rang in the season. As perfect as the view was, it was also breathtakingly cold for December in St. Augustine. All was merry and bright in the restaurant, though; the carols were good and the food was even better.

Christmastide has come to mean MadriGalz to me, in addition to the other blessings of the season. It means singing together with two voices I admire, love and am humbled to partner with, for just a few short weeks, in the company of some of our most beloved friends. Some of those friends are also current or past performance partners, whose kindness is especially valuable to us. (I'm looking at you, Miss Jo.) Judy has astonishing vocal range and discipline, and the ability to become almost invisible as an ensemble singer. Lis has a voice of heartwrenching sweetness, and a nearly tangible charismatic charm. And though we've been singing in this configuration together for nearly 10 years, they both surprise me over and over again. This year Miss Judy opened her bag of tricks and treated us to an impromptu version of "Santa Baby" that I didn't see coming despite nearly 30 years of friendship and shared music. If you look past the terrible picture quality (it's an iPhone, okay? And it was dark in the bar at Creekside Dinery that night), you can see Judy, Lis and our friend Rick, who kindly took the guitar for this one. What you can't see is Miss Judy, intriguingly blending Eartha Kitt's sensuality with Judy Holliday's girlish-voiced frankness, delivering a rendition we won't soon forget.

Amongst the appearances at our favorite local restaurants and various other engagements, we were also able to carol for our friend Miss Dot, the benefactor who made our CD a possibility a few years ago. It was an opportunity of grace for us, and afforded this rare photo of all of us together. We were surrounded by Miss Dot's large and amazing family, among whom are members of the locally venerated Red River Band, and it's safe to say a good time was had by all, especially the MadriGalz. In years past we've actually managed go caroling, dropping in to carol for friends and acquaintances. This was a happy return to that tradition and one for which we're grateful to the Pellicer family.

So the MadriGalz delighted in the Season; meanwhile, we got ready at home, too. The house was decorated, Santa Claus was situated in his place of honor on the roof (yes, we have a ridiculous Santa, about 3 feet tall, whose inner lightbulb has been guiding friends to our house for more years than I care to count), Christmas Rum Cakes were baked and to my complete astonishment, several Christmas cards were actually written and - get this - mailed! I know, right? I'd pretty much reconciled myself to having been dropped from Christmas card lists, having not managed to get cards out these past few years. But some cards found their way out from our pens, and some were welcomed and hung in places of honor as they came in. Holiday cards are a gift, I believe. No one should feel bad about not sending them; not everyone has time every year. But the people who do send them get to feel really good about it, especially when some of us can't manage to return the gift. I didn't get cards out to all of you, but I did think of you as I worked on them. Maybe next year. For now, though? The Rum Cakes.

This recipe was given to me years ago by my dear friend Debra, who wrote it on a piece of stationary that abides even now in a recipe box once owned by my dear old person's mother. It's the only cake I make these days that uses boxed cake mix as its foundation, and I've been meaning to reverse-engineer it so that it can be made without the boxes; maybe I'll get to that next year along with the complete list of Christmas cards. Ahem. Maybe not. In any case, here's the Christmas Rum Cake recipe, for your consideration.

Christmas Rum Cake (doubled from the original; with thanks to Debra B. for the beautiful original version)
Combine 2 boxes of Yellow Cake Mix and 2 small packages of vanilla instant pudding mix with 1 cup each of milk, vegetable oil and rum in the large bowl of your mixer. Mix gently til combined and then add 4 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat until you have a lovely creamy mixture. Pour into two standard tube pans or several loaf pans (each of these should be well-greased - I use cooking spray - and dusted with granulated sugar and if desired, pecans and maraschino cherries). Don't overfill your pans as the cake will rise above the sides; I fill the pans about 2/3 full. Bake cakes at 325 degrees for about 45-50 minutes or until they test done.

While they're baking, prepare a glaze. In a saucepan, combine 1 stick of butter (real butter - you can't cheat on this one), about 1 cup of granulated sugar, and about 1/2 cup of water. Bring to a boil carefully, and simmer at boiling for about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes. Add about 2/3 cup of rum. In really tough years I use about a cup of rum, but you can do this to taste. Remember that the rum won't really cook out of the glaze, as it does the cake, so more rum means a stronger taste. Use your judgement. When the cakes are done, use a toothpick or an ice pick to prick the tops of the cakes; this will let the glaze penetrate the surface of the cakes. Drizzle the glaze over the cakes, distributing evenly. If you've made tube or Bundt cakes, you can invert on plates to serve. If you've made loaf pans as gifts (I use aluminum pans that needn't be returned) you can cover when the cakes are cool.

Doesn't that sound nice?

That's the mistletoe kiss I meant to send you, and the final raising of the eggnog glass in a toast to the very happiest of New Years. Coming soon? Eat Here goes back to the beach in search of North Atlantic Right Whales (their calving season runs through March), gopher tortoises, porpoises, shark teeth and cloud formations and whatever other gifts are placed in our path as we walk. Thank you for walking along with us.

P.S. Gold, Myrrh and Peaches
The best gifts are the gifts of the heart, and this often means they're handmade. It sounds trite, of course, but I still have all the handmade cards the boys have given me over the years. You probably have a collection equally humble and equally treasured. This Christmas we were gifted with a dazzling collection of jewel-toned fruits, canned by our friends Tina and Jimmy. Especially beautiful was a jar of peaches, captured at the perfect fullness of summer, as golden as any sunrise. These found their way into a peach-and-ginger upside down cake, baked in cast iron and short-lived in our kitchen. I can tell you how to make one, if you're interested.

The shortcuts you can live with

You might be chopping onions or celery, or making pie crusts or wondering how to keep this in-law from boring that distant cousin or carefully selecting apples or thinking about table linens or any of a million pre-holiday things at your house. Or you may be thinking about picking things up at Publix. Or thinking, This holiday thing is bullshit: why am I worrying about this? Or getting ready to travel, or...there are as many possibilities as there are each of us. Inspired, as so many of us are, by Ms. Moon, here are some thoughts about how it works for me, along with love and hopes that the whole holiday/family/expectations thing works out well for you, too.

Africa is the starting point this year, or more accurately, returns from Africa. Having Katie home for the holidays took on a whole new importance when she was NOT home for them last year. But as big as that was, it was unexpectedly small by comparison. If you have a child of your own you know the simple pleasure and occasional heart-bursting, breathtaking, profound JOY of homecomings. We are missing one fine son for this year's feast but welcome the other home with exactly that breathtaking joy. You may have caught glimpses of him now and then, working hard just offstage to keep embarrassing typos and subtle inaccuracies out of Eat Here Eatery. He's home. In local parlance, The Baby Is Home from Africa. We have lots to be thankful for, but nothing touches this. Nothing comes close. The fuschia-bright basket of "Christmas" cactus on our back deck sings our happiness for us and connects us to the family of my dear old person, whose mother tended the ancestor of this cactus in her own garden. Dylan is home, and his grandmother's seasonal reminder of love is in bloom.

Job One for Dylan has been helping us figure out the menu, that list of dishes upon which the success of the Thanksgiving meal depends. And that list depends greatly on a delicate equation balancing what we want for Thanksgiving dinner against the shortcuts I can find a way to live with in order to get all those things on the table for one meal. If we must have pumpkin pie, what shortcuts can I take? I could make the whole thing from scratch (too time-consuming). I could cheat with a pre-made pie crust (not as good, not as good for us but work-reducing). I could cheat with a pie made by the nice ladies at Publix (not quite as good, certainly not as good for us, but opening enough time in my day to allow something else - perhaps homemade Meyer lemon meringue pie?) So: how discriminating ARE we? Can we tell the difference? If we have homemade whipped cream, will we really notice that it's a store-bought pie? And then the whole complex formula has to be applied to the other menu items. Each has its own variables. The solution to each equation is different, and each changes from one year to the next.

This year, the equation will work out something like this. The pumpkin pie will come from Publix; the lemon meringue will be made by hand down to the smallest detail, including juice and zest from lemons grown right in our own yard. The turkey and gravy will be strictly homemade. So will the stuffing. But the yeast rolls? Frozen. I have tasted Ms. Moon's Angel Biscuits and there is NO substitute. But if expectations are adjusted, no one is expecting the Angel Biscuits. Everyone will wait in reverential anticipation until the next time we're all together, when things are less hectic and the Angel Biscuits can be made without stress or heartache. (Don't tell my family, but this probably means the next time we share the table with Ms. Moon, whose hands hold the magic, here.) The macaroni and cheese will be made from scratch, but assembled on Wednesday evening. No one will mind if the pasta is just slightly overcooked. It's worth it.

And so it goes. The shortcuts I can live with as a cook whose ego is slightly overblown in the kitchen are the ones that make some downtime possible. The downtime looks a bit like watching the reflections of blue skies and drifting clouds in the shining sand on a beach where a man, a woman and a dog walk in peace, quietly savoring the joy. The Baby is home from Africa, and there is much for which to give thanks.

This may not be the last Eat Here post of Thanksgiving week, but just in case, love and blessings and thanks to all of you. I am more thankful than I can possibly put into words for the enduring generosity of each of you. Taking time to read each post, sometimes even spending more of your valuable time to share comments, opening your hearts to me this year: all these kindnesses have wrought gentle changes for me. I'm setting a place for all of you at the table this year. You're always welcome. Eat Here.

Have you eaten?

There are leftovers on the stove, as there often are at Eat Here. Tonight's are good enough to write home about, except as I'm already home, I thought I'd just write to you instead. Vegetarian friends, I love you dearly but you may want to skip this menu and its associated how-to.

The center of the plate is a variation on a recipe for Boeuf Bourguinonne. I'd always avoided this dish because it was Difficult. Julia Child said so. But I read the recipe and as usual adapted it to my own skill level and intuition, and this is more or less how I made it.

I am the very proud owner of a vintage cast iron Dutch oven, given to me by my menfolk (see how smart they are?) several years ago as a Christmas present. I considered this amazing piece of cookware carefully while opening the first bottle of the season's beaujolais nouveau. Full stop, to allow for the wine tasting. This is always an interesting taste for me because I am NOBODY's wine connoisseur. Some years I think it's a pretty good tasting wine, immature even to my decidedly undiscriminating palate. Some years I think it's too awful to drink. This year, I thought it was good. So I dove in. To the recipe, I mean, not the wine. Well, okay. To both.

I had a bit more than a pound of round steak, and 6 slices of good quality bacon. Cook the bacon to the delightful crispy but not overdone texture you know it should have, then remove it from the pan and add about 2 tablespoons of oil. Contrary to direction, I used XVOO. While the bacon is cooking, cut the round steak (or London broil or whatever cut of lean braising beef you're using) into 1-inch pieces. Dredge in flour seasoned with salt and pepper (I added some ground cayenne and dried thyme to the flour, too). After the bacon is set aside and the oil you added is hot enough, quickly brown the floured beef in batches small enough to maintain an even temperature in your pan. Set this all aside as each batch is done - it took me 3 batches to cook the 1-1/2 pounds of beef. Add about 2 tablespoons of butter to the pan. The traditional recipe seems to ask for a dozen or so small pearl onions but I didn't have any. I quartered a red onion and half a sweet onion instead.

Toss the onions into the cast iron Dutch oven (or whatever pan you're using) and cook them slowly until they're softened. Add some finely minced garlic (I used about 2 tablespoons, but I'm a bit Emeril Lagasse on this topic - use your own instincts for this). Cook for a few minutes until the garlic is nicely browning but not close to burning, which can happen pretty quickly. Deglaze the pan with red wine (this year's beaujolais nouveau isn't a bad choice at all, but you can use any red wine you wouldn't be afraid to drink, I think). From here, I added about 2 cups more of the wine and another 2 or 3 cups of beef broth. Add the beef back to the pan along with any juices that have collected. Chop the bacon into a very fine dice (or crumble it with your fingers) and add that, too. I used 2 small bay leaves, dried marjoram and dried thyme. The recipes seem to call for the fresh versions of the herbs but I didn't have them on hand and they were really expensive at Publix. Dried herbs can be our friends. I added a bit of kosher salt and some pepper but not too much on the theory that I had time to correct the seasoning later. And here again, the recipe calls for sauteed mushrooms, but since my people just pick them out I skipped this. Julia Child calls for tomato paste, but I left that out, too. Cover the cast iron pot with a tight-fitting lid and bake at about 325F for...well, for awhile.

I put a couple of sweet potatoes into the oven at the same time, having scrubbed them and poked them lightly. After all, a roasted sweet potato, as we've discussed here, is just flat good for you and needs very little help to be ready to eat. So. Easy. And I had fresh green beans so those went on the stovetop to simmer with a couple of peeled, quartered potatoes and one of the extra slices of bacon, to make the peeps happy. Seasoned with a little kosher salt and a lot of pepper, these pretty much cooked themselves. I keep a blend of basmati and brown rices on hand always, because the basmati has that lovely popcorn fragrance as it cooks and the brown rice lends a warm, slightly nutty flavor. After the meat had been cooking for about an hour, a big handful of baby carrots when into the gravy to simmer and I put the rice on to cook. Dylan finished the meal with a few rolls - they were frozen (Alexia focaccia rolls) but pretty damn good. The final plate is what you see above.

There's the heart of Eat Here Eatery, my loves: had we a real restaurant, this is what we'd have plated up for you tonight. We'd have had a vegetarian option, and perhaps a non-red-meat option, but this would have been the blue plate special, as it were. But don't worry: there are leftovers on the stove and it's early, yet.

Pre-season greetings from the MadriGalz

Have I mentioned The MadriGalz to you at all? Stop me if you've heard this. Oh. You have? Of course you've heard it. And for what's not likely to be the last time this holiday season I beg your indulgence once again so I can share our December performance schedule.

We're excited to begin the holiday season in downtown St. Augustine at At Journey's End Bed & Breakfast for the 17th Annual Holiday Bed & Breakfast Tour. (I'm including more links than usual so you can see more about the places and events for yourself.) We'll be caroling for visitors to At Journey's End from 2-5 pm on Saturday, Dec. 11.

That same evening we're honored to sing in for the second year in the comfortable dining rooms of a true local favorite, Saltwater Cowboy's, where we'll be caroling from room to room from about 5:30 until about 9:30. If you can't join us on December 12, we'll also be at Cowboy's on December 17 for the dinner hour.

Last but especially dear to our hearts, we'll be caroling twice this year at Creekside Dinery, on Sunday, December 12 and finally on Sunday, December 19, from about 5 pm until 9. If you've been to Creekside, you'll know about the delightful fire pit out on the deck overlooking the water, complete with marshmallows for toasting. And if it's too chilly for outside dining, we'll sing from room to room and bring a touch of The Season of Light right to your table. And if you haven't been to Creekside...well, come see for yourself.

If you're not separated by too many miles or other social obligations we would love to welcome you. If you are, we hope you'll be able to support live music this season in your own locale, where you probably have a talented local group performing The Messiah or The Nutcracker. Maybe it will be a group of kids singing The Dreidel Song, or perhaps something completely different but just as wonderful. From the hearts of the MadriGalz to the hearts of you, may the music and traditions of the season bring you peace.

P.S. Roasted sweet potatoes

'Tis the season: all sorts of expectations and window-dressings will be suggested or applied to one of our most perfect foods: the sweet potato. For the holiday meals, you gotta do what you gotta do (or what your mother did, or his mother did, or grandma did...you get it)

Before (and after) the holidays, sweet potatoes are easy to cook, amazingly good for you, and about as easy to dress up as runway models, though admittedly not as glamorous on the outside. The easy part: choose 2 or 4 sweet potatoes of roughly similar size and shape. Scrub them clean and puncture in a couple of places as you would for baking potatoes. Place in a glass pie plate or baking dish or on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. Oven roast until tender (usually about an hour).

While the potatoes roast, focus on toasting sliced or chopped almonds or chopped pecans. Pecans have a great flavor, but they're higher in fat. Almonds are one of those perfect foods, defying reason, nutritionally speaking. Toasting really brings out the flavor of nuts, so whether almonds, pecans or walnuts (or any other variation) you'll want to to toast them in the oven, or on the stovetop in a cast iron skillet. For the latter, use a clean skillet. Toast the nuts carefully over low heat. Nuts have lots of oil in them, which is why toasting is a good idea, but it also puts them at risk for burning so you have to watch carefully. The good news? You can use less almonds, pecans, walnuts or whatever, because toasting dramatically enhances the flavor. Toast until you have very lightly browned nuts, with much deeper flavor. Set these aside to cool.

When the potatoes are done, remove from the oven and allow to cool slowly. Meanwhile, whisk together in a small bowl 2 tablespoons of softened butter, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, ground cinnamon to taste and ground ginger to taste. When you're ready to serve (and these along with a nice green salad CAN constitute dinner) split the potatoes. Top with the butter mixture, and garnish (sort of; you're actually going to eat this garnish) with toasted nuts. Finish with a drizzle of maple syrup OR tupelo honey. And on this last touch, seriously: do not skimp. Pay the breathtaking $10 for good maple syrup at your local grocery, or the same amount for your local honey. I'm not sure you can get tupelo honey in say, France, but you have to get the local equivalent. And of course maple syrup is preferred. It's a food group of its own, almost, and is the perfect companion to those plain and prosaic sweet potatoes.

Which really won't be plain OR prosaic when you serve them. Let me know how you like them. Do you have a better way of serving them between the holidays, avoiding the de rigeur things like tiny marshamallows? I know, I know: I have to do those things, too: they're Expected. But you guys are completely UNexpected. So do share. Love, love.

Celebration, understated

When your age changes from XLVIII to XLIX, you take notice. After all, you're looking at L. You gotta take stock, think it over; reflect. Dress up, go out, have a party?

Or maybe your XLIX isn't the kind that comes with a tux or a suit, or fancy reservations. Maybe you mark the ultimate or penultimate mileposts in your own way, and I hope you do, whether or not fancy dress is involved. Here's my Dear Old Person, marking XLIX in an unforgiving 15-knot northeast wind, his face turned into the blue Atlantic. He's wrapped in layers of cotton tee shirts and fleece, carrying a rough picnic lunch courtesy of the Publix deli in his backpack. Despite the chilly wind, he's looking into the stunning blue of the sky, watching beyond the breaking waves for any sign of early-arriving whales and giving thanks without fanfare for the anniversary of November 13.

The cycle of high and low tides didn't match neatly to the warmest part of the day, but we found the mark of the most recent high tide to have left fascinating fingerprints. Where only a few days before the dunes undulated gently between the shoreline with its persistent breakers, and the higher, more permanent dunes, anchored by beach grasses and sea oats, the Great Mother showed a wholly different face on Rod's birthday. Overnight, the relentless tide carved out sharp cliffs standing in relief against the level of the ocean itself. Some of them were 4 or 5 feet tall. Some were even taller. Just out of perfect focus, any of them might have passed for images of the Grand Canyon, right down to the striations and layers of rock and sediment which in this case were likely composed of a visible layer representing each tidal passing. In this photo, the high point at the far right is about 6 feet above the breaking waves below. And those white bundles on the sand are sea foam, further illustration of the water's astonishing energy, churning each wave into beautiful clusters of bubbles, each casting itself into the windward motion, disappearing on the wind.

(A note about sea foam and Boxers, or maybe Dogs Generally, without regard to breed: our Meg finds chasing sea foam almost as satisfactory as chasing birds, which is forbidden to her. April, a foster dog much beloved of us who is now happily beloved in her Forever Family despite issues with breast cancer, had more fun chasing sea foam on the beach than I can put into words. Take your dog to the beach in a northeast wind if you can. And if you can't, curl up together and tell her stories about the beach. If you're telling stories you can even tell her about chasing birds. I'll never tell.)

The shoreline drew us onward, as it always does. We walked up to the northernmost edge of Guana's beach-facing Eastern border. At the very edge of the protected land just south of the sign marking the border we spotted several turkey buzzards; some were in flight and others seemed to be rotating in and out of a certain spot. When we got close enough, we could see what had attracted them. A mature loggerhead turtle, dead, had washed near the high tide line and was nestled against the sheared-off dune line. The shell was easily 2 feet from the back of the turtle's head to the posterior edge. How old was this turtle, we wondered? How did this turtle compare to the tiny baby hatchlings from this year, whose small bodies would fit neatly into the palm of your hand? I'm not sure, but I can tell you I'll be asking the Turtle Superhero guys for their insights; stay tuned. The edges of his shell were carefully covered by Rod to protect the body from encroachment by the buzzards - we called in the find and were hopeful someone would be able to analyze the remains for useful information.

So: how old was this beautiful old turtle? Female loggerheads begin to reproduce, I think, when they're about 15 years old. They are long-lived as a species and as ancient amphibious denizens of the planet. Perhaps this one had long passed his or her L birthday; perhaps the sighting was a kindness from the Great Mother of the ocean. Happy birthday, Rodney: thank you for helping as a steward of the planet. Take joy in every moment.