GOOSE DAY REDUX: Traditional Christmas Dinner

Last year The Boy and I roasted a goose for our own little Christmas celebration before flying to California to spend actual Christmas with my family. The goose looked like a dinosaur and tasted like grease on a stick, but this year we're amping up the CHEER by making a traditional Christmas dinner with flaming plum pudding and everything. Actually, I'm considering serving the entire meal on fire to make it the Most Exciting Christmas Dinner Ever.

THIS MEAL IS ON FIIIIRE

(Topical, I know.)

Our pre-California Christmas is on Saturday, and this time around you're getting an account of preparations for the entire week! HOORAY!


Monday: The Menu

-Roast Goose. Neck still attached. 
-Bread Sauce. Because sometimes "traditional" and "gross-looking" mean the same thing.
-Pigs in a Blanket. Bacon wrapped around sausage. Mélange à breakfast meat.
-Roasted Potatoes. Roasted in goose fat. Soo hip.
-Caramelized Carrots. Obligatory vegetable, swimming in a puddle of butter.
-Roasted Brussels Sprouts. Pretty much a table decoration.
-Mince Pies. Not entirely sure this is actually food.
-Plum Pudding. Served with brandy butter and set on fire. Like all food should be.
-Hard Sauce. Five points for the best guess as to what that is, ten points if you've eaten it before. 
-Maybe some Wassail? WHO EVEN KNOWS.

This doesn't even include the traditional raw oysters and clear turtle soup.

We invited some friends to help us eat all this, but the three inches of snow predicted and an unexpected trip to the hospital (shout-out to Owen, infant who cannot read!) might mean we're on our own. We may have eaten our way through all the courses by the time the snow melts.


Tuesday: No Baking.

Winter descended upon us with an unceremonious snow dump, so I stayed home and watched White Christmas over and over until the neighbors downstairs complained about my singing and ungainly tap dancing.

Well. They leave a tiny Christmas tree and a pair of big snow boots outside their front door, presumably for Sinterklaas to leave candies in, even though no decent human should eat candy out of a boot (couch cushion or car floor is fine). Late one night I'm planning to sneak downstairs and trade the snow boots for these:

It's hard to tell without any feet in them, but those are baby boots.

I'm hoping they're not very bright, so they'll just stand there in wonder, trying to figure out whether their tree grew or their boots shrank.

But I'll also get them something nice. Like a copy of White Christmas so they can learn the songs and harmonize with me next year instead of getting all uppity and sending me fake eviction notices.


Wednesday: THE SHOPPING TRIP

To give you an idea of how this holiday season has gone, I went to three stores to buy ingredients for a traditional Christmas dinner that's also gluten-free, dairy-free, and egg-free. BECAUSE I WILL NOT SACRIFICE CHEER FOR ANY DIETARY RESTRICTION. I fought a lady over some Brussels sprouts and wandered up and down the aisles shouting, "HAVE YOU ANY SUET FOR A POOR GEHL AT CHRISTMAS TIME?"

The checkout lady examined the canned mincemeat before she scanned it and asked, "Is this any good?"

I straightened my collar and gave a little laugh. "As a mincemeat connoisseur," I told her, "I would have to say this brand ranks about a 3.5 for me. Of course I would prefer to make it from scratch from my personal recipe tweaked after years of mincemeat trial and error, but I really just haven't the time this year. Why, I still have to butcher the goose I've raised from a gosling and find homes for all the children at the orphanage. NOT TO MENTION THE PLUM PUDDING."


Thursday: The Plum Pudding

This pudding is a three-day process. Today the prunes, currants, and raisins soak in Madeira and make my fridge smell like an old person doused in booze. Tomorrow, who knows! Recipes are for chumps!


Friday: Pudding, Day Two + Mince Pies

Fact: Most English food has the color and texture of week-old porridge. I am fondly calling this Christmas dinner "50 Shades of Beige."

You'll see when it's all on the table.

The pudding is worrisome. From all the pictures I've seen, plum pudding is supposed to be a dark, glossy mound that looks like chocolate but then you find out it's all raisins and prunes and you realize life is just a slow, painful process of disillusionment. I'm pretty sure that's the reason people started setting it on fire.

However, mine just looked like oatmeal. I'd hoped it would turn plummy and delightful once I added the dried fruit all plump with Madeira, but instead it just looked like oatmeal with raisins. I'm not sure where I went wrong. It's steaming away, and maybe that will darken it somehow, but my hopes aren't high.

The original recipe calls for suet, which is hardened fat with a high melting point. Also it looks like housing insulation and apparently isn't sold in any grocery stores in the United States.

British people: Please explain.

Nigella Lawson said vegetable shortening could be used instead. But first I had to freeze it and then grate it into the pudding. Which I did - or tried to do, anyway. It worked about as well as the time I froze some Jell-o and took a cheese grater to it. On the bright side, my arms are completely waterproof now.

I did remember to add a coin to the batter, though. Whoever finds it without choking to death will find prosperity in the year to come! Which means you get to keep the sticky pudding quarter. Congratulations!

THEN CAME THE MINCE PIES!

For those of you who've never tried mincemeat, you may be surprised - like I was - to find out that there is no meat in it. Way to be intentionally confusing, old-timey Brits. Instead, it's all citrusy and jellified and surprisingly tasty. I went the easy way this year and used store-bought mincemeat and frozen pie crusts, because I tried making a gluten-free pie crust.

Once.

These little guys actually turned out better than I expected - sweet and zesty, so tiny and cute - all in the traditional English color scheme of Various Shades of Brown.

Since tonight is our Christmas Eve, The Boy is picking up Chinese food and later we're going to bake cookies and drive around to look at Christmas lights. Both at the same time - won't that be a feat! Meanwhile, the goose is prepped, the pudding is bubbling away, and we're all bundled up for the snow storm. Seems like the perfect time to watch White Christmas.

Much to the downstairs neighbors' dismay.

Stay tuned tomorrow, won't you, for the Second Annual Goose Day Live Blog!

*               *               *

Saturday: Goose Day

9:30 am - No snow. Have never been more disappointed. Am standing at the window with my nose squished on the glass, letting out a long, high-pitched whine of sadness.

10:30 - Coffee is made, presents are opened. But am I happy? No. Because there is STILL NO SNOW.

1:50 - Watching the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol and stringing cranberries and popcorn onto floss (waxed, unflavored) to make garland. The Boy is having problems with the admittedly complicated pattern of popcorn-cranberry-popcorn-cranberry. Mostly because he's eating most of the popcorn, and I guess it's throwing him off. This wouldn't be a problem if he ate an equal number of cranberries, but he said they were "too tart" or something. Whatever. I bet starving people in Dickens novels would be happy to eat raw cranberries, with or without the floss. Way to keep the Christmas spirit.

1:53 - Garlanding finished. The string is about a foot and a half long and is now draped over one section of the tiny Christmas tree like it was just named Miss Tannenbaum 2013.

2:43 - Extremely tense kitchen atmosphere because of some heavy whipping cream. I'm using a janky stand mixer to whip it, whip it good, but if I turn the dial too high the kitchen becomes speckled with white dots, so I've been hovering for ten minutes watching the mixers turn ever so slowly, hoping it will still whip. Would I be better off using a whisk and my own raw power? Will the cream get too warm? The last time I whipped cream that was less than chilly, it turned into butter. Please advise.

2:55 - The cream is in the freezer to cool down for a while. It will be beaten. As God is mah witness, Ah'll nevah make buttah agayun!

3:00 - Pretty sure this is the longest post ever.

3:07 - Potatoes have been tossed with goose fat and paprika, and the goose fat has been drained from the roasting pan, which required taking the goose out. So, I confidently stuck a barbecue fork handle-deep in from the neck and scooped up the rear with a big ladle. Then, my elbows all akimbo and my sad little arms straining with the weight of the 10-lb bird, I quickly transferred it to a platter, dumped the fat into the sink, and wobbled the goose back into the pan. Only need to do that three more times.

3:10 - I DON'T KNOW WHY I EVEN CARE. THE ABILITY TO WHIP CREAM DOES NOT DEFINE ME.

3:12 - It whipped! Cooking is magic, you guys.

4:00 - The pudding is back on the stove and bubbling away. Things are getting pretty merry up in here.

4:12 - Snow! Big, fat flakes of it. Am standing at the window with my nose squished on the glass, letting out a high-pitched whine of joy.

5:00 - One hour until guests arrive and everything has been planned down to the minute. Goose comes out in half an hour, gravy is going on now, and at 5:30 the Brussels sprouts, carrots, bacon-wrapped sausage, and potatoes start cooking. I feel an odd sense of calm amid the chaos, like the moment in disaster movies when the characters pause to turn back and watch in awe as the gigantic tidal wave crests over whatever city's being destroyed that day. Not that I think this meal will be a natural disaster, just...you know. I'm so zen.

5:35 - The carrots are being abandoned! The Boy is making cranberry sauce! It's bubbling over in orange foam but is no longer my problem!

5:48 - HOT DAMN these bacon-wrapped sausages are delicious right out of the hot oven, but also my taste buds have been singed right off.

5:49 - "YOU GUYS! IT'S - ARE YOU COOKING OR SOMETHING?! IT'S LIKE SO HOT IN HERE FROM...LIKE, THE BURNERS AND STUFF, I GUESS. THE OVEN IS SUPER HOT TOO, LIKE A MILLION DEGREES OR SOMETHING. SO, I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT. I'LL CHECK IN WITH YOU AGAIN EVERY TIME YOU OPEN THE OVEN DOOR. TAKE IT EASY."
-the fire alarm

5:51 - The Boy asked about the bread sauce I mentioned earlier, and I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

5:56 - WE ARE ALL OF A DITHER AND IT'S SO HOT IN THIS KITCHEN

6:02 - Doorbell rings. I assume my best Katharine Hepburn voice to offer mixed nuts and crudités and cheese. The Boy entertains until it's time to carve the goose, which he picks up in his pot-holdered hands like a football and manhandles into submission. I collapse on the ground and die.

6:20 - "Now, we can beginnn the feeeed!" -The Walrus

7:48 - The pudding is on fire (and yet the fire alarm didn't go off when there were actual flames in the apartment). The boy was a little too enthusiastic while pouring on the brandy, so it's more like a moat of fire around a soggy lump of dried fruit. Let me know if you want the recipe.

7:51 - Tastes great! If it were possible to squeeze Essence of the Elderly out of grandparents, I think it would taste just like plum pudding. The one person who made it through all the snow to share our weird Christmas meal insisted that it's not that bad and ate an entire plateful of pudding. He's a good man - a brave man.

Nobody found the coin.

10:13 - Completely forgot to take pictures of the meal, but that doesn't matter. The table looked pretty much like this:

Delightful!

And now the kitchen looks like that episode of the Brady Bunch where Mr. Brady helps Marcia with her cooking badge. After dinner we played Settlers of Catan, my Christmas gift for The Boy, and Snapdragon, which involves snatching raisins out of a bowl of flaming brandy. I forgot to bring out the hard sauce at all, so I'll be taking a big spoon to that whipped cream later tonight.

AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, ELEVEN DAYS EARLY!

GOOSE DAY LIVEBLOG

Today The Boy and I are celebrating our own Christmas before we go to spend the real day in California with my family. We set out cookies and milk last night (which were not eaten, because it's Fake Christmas, and Santa was not about to travel all the way out here a few days early just to enable our delusions), and this morning we opened presents and ate bacon and got ready to cook our Christmas goose.

Goose isn't really all that different from any other bird you might want to roast, but I was being vegetarian at the age when most young people really learn to cook, so I'm still a little new to the whole process and full of questions. Like, what if you have  a cut on your hand and some of the fowl germs get into your bloodstream? Will I get bird flu? Why do they cut the neck off but leave the neck skin flapping about? I know a lot of people name their birds before they roast them, but is there any contingency - maybe a subgroup of PETA - that really frowns on that? And is it really so bad to dress up an animal after it's already dead? Or is that even worse than when it's alive?

Please advise.

Love, Carrie.

PS - I really am a little worried about the goose germs getting inside me. If this turns into an epidemic of Goose AIDS - GAIDS - I'm gonna be pissed that nobody warned me about it.

Thanks, Julia Child.

2:16 - Just got back from the store, where I completely lost my head when I couldn't find any pre-mixed nuts. Instead, I bought four bags of different kinds of nuts and will mix them myself. I WILL HAVE MY NUTS MIXED BEFORE I CRACK THEM.

But seriously, we can only eat so many nuts before our nutcracker gives out and we have to break them open with large rocks, like heathens. If you know anyone in need of some mixed nuts, please leave their address in the comments, and I will leave some in their shoes on Christmas Eve. Dutch-style.

3:30 - Goose is being stuffed with citrus and onions. I'm startled and alarmed by how relaxing it is, being elbow deep inside a wet, wrinkled carcass.

That's all I plan to say on that.

3:40 - Pricking goose skin so fat can escape as it cooks. Boy, while stabbing: THUS ALWAYS FOR POULTRY.

It tried to escape. But it could not.
Also, I'm a little worried that we're actually roasting a tiny, old dinosaur man.

4:15 - The Boy just stuck his whole head into the oven to check on the goose. Then I pushed him in, pleased that now I don't have to worry about a second course anymore. What a clever hostess am I.

4:35 - Hour one of goose cookery has passed. I'm planning to start a company that sells mixed nuts - or, if you prefer, assorted sorted nuts. Some people don't like their nuts mixed, and that's okay by me. Auntie Carrie just wants you to be happy.

4:41 - Idea for a Mixed Nut Party, where everyone brings one nut to add to the mix. Party really slows down once it becomes clear that everyone brought Brazil nuts.

5:13 - There has been something of a sauce debacle. Pepper-cherry-wine-balsamic vinegar sauce may sound fancy and Christmas-y in theory, but when somebody doesn't like it at first taste and feelings are hurt, you may start to wonder whether having goose sauce is even worth it. But soldier on. Even if you don't use the sauce for dinner, there's something pleasantly cheery about popping rich, peppery cherries into your mouth while you check on the bird. And we are ALL ABOUT THE CHEER.

5:51 - The rest of dinner is not as exciting. Sauteed mushrooms, roasted asparagus, and potatoes. BUT WAIT. The potatoes are going to be fried in goose fat, which looks like this as it's being rendered:

Yum!

It's gettin' pretty Fight Club up in here, but once the potatoes are fried we'll sprinkle them with sea salt, so that should fancy them up again.

I saw a book yesterday that tests your hipster cred. I'm not sure, but I think rendering your own goose fat to make potato chips would rate fairly high on there. "Oh these?" we'll say to our guests as they marvel over our culinary triumph, "They're cooked in goose fat from our own goose. You've probably never had them before. Duck fat fries are so mainstream."

6:14 - The Boy wonders if we need "a sprig of something to decorate the goose." HE HAS SUCCUMBED TO THE CHEER.

7:52 - To sum up, our dinner:

11:06 - The goose has been et and the dishes washed. After dinner, we all played a rousing game of Snapdragon, an old Victorian parlor game where you put raisins and brandy in a bowl and then light the brandy on fire and try to snatch the raisins out of the flaming liquid.

AND A MERRY NIGHT WAS HAD BY ALL.



Images via Sarah Says Read, The Full Wiki.

Not Your Average Christmas Pageant

I don't really need this crutch, but the ladies love a cripple!

Before I switched to public school, with its Secular, Nonexclusive Holiday Pageants-That-Ensure-None-of-the-Kids-Cry-Because-They-Didn't-Have-the-Opportunity-to-Express-Their-Own-Special-Snowflake-Traditions-Through-"Songs-of-the-Winter-Holiday"-Sung-in-the-Apathetic-Drone-of-Twenty-Five-Children-in-Homemade-Costumes . . . I went to Catholic school.

Ah. Catholic school Christmas pageants.

These were not mere shows, but grand spectacles dedicated to the young baby Jesus' emergence from the womb - which I always thought they should act out in all its vivid, Technicolor glory. The nativity is all about a birth, but you never see actual labor. Of course, you might suppose that a tiny Lord and Savior would just slip quietly out, all humble and Don't worry about it, I'll just be born in a barnyard like some sort of dumb animal, but I think it would be educational for children to watch the Virgin Mary screaming and grunting in pain. Various bodily fluids spurting about. Elaborate sets of a giant birth canal. Maybe a musical number celebrating the accomplishments of the reproductive system. Then that big moment when Joseph belts out, "The King of kings is croooowning!" while all the kids are dressed as Fallopian tubes and waving umbilical cords around like wet ribbons. Could be a very effective, Pope-approved form of birth control for Catholics.

Not to mention, a theatrical triumph! A real tour de force!

Miss Anderson's first grade class proudly presents: NATIVITY! 
First five rows are the Splash Zone - GET READY to GET WET.

Image via this blog.

On the Decoration of Trees

Guten morgen!  Season's greetings!  This morning we have some helpful tips you can use to make sure you have the best and brightest Christmas tree in your neighborhood.  Unless you live in my neighborhood, in which case your tree will be second best and kind of dim, comparatively. 

1. Choosing the Right Time:

Apparently this was the weekend to decorate Christmas trees, since the weekend after Thanksgiving was, clearly, the ideal time to buy the tree.  So if you don't already have it, you should probably just wait till next year.  Or, you can convert to Judaism.  Hanukkah starts November 27 next year, and menorahs don't wilt.  Even an idiot can handle that.

Speaking of wilting, make sure you stock up on liquid cheer for watering your tree.  This will keep it fresh and glowing throughout the holiday season.  If you choose to use plain old water like some sort of jackass, your tree will end up looking like a giant turkey carcass by December 24th.

The anti-cheer.

2.  Picking Your Tree:

We all know that the worst part of decorating a Christmas tree is finagling the lights: digging them out of storage, untangling them from the chaos that has somehow destroyed last year's nice coils, and winding the strands around the tree in a sort of prickly tango. This year, buy your Christmas tree with the lights already on it.  SCIENCE has engineered a new strain of firs that grow up out of the ground with lights bulbs already on the branches, splashing colored light on the snow.  Very cheerful, no?

Yes, very cheerful, indeed.

3.  Spend approximately two hours tying the tree to the roof of your car with heavy-duty ropes.  Twine is for amateurs. 

**Note:  Somebody out there will assuredly forget to bring rope.  Maybe you thought you could just toss it in the trunk, leaning over the seats like a pair of skis or some lumber.  My response to that is not appropriate even for the internet, and especially not around Christmas time, so I will instead ask you to just leave now, and please never participate in Christmas again.  You've disappointed us all.  Just go.

4.  Spend approximately three hours untying the tree from the roof of your car, using gardening shears because you've tied the knots too tightly, and then haul it inside to set up in the stand you've placed in the living room, preferably near a window.  This will allow for natural light to illuminate your tree during the day, while giving passers-by the privilege of stealing a glimpse of the glowing vision of yuletide glory that is your tree.  Have a friend stand at one end of the room and tell you which way to tip it until your tree stands straight and proud.  If it takes longer for you to get it straight than it did for the tree to grow, your friend is messing with you.

5.  Now, all you have to do is flit around the tree like a Christmas fairy, tucking garland under branches, nestling colored glass balls among the needles.  Breathe in the pine scent; let it fill your whole being.  That is the smell of your neighbors seething, writhing, spitting with envy.  And that, after all, is what Christmas is all about.

6.  Tinsel deserves its own number.  To have a truly cheery tree, you must douse your tree in tinsel so that it looks like a glitter blizzard decimated your home.

Beautiful.

7.  Congratulations!  Your tree is truly a delight to behold.  Now, just find the perfect topper, and you'll be done.

Perfect!

BONUS:  While wandering about the internet shouting for tree pictures, I found this little gem, which will serve as the main inspiration for next year's decorations.  Christmas 2013's theme is tentatively being called "OH CHRISTMAS TWEE."  We are very excited.

"We put birds on things!"

Images via Natotela Africa! Green GOP, Just Humor Me, Technabob, Seasons for All.