Rhode Island 100 mile

When Josh, my mom and I were visiting Charlotte and her parents in Sweden last year, I had sugar cubes.  It’s not the first time – or even the first time in a long time – that I’ve had sugar cubes but something about the experience reminded me of my Far-far (my grandfather in Swedish).  It was one of those moments when a memory, long buried among the various other memories makes itself known in a good way.  I thought of my Far-far having coffee at my parents’ kitchen table (which is now our kitchen table, which had once been my Far-far’s wife’s family’s table), dropping sugar cubes into the cup and then dunking hard cookies into the sweetened coffee.  So when Charlotte asked if she could bring anything over on this latest trip, I asked for sugar cubes.  So when I have my tea I put a few sugar cubes in and say hi to Far-far  . . . and to Charlotte!

Our first post of the year is actually about an event that happened a week ago- the annual Christmas Eve dinner. I cook a special feast for Ingrid as part of my Christmas present to her…and this is what I whipped up:

Grating frozen bacon to go into the dehydrator to create a bacon powder.

Double brioche- one has a special surprise inside…

Celery root chips.

Gotta have a beer (or a few) while cooking…

Chestnuts waiting to be prepped.

Brussels sprouts still on the stem.

The stack of cookbooks to guide my way.

Slicing the brioche.

Roasted bone marrow.

Anthony Bourdain’s ”Last meal” Fergus Henderson’s roasted bone marrow and parsley salad (on toasted brioche).

The brioche with the special surprise- garlic sausage baked in!

From the 12 o’clock position:  bacon powder, chestnut puree, dehydrated onion stick, celery root chips, chocolate covered brown sugar cubes, bay leaf bubbles, mushroom puree in a brussels sprout leaf cup and nutmeg mousse all on top of a parsnip sauce.

Citrus poached lobster with endive, carrot and shallot.

Miniature doughnuts with semifreddo (not pictured).

…surely some of these dishes will be added to the repertoire for 2011!

                                   -Josh

Josh and I are having a few friends down to celebrate New Year’s Eve.  It has turned into a beer dinner of sorts since Chris and Grace are coming and how can we not have a beer dinner when Chris and Josh are in the house?!  Grace issued a challenge to Josh and I – make at least one dish from Barbara Lynch’s Stir cookbook.  We started on the dish tonight and below are some of the pictures – you won’t get to see the final dish until after the actual dinner.

So it’s a pasta dish – the flour and salt well with whole eggs is in the forefront of the picture below.

Adding in the egg yolks.

Using the fork to work the flour in.

Kneading the dough until it is as “supple as your earlobe” according to Barbara Lynch.  I’m not sure it was that supple but it felt good.

On the left is Josh “rolling” out the dough – via the Kitchen Aid mixer pasta roller attachment.  We used to have the hand-crank kind of pasta roller – this is so much better!  On the right is Josh cutting the agnalotti into separate pieces.

Since we’re not cooking them until Friday night, we need to put them into the freezer.  Below is the finished agnalotti before it makes its way to the freezer.  I can’t wait until the agnalotti make their way to my mouth!

We aren’t big into decorations for the holidays but we did pick up a star to put in the window.  We saw them all over Sweden when we were visiting Charlotte last year – we finally found one we liked a few weeks ago.  We hung in in the front window and this is what it looked like on Sunday night in the middle of the blizzard.  I know this has nothing to do with food but I think it’s a very peaceful picture and wanted to share it.  Josh took the picture – I was inside getting warm after shoveling!

This is the fourth year that Josh and I put together a gingerbread “house” for my parents.  The first year, I bought a gingerbread house kit and we were going to make a house but then thought it would be funny to make it into a casino.  We had a poker table inside the house and a slot machine outside the house.  When we look back at the pictures, it’s very amateur!  The next year we did my dad’s red truck full of “brush” (gingerbread houses) because of the huge ice storm they had and the 187 trips to the town dumping ground for brush.  Last year we did the US with my parents’ Scion to commemorate their trip out West to see our friends the Marsellos.  This year, we weren’t sure what to do but then thought of all those New England sports fan’s prize packs he has won.  My dad has won about 15 packs – mostly the Red Sox, a number of Bruins and one Celtics.  I found some fun cookie cutters and off we went!  Below are the pictures – it was a big hit!

Just some of the ingredients and decorations.

Rolling out the dough.

Putting the couch together – the first time I’ve done “support beams”!

Getting ready to use the new cookie cutters.

The frosting that is like cement is on the left.  You need to keep a damp cloth over it – even while working so it doesn’t dry out.  On the right is the assembly of the “box”.

A bunch of the details.

My parents sitting on the couch with Franklin – we even put the ramp in that my parents have for the dog!

The final product.