Life has been very, very busy around here, and we’ve been eating very fast, easy, unadventurous things. We’ve also eaten out a lot more, which has been a nice change of pace during this busy season. Last weekend, we went to Martin’s West, one of very favorite local places, where I had an escarole and persimmon salad with walnuts, apples, and andante cheddar cheese. It was spectacular. So, last night, I recreated it at home with what I had on hand. This is not as good or magical as the version at the restaurant, but it is an excellent winter salad. We ate it, in the spirit of Mark Bittman, with grilled raddichio, alongside a quickly seared tuna topped with capers and the broccoli romanesco left over from the kids’ dinner.
Escarole & Persimmon Salad
escarole
sliced persimmon
walnuts
Comte cheese (or, ideally, Andante cheddar)
olive oil
white balsamic vinegar
Toast the walnuts lightly in a 350 degree oven until fragrant.
Layer persimmon slices over the escarole, shave thin slices of the cheese with a vegetable peeler.
Unknown to us, Caroline & I have the same advent wreath tradition. We light ours, made with greens from the Redwood tree in our backyard and 3 tealights (3 violet, one rose for Gaudete (orRejoice!) Sunday) every night during this season. So I will leave you with just this image and a poem by Wallace Stevens which has nothing to do with food, or Advent, but with the power of light in darkness. Which is something I think we all need, and something a candlelit table can sometimes help to provide.
Final Soliloquy Of The Interior Paramour By Wallace Stevens
Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.
Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one…
How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.
My kids are fascinated by Hanukkah. Everything about the holiday, from its length, to the rituals, the candles and the games and songs, delights them. Eli checked a Hanukkah book out of the library and is working on composing a new Hanukkah song. Meanwhile, although I haven’t fried up any latkes, I’ve found a way to spin our new favorite baked good as a sort-of Hanukkah treat. We share Jewish holidays and traditions with many close friends, and tonight, at a friends’ house for dinner, they’ll get their first chance this year to light the menorah.
At home, we’ve been gathering around our own seasonal candles: the Advent wreath. Somehow we’d gotten out of the habit of candle lit dinners last summer (not only because we had a three year-old living with us, but because early, sunlit summer dinners make candles seem irrelevant), and forgot to bring them back this fall. But I’ll make sure to retain the candles this winter even after I pack away the Advent wreath.
I make one similar to the kind my mom has created for as long as I can remember: a shallow pottery bowl arranged with evergreens and four candles. Mine uses eucalyptus and rosemary from the backyard, and since I couldn’t find nice tapers, I bought tall beeswax votives from the market. Mine is a bit messy and haphazard, but it serves its purpose well. Each night in the four weeks leading up to Christmas, we gather at the table, pause before our meal, and light a candle, adding another one each Sunday. It’s a lovely moment of calm at the close of the day, a nice reminder to slow down.
We’ve been taking a cue from Mark Bittman’s latest book around here and making meat even less of presence than it usually is on our table. One of the things he suggests is to keep meat as a side course, not the focus of the meal. This is good for the eater and good for the environment. This week, this strategy happened kind of by accident, but it was terrific: economical, efficient, and versatile.
Remember that ham steak? That’s half of it on the plate. The kids ate only half of that, and the husband and I ate the other half. The following night, I cooked another quarter, choppped it up, and used it for our baked potato bar. Which was a big hit.
We still didn’t finish it, so the next night that leftover chopped up ham went into a country omelete with chives and cheddar cheese.
And we still had a 1/4 of the ham left. Kory and I finished it a few nights later with a potato/celery root mash & the left over pan sauce (which I had kept in a glass jar for just this eventuality). On the side we had roasted beets & puntarelle, and it was a perfect cold winter night’s meal.
That makes 4 meals (3 for 4 people, 1 for 2 people) for about $6 worth of meat, which in this house is an accomplishment.
This time of year, seasonal eating is often also holiday eating, as we slide from Halloween through Thanksgiving into Christmas and New Year’s. I want to take each of these in turn, give them their due, and then take a breath before the next one is upon us.
Which is why I love Advent. The liturgical calendar I’ve followed my whole life gives us four weeks of contemplative preparation for Christmas, four weeks of lessons and carols and calm. But, sadly, no specific Advent foods. Advent’s a quiet period, not quite as abstemious as Lent, but still not a big feasting time. And this year, when its first week overlaps with Hanukkah and my boys are coming home from school talking about dreidels and menorahs, it’s been a little hard to keep them focused on our traditions. And who wants to compete with latkes, anyway?
But I think I have hit on the perfect Hanukkahvent (or perhaps Adventukkah) snack: the doughnut muffin. A bath in melted butter and cinnamon sugar gives it the fried crispiness of a latke, but it is baked — not fried — to suit the more temperate Christian holiday. Compromise never tasted so good.
Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
3 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pan
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 cups pure pumpkin puree
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
For the Sugar Coating
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 12 standard muffin cups, or line them with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and allspice. In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk and pumpkin puree. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, scraping down bowl as needed. With mixer on low, add flour mixture in three additions, alternating with two additions pumpkin mixture, and beat to combine.
Spoon 1/3 cup batter into each muffin cup and bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean, 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine granulated sugar and cinnamon.
Let muffins cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack. Working with one at a time, remove muffins from pan, brush all over with butter, then toss to coat in sugar mixture. Let muffins cool completely on a wire rack. (Store in an airtight container, up to 1 day.)
