Dunk & Crumble

mollygilbert520

Fresh Citrus Salad with Kalamata Vinaigrette

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A salad!  On January 3rd.

…So?  I never claimed to be original.

It’s true though, isn’t it?  You’re eating more healthfully today.  You’re putting those cookie days behind you, for a moment, anyway, and focusing on feeling good in 2013.  I mean, aren’t you?  Isn’t that what we do this first week of January?

I’m doing it.  I’m feeling thankful for last year (and all of its cookies) and taking a moment to reset.  I’m looking forward to what 2013 has in store for me, and I’m focusing on living up — food-wise, friend-wise, family-wise, writing-wise, and probably a few other wises, too.  It’s all about the up-and-up in 2013.

This salad is a delicious and surprising reset.  It’s bright and juicy with in-season navel oranges and shining ruby grapefruit, plus it boasts plenty of salt, tang and creaminess from a simple Kalamata olive and balsamic vinaigrette, fresh scallions and softly crumbled goat’s cheese.  It’s an eye-opener on the plate and the palate, a window into the brightness this next year will surely bring.  Let’s eat it up.

Happy happy new year!

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Christmas Gingerbread

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I’m currently on an airplane, somewhere over… somewhere.  Wisconsin?  A Dakota?  I don’t know, Philadelphia to Seattle is a long flight.

I’ve got a bag brim-full of wrapped and ribboned presents tucked into the overhead bin above me, and I’m trying to ignore the fact that this airplane is chilly/bumpy/loaded with screaming children by listening to Rihanna on repeat and thinking about gingerbread.

Holiday travel!  The best of the worst things to happen every year.

Really, it’s not so bad.  We put up with the crowds and the security probing and the lines (and that moment of panic when you finally get to the front of the line at airport security and all of a sudden you are required to safely stow your ID/passport and remove your jacket/shoes/scarf/jewlery/laptop/hand lotion/spare change from your person/bag at once and wait this makes no sense, I just stood in line for thirty minutes doing nothing but it’s all happening so fast now and the people behind me are gaining ground, their shoes are already off and hurry up with that little baggie of liquids and why didn’t I wear socks and oh!  My goodness.  That moment.  Will I ever not panic on the inside at that moment?) — we put up with all of the hustle and bustle and moments of claustrophobia and panic because, at the end of the day, we know it will all lead to gingerbread.  Or roast beef or sugar cookies or lo-mein or whatever.  It leads to Christmas, with family or friends or both, however you choose to celebrate it.

I’m taking a break from my familiar movie-and-Chinese-food routine this year and celebrating with some real, live non-Jews. (!)  I know.  A crazy choice.  I’ve heard there will be a tree and a big dinner (no mention of General Tsao or his chicken) and presents and a reluctant dip (or possibly non-dip) in the freezing ocean and maybe even some carols.

And gingerbread!  Nana’s recipe.  It’s sweet and spicy and utterly lovely, its texture akin to the fluffiest, springiest layer cake.  I love that this gingerbread is heavy enough with spice to evoke the season but light enough in texture to happily follow a rich holiday meal.

Whether you’ll be eating sweet and spicy gingerbread or sweet and sour chicken on December 25th, I wish you happiness.  Fullness, inside and out, at the table and everywhere else, too.

Merry Christmas!

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Last Minute Giftable Gifts

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You guys!  It’s almost here!  He’s almost here!  With his boots and his belt and his boxes of toys!  In just one week he’ll be squeezing down your chimney to rob you of cookies.

…Santa.

Have you been too busy working/playing with sparkly ribbons/shopping for yourself/eating cookies to get your actual holiday shopping done?  I mean I totally haven’t been doing those things.  I just thought that, you know, maybe you have.  Lucky for me — I mean you, definitely you, because I totally have all of my gift shopping done and I also definitely didn’t not clean all the dishes in my sink this morning — Emily is here.

You may have heard of my sister Emily.  She is younger than I am, yes, but she is a sultan of style, a colossus of class, and the best goddamn gift giver I know.  As her older sister, I find this both endearing and irritating.  There’s no denying Emily’s gift for giving, and it would be a shame not to share her top last-minute gifty picks with you. So, here they are! Miss Emily’s top six giftable gifts this holiday season (not including that gorgeous and snappy Salty Rosemary Toffee Crunch, above):

1. Slate Cheese Board ($40 from ShopTerrain)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are made in Brooklyn, so you know they’re, like, totally rad.  What a gorgeous way to serve cheese!  Wrap up a hunk of salty Manchego or a wheel of Cowgirl Creamery’s rich and tangy Mt. Tam (one of my personal favorites!) to go alongside this beauty for one amazing/cheesy gift.

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Spicy Molasses & Brown Sugar Cookies

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Hey!  Look!  A present!  I found your weekend baking project.

This time of year, all I want to do is eat warm cookies.  Crisp-edged and chewy-centered cookies.  Specifically, these.

These taste like Christmas.  Those are Ben’s words, not mine, and he’s not even Jewish, so it’s probably definitely true.  These Christmas-time beauties are as soft and satisfying as a fresh sugar cookie, but they become blazingly rich and complex from the addition of molasses, brown sugar, and cozy warm winter spices.

A quick pre-oven roll in a pile of turbinado sugar (it’s raw and chunky and doesn’t melt during baking) gives these cookies a gloriously poppish crunch around the edges; it’s just about as satisfying as that crackly sound your computer makes when it empties your “trash.”  You know that sound.

Wrap them in pretty bows or dotty bags, or just eat the lot while standing around the kitchen table.  Either way, be sure to share a few.  ‘Tis the season, after all.  Maybe with your sister?  Probably with Santa?  That guy knows when you’ve been nice.  Ben told me so.

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Deeply Pecan Pie

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This pie.

You will want to make it.  You will be proud to partake of it, even.  It’s rich and toasty, sweetly mapled, faintly caramel-ish – it is deep, this pecan pie.  Deep in the maple/brown sugar/molasses, complex-and-nuanced sort of way, not in the literal depth sort of way.  You know.  It’s like, deep, man.

I ate this pie straight out of the dish while the rest of my family was too ill for solid food at Thanksgiving.  I sat at my parents’ kitchen counter with a fork and an entire pie.  And the crossword.  I sat there for awhile.  Just how long, well – there’s no way of knowing, really.  Does it matter?  It was gleefully guilt-inducing.  Sorry I’m definitely not sorry.

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Hannukah!

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Hanukah.  Hanukkah.  Chanukkah?

Correct spelling aside, that holiday is happening this weekend!

It starts on Saturday at sundown – are you ready?  Have you pulled your old menorah from the depths of… wherever it is that you keep it?  Bought yourself a spanking new dreidel?  Those things are fun.

Actually they’re not (not even a little bit, if I’m being honest – does anyone actually “play dreidel” and enjoy it?), but that’s not the point.  The point of Hannukah, at least in my mind, is the latke.  Also doughnuts.

Let’s start with latkes.  The potato latke!  Done right, a reverent thing.  Fried in the oil of Judah Maccabee (untrue), crisp and fragrant (true), dunked in sour cream or homemade applesauce. Hannukah’s true light.

Let’s make some.  We can even add some butternut squash for color.  Here’s the recipe!

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French Lentil Soup

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 This time of year is fast and furious.  Mostly fast and less furious, I suppose, on account of the fact that Elf plays on loop on the cable tv.  Elf is good.  Zooey Deschanel as a blond doesn’t seem entirely right, though.  It doesn’t make me furious, but I’m just saying.

Fast!  We’re only four days in, but December is already flying by.  Whoosh!  It was just Thanksgiving a minute ago.  Whoooooosh!  Now it’s pretty much Christmas.

Buy your presents!  Clean the house!  Bake the cookies!  Finish your projects and dust your mantles and pack for traveling and wrap everything everywhere and can I get free shipping with that and are you sure it will get there in time and don’t forget the cookies!!

Whoa.  All of the fast needs to just go ahead and slo-o-ow.  Let’s forget about the presents and the cleaning and the traveling and the projects and just take a minute to breathe.  To admire the twinkly lights on the coffee shop door and the smell of peppermint lattes.  To sit with Ben.  To be here, on December fourth.  To wear our warmest socks and crack open the window and cozy up with a steamy bowl of hearty soup.

Can we do that?

Good.  Let’s get cozy.  Elf is on.

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Traditional Pumpkin Pie

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Thanksgiving 2012 was… eventful.  At my house, anyway.

The events that went down are twofold: first, my sister got engaged.  ENGAGED!  To John!  There was a proposal on a bench and a diamond and everything.  There were hugs and elation and glasses of champagne!  Everything was happy and goodness.

And then everybody threw up.

I’m not even kidding a little bit.  The joyful holiday weekend quickly turned into Stomach-Bugsgiving, 2012.  It started with one person (I don’t want to blame Ben, but it was probably his fault), and quickly moved to two, then three and four and five and on to ten.  Ten people!  Downed by horrible, feverish plague (or, more likely, Norovirus).  It even got Grandma.  We all tried to fight it, but before we knew it we were dropping like flies, and instead of feasting on stuffing and pie and potatoes we were cautiously nibbling saltines and sipping Gatorade with Tylenol.  It was the only Thanksgiving in the history of Thanksgivings where everyone actually lost weight.

Can you all just join me in one large and appropriate “OY?”

…Oy.

Still, we’re a tough crowd.  We soldiered on, we set the table, we had some seltzer water and some laughs and even a little pie.

Come on, Norovirus.  We are Gilberts.  You can’t keep us from the pie.

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Kale, Coconut & Persimmon Salad

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Well.  Are we ready?  Are our pie doughs made and our turkeys brined and our cranberries good and sauced?  Are our potatoes peeled?  Are our pant-waists elasticized?

It’s time.

It’s time for too much pie and wine and family.  Time to play some chilly football, wholly half-heartedly, and then self-stuff with stuffing.  And roasted birds and Brussels with bacon and squash in all forms and biscuits.  And more biscuits.

It’s time!  It’s time and I am ready.

Are you ready?  Not entirely?  Doing some last minute oops-it’s-Thanksgiving-already-and-what-should-I-even-make-anyway dances?  Don’t stress.  Make this salad.  It’s tasty and seasonal and, most importantly, supremely easy to throw together, willy-nilly and easy-peasy.  Can’t find persimmons?  Try substituting chunks of fresh mango or even sliced pears.

And here are a few more ideas for you, if you’re looking for that last dish to round out your Thanksgiving table….

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Cheesy Leek & Delicata Squash Tart

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There’s an old man who sits in my local coffee shop all day.  I probably didn’t notice him the first few times I ran in for a latte, but I bet he was there.  He’s always there.  Reading a newspaper and holding a pen, sometimes making notes in the margins.  He wears thin silver glasses, wispy white hairs, a navy blue sport coat over a blue striped shirt and a navy blue ascot around his neck.  I think that’s what made me notice him, at first – the ascot.  I didn’t think much about him, initially.  Just, you know, cool ascot.  But the coffee shop days wore on, and I started noticing.

I noticed that he likes ginger cookies.  His thin lips rarely smile, and his Roman nose is always gloriously beet red.  His thin pocket square slumps down in his breast pocket like a deflated dream, barely visible except when he leans over his paper to catch the small print.  He’s always getting up and sitting back down, teetering around the coffee shop with a slow purpose, it seems.  He chews with his mouth wide open and throws stray pastry crumbs on the ground.  He’s got lots of stray crumbs.

This man often makes me smile, as I sit and work and sip.  He also makes me sad.  Who is this man?  What are his stories?  Why does he sit in this coffee shop, day after day, wearing his sport coat and ascot?  What is he writing in those margins?  Letters?  Short stories?  Nothing at all?

I don’t know.  He interests me.  I hope his life is happy.  I hope he’s got a nice family.  Somehow, I’m not sure that’s true.  Watching him makes me thankful for my own life, loves, family.  I guess that’s all I really mean to say.

All of which has nothing to do with this cheesy leek and Delicata squash tart, except that I made it for my love of a sister, who was here visiting over the weekend.  We ate it warm for dinner alongside bowls of creamy carrot potato soup, then snacked on it cold the next day, like leftover pizza.  It’s definitely better warm, but when you’re snacking and gossiping with your visiting little sister, it turns out it doesn’t much matter.

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