Kirby is clean already, so no beagle bath today, thank God. Here he is enjoying himself (not) earlier in the week.
Yarn Bandit is in the Christmas spirit just fine. He's got his holiday toys all stacked up where they belong:
He's got his Big Santa and his Little Santa and his Hanukkah Harry. He is a rescue dog after all, and he stubbornly refuses to speak English, so we really don't know what his religious beliefs are. Clayton is of the tribe, so Yarn Bandit could be too for all we know.
We got him an elf suit that didn't fit too well, and he immediately took the hat off and tried to eat it, but here's your picture:
It's cute, but it also shows him rebelling against the exploitation of his cuteness, so I declare it a win/win. Kirby also has a holiday suit that neither fits him nor impresses him:
Wait. I was going to tell how I spent my Christmas Eve. OK. Well. I got up and knitted a repeat on the July Sock Club sock and started to worry about the buche de noel. Then I read the paper and worried some more. Then I sent The Man downstairs to put the kitchen towels and aprons in the dryer so I could make the buche. And then they came out of the dryer so I had some toast and some tomato juice and I commenced with the buche, which I both dread and look forward to every year. It's a big fucking deal and it feeds nicely into my martyr complex, but nothing compares and it gives me quite a sense of accomplishment. So I made the cake base and, because it's a sponge cake, I made the meringue.
And I folded the base and the meringue together and put it in the patented pan and made The Man leave the house so his elephantine stomping around--I mean, his manly and purposeful stride--would not collapse the goddamn thing. Then it came out of the oven and I removed it from the pan and dusted it with confectioner's sugar and rolled it up in waxed paper and a damp towel.
Then I put together a Union Square Casserole for tomorrow's breakfast. USQ, as it is known Chez Nous (don't ask me where I got the Q from) is an old Washington Post recipe and it combines some of The Man's favorite foods--sausage and cheese--and he is allowed to squirt ketchup all over it, which he is not supposed to do with certain of Dirtbunny's creations. Anyway, USQ is pretty much layers of bread, grated cheese, and an onion-sausage-mushroom mixture, soaked in a savory custard overnight, and then baked the next morning. It is an excellent do-ahead sort of thing.
So we got that in the oven. And then I made a sweetened Cointreau reduction. And then I was tired and cranky so I went on the web to see if I had any readers. And apparently I have a new boyfriend who talks futbol with me. Which is cool. So I played with my new friend for a while, and then I sliced up and baked some Candied Fruit Slices:
While I did that, The Man started making penuche icing under my supervision. He is starting to learn that cooking is a lot of standing around stirring stuff and following instructions. When the CFS were done and the penuche icing base was done, I set the penuche aside to cool and commenced with the buche filling/frosting.
About this time I start thinking that I want a drink, but I don't have one. I have to make an Italian meringue and I need my wits about me. What is an Italian meringue? It's an unsweetened regular meringue to which one carefully whips in a simple syrup boiled to the soft-ball stage. How do you know when your simple syrup has reached the soft ball stage? Well, the old-fashioned way is to put a few drops in water and pull them out and see if they make the requisite soft ball, but that always seemed to me like a good way to permanently remove my fingerprints, so I just use a thermometer to heat it to the correct temperature and I don't remember what that is because I have to look it up every goddamn time because I am not a professional pastry chef. Once the simple syrup is added to the meringue, you beat it until it has cooled off.
This takes a while, so I hope you like the sound of Mr. Kitchen Aid Mixer running on high speed. While that is going, you need to make two cups of whipped cream, which I can do by hand with my big whisk when I'm feeling green, but I'm already tired today so I use the little portable mixer for that. And meanwhile, I break the 3/4 lb of chocolate into chunks, brew a pot of espresso, and melt the chocolate with the espresso. You can break the chocolate into bits by hand, or you can chop it, but the fun way to do it is to leave it in its wrapper, stack the bars nicely, and whack them repeatedly with a rolling pin.
God, that's fun. I wish I had to melt chocolate every day.
Are you keeping track? You are triple-tasking at this point: monitoring the big mixer with the cooling-off Italian meringue, whipping cream in the little mixer, and making sure the chocolate melts smoothly without turning grainy or burning. Did you know that if you burn the chocolate, no amount of sugar will make burned chocolate taste okay? Go on, ask me how I know.
So my Italian meringue is cool and shiny and firm and my cream is whipped adequately and my chocolate is melted, but sort of grainy, because Dirtbunny is not a professional pastry chef.
Beat the chocolate into the meringue--oops, I mean Italian meringue-- and then fold the whipped cream into that, and then scoop about two-thirds of what you have into a clean bowl and put it in the fridge to use as frosting later.
It is time to fill the buche, so get it out and unroll it.
FUCK FUCK TRIPLE FUCKETY FUCK!
Too soggy. It broke. Dirtbunny, it appears, is not a professional pastry chef. Deep breath. [Later, as I write this, it occurs to me that I could have had a drink at this point, but that did not occur to me in the moment, so I faced it sober.]
I am pretty sure this has happened before and that it all comes together in the end if I'm careful, so I forge on ahead. I have eaten unfrosted birthday cake chunks from a bowl. I can do the same with a buche if I have to. Shit happens, especially to me.
So, Dirtbunny brushes the broken fucking cake with the sweetened Cointreau reduction. The Dirtbunny spreads the now even more soggy sweetened Cointreau reduction soaked broken fucking cake with the chocolate and cream enriched Italian meringue.
Then I carefully, carefully roll it up.
Then I carefully, carefully put it on the plate with the broken side down. And then I put the whole thing in the fridge on the theory that, if the filling gets cold and therefore firmer, it will help seal the cracks and hold the broken fucking cake together.
And then Bunny has a sandwich.
And then Bunny puts confectioner's sugar in the penuche icing base and frosts the spice cake. The frosting does not want to stick to the cake so by the end, Dirtbunny is throwing wads of frosting at the sides of the cake like wads of wet toilet paper hurled at the bathroom ceiling and patting it down with her hands. It is done. Dirtbunny smooths it down as much as she can, but it is yoogly. Dirtbunny is not a professional pastry chef and cares a lot more about how it tastes than the presentation, but this is a little much. Sigh. It can't be helped, so it goes in the fridge and we return to the buche.
Retrieved from the fridge, the buche has not collapsed, which tells me that the cold-filling-as-glue science experiment has worked sufficiently. Furthermore, the filling I set aside in the fridge to use as frosting is firm enough that I don't need to stiffen it up with cocoa. So we are ready to go. Carefully, carefully spread the frosting on in long strokes. Looking good, looking good. Hey! It's holding together! Excellent! Trowel on the rest of it and use the spatula to make bark-looking marks in it because a buche is a log after all.
There you go! Not bad for someone who isn't a professional pastry chef. And it all goes in the fridge until tomorrow when it will be EATEN. Arrrrr!
That, my friends is the face of deprivation and injustice. So sad. No chocolate taste-tests for beagles. He liked the cake batter, though. No chocolate in there.
One last thing: sauteed apples. I am not going to want to make these tomorrow morning, so I do them now while The Man starts cleaning up my mess. Granny Smith apples cooked in butter until they are soft but before they disintegrate into applesauce, then add some brown sugar, some cinnamon, and a generous glug-glug-glug of Calvados and cook that quickly until the sauce is kinda syrupy and then you're done. At last.
And so The Man and Dirtbunny put the last of the food into the fridge and we clean up the kitchen and he does the dishes, and I wash my hands really well and put some hand cream on and it's time to turn on the Christmas lights.
And when I'm done here, I am going to get myself clean and spend the rest of the evening on the sofa with a glass of spirits and some seasonally-appropriate music and some beagles and yarn. And I'll make oyster stew, but that's just heating stuff up on the stove. And then back to the sofa.
I leave you with a gift from the Old Man, who sent me this a while ago:
This photo, circa 1920, shows three generations of my family in the feed store my family had back then in the town in upstate New York where I was born, my parents were born, and my grandfather was born. The little gentleman in short pants is my grandfather, who has been gone for a while now. The handsome fellow with his feet up on the counter is my grandfather's father, who died before I was born. My grandfather grew up to resemble his father quite closely. The older fellow in the work coveralls on the left is my grandfather's grandfather, Garrison Gillespie, born in 1852, who came to the United States with my great-great grandmother Kate sometime in the late 19th century. We all come from somewhere. This is where I come from.
Merry Christmas.
2 comments:
I am not a professional eater, but I do quite well at it. Kudos for all your efforts! On another issue, I agree that facing grim realities sober is a really bad idea. If not for issues like cirrhosis of the liver, I'd prefer to live pleasantly inebriated all the time, like William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man. Asta is a pretty stupid name for a dog, though.
The food reads great. How does The man stay so svelte with all those calories in the house?
Two details about your great grandfather that others may find interesting. He was the only Democrat from his district elected to the County Board of Supervisors until the 1970's, ever.
His store and other businesses that he owned were wiped out in the depression. When your grandfather died an old man whom none of our family knew came to pay his respects. I apologized for not knowing him. He then told me that he had had no contact with our family for over 40 years. But during the depression your great grandfather gave him credit even though he had no job and was broke right up to the time your great gandfather went bankrupt. The old man said that his family had food to eat only because of your great grandfather. The old man came to pay his respects as a way of saying thankyou for the generousity of your great grandfather.
Daddy
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