One of the highlights of a White House Christmas party is a cup of the luscious, velvety, high-octane eggnog. If you’ve never had real eggnog, this is the recipe to use. It’s nothing like the stuff that comes in a paper milk carton in the dairy section of the grocery store, which usually ends up tasting more like the milk carton than like the actual beverage. This is a complex mix of alcohols, cream, eggs, and spices – so rich […]
As I was noodling over what constitutes the perfect Christmas Day dinner, I received a number of recipes from Laura Bush via email. One of her meal suggestions was just the ticket: it used high quality ingredients to create simple and flavorful foods of various textures that complimented each other, and ended a luscious chocolate dessert to round out the experience. This is a quintessential American meal, and would make a satisfying and memorable holiday dinner, whatever your holiday might […]
Today is the first day of Hanukah, and it always reminds me of my introduction to the latke. My mother and father-in-law were coming from Florida (where else?) for a visit, and I’d been flying around the house for two days with my infant daughter on my hip, cleaning everything that could possibly be cleaned. My mother-in-law was a neat freak of the highest order and I wanted to impress her with my housekeeping skills, though things had become much […]
This is quite the season indeed for friendly meetings. At Christmas every body invites their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst weather. I was snowed up at a friend’s house once for a week. Nothing could be pleasanter. I went for only one night, and could not get away till that very day se’nnight.” – Janet Austen, Emma Today is Jane Austen’s birthday, and if you’re as big a fan as I am, you’ll be […]
We eat a lot of chicken, and as much as we like it, it can become a little predictable. Spatchcocking, said to derive from the term “dispatch the cock,” is an 18th century English or Irish word, and refers to a method of cooking a chicken by removing the backbone and flattening it. The chicken cooks more quickly, and all of the skin is nicely crisped, so it is more tender. It also makes it easy to cook a whole […]
