Latkes for Christmas 🥔🎄

Plus: Melissa Clark's Buttery Breakfast Casserole, Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding, and Gifts Galore.

Hey everyone,

Apparently people are still off this week, but not me! I’m back here in Brooklyn, raring to go after a week in Bellingham, Washington visiting Craig’s family, cooking, eating, and reading (as a new

George Saunders

Story Club subscriber, I read A Christmas Carol for the first time and loved it).

Though we were there for Christmas, it just so happened that Hanukkah fell on the same day as Jesus’s birthday so I had an opportunity to cook some latkes for my in-laws.

My favorite recipe is Smitten Kitchen’s. I’ve been making it for years; it’s what I used for our famous latke party where I fried three hundred latkes ahead of time and heated them back up in a 425 oven.

The key tool, as far as I’m concerned, is a food processor with a shredding disc. Sure you can shred by hand (and maybe you should shred by hand) but grating an onion on a box grater is my idea of “self-harm.” Here’s a video I made of the whole process:

amateurgourmet

A post shared by @amateurgourmet

As part of the same Hanukkah dinner, I made my famous (well: Thomas Keller’s famous) roast chicken with root vegetables. Because I was feeding seven people, I did two chickens on a bed of vegetables which was a real balancing act, but I pulled it off.

For dessert, Julee (Craig’s mom) made brownie sundaes, a perfect dessert... especially with peppermint ice cream.

Now let’s get to the Christmasy stuff. Craig’s sister Kristin and her partner Dean hosted us on Christmas Eve for Julee’s mother’s famous “baked minestrone.” I don’t know why I put that in quotes.

It’s basically minestrone that you bake in the oven. Delish!

For Christmas breakfast, Julee set aside her traditional breakfast casserole for this Melissa Clark number that has croissants, Gruyere, and sausage. It’s incredible.

Now for Christians, Jesus is the reason for the season. But for we non-Christians, it’s all about the gifts… and I got some good ones this year! A Saul Steinberg art book, a new Cuisinart roasting pan (thanks Julee and Steve), a popcorn popper; Craig went to Bonnie Slotnick’s and bought me (with Bonnie’s help) How to Do It by Elsa Maxwell; plus he got me a New Yorker from the week I was born.

I bought Craig a Squirrel Buster bird feeder (thanks to my friend Diana for the tip!), a jellyish lamp that we first saw at Lil Deb’s oasis in Hudson, Charles Burns’ new book, Edward Zwick’s new book, and many more things.

Craig’s sister got me the coolest thing: a Stephen Sondheim bust that she bought on Etsy and that we think was printed on a 3D printer!

The best gift may have been from Craig’s Uncle Charlie who painted this picture of Winston in our front yard based on a picture he took when he and his wife (Craig’s aunt Mary Beth) were here earlier this year. Isn’t it incredible?

For dinner, I helped Steve (Craig’s dad) cook up a reverse-seared prime rib a la Kenji with Yorkshire Pudding that I was in charge of. I pulled it off pretty well, though next time I’d spray the muffin tin so they came out more easily.

Here’s a video of the whole prime rib Christmas dinner experience:

amateurgourmet

A post shared by @amateurgourmet

Now let’s look at some links:

• Splenda in chicken salad? Nicholas Sparks, no thanks! (Lit Hub);

• Love this list of favorite food books by Ruth Reichl… attempted to buy them all right now (La Briffe);

• Eight Clams Control This Polish City’s Water Supply (Kottke.org).

That’s all for today, folks.

Enjoy your last day of 2024 and your first few days of 2025….

Until next time!

Your pal,

Adam