Christmas | Gourmandistan

Fruitcake icebox cookies for a traveling holiday

December 12, 2016 by Steve

Gourmandistan will be on the move for the upcoming holiday season. With stops planned in Madisonville, Memphis and Jackson before pushing on to New Orleans, Michelle wanted some sweets that could survive the trip, were good enough to gift, and non-messy enough for snacks on the road. Along with a few other selections (do not ask about the sugar cookie decorations gone horribly wrong), these icebox cookies made the cut. Michelle has been baking from Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Cookies since around […]

Categories: Baking, Christmas, Cookies, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Holidays & Events, Old cookbooks, Recipes

Bringing out the old to ring in the new with rabbit and some colored-eye soup

December 31, 2015 by Steve

Our version did not use black-eyed peas (instead it used yellow eyes), which we feel is OK because this post is not really about New Year’s. But, if you happen to have some dried beans, rabbit and bacon around when the calendar turns to 2016, we certainly think you’ll enjoy this dish. This “hearty and hospitable” soup was featured in a mid- to late-1980s food magazine, unnamed in the photocopied page contained in Michelle’s old three-ring binder that Steve found while recently cleaning […]

Categories: Beans, Christmas, Cooking, Food, New Year, Old cookbooks, Rabbit, Recipes, Restaurants, Soups & Stews

Kahlúa & coffee give West Coast brownies a kick

December 19, 2015 by Steve

Legendary dessert cookbook author Maida Heatter opined that her “West Coast Brownies” might be “more appreciated by adults than by children.” Whether or not these need to be segregated like the spiked eggnog, we definitely believe they deserve a place on the holiday buffet. Heatter wrote that her recipe was a variation on “Brownie Points,” something made in the late Seventies by a Southern California baker/businessman, Richard Melcombe, who called himself “Richmel” and sold his goods “in leading stores across the country.” “Brownie Points” apparently never made […]

Categories: Baking, Brownies, Christmas, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes

Dim sum all ye faithful (with tofu skin rolls)

December 25, 2014 by Michelle

Gourmandistanis are certainly not the first tribe to discover the joys of eating Chinese food for Christmas. Nor was this year our first indulgence of our Asian inclinations over the holiday (though we’re pretty sure we’ll avoid a blizzard this year). As per a request from Michelle’s lovely sister, we decided to turn our house into a dim sum parlor for Christmas Day lunch this year. We scoured local markets, ground pork and shrimp and assembled various doughs and spices over numerous days, freezing or […]

Categories: China, Christmas, Cooking, Dim sum, Food, Pork, Recipes, Tofu

Do Santa right with Dried Cherry Oatmeal Cookies.

December 21, 2013 by Steve

Spoiler alert: Gourmandistan doesn’t actually believe Santa exists. This year, we’ve not even pretended to be into Christmas. There’s not a single holiday decoration out in our house. And, there has been very, very little holiday baking. But if the jolly old elf with his judgmental list was real, this oatmeal cookie would guarantee some extra presents. Based on a 1980s Lee Bailey recipe, these cookies delightfully straddle the line between chewy and crispy, and come out of the oven […]

Categories: Cherries, Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Boiled custard, the gossamer thread to Nanny’s Christmas Eve

December 22, 2012 by Steve

For a Christmas Eve treat, Michelle’s paternal grandmother always made a Southern tradition, boiled custard. After that, things get a bit hazy. Boiled custard itself can be confusing, especially to someone like Steve who has sketchy (and Yankee) Christmas traditions. While both eggnog and boiled custard arise from the mists of Anglo-Saxon odd drink traditions (along with wassail, posset and caudle), the former is often made with raw eggs, while the “boiled” custard popular in the Southern U.S. cooks eggs […]

Categories: Beverages, Christmas, Cooking, Dairy, Family, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Linzer Hearts still beating after all these years

December 17, 2011 by Steve

Michelle’s spattered and battered paperback edition of The Silver Palate Cookbook is full of notes, as during the Eighties it was one of our most-used volumes. We don’t turn to it much these days, as it seems a bit dated (Brie cheese baked in phyllo and a pound of butter, anyone?) and a bit embarrassing (why on earth did we note that baked garlic was “strange”?). But we keep the volume on our bookshelves, in large part because of these […]

Categories: Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

The agony and the apricot-y

December 10, 2011 by Michelle

Once upon a time, when much younger and much more energetic, Michelle made cookies to share with friends and family for the holidays. Of course, Michelle being who she is, these cookies were very, very good—but also took up very, very much of her time. Within a few years she was spending virtually the entire month between Thanksgiving and Christmas obsessively thinking about cookies, making cookies, packaging cookies and distributing cookies to a growing number of people, constantly trying to […]

Categories: Chocolate, Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Momofuku Mo Problems: A Christmas Blizzard of Chang

January 2, 2011 by Michelle

We certainly didn’t intend to eat at all four of David Chang’s restaurants as we began our quick planning for a Gourmandistan Christmas in New York City. But the path was set long before Snowicane, Snomageddon, Snowpocalypse or whatever you call the sixth-worst blizzard ever to hit the City. It started when Michelle beat Chang’s fiendishly democratic online reservation system for two of the available 12 seats at Momofuku Ko for Christmas lunch. Then, Steve made reservations for Má Pêche’s […]

Categories: Christmas, Food, Restaurants