Occasionally my food-obsessed family creates a strange potluck menu, and this year's Xmas was one of the off-beat ones. The theme was 'troubled countries', with a side of 'locavore' eating (yes, we are in California...can you tell, LOL?).

Winners:
- Local mussels cooked Spanish-style in a sofrito with chopped rosemary Marcona almonds from Italy. The winner by a mile - everybody loved them.
- French creme caramel. Very soft custard that has to be spooned out, cannot be unmolded. Rich, simple caramel baked with it to create the sauce.
- Tri-tip dry-rubbed with Spanish pimenton. The tri-tip BBQ was invented in Oakland CA and made famous by Santa Maria, CA BBQ joints. Grilled by my niece outdoors in the rain, no less!
- Syrian spinach-feta pie with filo pastry. Lemon juice, Greek feta, cardamon and Aleppo pepper made a nice variant of the better-known spanokopita.
- Nicaso and Cypress Grove CA cheeses, including Pt Reyes Blue, Lamb Chopper, and Taleggio. Served with Italian panforte, CA apples and persimmons, more of those rosemary Marcona almonds.
- Persimmon-goat cheese filo tart. Local Fuyu persimmons from a friend's tree, CA's Laurel Chenel chevre, combined in an open face filo pastry tart. Seasoned with my homegrown pineapple sage leaves and C&H brown sugar.

Losers:
- Syrian stuffed eggplant. We normally like eggplant, but this recipe was a trial and just didn't make the grade. Boring.
- Japanese rice-and-veggie sides, both short-grain pearl. One was frozen peas and black sesame seeds, the other with non-sweetened adzuki. Okay, not very interesting. Too much like the picnic food I grew up with, nothing special.
- Japanese "cake pops". Pumpkin spice cake cooked in round balls, covered with the typical Japanese overdose of thick, overly sweet sugar frosting, weirdly decorated with various sugar dragees. The lollipop-style sticks are pushed in so you can hold them like a candy. A fine example of why I personally think so little of Japanese food and cannot understand why so many Western chefs are in love with the idea of Japanese fusion cuisine. All looks, little substance.

This post was edited by jkom51 on Thu, Dec 27, 12 at 12:36

My family is not food-obsessed, so spending too much time planning and preparing holiday meals risks being met with resentment that I'm not helping with the "important" stuff, or that I'm spending too much time in the kitchen instead of with company.

So, Ruthanna, in case you didn't see me mention it on another thread, this year I remembered the lobster-stuffed beef tenderloin you've posted in the past. It was quick to throw together ahead of time and it was delicious, so it made everyone happy. Thanks!

jkom, you made me smile and remember my Japanese aunt, Amy. I only remember her making fish stock and teaching me to drink tea without sweetener or cream in small cups without handles, and attempting to teach me to use chopsticks, which I still can't do. She eventually threw up her hands and said "You no good. You use fork." LOL

The big hit here was the boned and rolled turkey, stuffed with apples, cranberries and bacon, glazed with maple syrup. It was accidentally local with a local turkey and our homesmoked bacon and Michigan maple syrup, but the apples had to come from Washington since we had no crop this year.

The dud. It was, as I knew it would be, a beef tenderloin that Elery bought at a local grocery store. I pre-salted it, then rubbed it with olive oil and some herbs, as well as salt and pepper. Roasted at 450F to 125F. It was greasy and tough and no one ate it. I felt compelled to tell his family that it was NOT my beef, it was commercially raised stuff. Even Cooper wasn't so thrilled with it.

I also made popover for that meal and everyone loved those, so the chive and parmesan popovers were also a hit. It was easier to make a full meal for the 11 people at Elery's than it would be for 35 people at my family gathering.

My family had Stromboli (yes, I made five of them, should have made a couple more), venison sausage from deer shot at the farm, cheese and crackers, cupcakes, cookies, fudge, devilled eggs with eggs from Bud and Makayla's young laying hens (of which they were inordinately proud, LOL), potato chips, a veggie platter brought by my mother. The typical family potluck at the Township hall, it was supposed to be finger foods and it sure was. IT was all inhaled, so I guess it was fine. I didn't eat any of it other than a couple of devilled eggs, so I can't conjecture. I detest pizza and pizza flavorings in all forms and refuse to consume it, I'm not wild for cheese and I was pretty much "over" the cookies and fudge, LOL.

Truthfullyk, I thought it was all pretty non-eventful and nothing stood out as exceptional. The only thing I really noticed was the overwhelming amount of cheese at Elery's family gathering. His daughter brought mushrooms stuffed with cream cheese and a jalapeno popper dip, also with cream cheese. His youngest son brought brie en croute. We made au gratin potatoes and dessert was cheesecake. As usual, I didn't eat any of it, I had turkey with homemade cranberry sauce and a popover, with a molasses cookie for dessert!

Annie

Same old same old here...could never be a flop because I've done the same menu, with very little change up, for a million years, but I will say it's always a hit!

I was not happy with the stuffing this year but no one else seemed to notice the fact it was too moist...at least I thought it was.

There was one miss but it ended up a hit! I made a ginger cake and in my haste turned it out of the pan to quickly. It totally broke apart. I let it cool, broke it into even chunks and served with a hot butter rum sauce....soooooo good!

>>She eventually threw up her hands and said "You no good. You use fork.">>

Annie, I busted out laughing when I read your post! My maternal grandmother lived with us for a few years when I was 9. She only spoke Japanese and I only spoke English, so we couldn't communicate much.

Turned out although she looked like a sweet old lady, she was actually a feisty and bitter woman. Hated the US (her husband lied to get her over here), and she thought all her grandchildren were dumb because we all held our chopsticks like gaijin. LOL! I still hold my chopsticks wrong, my Hong Kong-born Chinese-Portugese spouse laughs at me. But hey, I can get the job done and pick up a slippery mushroom cap, so that's all that counts!

you should hear Annie say it in her accent. Even more enjoyable. That, and you get to be in her presence.

This year was a get by year if ever there was one. Nothing new or extraordinary. I can hold chopsticks, but my Asian family was rasied using their hands. So I use my hands, even with sushi.

Well, I am happy that I'm in good company, LOL. Aunt Amy was a sweetheart and loved the United States, said it was the most wonderful place in the world, but she wasn't patient with a small American girl fumbling the chopsticks. I still can't use chopsticks to speak of, I am not at all comfortable with them. AT least I passed muster with the tea!

Thank goodness for fingers. When I was in California and we had sushi I struggled with the chopsticks until Diana told me to just use my fingers. I can't get an entire piece of sushi into my mouth and chew either. My dentist is the only man who has ever said my mouth isn't big enough, but that big piece of sushi leaves me with no room, I have to bite them in half, which is messy. Love, love, love sushi, though, I wish I'd have had some of that for Christmas!

Annie

Early in the holiday, I had a bad cold and no sense of taste, so I think the few things I did cook were pretty mediocre. One dish I know turned out weird was a chicken braised in cream, corn, capers, and way too much ginger. I was embarrassed about that one.

Later on I felt better but by then we'd deliberately planned simple meals. It is hard to botch cracked crab. It is also hard to botch prime rib although I tried hard to do so. SWMBO and our house guests also pitched in and made dishes, so that I didn't really have to do much. This may not be good, as I ended up drinking more . . .

The only remaining cooking is appetizers and tasty bites for the New Years party. I haven't figured out what to make. I kind of feel like deep frying. Maybe sushi rolls, tempura, Asian short ribs, and deep-fried bacon-wrapped fish balls.

DH & I were facing another holiday dinner at the assisted care facility with his 95 year old Pop.

Hit with a flu bug
Missed the nursing home

Turkey noodle soup from the freezer...

seagrass

DH went for Chinese take-out on Christmas day. We ate on paper plates sitting on the edge of our new bed with a towel thrown across the mattress in case one of us spilled something. We do have one chair in the house but we wanted to eat dinner together. It will still be weeks before we can cook again in our house after Sandy but we have a working toilet, hot water heater, and functioning furnace so we've got our CO from the town. We'd much rather be here w/o furniture than in that hotel filled with other refugees. I got sick there and can't get well after almost 4 weeks now. At least we're home - a real Blessing!

/tricia

The family dinner at BIL's was all pretty good, though I think SIL's chocolate pots were too bitter for a few, judging by the half eaten ones I cleared from the table. She dislikes sweet foods and I guess she made it to her taste. I quite like bitter chocolate myself.
One standout for me was that I took along some of Glenda_al's Pineapple Pickups to go with my other SIL's ham, and overheard FIL telling MIL it was really good. FIL has been in and out of hospital lately, with no appetite for the last two-three months and this is the first thing DH and I can recall him saying he enjoyed eating in ages.

We've had a lot of local tragedy this holiday season and no one has been feeling very holiday-ish. Our usual foodfest/staff party was postponed until January, and I had to work a lot and so didn't get very creative. Christmas Eve dinner was a POOFed hunk of leftover ham, a nice asparagus casserole, baked potatoes and three-layer cornbread. All good, but unremarkable.

We went to The Kid's for Christmas Day and she put together a nice brunch. She's newly gluten-free and made a really good cranberry/apple cake. Came home and made a very excellent frittata with the last of the ham.

My miss AND hit this year was those darn caramel cheetos. I wanted to make some Goose Poop for our Storytime kids and messed up the recipe. The first time I made them I used margarine and thought they were a bit oily so I decided to try butter. After they were in the oven, realized I'd left out half the butter. This time they were amazingly good...light, crispy coating. Addicting. It was fun watching people's reactions when they tried them. Doubt...raised eyebrows...then, "Oh. Wow." And they'd always reach for more, hehe.

We had Alaska king crab legs and shrimp for Christmas Eve, served with baked potatoes and Caesar salad. Huge hit!
Christmas dinner was pretty much the usual, prime rib, potatoe casserole, green beans, corn, onion casserole, salad, rolls and pies for dessert, always a hit.

Bless you Triciae - to find pleasure amidst chaos.

Nancy

tricia, you're home? Congrats! It's nice you can be there. That's a Christmas gift (I'm enjoying now!)!!!

Congratulations, Tricia! I know how nice it is to be home. Never lost mine, but we leave when really big storms it. The heart always stops when we turn onto out street to see what happened to our home!

Thanks for the well wishes and congrats on being home. I'll make a post on Conversations this weekend as a catch up. It's been quite an experience and it's far from over.

/tricia

Triciae, I'm sure you are counting your blessings...considering! I hope things continue to get back to relatively normal life.

KatieC, Going forward will you cut the amount of butter?