California Christmas

The end of a perfect day!

Mince Pies

Mince pies are a centuries-old British specialty, and appear in the shops about six weeks before Christmas. The small pies take their name from the filling, a preserve called mincemeat. In medieval times, the mixture of dried fruits, candied peels, and apples also contained beef. Suet, which later took the place of beef, can be omitted from the contemporary recipe, like the one here. This recipe taken from the book, Williams-Sonoma London: Authentic Recipes Celebrating the Foods Of the World (Williams-Sonoma Foods of the World), makes more mincemeat than you will need for the pies, and can be stored in jars for future use.

Mincemeat
To make mince pies from scratch it is necessary to make the mincemeat mixture a few weeks beforehand to allow the fruits to absorb the liquid and mature, so if you don't have time for that, simply buy a jar of mincemeat from your local supermarket, or online from stores such as the English Tea Store.

Ingredients for the Mincemeat
2lb tart green apples
3/4 cup hard apple cider
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups dried currants
1 1/2 cups dried raisins
1/3 cup glace cherries roughly chopped
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
Small pinch of ground cloves
1/4 cup brandy

Ingredients for the Pastry
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch of fine sea salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, diced
1 large egg yolk
3-4 tablespoons cold water
1 tablespoon whole milk
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

The basic tricks for making good pastry are:
Keep everything cool.
Use cold water.
Work quickly.
Add lemon juice to the richer versions to encourage crispness.
Use a knife to 'cut in' the ingredients.
Use as little flour as possible when rolling or the pastry will turn hard.

Method
1. To make the mincemeat, peel, core, and shred the apples. In a large nonreactive saucepan over medium heat, combine the cider and brown sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Add the applies, currants, raisins, cherries, and lemon and orange zest and juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Cook, stirring constantly until the mixture comes slowly to a boil, about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to low, cover partially, and simmer gently until the mixture forms a thick, soft paste, about 1 hour. Uncover, raise the heat to medium, and cook briskly, stirring frequently, until all the liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Stir in the brandy. If not using the mincemeat immediately, store in sterilized jars.

2. To sterilize the jars, while the mincemeat is cooking, preheat the oven to 125 deg.F. Wash four 1-cup glass jam jars in warm soapy water, rinse in clean warm water, and set in the oven to dry. Spoon the hot mincemeat into the sterilized jars to within 1/4-inch of the tops. Wipe the rims clean with a hot, damp kitchen towel, top with metal canning lids, and seal tightly with screw bands. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Using tongs, transfer the jars to a kitchen towel and let cool. Store in a cool, dark place. The mincemeat will keep for up to 6 months.

3. To make the pastry, sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Using a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in the butter until the mixture forms coarse crumbs. Alternatively, place the sifted dry ingredients in a food processor, add the butter, and pulse 4 or 5 times until the mixture forms coarse crumbs; return to the bowl. Using a fork, stir in the egg yolk, and enough of the cold water to form a rough dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and lightly knead until smooth, about 1 minute. Shape the dough into a disk 3/4-inch thick, wrap in a plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 12 hours.

4. Preheat oven to 350 deg.F. Lightly butter 12 tartlet pans about 2 1/2-inches in diameter. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out tow-thirds of the dough into a round 1/8-inch thick. Using a 3-inch cookie cutter, cut out 12 circles. Gather the scraps of dough and roll out with the remaining dough, dusting the dough with flour as needed to keep it from sticking to the work surface. Using a 2 1/2-inch round or star-shaped cookie cutter, cut out 12 shapes. Line each prepared pie pan with a large circle of dough. Fill with about 3 teaspoons of mincemeat. Brush the edges of a small pastry circle with milk, place milk side down on top of the filling, and press the edges together lightly to seal. If using stars, brush the tips of the stars with milk, place on top of the filling, and press the tips in to the edges to seal. Prick the top of each pie with a sharp knife, then brush with milk and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

5. Bake the pies until the crusts are golden, about 20 minutes. Remove from the pans and let cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. The pies can be stored in an airtight tin for 2 days.

Serve with mulled wine or Darjeeling or Earl Grey tea.

Christmas Pudding

No traditional Christmas dinner in England is complete without turkey followed by a generous helping of Christmas pudding and brandy sauce. Originally the puddings were made during the last weekend of November, giving everyone a stir on 'Stir Sunday' - to be eaten the following year (it actually keeps well for up to 2 years). Nowadays it is more usual to make the puddings 3-6 months in advance, although you can, of course, make them at the last minute if you have to. The recipe below is for a pudding which does not need time to mature, in fact, it is best made just two days before Christmas and comes from the recipe book, The St Michael All Colour Cookery Book (Marks and Spencer), which was a cookery book someone bought me when I first left home many years ago. It has some great recipes in it, all are pretty easy, and gives illustrated details about how to prepare different cuts of meat, different kinds of fish, vegetables and salads.

If you don't have time for any cooking but would still like the pudding, simply go to Williams Sonoma and buy their ready made Christmas pudding and brandy butter. Both are made in England using traditional recipes and ingredients. I have not tried them myself but most of their food is yummy, so I'm sure these are good as well.

So here's the recipe to make it yourself, there's a lot of ingredients involved, but the end result is worth it. I have omitted the foil covered coins which are traditionally hidden in the pudding, but you can of course add these if you like.

Ingredients

1/2 lb dark molassses sugar
14 ounce fresh white breadcrumbs
1/2 lb shredded beef suet
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mixed spice
3/4 lb sultanas
3/4 lb raisins
1/2 lb currants
4 ounce candid peel
2 ounce blanched almonds, finely chopped
2 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
Finely grated rind and juice of 1/2 lemon
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 pint Guinness or milk stout
approx. 1/4 pint milk

1. Put the dry ingredients, dry fruit, candied peel and chopped almonds in a large mixing bowl and stir well to mix.
2. Add the apples with the lemon rind and juice, eggs and Guiness or milk stout. Stir well to mix.
3. Stir in enough milk to make a soft dropping consistency.
4. Pour the mixture into two greased one and a half pint pudding basins. (Here one silver coin would be buried in each pudding). Cover the tops of the puddings with circles of greased greaseproof paper, then with foil. Fold a pleat in the center and tie string around the rim. Leave overnight.
5. Place the basins in the top of a steamer or double boiler, or in a large pan of gently bubbling water, and steam for 4 to 5 hours, topping up the water level from time to time during cooking.
6. Remove the basins carefully from the pan and leve until quite cold. Discard the foil and greaseproof paper and replace with fresh greaseproof paper and foil before storing.
7. Steam again for about 2 hours before serving.

Note: before serving it is common to pour brandy over the top and light it. When the alcohol has burned off, serve the pudding immediately with brandy butter or sauce.

holiday gifts for your dog

I was amused recently when I read an article in the New York Times about people (I believe it was mainly women) in New York who could not be parted from their tiny little dogs for one second of the day, and took them everywhere with them. Now these little pooches, mainly Chihuahuas, Pomeranians, Yorkshire Terriers and anything with toy in front of its breed, were to be seen in all the places where the in-crowd goes, and could be seen sitting on bar stools in cocktail lounges and on seats at restaurant tables which struck me as ridiculous. Now don't get me wrong, I love dogs myself, but all the dogs I have owned have been big dogs, and the last dog I owned when I was in England (a German Shepherd/Labrador mix) would not have been welcome in any of these places - let's just say, he had "personality", and often came to his own decisions about what he would and wouldn't do, and his social skills were generally lacking.

As if this wasn't amusing enough, these tiny little canines were also dressed to kill. In fact one woman scoured the internet into the early morning hours looking at stores in Europe trying to find that to-die-for outfit for her dog, in order that he would be dressed in an up-to-the-minute fashion accessory that no other dog in the City had. Not quite sure whether this was insanity or the norm, I started looking around at the dogs here in San Diego and, of course, the dress code for dogs is much more lax here than in New York City (which is the case for humans as well), but there are a few dogs (mainly the small ones) who were wearing jackets, hats, sunglasses and for some reason one large dog I see in the village sometimes wears little black bootees on all his four paws - but not every day. We even have our very own pet store here, Muttropolis, which sells clothes, beds, blankets, toys and pretty much anything you can think of for you or your pet (check out the cute ballerina dancer dress at the top of the page). So realizing that this was more normal than I realized, I found this great list of gifts for dogs in InStyle magazine, in fact the pink leather leash and collar at the top of the page and the cute microfiber parka on this Pomeranian can both be found at the InStyle gift guide website.

So, if you are looking for something for that dog or dog lover in your life, here are a few of the things InStyle suggests:

• Bone china hand-painted charm, $50, by Herend.
• Pink leather leash and collar, $78, Coach.
• Canine cards and stationary, at pup-prints.com.
• Microfiber parka, pictured above, $59-89, Room Service Home.
• Corduroy bed, $175, Canine Styles.
• Painted metal bookends, $25/2, the Sarut Group.
• Christmas or Hanukkah dog treats, $30 for 18 biscuits, Kool Dog Kafe.

Or, if you want your puppy to live a little, why not treat him or her to a Northwestern VIP Black Beaver, pet friendly bed for $800 from the Quintessential Pet? He's worth more than that? OK, then it has to be a visit to Bark Avenue Jewelry, where you can get custom made diamond jewelry for your pet from $110 up to $5,000, and at the recent New York Pet Fashion Week, they featured a diamond encrusted collar for $150,000!

poinsettia (euphorbia pulcherrima)

These beautiful plants really have become one of the symbols of Christmas and make great gifts. The poinsettia with its large, scarlet flower heads has been cultivated over the years into bushier varieties of reds, pinks and creamy whites which are much less delicate to grow than their predecessors. In this area many of the varieties we buy are from the Paul Ecke Ranch in Encinitas, California, but they were originally native to Mexico. This evergreen, semi-evergreen or deciduous shrub has coarse leaves growing on stiffly upright canes. The showy part of the plant consists of petal-like bracts; the true flowers in the center are small, yellow and inconspicuous. The red single form is the most common, as shown here, the pinks, yellow-whites and marbled shades are less common (I even saw a blue dyed one the other day). The milky sap is not poisonous, however, some people may find it mildly irritating to skin or stomach. When buying a plant, look at the true flowers in the center - they should be unopened for maximum flower life. Also, the plant should not have been standing in a cold part of the store or outside in the cold. If you intend to keep the plant indoors, place it in a well-lit spot away from draughts and keep it reasonably warm. Surround the pot with most peat if you can, and avoid overwatering.

Here in Southern California, poinsettias can be grown successfully outdoors and look beautiful with colored foliage plants and brightly colored flowers. Once adapted outdoors, they need no special care, but they like well-drained soil, and full sun with some shelter. To improve the red color, you can feed them every two weeks with a high-nitrogen fertilizer, starting when the color begins to show. An interesting book to look at is Poinsettias: Myth & Legend ~ History & Botanical Fact which is full of great photographs and information, and would make a superb holiday gift for a gardener or plant lover.

Poinsettia Facts

• Bloom Time: Natural bloom time is winter through spring; usually they are cultivated to bloom at Christmas time.
• Exposure: Maximum light during winter; protect from hot summer sun if plant is to be kept for next Christmas (a fairly difficult task!).
• Temperature: Average warmth; not less than 55 - 60 deg F during the flowering season.
• Air Humidity: Mist leaves regularly during flowering season.
• Care After Flowering: Plant should probably be discarded, but if you like a challenge it can be kept and will bloom again next Christmas. The lighting will have to be carefully controlled in the fall by moving it to a darkened closet for 14 hours each night, then moving it to light for a maximum of 10 hours every day. This process should be continued for 10 weeks.

Special Problems

1. Loss of flower heads: leaf margins yellow or brown. The usual reason is dry air in a warm room. Poinsettias need moist air - mist leaves frequently.

2. Insects. Red spider mite and mealy bug are the main pests. Both can be treated with insecticide.

3. Loss of Leaves following wilting. Overwatering is the likely cause. The surface of the compost must be dry before water is applied. Of course, failure to water when the compost around the roots is dry will also cause leaves to wilt and fall.

4. Loss of Leaves without Wilting. If the temperature is too low or if the plant has been subjected to hot or freezing draughts, then the leaves will suddenly fall. Another cause of leaf fall is poor light.

Dixie Chicks and Pete Yorn in Vegas

After going to see Prince at Club 3121 the previous evening, Saturday's entertainment was the Dixie Chicks at the MGM Grand, a venue worth looking at, as it often has a great variety of performers such as Paul McCartney, Bette Midler, or Lewis Black. I am not a big fan of country music, but I love concerts and am often surprised how much I enjoy music I wouldn't normally listen to. The Dixie Chicks were on the final stages of their Accidents and Accusations Tour, and the Vegas tour was opened by Pete Yorn who played for about 45 minutes. Pete Yorn became more well known when his song Strange Condition was chosen for the movie Me, Myself & Irene and his music is also used on CW television's Veronica Mars. He was a great opening act whose sound was not unlike a young Bruce Springstein singing a mix of his own songs from his latest album, Nightcrawler, and other well known songs, like Elivis Presley's, Suspicious Minds.

When the Dixie Chicks finally came on stage, they were greeted with cheers and applause from the almost full arena. I wasn't sure how full this show was going to be, as the group's ticket and album sales were badly affected by their 2003 controversial statement in London where lead singer, Natalie Maines, said she was ashamed to be from the same State as the President of the United States. The things that followed are well known to most people - many country fans disowned the group, radio stations blacklisted their music, tours had to be canceled and they even received death threats from people outraged at what they had said, all of which has been chronicled in the upcoming movie, Shut Up and Sing. There is no question that the Chicks are willing to speak their mind on politics, global warming and aids in Africa, but this audience was definitely receptive to what they had to say.

Their latest album, Taking The Long Way, featuring their hit single, Not Ready to Make Nice, has already gone platinum, and after hearing them perform, I am not surprised. When you listened to their music you could tell it was very personal for them and they sang with an honesty and vulnerability which reflected their experiences. They didn't fill the show with talk about politics, instead they sang, made the odd joke, and to most people's amusement, dedicated their hit "White Trash Wedding" to Britney's ex, Kevin Federline. Then, of course, their was the ever-popular "Goodbye Earl" which set everyone in the audience stomping and singing. Apart from their singing, I did not realize that the Dixie Chicks were such multi-talented musicians. Natalie Maines sings and plays guitar, Martie Maguire plays the fiddle and mandolin, and Emily Robison plays the banjo, dobro and lap steel guitar producing an energetic mix of country, western and bluegrass music. I am certainly glad I had the opportunity to see such talented artists perform and could even become their next fan!