Holiday Tune Up

Right before bed last night I  updated my iPod so I could enjoy a nice festive walk to school this morning. Everyone has their favorite holiday tunes. I usually prefer more upbeat tunes, but steer clear of those cheesy, overdone versions of classics that play on the radio way too often. I don't want to hear Mariah Carey belting what she wants for Christmas, or hear Sarah McLachlan serenade me with her rendition of Silent Night. Both of these ladies are perfectly talented singers, but their voices are not the ones that get me in the true Christmas spirit. When it comes to holiday music, I'm a little more old fashioned. There are a few albums that have remained staples in my holiday music collection, and it is too hard to pick favorites.

For as long as I can remember, the Mannheim Steamroller album, Christmas, has been a mainstay in my family. This album was released in 1984, and I love it dearly. Several of the songs sound like pieces that might be performed at a renaissance festival, and I adore that quality about them. In my mind, a song that can cause a desire to get dressed up in an extravagant gown and promenade around a ballroom has done its job of inspiring Christmas spirit.

Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas makes me smile just thinking about it. I have played this album on repeat countless times while studying for finals in the cold days of December leading up to winter break.

An album that many may not know, Heartfelt Holidays, is an album that my mother purchased at a Bath & Body Works many moons ago. It is a compilation of some of the very best Christmas songs out there. The Beach Boys performing Little Saint Nick, Eartha Kitt's rendition of Santa Baby, and Judy Garland's version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas are all on included.

I have a soft spot for Harry Conick Jr. He has a nice voice and I think he uses it well. He doesn't try to sound like a pop star, he's more of a crooner, and I enjoy that. Harry for the Holidays is a cheesy album title, but I still dig the music. Michael Buble also has a fabulous voice that is a treat to hear, especially around the holidays.

Who could forget the King! The Elvis Presley album entitled Its Christmas Time, leaves little room for misinterpretation. You can never go wrong with a little Elvis.

With all of these holiday favorites now added to my iPod, it's going to be a very jolly walk to school. Especially with the snow sprinkling so elegantly down around me.

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Christmas is for Cookies

It's official, cookie baking season has begun. On the menu today: sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, both flooded with a royal icing glaze. And one of my personal favorites: rum balls.

Sugar coated, rum infused goodness

Two hungry pups lurking nearby...

Sugar and gingerbread before gettin' all dolled up

That's right, this guy is wearing a turtleneck

The cookies I decorated to take back to school were iced
with little creativity. As long as the cookie is
covered, that's all that matters. 

My mom added a much more creative touch

Want the recipes?

Rum balls - You can add a bit more rum than the recipe calls for if you like. I did.

Sugar Cookies

Gingerbread - We made way more than sixteen cookies with this recipe. Martha must have been using some pretty large cookie cutters.

Royal Icing - This icing works just fine on gingerbread too!

The Most Delicious Way to Say Goodbye

Even with a whole week off for Thanksgiving, there is still not enough time to do all of the things that should be done and see all of the people that should be seen around the holiday. The time spent visiting friends and family always seems fo fly by. It is always so good to catch up with close friends, and enjoy  some tasty treats that are synonymous with being home.

For a very dear friend of mine, the coveted pretzel roll is the champion of native snacking. These tasty treats are usually one of the first baked goods to sell out at Wegmans. In the past we have made trips to this magnificent grocery store just to get our hands on these magical rolls. The real magic is how they manage to remain so crunchy on the outside while retaining a soft and doughy center. After our Wegmans run yesterday, we were indulging in our pretzel rolls while driving through town. We came to realize that every time we have purchased pretzel rolls, they have always been consumed while riding in a motor vehicle. These pretzel rolls are so darn good that they never make it home!

Would ya just look at that salt sprinkled goodness!

Stuffing Conservation Project

Everyone has their favorite Thanksgiving dish, and mine is the stuffing. Every Thanksgiving, the ever-present dilemma of left-over depletion threatens even the most over-stocked fridges. The need to conserve left overs becomes more crucial as the week progresses. There are few feelings as saddening as realizing that the scoop of stuffing I just put on my plate is the last of that dish to be had for a whole year. For this reason, I have been forced to find ways to stretch the stuffing left overs to last a bit longer than they would other wise.

Today for lunch, I assembled a tasty delight that countless other Thanksgiving lovers have surely done today as well. The Thanksgiving left over sandwich involves an assemblage of foods that makes it easier to experience all the flavors of Thanksgiving in one messy bite. There is nothing elegant about this sandwich. It's just freaking delicious. The stuffing at my house always includes a healthy dose of raisins, so I selected a sweeter, apple oat bread to replace the stuffing that I would be forgoing with this meal. The green bean casserole served as a moist dressing, eliminating the need for any mayonnaise or gravy. A heap of turkey topped with a scoop of green bean casserole only needs one more ingredient: cranberry sauce. Just a teeny amount for a hint of sweet and tart. I paired this sandwich with a scoop of squash risotto for a scrumptious post-holiday lunch.

Toasted the bread up nice and re-warmed
everything but the cranberry sauce

That's not mac & cheese, that's the squash risotto

It Only Happens Once a Year

Thank goodness Black Friday is a one time deal. If there is one thing I despise about the holidays, its spending the day after Thanksgiving marching through overcrowded department stores to give up hard earned dollars for things that nobody really needs.

You know what I want to do the day after an enormous feast? Sleep. I suppose the Thanksgiving dinner is the fueling up process for some who see Black Friday as a competitive shopping extravaganza. In many ways Thanksgiving is similar to the pasta parties that I remember attending in high school to fuel up the day before a track meet. The main difference however, is that today no one is expending tremendous energy in a display of athletic ability. Today countless Americans will line up outside of shopping malls and retail plazas at ungodly hours in the morning all to spend obscene amounts of money on high tech gadgets and ten dollar pairs of jeans. The only athletic feat witnessed today may be that middle aged woman hauling a seventy-two inch flatscreen HDTV over a sea of people as she rushes to the cash register.

Why have we allowed our society to become so materialistic? I understand that Black Friday is an effort for some to be more frugal in the holiday season by scoping out the best deals, but is it really worth sacrificing a good night's sleep, personal safety, and let's be honest, a little dignity? I'd like to let you in on a little secret that is guaranteed to help you save money during the holiday season. All you have to do is buy less things. What are the holidays about anyways? Have we lost the true meaning of Christmas? I'm not arguing any breakthrough concepts here. To me Black Friday is not normal. That is not how I want my Christmas season to be kicked off. As a college student who doesn't get to see a whole lot of my family during the school year, the only thing I care about is spending time with the people I love. Forget presents under the tree. I can't stand the thought of my dear grandma waiting in a ridiculously long line to purchase me a gift that I didn't even ask for. As long as I'm with my family on Christmas and we have some pretty Christmas light to look at, everyone with a hot cup of cocoa in hand, and either some jazzy Christmas tunes or A Christmas Story playing in the background, well by golly, all of my Christmas wishes will have been granted.

If I haven't done a good job of changing your viewpoint, please try reading Bill McKibben's Hundred Dollar Holiday. It's a quick read and poses some really interesting ideas about how we ought to be spending our holidays.

To all of you Black Friday shoppers out there, please stay safe.

My New Best Friend

Ever do this thing where you see a cute puppy and immediately want to take it home with you? The other day I was strolling through the park with some friends, enjoying the crisp November air. We made our way to the amphitheater where we planned to throw a frisbee around. After tossing the disc around for a short time, a young couple descended the stone steps to where we were standing, and asked if they could let their puppy run around. Dog lover that I am, the idea of a puppy running around my feet truly is a dream come true.

The couple taking care of the dog turned out to be the nicest sort of people who don't mind strange girls coming to their house to borrow their puppy. It has been one week since I first met Gunner, and I have already walked him on three separate occasions. Raising a puppy is a handful, and I'm sure it's as much a relief for that couple to have a willing dog-walker, as it is a delight for me to have a puppy to play with.

Gunner! He is a beagle/rottweiler mix

The Chocolate Experience

I would consider myself a foodie. I'll eat pretty much anything put in front of me, but I also harbor an intense appreciation for the culinary delicacies of the upscale dining industry. This can become somewhat upsetting, because it is an industry that I am completely excluded from as a poor college kid. Despite this, I am completely enthralled by the dining experiences of the one and only Anthony Bourdain. I watch his show and yearn to be put in his shoes, if only for a day.

Bourdain travels the world, scoping out the best local places to eat. Many a time, these places turn out to be local dives or backyard barbecues at private residences. These are places that only a person of his status and culinary knowledge would know about, or have an invitation to. Bourdain also visits some of the upscale venues, where he often gets to speak with world-renowned chefs and talk one on one about their inspiration. The way these chefs describe their food makes the culinary world really seem like its own unique art form.

The next time I plan to go on vacation, I have limited myself exclusively to countries that Anthony Bourdain has already visited. That way I will know exactly where to eat when I get there. The only tricky part may be trying to weasel my way into that private barbecue.

On a recent trip to Spain, my mom brought me back a sampling of Spanish chocolates. One of the chocolate varieties happened to come from esteemed chocolatier, Enric Rovira. It was a solid dark chocolate bar with 70% cacao. It screamed for me to tear it open and taste the sweet, but bitter flavor. When my mom mentioned that this chocolatier had been featured on an episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, I had to wait to try the chocolate until I could see what Anthony Bourdain had to say about it.

In the episode, Bourdain introduced Rovira as "the reigning king of artistic chocolate," who draws inspiration from the Spanish architect, Antoni Gaudi. Bourdain watched as Rovira constructed a batch of his signature egg-shaped chocolate sculptures. Rovira allows these sculptures to melt under the heat of the sun just long enough for their conical crowns to collapse and create a skillfully crafted work of edible art. They are almost too pretty to eat. Almost...

After watching the episode, I was disappointed that Bourdain never once put a sampling of chocolate anywhere near his lips. I could only imagine his rich and poetic description of the chocolate as it melted onto his tongue and released a combination of delightful flavors. Sadly, I can only give you my non-expert account:

I opened the square cardboard box to reveal a matrix of sixteen dark chocolate quadrilateral pieces shimmering in the clear plastic wrapper. After gingerly tearing the plastic open, I snapped off one of the squares with a loud "CRACK" as it fell into my hand. The rich earthy sent of chocolate wafted through my nasal passages as I lifted the morsel to my mouth. I took only a small bite off of a corner to start. The rich flavor exploded onto my taste buds, leaving the surprisingly fruity after taste of a mildly dry red wine.

The print on the box matches the design
on the chocolate itself

The Rajoles chocolate gets its name from the style
of tile that they imitate. These tiles were used pave the
sidewalks of Barcelona.

Somehow I just couldn't photograph my bar of
chocolate to look as magnificent as the internet version.
Stupid camera phone...

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