I grew up singing Bach hymns before dinner. We were all terrible singers, but it didn’t matter: my mother trained us to sing in parts. Children, adults and even teenage boys would toil our way through “Now Thank We All Our God.” My mother wasn’t interested in musical quality, but in the virtues of complexity and genius.
My mother, Carol Bly, is a writer, and it was always enormously clear to us that the focus of her passionate life was her study – no June Cleaver, she merely tolerated the kitchen. She had started her married life with no knowledge of cooking whatsoever, doggedly making her way through The Joy of Cooking, which combined the dubious pleasures of simplicity with – well – simplicity. She made the Joy’s recipes a bit more complex by eschewing white sugar and white flour and sprinkling wheat germ where possible. The goal was not an aesthetic one, any more than our Bach choral performances were.
But during Christmas she would put aside her battered Joy of Cooking and take out that homage to fine cuisine, Julia Child’s 1967 Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She had the same two-volume set as did Julie Powell’s mother, with a cover, in Powell’s description, “spangled with tomato-colored fleurs-de-lys.” In Julie & Julia, Powell calls the recipes “incantatory.” They were that, and fiendishly difficult too. Perfect, from my mother’s point-of-view, for important days. For a normal dinner, we might eat spaghetti, but Christmas had to be marked by true effort and a gesture toward culinary genius.
'Tis the season of spreading good cheer and spreading waistlines. We have all heard it before – the average person gains one pound a year during the holidays. That is, except for French women, who apparently don't gain weight, ever.
Every Christmas morning, my sisters and I tumble downstairs, pause
to survey the adorned Douglas Fir and its outlying territory, then
continue to the kitchen. It’s a family tradition that before
fingertips ever meet wrapping paper, we sit down to a big breakfast of
bagels and lox and scrambled eggs with onions. In my less ripe years,
I considered this practice illogical frivolous excruciating;
however—predictably—as the son of God’s
What is the complete opposite of Christmas cookies? I just did some research; turns out that the complete opposite of a Christmas cookie is a strawberry guava. It's no wonder this sexy fruit is native to Brazil, the land of beautiful bronzed bodies and gorgeous beaches. Everything about a strawberry guava says, "look at me."
It’s the holiday season and along with sipping cocoa by the fire, it’s the perfect time to cozy up with a good book. We thought we’d take the time to share some classic titles for your twelve days of Christmas. Maybe we’ll introduce you to a new title or two.
