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.
If you have any Canadian friends who are good cooks, they can sometimes
go to the effort to recreate dishes often referred to in Christmas
Carols. Its that whole British thing and “Hey, I’m a Royal Subject,
eh?” But after Pfeffernusse, Sugar Cookies, Flaming Plum and Figgy Pudding,
parties with lavish cheese plates and the holiday Honeybaked Ham, I get
a little toxic.
Growing up eating roast duck often, especially during holidays, stoked my love for all things duck. Foie gras, pâté, or duck confit, I love it all. It's a rich food in more ways than one. But for the holidays it's worth a little splurge. Most of my family's Thanksgivings were always about the juicy roast duck and not the dry turkey. As the years passed we've held to American tradition and dined on turkey for Thanksgiving, but we always have duck on Christmas day. Roasting is a great technique, but sometimes the breast tends to get dry since it cooks faster. I find the best way to cook it is by searing, which renders all the fat and crisps the skin, leaving behind a very flavorful, medium-rare cut of meat. Any steak lover would be pleased with the result. Plus searing is a fast and simple technique that does not have to be limited to holidays.
Most always, I find nature as my inspiration for arrangements and décor, thus green becomes my “MO” for all things fresh, natural, and beautiful. Green is nature’s neutral – found in different hues and shades in every wood, vale, forest and dale! Here are a few tips on 
It’s become fashionable to say that your favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, and every so often I say those words. What I mean is that Thanksgiving is a holiday that’s entirely about food. The glorious turkey. The stuffing your mother used to make. And pies, pies, pies. When you say your favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, you’re not just praising Thanksgiving – you’re secretly dissing Christmas, with all its mercenary trappings and its promise of day-after holiday depression.