Holiday Goodies

I have been making dream bars since 1990.  It is a recipe I discovered in my Rose Levy Beranbaum Rose's Christmas Cookies (still, one of my favorites).

Prior to making these I had made a bar similar to this one, called a “7 layer bar”.  It had butterscotch chips and white chocolate chips plus other things.  And they were good, but I am not a huge butterscotch fan.

When I came across this recipe I had to try them. They immediately were a hit. I make them all year round and 75% of the time you can find some hidden in the back of my freezer.  They were always and still are included in my holiday baking which I have done every year since 1990.

When you think of Jamaica, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Besides beautiful beaches and vacation spots, Jamaica offers amazing food and culture. One of their most popular imports is the method of jerk, which can be applied to everything from seafood to meat. It produces the most succulent and tender meat, not to mention hot and spicy! You'll find jerk stands throughout the Caribbean—as it's practically their form of fast food. That's the best part about jerk—once you've made the rub and marinated the meat overnight, it's ready for grilling. There couldn't be an easier dish for feeding a ravenous crowd this upcoming Memorial day weekend.

Barbecuing is synonymous with Memorial day as well as jerk. Traditionally it's either smoked in open pits or barbecued in steel drum grills. Here in the States, where jerk has been popular for many years, it's either oven-roasted or grilled over charcoal or gas. What sets jerk apart from any other type of barbecue is its particular blend of spices, including the essential allspice, which is called pimento in Jamaica. There they not only grind the dried berries for the jerk rub, but they also use the pimento wood and leaves for smoking the meat. The next most important ingredient is Scotch bonnet pepper. As you can imagine it provides a lot of heat. Jerk wouldn't be jerk without some form of heat, making you sweat and cool down in a hot Caribbean climate.

Have you seen the Reddi-Wip commercial that’s been running on television? They’ve timed it to run this time of year when pumpkin pie is being jotted down on the planned menu for many Thanksgiving Day cooks. Every slice of creamy pumpkin pie needs a dollop of topping, right?

In the commercial, a woman is seated at the counter at a diner. When she orders pie, the waitress holds up a can of Reddi-Wip in one hand and a plastic tub of topping in another. “Oil or cream?” she asks.

The viewer knows very well the plastic tub represents the light-as-cotton candy whipped topping that can be found in the freezer case at all supermarkets. And, no matter what brand it is, the frozen topping is usually referred to as Cool Whip.

When Cool Whip was introduced to the public in 1967, my mom went nuts over the whipped cream look-alike. My mother, who grew up eating real food on a farm in Indiana, snubbed the thick liquid cream as she marched right past the cartons of thick white liquid on the shelf in the dairy case and headed straight to the freezer, tossing a couple of plastic tubs of frozen whipped topping into her grocery cart.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm truly an American. I mean, I have never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread, I have never eaten at Taco Bell, and despite its nearly iconic status in American cuisine, I cannot abide green bean casserole. You know the one – green beans with cream of mushroom soup, topped with crispy fried onions.

Growing up, I never knew what a casserole was; my mom (and grandmother) never made them. After hearing about green bean casserole from friends at school, I felt like I was missing out – I told my mom, "It has fried onions on top! It's like green beans with Funyuns!" The next day she bought the ingredients for green bean casserole; I couldn't have been happier.

Unfortunately, she made the green bean casserole in front of my grandmother, Nan. I still remember her look of shock when my mom opened the can of fried onions. "Onions in a can? Who ever heard of such a thing? And who puts soup on string beans?" she said, "Bah, that's American food." I reminded her, "Nan, we are American." "Yeah," she replied, "but we cook Italian."

Despite Nan's protests, I got my green bean casserole. I was giddy with anticipation. Unfortunately, with the first bite, my giddiness ended. Green bean casserole was nothing more than mushy green beans topped with salty soup and greasy onions.