Diary 12|24, 25, 26|2014: Day Before, The Day, Day After.

[title type="h5"]Wednesday, December 24, 2014. Caroling On The Radio. Cooking Christmas Dinner. [/title] I go into town for the Christmas Eve radio show, which features my listeners singing carols for about an hour in exchange for semi-valuable prizes. I'd like to broadcast from home--I have a lot of cooking to do for the next day's feast--but I'm concerned about the small but perceptible delay introduced by my remote broadcast gizmo. That makes it impossible to perform duets with the listeners. But this year I discover what should have been obvious. If I don't sing along with the callers, I get better singers. So, starting this year, I will let them sing solo, and I will inject one or two of my own, to make it look as if I'm doing something. Staying home would solve my other problem of Christmas Eve: I am usually one of the last two or three people to leave the building. And by that time there is almost no place to grab a bite to eat. This contretemps afflicted my adult years until Mary Ann and I were engaged in 1988. From then on, we were at her parents' home on both Christmas Eve and Day. This year a large shortfall in the number of restaurant seats available for Christmas Eve dining has emerged. Many people will wish that they had either invited people to their homes, or were invited to other people's homes. I see that Burger King is now open twenty-four hours. All night long on Christmas Eve and Day. I guess that's for the elves' refreshment. [divider type=""] [title type="h5"]Thursday, December 25, 2014. Christmas. A Modest Celebration. [/title] By nine o'clock, I have the prime rib past the oven-searing stage. That had the oven up to 450 degrees for about fifteen minutes, to crust it up a bit. Then I lowered the temp to 225 degrees for four hours of slow roasting. Meanwhile, the lower oven has been baking a small root beer-glazed ham at 350 degrees for about two hours. [caption id="attachment_46035" align="alignnone" width="480"] Prime rib in the oven.[/caption] As we have since I left the choir at Our Lady of the Lake in Mandeville (it changed its rehearsal day to one I would never be able to attend), we go to Saint Jane de Chantal Church in Abita Springs. We arrive just early enough to hear the adult choir perform a short program before Mass begins. Typically in the past the music at St. Jane's has been either folk, youth or Spanish music. But today there is a straight-ahead adult choir, and they sound good enough that after the service I go upstairs to give my congratulations on their good singing. They tell me that this is largely the former youth choir, which grew up but didn't stop singing. I ask whether they could use another tenor or baritone or bass voice and, if so, when are rehearsals? They tell me that they don't rehearse at all, save for a short run-through of the Christmas songs they just performed. They say that if I want to sing with them I am welcome. I'd say that was my best Christmas present this year. But not the only one. On the way home, Mary Ann tells me that all the presents under the tree are for me. I will not have time to unwrap them until deep into the afternoon. We both get back to work on dinner. A dozen and a half people are coming. Half of those are Mary Ann's brother Patrick's nuclear family. Her brother Lee--who hosted Jude's post-nuptial brunch eleven days ago--shows up with his dentist son and his wife, who in turn bring their adorably cute little kids. Later in the day, these charming moppets line up at the glass door of the living room, where they get a kick out of the dog Susie outside. For some reason, Susie is in a snarling, fang-baring dyspepsia from the sight of these smiling children. Dogs are so unpredictable! Mary Ann makes her usual assortment of appetizers and side dishes. Most in demand is a variation on her ham pinwheels. But today the meat is a spicy Italian sausage, rolled up in four layers of phyllo pastry with a stratum of grated Swiss cheese, sliced into half-inch-thick spirals, then baked on a cookie sheet. These are very, very good, and we run through four or five whole rolls of them. [caption id="attachment_46034" align="alignnone" width="480"] Root beer-glazed ham.[/caption] Mary Leigh--the biggest fan of my famous ham--says that this particular ham is the best I have ever made. She is busy making cookies of various kinds. All of these are good except for one small batch of chocolate cookies which, if a suit of chain mail could be made of them, would constitute a bullet-proof vest. She doesn't mess up many baking experiments, and she hopes nobody remembers this rare failure. My main concern is that prime rib roast--the $138, three-bone, dry-aged, USDA Prime tomahawk cut. I usually begin this on the Big Green Egg outside, to get a nice, crusty browning all around. But this time I wanted to run the entire cooking process in the oven, to give better advice to listeners and readers. They ask for it often this time of year. An added challenge is that almost every member of Mary Ann's family prefers his or her beef overcooked by my standards. Making the guests happy is more important than trying to educate them. After almost four hours in the oven, the roast's internal temperature is about 140 degrees in the center. I take it out now and let the temperatures balance for fifteen minutes. That will result in medium doneness. Patrick was standing next to me when I cut into it. He said it looked good to him. Mission accomplished. Special bonus: the liquid in the bottom of the roasting pan is not just flavorful but copious. I say and will make the gravy with it, but MA shoos me away, saying that I don't understand gravy. By this time the young women in attendance were slicing away at the ham, with the usual preference for the black, spicy crust formed by the glaze. The shrimp remoulade--intentionally underboiled last night, and marinating in its mustardly, lemony sauce for about twelve hours--also gains a lot of young friends. I have two big items left. Mary Ann persuades me to make bread pudding, a dessert she doesn't even like. I cook down some apples with the usual spices, maple syrup, and a little lemon. The pudding itself benefits from a surplus of egg whites from somebody else's projects, and a whole loaf of rock-hard poor boy bread. It all comes together in a pudding that literally got oohs and ahhs--including me. It was cloudlike in texture as it oppped about an inch above the level of the baking pan. The apple flavors are different. If only we had more than three people here who like this greatest of all New Orleans desserts! Mary Ann's father and her brother-in-law were pudding fans, but they both have left us. I will try to hold up their ends. I can't believe that I screwed up the potatoes again. On Thanksgiving I aimed for mashed, but took them off the stove a little too soon. This time, I was after gratin dauphinoise--a fancy potatoes au gratin. Again I didn't boil the spuds long enough before slicing them. This could be a leftover paranoia from about twenty years ago, when I was Chicago chef Charlie Trotter's sous chef for a dinner at Cakebread Cellars. He roundly chewed me out for cooking the purple potatoes too long. I guess I just don't cook potatoes often enough. In the beverage department, a pattern emerged when the first guests arrived. Everybody wants iced tea or coffee. I mean "everybody" literally. I didn't open a single bottle. How am I going to deplete all these old wines in my collection if nobody drinks with me?[divider type=""] [title type="h5"] Friday, December 26, 2014. The Forty-Six-Year Reunion.[/title] Because it falls on a Friday, this First Day of Christmas feels like Christmas Eve. I go into town, but I don't have a radio show: corporate has decreed this a company holiday. That works out well, because I was planning on taking the day off anyway and getting Mary Ann to host the show. Today is the Jesuit High School Class of 1968 Forty-Sixth Annual Reunion Lunch, held between Christmas and New Year's at the Court of Two Sisters for as long as I can remember. Joe Fein, one of our company, is the owner of the Court these days. The attendance is unusually large--about forty guys. I see some faces I haven't in a long time. And for the first time, I am asked if I know this or that guy over there sitting next to whoever that is. When I learn some identities (I'm am no better at this than anyone else), I am flabbergasted by how many high-school friends I have forgotten. But after almost fifty years, most of us look a lot different. (Everybody except Nick Matulich, who continues to avoid any sign of aging.) On a brighter side, none of our number has died in an improbably great number of years. The menu that has obtained for quite a few years is still in force. A few rounds of drinks at the bar (Sazeracs are in favor, as usual). Then upstairs for osso buco. I like that well enough, but I have determined that it fires off the gout. Instead, I ask for and get a bowl of the Court's excellent turtle soup. I didn't ask for a recipe, but I got that, too. Another thing I didn't expect: Jay Baudier bangs on his wine glass and asks me to lead a singing of the Alma Mater--a wonderful song. I'll know I've begun to really lose it when I can't remember the words to that.