Sac Foodies

By Julie Ficker

Looking for ideas on how to bring in 2008? Below are a few parties hosted by some of my favorite local restaurants that will be creating special menus for the holiday. From dry-aged rib eye steak with potato-garlic gratin and chanterelle mushrooms to all-you-can-eat sushi, you are sure to find a destination to satisfy both your appetite for great food and a good time.

Skyline at Esquire Grill
On the 14th floor of the Esquire Building, Skyline will be Sacramento’s highest New Year’s Eve party. Brought to you by TrevorPresents and Paragary Restaurant Group, the evening will begin with a four-course menu created by award-winning chef Kurt Spataro. After dinner, make your way up to the 14th floor, which has been transformed into an exclusive nightclub for just one night. You can dance the night away surrounded by the beautiful night lights of Sacramento and, of course, enjoy a champagne toast at midnight.

Time: Dinner: 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Dancing: 9 p.m. – 2 a.m.

Location: Dinner – Esquire Grill, 1213 K Street
Dancing – 14th floor of the Esquire Building, 1213 K Street

Price: $125 per person will get you dinner and entry into the party on the 14th floor. If you want to go for just the dinner or just the party, tickets are $75 per person.

For more information, call 448-8900 or click here

Eye Candy at Taro’s By Mikuni
Taro’s By Mikuni is offering all-you-can-eat sushi from 10 p.m. to midnight with a complimentary shot glass for a sake toast at midnight. There will also be a raffle for:

• Free Sushi for one year (Value $780)
• Flat Screen TV (Value $500)
• Snowboard (Value $500)

Time: 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Location: Taro’s By Mikuni, 1735 Arden Way

Price: $60 per person

For more information call, (916) 576-2641 x30 or click here

Restaurant 55°
In celebration of the past and the future, Restaurant 55° is inviting you to join them for an evening of great food, wine and friends. In addition to its regular menu, Chef Luc will prepare a special tasting menu for the evening, which can be paired with wines hand-selected by wine director Kassidy Harris.

Time: Seatings between 5 p.m. – 10 p.m.
Location: Restaurant 55°, 555 Capitol Mall
Price: $85 per person; $120 per person (with wine pairing) or $100 per person for a table of four (includes tasting menu and one bottle of champagne for the table)

For more information, call 916.553.4100 or click here

Stardust at Spataro
Stardust is an elegant New Year’s Eve celebration at Spataro Ristorante where you can enjoy an exquisite four-course menu created by chef Kurt Spataro, named best chef by Sacramento Magazine. You can also listen to the smooth sounds of Lee Diamond, singing all your favorite Sinatra and Dean Martin hits. Enjoy an after-dinner cigar and cognac in the Cigar Lounge. Then, dance the night away to music spun by DJ Stephen Katz and enjoy a champagne toast at midnight!

Time: Dinner 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. and dancing begins at 10 p.m.

Location: 1415 L Street

Price: $75 per person

For more info, call (916) 440-8888 or click here

By guest blogger Brooke Burgess

Growing up in Colorado Rocky Mountains, it was a long-standing tradition that my family would literally take the “road less traveled” to find our Christmas tree. It was not enough to go merely to the local tree lot, instead we would trek deep into the White River National Forest and cut down our own.

This annual adventure was usually set into motion months prior during our summer hikes. We would scope out ideal locations and potential trees and plan our return during the winter. One year we even tried setting our GPS systems to the exact point where we found the most beautiful tree of the season – only to return in the winter to an empty spot (the verdict is still out, but either someone else beat us to the spot or we never figured out how to work those GPS units).

To find our tree was an all-day affair and we wouldn’t have it any other way. The whole family (plus dog) would leave in the early hours of the morning with our US Forest Service Christmas tree cutting permit, snow shoes, handsaws (no chainsaws are permitted) and packs full of snacks. If we didn’t have a location in mind from the summer before, we’d try to pick the more challenging routes – breaking trails in the snow in hopes of finding “the one” that no one else could reach. That was all part of the adventure. If you found your tree within the first hour, you weren’t looking hard enough. I would disclose some of our favorite routes, but I fear retribution for sharing family secrets.

Once we found our tree and brought it home (another intensive process just to get back to the car!) there were three things that typically happened.

1) We would pick a tree that was entirely too large and would need to find creative methods to get it into our house (scattering needles and branches everywhere to make it fit).
2) We would forget to place the Angel on the top of the tree until after the tree was securely strapped in the stand and supported (some may have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, I had visions of my family precariously balancing 15 feet up on a beam to get the Angel topper to stay put and upright).
3) We would invite friends and family over to celebrate the holiday, decorate the tree and enjoy yummy cookies and snacks.

I’ve found some of the best cookies to invigorate the mind and body after an arduous climb in the middle of winter are oatmeal cookies. While not a requirement, these are best enjoyed while decorating your own Christmas tree.

5-Star Oatmeal Cookies (source: Unknown)
Servings: 32 to 36
Prep. Time: :15 minutes
Total Time: :30 minutes

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup butter-flavored shortening
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon. baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, butter-flavored shortening, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Stir in the oats and raisins. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until light and golden. Do not overbake. Let them cool for 2 minutes before removing from cookie sheets to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

By Kim Bedwell

For the past 10 days, you’ve read a lot about the SacFoodies’ family holiday food traditions. Well, you won’t be getting that from me. Sadly, I don’t have one. No gingerbread house marathons. No spiced cider while caroling through the neighborhood. Not even a secret family cookie recipe.

You see, it’s Christmas Eve, and while many families will be roasting a goose or slicing up a standing rib roast, my family will be ordering take out. In true “A Christmas Story” style, we will be feasting on Sweet and Sour Pork, Szechwan Prawns and other delicacies from my husband’s hometown Chinese joint in Vacaville, the infamous Yen King. Then, we’re hopping in the car to make a lunch reservation with my mom on Christmas Day near Carmel. To cap off the holiday, we’re on to another restaurant to meet my dad. I probably won’t even see an actual kitchen for three days, and I thought that’s where all the Christmas magic happens!

Nothing we’ve ever done for Christmas has been traditional. We occasionally visit family, sometimes we hit up a movie or we’ve even crashed one SacFoodies’ traditional Christmas feast with her family (thanks Kris!). My family doesn’t even get a Christmas tree anymore. My mom just puts lights on the fichus plant and puts our presents around it. It’s actually a surprising large fichus plant, so it works, but it’s not going to win any decorating contests.

I guess my point is (and I think I have one), perhaps this whole restaurant hopping, non-Christmas tree, non-tradition thing is actually a tradition after all. So whatever your holiday tradition (or non-tradition) is, make it merry. Have a happy holiday!

Instead of asking Santa for a gift, I dressed up like one (December 1979)

By guest blogger Ali Liebich

As New Year’s eve approaches, expectations abound, pressures mount and kids yearn to stay up until midnight. For Bob and me, ringing in the New Year in style means staying home, building a cozy fire and sharing a delicious feast with great friends.

With family on the East Coast, trips to Boston are frequent, as are the opportunities to enjoy fresh lobster, steamers, clams and the like. To our great surprise, as we were planning the menu for last year’s New Year’s Eve dinner, we realized that the Truckee Albertson’s was featuring fresh New England lobster. We couldn’t pass it up, and, wow, what a treat!

As New Year’s eve approached, we gathered up the seafood crackers, chilled the champagne, pulled out the lobster pot, made sure we had plenty of butter and got ready to celebrate.

To ring in 2007, we were lucky enough to be joined by our friends Frank and Cynthia and their two girls, Alexia and Isabella, as well as Cynthia’s cousin from Peru, Vivi. The kids were just young enough that we were able to feed them an early dinner, read stories and tuck them snug into bed before we sat down to enjoy our feast. Well, Alexia, the four-year-old party animal at heart, didn’t quite fall for the bedtime thing and realized she was missing out on a good time so we had several visits from her during our lobster feast.

The evening was a first for Cynthia and Vivi, who’d never before eaten an entire lobster. The ever-patient coach, Bob took great joy in educating our guests on the best way to eat a lobster. Step-by-step, he taught them how to enjoy this large shellfish that was sitting on their plates staring back up at them:

Step One: Twist off claws and attached knuckles, crack both claws and knuckles, remove the claw meat.
Step Two: Twist the tail off of the body, pick off each tail flipper and squeeze/pinch the meat out.
Step Three: Insert a fork into the tail opening and the entire piece of tail meat should pop out.
Step Four: Pick off each leg and squeeze the meat out with your teeth.
Step Five: Insert the head into your mouth and suck to get the last remaining meat.

Not sure if it was the champagne, her trust in Bob, or if she just got caught up in the moment, but Cynthia fell for it, to our great amusement, and she made the move to stick the lobster head into her mouth. Of course, we stopped her just in time, and to this day, we still have great laughs over the dinner.

This year, Bob’s kids will join us for New Year’s eve. Native New Englanders, they’re sure to enjoy the fun as we teach our friends Julie and Mauricio along with their daughter Mary, how to eat lobster. As we’re enjoying the last few hours of 2007, I’m sure the kids are going to devour their lobsters, anxiously waiting for their dad to walk our guests through the lobster eating steps to see if someone falls for step five again this year.

By guest blogger Joey Chapman

During the holiday season it seems like everyone has some sort of tradition that they follow every year. I ask, why not spice it up a bit? Why not try something that you wouldn’t normally do during the cold of winter?

Every year on the weekend before Christmas my friends and I like to take a little camping trip. Some years it’s in the snow (yes it’s very, very cold), or we head to the ocean, where it is also very cold. No matter where we decide to take ourselves, there is one thing that is a must have for us - STEAKS! My personal favorite is a juicy sirloin. You can’t forget the zest to go with it either… whether it’s garlic powder, garlic salt, pepper or whatever else we decide to get our hands on. But, the most important ingredient in our steak fest is good old BBQ sauce.

Besides a small barbecue to cook the steaks and the seasoning, there is one more thing needed to make this not so average Christmas trip complete. Can you take guess what that is? I’ll give you a hint: we are all guys in our early twenties. You guessed it, beer. My personal favorite is Corona with a couple limes.

So my suggestion to everyone is to try something new that you wouldn’t normally consider doing during the holidays. It doesn’t have to be a camping trip in the snow with nothing but steaks to eat for every meal, but try to spice up your holiday a little bit. Of course, most would agree the important thing is to be with the people you care about during the holidays, even if you have to sit extra close to each other and drink four extra beers just to keep warm. In my opinion, all that just makes the vacation a little more fun and interesting.

By guest blogger Deborah Pacyna

One of my earliest childhood memories involves sneaking into the dining room hiding place where my mother stored her Christmas cookie tins. My sister and I would wait for the opportune moment when mom was upstairs and dive into the cookie tins looking for our favorite Christmas cookie; the one with the chocolate Hershey kiss right in the middle.

Mom had a particularly nice round tin with a big flowing angel on the front and the Hershey kiss cookies were always stored there in between layers of waxed paper. I loved that angel tin but much to my dismay, it disappeared some time ago. Of course mom handed down some other tins that I still use to this day, but the angel tin was special.

So it was with great joy that I recently opened a box that was stored in the attic and unearthed the beautiful angel tin hidden beneath some holiday decorations. This year, when my sister joined me at my home for our annual cookie-making day, I showed her the recently discovered angel tin and we reminisced about mom’s holiday cookies, our childhood antics and our continued love of the Hershey kiss cookie. In celebration, we made an extra batch and I hope you will too!

Christmas Hershey Kiss Cookies
Also known as Peanut Blossoms

Mix
1 ¾ cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt

Cream
½ cup butter
1/3 cup peanut butter
Gradually add ½ cup sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 unbeaten egg
1 tsp. vanilla
Slowly add in dry ingredients

Shape into balls. Roll in sugar. Place on greased cooking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes.
Remove and top with Hershey kiss pressed firmly into middle. Bake 2-5 minutes more.
Makes 3 dozen

By Jenna Kirkwood

Harkening all the way back to the 11th Day of Christmas… as Maria noted, “’Tis the season for new traditions,” and I must second that. After all, a tradition had to start at sometime, right?

Aside from the many existing holiday traditions my family has, this year, I’ve had the pleasure of participating in the start of new traditions with my boyfriend Jordan’s family. Along with Jordan’s parents, his older brother and his wife, and his younger brother, we decided to take an afternoon to make gingerbread houses together. Last weekend for an entire afternoon, all seven of us sipped hot cocoa around the dining room table and cut, iced, designed, built and decorated four gingerbread houses. After hours of teamwork, eating about a pound or so of gumdrops and a gallon of icing, we had edible creations that will serve as homemade decorations for the rest of the season. (And yes, my gingerbread house does have a cat door!)

With my family, my favorite holiday tradition takes place on Christmas morning. My grandma always baked prune rolls in the shape of giant candy canes, drizzled with icing and topped with maraschino cherries. They filled the whole house with a wonderful yeasty, fresh-baked smell. Perfect for Christmas morning with a big cup of coffee!

Here is a similar recipe from Betty Crocker, with dried apricots and maraschino cherries as the filling, rather than the dried plums and chopped nuts my grandma used.

Candy Cane Coffee Cake (from Betty Crocker’s Best Christmas Cookbook)

Prep Time: 30 min
Start to Finish: 1 hr 50 min
Makes: 3 coffee cakes (12 slices each)

2 packages regular or quick active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
5 1/2 to 6 cups Gold Medal® Better for Bread™ flour or Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups chopped dried apricots
1 1/2 cups chopped drained maraschino cherries
Coffee Cake Glaze
1 1/2 cups red cinnamon candies, if desired

Dissolve yeast in warm water in large bowl. Add buttermilk, sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder, salt and 2 1/2 cups of the flour. Beat with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle. (Dough should be soft and slightly sticky.)

Grease 3 cookie sheets. Turn dough onto well-floured surface; gently knead about 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Divide dough into 3 equal parts. Roll one part into rectangle, 15×9 inches. Place rectangle on cookie sheet.

Mix apricots and chopped cherries. Spread one-third of the apricot mixture in a strip about 2 1/2 inches wide lengthwise down center of rectangle. Make cuts in dough at 1/2-inch intervals on both 15-inch sides almost to filling. Fold strips over filling, overlapping and crossing in center. Carefully stretch dough until 22 inches long; curve one end to form top of cane. Repeat with remaining 2 parts of dough. Cover and let rise in warm place about 1 hour or until double. (Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.)

Heat oven to 375°F. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Drizzle Glaze over warm coffee cakes. Decorate with cinnamon candies.

By guest blogger Vanessa Smith

“On the Seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me: Seven Swans of Swimming…”

Ok, apparently swans are symbolic of seven gifts – like wisdom, understanding, counsel and fortitude – changing us from ugly ducklings into graceful adults. Admittedly, I was a shy duckling (certainly not ugly) and a quiet observer, but somewhere along the way I found my voice. I credit this transformation to the wonderful people in my life who continue to offer me a host of gracious gifts.

In return, I thought it fitting this holiday season to share my Seventh Day of Christmas baking recipes, honoring both new traditions and those of generations passed.

Four years ago, my mother-in-law, Marilyn, and I decided to set aside a holiday baking day – a morning to night sugar, flour and butter fest!

This year, our twist on the tradition incorporates recipes from my family lineage – Bermudian and Italian – with the Smith’s Swiss family recipes. This year’s stock includes seven yummy creations: Bermuda rum cakes, Swiss Pretzelis, Italian spice cookies, ginger creams, sugar cookies, peppermint bark and Choco-Nut Bark. I’ve included all these recipes in the Recipe section, and below are the first two.

First up, Bermuda rum cake. My dad was born in Bermuda and has lived there all his life. I grew up visiting my dad and stepmom during the summer months, but have only spent a few Christmases there. Making Bermuda rum cake is a simple way to bring a bit of the island into my holidays.

When making this recipe, I only use Goslings’ Bermuda dark rum (found at BevMo), however, you can use other dark rums or even other liqueurs like Kahluha instead, but I can’t vouch for those. The first year we made Bermuda rum cakes, let’s just say that there was a little bit of rum drinking going on, which made it tough to follow the recipe! Yes, we’ve learned our lesson…well, sort of!

Bermuda Rum Cake
Cake:
1 10” bundt cake pan or 8 mini bundt cake pans
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 box chocolate cake mix*
1 3.75 ounce box chocolate instant pudding and pie filling
4 eggs
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup cooking oil
1/2 cup dark rum (80 proof)
* you can use yellow cake and vanilla instant pudding instead for a less rich flavor

Glaze:
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup dark rum

To prepare the cake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour pan(s). Lightly sprinkle nuts in the bottom of the pan(s). In a separate bowl, mix together all cake ingredients. Pour batter over nuts. Sprinkle remaining nuts on top of batter. Bake 1 hour (check at 45-50 minutes). Remove from oven and cool. Invert on a cookie sheet. Using a fork, poke holes in the rim of the cake and gently pry open the holes – this will allow the glaze to soak in.

For the glaze, melt butter in a small-medium sized sauce pan, then stir in water and sugar. Boil for 5 minutes while stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in rum. Using a pastry brush, spread glaze on sides and top of cake – don’t be afraid to use a lot of glaze. With a spoon, pour glaze into the holes on the top of the cake. Cover cakes and allow to sit for a day or more to soak up the rummy goodness.

To serve, fill the top of the cake with whipped cream and serve! Tip: the mini cakes are easy to pop in the microwave before adding the whipped cream and serving.

Up next we next tackle the Swiss Pretzelis (pronounced pretzel-lees). My mother-in-law uses a Pretzeli baker that her mom brought over from Switzerland around 1945 when my mother-in-law was 8-years-old. It has made Pretzelis nearly every year since and is the only baker left in the family. Though it’s having trouble baking evenly, the cookies it produces can’t be beat, each one is unique in shape and design.

There are new Pretzeli bakers on the market today but under a different name – Pizzelles – but the same concept. Old and new bakers work much like waffle makers, making two to four cookies at a time. The cooling process my mother-in-law uses, by placing each cookie on a rolling pin, gives a curved taco-like design that makes them easy to stack. I’ve read you can serve them flat with powdered sugar sprinkled over the top or roll them more tightly into a cylinder. Either way, the cookies must be hot during rolling and held in shape until cool.

Pretzelis Recipe
1 pound butter
2 1/4 cups of sugar
9 eggs
1/4 tsp lemon peel (can also use anise or almond extract)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla
Flour (for amount, read below)

Blend ingredients together, adding one at a time. Add flour until dough mixture becomes stiff (approximately 3 cups). Refrigerate mixture overnight. Drop one teaspoon of batter onto center of each cookie section. Close lid and allow to cook 45 seconds to 1 minute and 15 seconds or until lightly brown. Use knife to split cookies apart, then remover from baker with a spatula. Allow to cool. Makes 3-4 dozen.

With seven recipes to juggle, this year’s activity spilled into two full days of baking. Our feet were tired and our hands ached, but we thoroughly enjoyed our time together baking goodies for our friends and family to enjoy. We’re already looking forward to next year!

New Family Traditions

by guest blogger Chris Thompson

I was a bachelor for the past decade and my cooking efforts were basically limited to TV dinners, microwave popcorn and making coffee (scratch that last one, I pretty much always went to Starbucks.)

But happily, my diet took a healthier turn for the better when I got married last spring and moved in with my new wife and her daughter. While my kitchen exploits are still constrained — I’m the designated dishwasher — I am enjoying home-cooked meals.

My new family likes the following dessert when they gather for holidays and any get together. My 11-year-old stepdaughter Julia (pictured) made wine cake this weekend from a recipe she got from her grandmother. It got rave reviews for moistness and flavor. Julia says it’s so easy that even I could make it…….but I’m not taking any chances. It’s yummy, though!

Happy holidays, everyone.

Wine Cake
1 box yellow cake mix
1 package instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup cream sherry
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix together all ingredients and bake in a non-stick bundt pan at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. When cool, dust with powdered sugar.

Makes 8-10 servings

*********************************************************************************************************

New Family Traditions, Continued

By Melinda McRae

While harkening the spirit of Christmas past to write about family traditions, I was inundated with a variety of childhood memories, but not of any particular tradition, per se. Sure, we had some annual traditions such as going to “Cal Store” in Long Beach and picking our tree fresh off of a train, and my mom making yummy fudge each year from the marshmallow cream jar recipe, but what I think of most are Christmas adventures. I remember packing up our orange Nova for a three-day trek to where our people are from, Montana, sans DVD player, video games or iPod, heck, pre-Walkman days and not even a tape player in the car! (nor shoulder seat belts, just the painful lap belt that we had to keep buckled even when trying to sleep). Instead, we had stacks of books, word puzzles, Highlights Magazines and magnetic board games, and of course, the rite-of-passage “don’t make me pull this car over!” hand-waving warning from my dad when we got too whiney.

Me in front of the Nova, and dear lord, my outfit matches the car; that’s our dog Krissie whom we got on Christmas eve 

Another year, my mom got a part-time job at the long-defunct Zody’s, a Target-esque chain in Southern California, to get my dad an eight-track tape player for our new orange van that supplied us with hours of Cat Stevens, The Beatles and my favorite one-hit wonder single, Melanie’s “I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates, you’ve got a brand new key…” over and over again.

Then one balmy Christmas year, we went to the beach and made smores with crushed-up candy canes. And each year, my parents would tell the story of how when my sister and I were very young, my dad had to work on Christmas, so my mom kept us indoors on the 25th and we celebrated on the 26th and were never the wiser.

My dad, Christmas 1982, I got a spiffy Minolta camera and in addition to orange cars, apparently my parents were fond of orange furniture, too

My mom, Christmas 1982, I do believe we had turkey every year

It wasn’t until I met my husband, Johnnie Beer, that I embraced a Christmas tradition that we must do each year. I’ll turn it over to him.

By Johnnie Beer

December means many things to many people. Family, holidays, togetherness. And Dungeness crab. For many Northern Californians, the opening of crab season is a sacred time, an acknowledgment of the passing of the seasons. This year the Dungeness season was painfully delayed by an oil spill in the San Francisco Bay (which was also bad because of the environmental damage). But now that we’re in it, it’s time to grab a claw and start cracking!

I grew up in the Bay Area and my parents introduced me to Dungeness crab at an early age. For our family, eating crab in December and January was just a thing you did, like putting up and taking down Christmas decorations. Mainly we ate it straight up – steamed with everybody’s favorite dipping sauces (mayonnaise, melted butter or my favorite to this day, homemade 1000 island dressing). I also learned that there were other kinds of crabs out there, and some people actually thought they were better. This remains a mystery to me.

As I became a young man I never gave up the Dungeness habit. When I met Melinda (in October 1992) and our first late November came around I asked her if she was excited for crab season. She looked at me as if I’d asked if she was ready for bingo season – she knew there was such a thing out there but she had no idea people would get excited about it. Raised in Southern California, she missed out on one of the quintessential Northern California experiences.

I’m happy to say she’s now fully immersed in crab culture. When the season arrives we’ll have one immediately, with some white wine (Sauvignon Blanc preferred over Chardonnay which is usually too buttery for our tastes) and some crusty sourdough. We may enjoy four or five more over the next couple of months which usually satisfies the craving for the rest of the year. Another wonderful thing about fresh Dungeness is its seasonality. You can really eat all you want for a couple of months, and then its time to let it go, until the next season when you can barely wait to heat it up before pulling out delicious morsels.

Dungeness crab has now become a Christmas Eve tradition in our home, along with many others including my mother-in-law and wife’s baking marathon. Last year I decided to put on my chef hat and made “Crab Three Ways” – traditionally steamed, Chinese-style with hot chili and lots of garlic, and in a creamy gratin, along with some chilled Champagne. I’ll probably try the same again this year, but however we do it, one thing will be certain – it will be ridiculously good. And it will leave us looking forward to doing it all again next year!

Me again. We did indeed kick off crab season on Dec. 1 with a fresh Dungeness crab from Corti Brothers – they will crack and clean it with no additional charge. My friend Barbara Arciero from the CA Farm Bureau sent over the December issue of their periodical “California Country” that contained some great-sounding recipes. To kick off the holiday season, we made the crab cakes for our most recent Christmas tradition, a pre-Holiday Home Tour party, and they were yummy balls of crustacean heaven!

Dungeness Crab Cakes and Saffron Aioli

Serves 6
Crab cakes
2 lb. whole Dungeness crab or 10 to 12 oz. cleaned crabmeat
3 oz. fresh scallops
1/2 tsp. sea salt
Fresh ground white pepper, to taste
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. chopped cilantro
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/4 cup grapeseed oil

Aioli
1 egg yolk
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. champagne vinegar
1/2 tsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/8 tsp. saffron
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 cup grapeseed oil

For crab cakes
Crack and clean whole crab, removing all shells and keeping only the meat. Place crabmeat in a mixing bowl and keep refrigerated. A 2-lb. crab should yield approximately 10 to 12 oz. cleaned crabmeat.
Place scallops in a blender with 1/2 tsp. sea salt and a pinch of white pepper. Turn on blender and slowly add cream in a steady stream. Stop blender and scrape down sides with a rubber spatula. Blend mixture one more time to make sure the scallop mousse is a nice, homogeneous mixture; set aside.

Add mustard and cilantro to the bowl with the crab; gently toss to evenly disperse ingredients. Lightly mix in scallop mousse, taking care not to break up the crab. Season mixture to taste with sea salt, white pepper and cayenne pepper.
Form cakes into a free-form shape about 1 oz. each and place on a lightly oiled baking dish. They can be made up to this stage several hours in advance and kept in the refrigerator.

Before serving, turn the broiler on high and allow it to heat up. Lightly brush the tops of crab cakes with grapeseed oil and place under the broiler for 3 to 5 minutes until they begin to lightly brown on the top and are heated through. Remove from the broiler, and with a spatula, place on a serving platter or plate each serving individually. Serve with saffron aioli and a lightly dressed mixed green and herb salad.

For aioli
Place all ingredients in a blender except grapeseed oil. Turn on the blender and slowly add oil in a steady stream until all oil is incorporated and mixture is emulsified. Adjust seasoning. Refrigerate until ready to use.

By guest blogger Gayla Schlittenhart

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is our cookie decorating party. A few weeks before Christmas a group of family and friends get together to decorate cut-out cookies that are baked the night before. It’s mainly an activity for the kids who have as much fun decorating as they do eating their creations.

But when the adults get involved, it is a different story. We have judging and prizes because with our family if we can turn anything into a competition, we will. One of my favorite memories is the year that the winner was the ugliest cookie. This cookie was one in which my mother just slathered on all the leftover frosting. To quote one of her favorite sayings “can’t let that go to waste.” My father was the judge that year, and needless to say, he had a great sense of humor. However, some of the other cookie decorators did not seem to appreciate his sense of humor and wanted a recall. Did I mention that we are a competitive family?

In the past few years we have gotten more elaborate in our decorating techniques. What started as just four colors of frosting and red & green sugar sprinkles has evolved into eight colors of frosting, frosting tubes, mini candies and every other type of decoration you can imagine. Last year we even had a cookie decorated with a lottery ticket (to bribe the judge). But the most creative is when my nieces decided to decorate my nephew. What a great sport Tyler was - that is not a rash on his face but red sugar sprinkles.

A good time is always had by all and everyone gets to leave with a container of cookies.