My goodness. It’s almost over. Some of 2020’s craziness will spill over for a while into next year, but it looks like we have a vaccine. It will be nice to write more about food and less about conditions. Having said that, again I urge everyone to continue to be as generous as you can afford to be right now. Every kind of takeout imaginable is now available from restaurants around here and when you shop this way you are helping keep people employed. Most places have simple systems for paying and pickup now. Food banks and toy drives can use your help as well, as the need is much greater than is normal this year.
The prospect of a solitary Christmas is making me a more sentimental than I normally am. Plus, having my heating system die during the first real cold snap of the year made me even more eager for the cozy, so I thought I’d shift into holiday gear for this month’s essay. I may have mentioned earlier that despite the fact that I spent most of my adult life in the kitchen, I’ve really come to dislike having to cook for myself at home. It’s hard to cook just enough for one, and we’re not allowed to entertain these days. Leftovers once are ok I guess, but after that… Preparing a “balanced meal” with sides or courses for one soon seems foolish, but just heating up a can of beans and chugging a beer feels like cheating. My late friend Georgia Keyser once told me that even though she lived alone, she liked to fix herself a proper dinner every night. She set her table, put on her pearls, lit a candle and had a glass of wine. This was many years ago. In the back of my mind, I imagined myself doing the same one day, probably without pearls. This has not proven to be the case. I have been shocked to realize that I have to give my retirement cooking habits real thought (attention Ron Stutts ). I’ve taken to making cake videos on Facebook, but of course that leaves me alone in my house with a cake. A few weeks ago, I decided to make pate of all things. At least that freezes.
All this is leading to the realization that I am probably heading into a spell of indulgent holiday cooking in an empty house. I already have made cookies and I rediscovered that in my first cook book, I had published a whole bunch of family Christmas recipes. (It’s amazing how easily you can forget what you’ve written in your own books.) My grandmother’s fruitcake is there, as are several maddening holiday candies. I don’t remember ever having made a fruitcake before, but perhaps this is the year.
I’m always dabbling with the possibility of writing new cookbooks and this year while playing with a recipe, I came up with a new version of a classic: a ginger snap made with crystallized ginger. I’m going to pass it along here. I have the uncooked dough rolled into logs in my freezer and have discovered unhappily that you can just slice three or four off and cook them in your toaster oven whenever you want. On that note, everyone stay warm and safe. Happy holidays.
Crystallized Ginger Snaps
(25 to 30 cookies)
- 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup masa harina
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 generous teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 ½ light brown sugar
- ½ cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
- ½ cup chopped nuts (I used hazelnuts this time)
Sift the dry ingredients together. In an electric mixer, beat the butter until pale and fluffy with the paddle attachment. Feed in both sugars and beat until completely absorbed. Add the eggs one at a time. Beat until completely combined. Then slowly feed in the dry ingredients, the ginger and the nuts. The dough will seem very sticky. Roll it into 2 inch thick logs, in waxed paper or parchment and place in the freezer to firm up.
Bake quarter inch thick slices on a parchment lined cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven or in your toaster oven for about 17 minutes.
“Just The Bill, Please” is a regular column on Chapelboro.com penned by local culinary legend Bill Smith. Born and raised in New Bern, Bill Smith spent 25 years heading up the kitchen in Crook’s Corner — and over the years, he accumulated the accolades to match his incomparable takes on classic Southern food.
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