Friday Find: Cold can be cute

Late December was bananas, as it is wont to be. I took a bit of an unexpected break from regular blogging and Friday Finds, but I'm back!

I hear it's January, and that in most places it's cold. Frigid, even. I spent this past Wednesday in a t-shirt running around Disneyland, so I wouldn't really know. 

I missed snow and cold around the holidays, but now that they're over I'm grateful for daily doses of sunshine and sea air. I'm still adjusting to the relative lack of seasons here, but I'm getting there.

December in southern California. 

That said, I do still love and miss snow. And sweet little Bao Bao at the National Zoo seems to be enjoying it enough for both of us. Stay warm, friends! I hope your 2015 is off to a healthy, peaceful start!

Friday Find: Holiday Music: It's full of food

This is kind of a cop-out on a Friday Find, but I am just SO EXCITED that this season is officially upon us! This is a post I wrote and originally posted on FoodLush a few years ago. I've edited and modified it.

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Thanksgiving is over! It's time to be unapologetically full of THE OTHER HOLIDAYS. 

I have an obsession with Christmas, and Christmas music, and Christmas food, and also regular food. And maybe you've noticed, but they overlap. In the obvious ways, sure, but have you noticed how often food is sung about in holiday songs? Because I have and I want to talk about it.

Let's examine some favorites shall we?

1. Sleigh Ride. 

Obviously the only good version is sung by Johnny Mathis. Give it a listen and just try not to feel jaunty and festive. Personally, it makes me want to dance like Kristen Wiig, which is high praise in my book.

If you've never heard Johnny Mathis's Christmas albums, get thee to iTunes and get thee some of that retro crooning. It's perfect.

My favorite part of the song is where they talk about passing around the coffee and the pumpkin pie.

a) Pumpkin pie is delicious (so is coffee) and b) It seems kind of rebellious as pumpkin pie is clearly a fall food, not a Christmas food. When I hear that lyric, I always wonder if people do eat pumpkin pie at their winter celebrations post-Thanksgiving. Do you? It certainly would seem that Johnny is in good company, given that pumpkin pie is also mentioned in Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.

2. My Favorite Things.

I am partial to the Barbra Streisand version on her Christmas album, which is aptly titled "A Christmas Album". I didn't know this was a Christmas song, but it must be if it's on that album. Here we have crisp apple struedel, and schnitzel with noodle. 

Again I am confused. Apple struedel? Really? Admittedly I do not know how the Von Trapps and Fruelein Maria did things in Austria, but aren't apples more of a fall food? How DID this become a holiday song anyway? The lyrics also mention rain. As we all know, the only festive precipitation is snow, so I continute to be confused all around by this song. 

3. The Christmas Song.

Bold and daring, this song puts it all out there right in the title. This is THE Christmas song. Therefore I'm willing to accept at face-value anything it claims. The chesnuts are roasting on an open fire. "Everybody knows, a turkey and some mistletoe..." Bam. Suddenly turkey isn't just for Thanksgiving. 

4. The 12 Days of Christmas.

Pear trees, partridges, maids-a-milking, geese-a-laying. So many foodstuffs I can hardly count....count. Eh? Ehh?

5. We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Figgy Pudding! A fictitious Christmas food only available in classic Charles Dickens stories.

6. Baby It's Cold Outside. 

A problematic song featuring drinks, and a woman wondering what a man has put in her drink as he doesn't accept no for an answer. I hate this song. Every time I hear it I think, oh, it can't be THAT bad, then, nope, it just keeps getting worse. 

7. Let It Snow.

He or she brought some corn for popping! Festive!

8. Frosty the Snowman. 

He has a corncob pipe, so.

9. The Hannukah Song. 

There aren't many Hannukah songs, but this one is really in it to win it, with it's love for gin and tonics. There's also mention of the Carnegie Deli, and I think we can agree a pound of pastrami with a piece of bread perched precariously on top makes a damn good sandwich. 

10. Marshmallow World. 

The entire song revolves around corny food jokes. It's a marshmallow world, a whipped cream day. I get excited every time the Target commercial featuring this song is played.

11. Here We Come A-wassailing. 

According to Wikipedia, which quotes Readers Digest: "the Christmas spirit often made the rich a little more generous than usual, and bands of beggars and orphans used to dance their way through the snowy streets of England, offering to sing good cheer and to tell good fortune if the householder would give them a drink from his wassail bowl or a penny or a pork pie or, let them stand for a few minutes beside the warmth of his hearth. The wassail bowl itself was a hearty combination of hot ale or beer, apples, spices and mead, just alcoholic enough to warm tingling toes and fingers of the singers"

It doesn't get more festive than pork pies, warm spiced alcohol, and begging British street urchins. 

God bless us, every one. 

Friday Find: Thanksgiving help

(I didn't post a Friday Find last week because I was hunting for things for the Decor Guide, and had just posted the Gift Guide. I thought about taking a break this week, but there's no time for that! We have things to discuss!)

I'll get straight to the point: I love everything Cook's Illustrated does (not sponsored, I just really love them). I've never made a bad recipe from them, and they have such useful ideas. I love that they explain what they tried, what worked, what didn't, and why. Lucky for us, they recently released a helpful Thanksgiving guide, and I am gleefully browsing it, in disbelief that Thanksgiving is just two weeks away! 

Photo from cooksillustrated.com.

There are lots of helpful tips and tricks, including when to buy brussels sprouts, a clever way to chop celery, and how to fix a pie crust (Daisy, my pie challenged friend, I thought of you!).

I want to do a Thanksgiving recipe round-up, but I'm not sure I'll get to it in a more formal way. So, if I don't, here are a few I've had great luck with. Some of the original recipes are behind a paywall, which, frankly, is worth it. Likewise, I always recommend the Cook's Illustrated cookbook. It's my go-to, and it's currently about $23 on Amazon.

Pumpkin Praline Pie. I am a pumpkin pie purist. For me it doesn't get any better than the recipe on the back of the Libby's can, but this classic twist with its crunchy, chewy, nutty top was a delightful treat. (Pro tip: Not currently behind a paywall, though it usually is. Enjoy it while it lasts!)

Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecan Crumble. Apparently you can put a pecan crumble on anything and it will win me over. I have tried many sweet potato casseroles over the years, and I think this one is my favorite. It's well balanced, but still a little whimsical with the addition of a handful of marshmallows. (Check out that Cook's Illustrated Thanksgiving guide for the secret to perfect marshmallow topping!)

Classic Green Bean Casserole. Look, I don't like green bean casserole. I don't like canned green beans and I don't like soup out of a can. But if we're being honest, I found some fancy fried onions at the store last year, and wanted an excuse to buy them. So I decided to try a fresh version of the mushy old classic, just for kicks. As usual, I turned to my friend Cook's Illustrated, and used their classic recipe (online behind a paywall, and also in the cookbook. I'd never tell you to google it so you can see if someone has posted the whole recipe on their blog, but if you think of that all on your own then there's really nothing I can do about it.) The differences are huge: it uses fresh, blanched green beans, and a mushroom cream sauce from scratch. For a few brief but precious moments on Thanksgiving morning, I stood at the stove stirring that sauce, and contemplated asking everyone to leave so I could have some private time alone with it and a spoon. This year I plan on skipping the onion and breadcrumb topping altogether, and just tossing some bright green, freshly blanched, nutritious green beans in that delicious, heartwarming, unhealthy, cozy white mushroom sauce. It was truly perfect.

I love menu planning, especially for Thanksgiving, and I'd love to hear what you're planning! Do you have any favorite recipes to share? What's on your menu this year? I know a lot of you have good stuff. Especially you, Sarah.