Vacation for a few days, but never from cooking

It was nice to have a few days off and not actually go anywhere. It's a strange thing for me, because I never take vacation to stay home. Many people do, but I think that's just the biggest waste of time. The way Christmas fell on a Tuesday though provided an ideal excuse to take another day on Friday and fully enjoy the season. D and I kept it simple--enjoy each other's company and make the holiday memorably relaxing. It was a nice alternative to what seems like year after year of chaotic Christmases. We spent it with friends and family all on seperate occasions. We had a pho dinner party, where I concocted a pho broth from oxtails, charred ginger and onions, fish sauce and star anise to name a few ingredients. For those unfamiliar with pho you garnish the soup with flank steak, bahn pho noodles, and copious amounts of fresh herbs like cilantro, basil and mint. My favorite part are the fresh chile peppers and additional sriracha hot sauce you can add until your nose waters. I made a Gingerita to complement the meal--sugar is melted in lime juice and steeped along with lemongrass and ginger and then mixed with tequila (glorious!). Next time I make it I will temper the lime juice a bit as it was a bit too hearty for the drink. It could have been lighter. We finished the dinner off with a lemon-bay leaf scented creme brulee. For my bridal shower my little cousin gave me a creme brulee torch set. Hey, three years ago it was the present to get. Regardless of it's usefulness it was that corny present that everyone was registering for. Today that might be a Magic Bullet, or an espresso machine I guess. The problem wit hthe torch is that you need a gas source, and I've yet to buy it. Several other times I've just broiled the creme brulee with the sugar on top and it's worked fine, but not this time. The sugar turned more gooey than crisp (I probably should've pureed it in a processor to make it finer), so the brulee lacked that crunchy glass top.

On Christmas Eve we had our best friends over for brunch which was fairly simple except for ebelskivers. It's a traditional Danish (Nordic, really, but I'll choose my heritage to take all the credit) breakfast pancake that is made in a special pan. They're quite popular these days, being sold at Williams-Sonoma even. Hail the Vikings! D decided to be the cooker of the "evil"-skivers and after a bit of crash/boom/banging he delivered several golden brown puff balls dusted with powdered sugar and filled with fruit spread. It was warm and poppable like a donut!

Lastly, I made a Julekage which is a long tradition for our Danish family. Mimi, my grandmother was the one and only person in our family who made this bread. The past several years since her stroke I have taken over the yearly duty, although my family is still shocked and ecstatic to smell the sweet almond frosting at Christmastime. I'm a bit overwhelmed though, because I just read on several sites as I was trying to find a good link to explain Julekage that people put cardamom in it. We have never used cardamom--I don't even know if my grandmother knows what cardamom is. Granted, she was a poor fisherman's daughter, so they might not have been able to afford such spices. To this day she won't eat fish (except for fish sticks) because the family would eat only his leftover fish from his trips on the North Sea. I will have to try this cardamom one day when I actually make a Julekage for myself, as well as use the dried up pieces for french toast--ooo la la...