2007 Holidays, Part 2

Christmas Baking

Christmas preparations are really all about the baking, after all. First I made a chocolate babka in mini rolls in a Christmas-tree-shaped pan for Ren and Matt's ornament exchange party the week before Christmas. For all the non-New Yorkers and non-Jews, I billed it as "chocolate cinnamon buns," which seemed to go over well.

Then in New York for Christmas I made a completely flourless set of desserts (we're apparently observing kosher for Passover at Christmas): chewy almond-pistachio-pignoli cookies, and then (pictured above) a flourless chocolate cake roll with a light ganache filling and just a little festive decoration.

On the savory side, I made the famous New York Times/Bittman-Lahey no-knead yeast bread, adding chopped pecans and dried figs, and it came out beautifully. I think I'll always bake my yeast breads in dutch ovens from now on, given the gorgeous looks and crust of this one.

Christmas in New York

We took the LimoLiner (highly recommended) to NY for Christmas for a few days, getting to see Cori and Gabriella for lunch in the city before heading into Queens and spending the rest of the time at my parents' house. Christmas dinner is pictured above, except for Robert and Steve (one taking the picture, the other trying to get out of the way of it). We got to see Aunt Mary three days in a row (church on Sunday, church and dinner on Christmas Eve/Monday, dinner on Christmas Day/Tuesday), which was great, and then the day after Christmas Mom and Dad drove us back up to Boston. They stayed overnight (we ate at Myers + Chang) and then drove down on the 27th.

Christmas Week in Boston

Christine, Aurora, and Yasmine were spending Christmas in Boston, and we got to see them for one night on the front end of their visit and a full day on the end of it. Above you see a picture we had to bribe the camera-shy Aurora to let us take--it was worth the $5 for Robert and me to get some nice shots of us and the girls. We were happy to get to spend a little time with them both: Aurora is almost 14 here and Yasmine is 4 1/2, as she keeps reminding people. This habit caused a little confusion when we walked into a restaurant, just Robert, me, and the girls, and the hostess said, "Four?" and I said, "Six," since Dick and Christine were following us, and Yasmine said, "Four and a half."

Then o n Saturday Ben came by with his six-month-old twins, Miri and Lily (Miri is pictured above), and we ate lunch (a quicker process for some than others) and baby-gazed for awhile before he had to leave to go meet Lise.