"Merry Christmas, You Wonderful Old Building and Loan!"

For some reason, many people dislike It's A Wonderful Life, calling it sentimental or saccharine. Whenever I hear this, I wonder if we're watching the same movie. Despair and suicide at Christmas time are not as uncommon as they should be, and while they could be treated sentimentally, director Frank Capra does anything but. Maybe it's the final scene (which I won't give away) that people are objecting to. In which case, I have to wonder if our world is as saturated in cynicism as my grandfather seems to think. This ending isn't a common occurrence certainly, but it's genuine and realistic. George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) is truly a great man (in a way that we're ALL called to be great) and this is why he deserves this ending. Anyways, I'll let someone else (who really gets it) explain why this is a great movie. (Article contains spoilers!) It's A Wonderful Life is not only my favourite Christmas film, but one of my favourite movies of all time.

I scrapped the idea of making food with this. Eggnog is what's called for and plenty of it. Traditionally, eggnog is spiked with rum and while that's good, brandy is better and bourbon is best. Try all 3 and decide for yourself which you like.

SPIRITED EGGNOG



6 egg yolks
6 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
rum, brandy or bourbon to taste (optional)

Beat the egg yolks with 2 cups of the milk and then pour them into a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. As soon as steam starts to rise from the liquid, remove from heat and stir in the sugar. Pour in the remaining 4 cups of milk and the nutmeg and mix well. You could stir in the alcohol at this point, but I usually leave it out so kids can partake as well, and let people mix the booze into their own glass. Garnish each glass with a dollop of whipped cream and a pinch of nutmeg. Merry Christmas!

Christmas in England

Scrooge (Alastair Sim) and the Ghost of Christmas Present (Francis de Wolff) watching the Cratchit family carve their Christmas goose

The 1951 Christmas Carol (or Scrooge) is the definitive film version and Alastair Sim is the definitive Scrooge. I sometimes feel a little irritated when films are made of my favourite books (I don't think they've made a perfect Tale of Two Cities yet and the most recent Brideshead Revisited film was a travesty) but this Christmas Carol, while changing a couple of things, is the most faithful to Dickens' vision and spirit. It's inspiring. It's tradition.


CHRISTMAS IN ENGLAND WITH MULLED WINE AND ROASTED CHESTNUTS


Mulled Wine




2 x 750 ml bottles of red wine
2 oranges, sliced thinly
4 cinnamon sticks
10 whole cloves
1/4 cup dark rum
4 tablespoons dark brown sugar



Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and cook, stirring every few minutes or so, until steaming but NOT boiling! Serve warm in mugs or heatproof glasses, garnished with a cinnamon stick. Mulled wine makes beautiful music, especially when accompanied by roasted chestnuts.



Roasted Chestnuts

Chestnuts (however many you can beg, borrow or steal ;)
Water (enough to cover the nuts)


Soak your chestnuts in room temperature water for 20-30 minutes to soften the shells.


Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.


With a sharp knife, make slits in the flat side of each chestnut (to allow the steam to escape and prevent the nuts from exploding) in an X shape. Place the nuts on a baking sheet with the cut sides up and bake for 20-25 minutes until fragrant and easy to peel (the nut inside will be golden brown). Peel when cool enough to handle and eat while warm.



God bless us, every one!

And They were Sore Afraid...

A Charlie Brown Christmas is a holiday classic, played countless times every year on several TV channels, beginning in mid-November. It's a perennial favourite for Christians and non-Christians alike, its showcasing of Luke 2 notwithstanding. At Christmas time, we all want meaning. The original meaning of Christmas bursts everywhere in our culture, political correctness uncomfortably unable to keep a lid on it, with "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays." And somehow people love Charlie Brown, whatever their beliefs. It isn't just the awesome jazz piano composed by the late great Vince Guaraldi. It isn't just the quotable lines ("All I want's my fair share!" "He never got his picture on bubblegum cards!" "I know when I've been insulted; I know when I've been insulted!"). It's the children singing together. It's the little tree: pathos on a spindly trunk. It's Linus reciting from the Gospel of Luke. This is the meaning of Christmas, Charlie Brown.

CANDY CANE HOT CHOCOLATE (serves 1, but is easily doubled, tripled, etc)

2 cups milk
1 scant tablespoon cocoa
1 generous (but not exactly heaping) tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon creme de menthe or peppermint schnapps
2-3 tablespoons whipped cream
Candy cane or Christmas sprinkles to garnish (optional)

Combine the milk, cocoa and sugar in a small sauce pan over medium-high heat, stirring every few minutes until very hot. Do not allow to boil! Remove from heat.

Pour into a medium sized mug and stir in the creme de menthe. Dollop the whipped cream on top of the hot chocolate and garnish with the candy cane and/or the Christmassy sprinkles, if using.

Cookies for Santa

So I went to the garage to take my cookies out of the freezer to photograph them for this post. I thought I would be in and out of there in two minutes, so didn't wear my coat. Suffice to say, it was a stupid idea. In addition to the frigid garage, I was dipping in and out of the freezer and attempting to pry open stubborn Tupperware containers with fingers that were rapidly freezing and growing numb. Beating them against my leg to wake them up didn't do much. Aside of having my own To Build a Fire moment in the garage, surrounded by hockey equipment, I didn't accomplish much. The pictures I took were way too dark. You couldn't properly see the cookies at all, and though I am in no way a photographer, I at least know that seeing the subject is an important part. So, I went inside, put on my coat, warmed up and tried again.
Clustered around the milk glass are Brandy Balls and directly underneath them are Almond Bars. To the left in front are Peppermint Crackles and the Ginger Crackles are at the bottom.


Many holiday movies denounce the commercialism of the season and how much we've gotten out of hand with our spending and gifting. How the Grinch stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas and others try to remind the viewers of what Christmas is really all about. One of my favourite examples of this is Miracle on 34th Street. Little Susan Walker (Natalie Wood) has already been through her parents' divorce and deals with life in the best way she knows how to, as a miniature adult. With practicality, forthrightness and an enforced maturity that is heartbreaking in all children who are thrust into adulthood too soon, Susan has already dismissed the possibility of there being a Santa Claus. When the Macy's Department Store Santa turns out to be unsuitable, Macy's hires a man who turns out to be the real deal. He (Edmund Gwenn) sits in the store and listens to the requests of children, but instead of recommending Macy's products to their parents, he tells the parents where to go to get the best bargain. And it often isn't Macy's. This policy frustrates the owner of Macy's and eventually leads to Santa being put on trial.

And while this movie has its share of poignant moments, the real miracle is Susan's transformation and that of her mother, Doris (Maureen O'Hara), who has never believed in encouraging fairy tales or fantasy of any sort. Miracle on 34th Street is a classic and rightly so.

Leave out a plate of your favourite Christmas cookies for Santa. On my plate are the Ginger Crackles I've given a recipe for before. The Brandy Balls, Almond Bars and Peppermint Crackles recipes are in the post directly above this one. Enjoy them (and all Christmas cookies) with a glass of milk or eggnog.

Gingery Goodness

A slightly out of focus picture of ginger crackles cooling on my ancient cookie tin:

A slightly small picture of a nearly perfect comedy:

An Everlasting Piece
2000; Barry McEvoy, Brian F. O’Byrne
Directed by Barry Levinson

Being a Catholic, I'll start with confession:

When I first saw An Everlasting Piece at the age of 15 or 16, I had a crush on Barry McEvoy, who plays Colm, a Catholic barber. (He also wrote the screenplay.) His hair so dark, his temperament so intense; that was all it took. I had the same feelings for Robert Arkin who played Jimmy Rabbitte in The Commitments. Not my most embarrassing crushes, but embarrassing enough. Moving on...

An Everlasting Piece is comic brilliance, a story set in 1980’s Belfast about two barbers, one an assertive Catholic, the other a hesitant Protestant, (McEvoy and Brian F. O'Byrne) who decide to get into the hairpiece business, figuring that they can capture both the Catholic and Protestant markets, calling themselves The Piece People. Though they start out as “the only hairpiece company in all of Northern Ireland,” they don’t remain the only one. The ensuing competition, fraught with religious tension and a growing friendship between the two men, is material for many classic scenes. You may want to buy An Everlasting Piece, because you’ll likely watch it over and over again.

In honour of the Irish wit, snappy dialogue and intense personalities, I present gingersnaps to consume with this film. I know that they aren’t Irish but there is something about gingersnaps, the spiciness, the sugar granules on top and most of all, the satisfying crunch as you bite down. These cookies, redolent with spicy, warm aromas and just hot enough on the palate, always make me think of Colm dancing a jig on top of the flight of stairs after being chased by Mr. Black and his cronies.

SPICY UNAPOLOGETIC GINGER CRACKLES (Makes 3 1/2 dozen)

1/2 cup vegetable shortening (such as Crisco)

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup molasses (not blackstrap. Use "fancy" or "cooking" molasses)

1 cup white flour

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons ground ginger

Pinch of white pepper

1 teaspoon ground cloves

Pinch of salt

Sugar to roll the cookies in

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cream together the shortening, butter and sugar. Beat in the egg and molasses. Combine both flours, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, cloves and salt in another bowl and then mix the dry ingredients into the wet until thoroughly combined. I usually do this in the food processor, where, as my brother Isaiah pointed out, the batter takes on the appearance of dog food. Rover never had it so good...

Roll your batter into 1 inch balls and then roll each ball in a little bit of sugar to coat it.

Place your balls about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 - 10 minutes until the cookies are set and brown underneath. Allow to cool before greedily munching away. They are great with a glass of milk and even better with coffee.

Fa ra ra ra raaaaa ra ra ra raaaaa!

A Christmas Story
1983; Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin, Peter Billingsley
Directed by Bob Clark

A Christmas Story is a cult film among some. For years, I didn’t know its real name, thinking of it simply as “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!” Based on the memoirs of Jean Shepherd, A Christmas Story captures the trials and fantasies of childhood in a realistic and unsentimental way. Our hero Ralphie (a fantastic Peter Billingsley) grows up in the 1940’s, though it just as easily could be today. Some things never change, like when Ralphie feels mistreated and fantasizes about going blind. Then they’d be sorry! (With me, it was always getting hit by a car….) If a BB gun had appeared under our tree on Christmas morning, with my name on it, I probably would have thought my parents had mixed up the tags. No matter. A Christmas Story will have you nodding your head and laughing out loud in recognition, almost no matter what your childhood was like.

The ingredient list for this recipe may make you think of fruitcake but press on anyway. For the record, I hate fruitcake and I absolutely love this brandy tart. It’s Christmassy without being only appropriate at Yuletide. You can enjoy it at any time of year. This tart is “adult” tasting and would have elicited groans from me as a child, as I suspect it would from most children. Now, however, you can enjoy it with your more mature palate. That’s what watching A Christmas Story is all about, remembering childhood with your now-adult perspective on the horrors and triumphs of the fourth grade. It’s not really a children’s movie though it may seem that way at first glance. This brandy tart is perfect accompaniment and I really hope you serve it warm with a dollop of whipped cream.

I got this recipe from a friend of my mother's who is a certified Cordon Bleu chef. She despises cooking and forever blames cooking school for ruining it for her. Her idea of dinner is a pot of baked beans and another pot of rice. If we're really going to get fancy, maybe a cut up cantaloupe for dessert. Jean, however, will put her education to good use now and then and come up with a truly fantastic recipe. I am fortunate to have sampled some of these, the Brandy Tart being my favourite. Thanks Jean.

JEAN'S BRANDY TART

TART:

4 ounces dates
4 ounces raisins
1/4 cup maraschino cherries
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1 egg, lightly beaten

SAUCE:

1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

1/3 cup brandy

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the tart, finely chop the dates, raisins and cherries. Pour the boiling water over the fruits and set aside. (The water won't cover the fruits completely; don't worry about it.) In another bowl, combine the sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder and walnuts. Pour in the egg and the date mixture at the same time and stir until just combined. Scrape the batter into a tart pan or deep dish pie plate. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool completely.

For the sauce, combine the butter, sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer the sauce for 4 minutes, stirring every minute or so. Remove from the heat, allow to cool for 2 minutes and then stir in the brandy. (This will be a very wet sauce, not a thickened one).

Once the tart is completely cool, poke holes all over it with a knife. Pour the warm sauce over the tart, slowly, allowing it time to soak into the tart. Cut in wedges and serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, if desired.

Spiced, Poignant Warmth

Dear Frankie
2005; Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, Jack McElhone
Directed by Shona Auerbach

The storyline of this Scottish film sounds touching enough: single mother writes letters to her son, pretending to be son’s away-at-sea father. “Father’s” ship is coming to port; nine-year-old Frankie (a wise, unforgettable Jack McElhone) is expecting to finally meet his Da. Frankie’s mother (the luminously beautiful Emily Mortimer) hires a stranger to play the part.

And it is a beautiful story, a touching story. But the best moments are the most unexpected. The pace set by director Shona Auerbach is lilting and lingering and true to life. She doesn’t rush us to reconciliation or to words that will ease an awkward silence. As gentle and lovely as Dear Frankie is, it is also a tense film, one in which I found my heart pounding through many scenes, waiting to see or hear what would come next. No scene is as fraught with tension as the moment when Frankie meets the man (Gerard Butler) his mother has hired to be Frankie’s dad for the day. Almost every emotion in the human spectrum runs through us in those few moments.

Herein is the genius of Dear Frankie: that the filmmakers, Auerbach and writer Amy Gibb and each actor is creating a real story, is inhabiting a real role, a real life. (No, I don't mean that it's based on a true story, just that it's so genuine to how we feel, react, behave.) They are not acting a part or having the perfect screen kiss or laugh. They hold back, they hesitate, they suffer, they are silent for long moments, they experience a hundred feelings in the blink of an eye. We forget how pretend and glossy films usually are, how simulated the world they create, how artificial the responses we have to them. We forget, that is, until a film this true comes along and holds up a mirror to human experience.

This drink is a deep, hot cherry cider capped with a small dollop of whipped cream and shaved chocolate. I watched Dear Frankie recently on a chilly October night and it seems like a perfect autumn film, capturing so much of that season’s melancholy and changefulness. But you could (and should) watch it any time of year. The drink, on the other hand, is good for autumn, better for winter, and truly perfect for Christmas.

SPICY CHERRY CIDER
This cider is inspired by a recipe on Epicurious.com.

4 cups cherry juice (100% black cherry juice, such as R.W Knudson's)
2 cups apple juice (again, only the best: Tropicana, or another 100% apple)
1 cup brandy
2 tablespoons sugar
4 cinnamon sticks
20 whole cloves
1 large apple, cored and cut in quarters (peeling it isn't necessary)

1/3 cup whipping cream (optional)
1 ounce bitter sweet chocolate (optional)

Stir the cherry juice, apple juice, brandy, sugar, cinnamon, cloves and apple together in heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to medium, stirring regularly. Simmer for ten minutes or so. (This isn't to reduce so much as it is to infuse the drink with the spices.) Remove from heat and strain out the cinnamon sticks, cloves and apple chunks. Discard the spices and the apple. (I also save the apple in the fridge sometimes and mash it's pulpy, garnet coloured, sweet spiciness into a bowl of thick, plain yogourt for my breakfast next morning.)

Pour the cider into 5 teacups or small mugs.

Whip the cream if using and shave the chocolate. Dollop some cream and sprinkle some chocolate onto each drink. Serve immediately. Serves 5.