Fortune Cookies for Christmas

For Jews like me determined not to celebrate Christmas, Christmas Day is a time for suffering and Chinese food. While Christian America is busy opening presents and eating ham glistening with corn syrup and red food dye, us Jews are sitting in a crowded Chinese restaurant eating lukewarm Moo Goo Gai Pan. This joyful time is usually spent with an elderly relative who keeps asking for covers for the fried rice, even though there haven't been covers in Chinese restaurants for almost 20 years ago. Jews who have moved up the ladder and gone on to buy sports teams sometimes go to a hotel on Christmas, but it isn't any better for them either. The only difference is that the elderly relatives sit through dinner in a dry mink coat; otherwise, they're still complaining that the food isn't hot enough.

This Christmas, I have vowed that it will be different. This year I am planning the ideal Christmas meal. The wonderful thing about a blog, is that I can plan this marvelous Christmas meal, tell you all about it, and then because I don't actually have to cook it, I won't have to worry about G-d being angry with me and shutting me out of the afterlife scene in Miami.

So if the Food Alien had servants and a baptism, here is the meal that she would serve on Christmas:

First there would be oysters. Lots of oysters. Bluepoints on the half shell cradled in crushed ice side-by-side with Oysters Rockefeller broiled on a bed of hot rock salt.

Then sauteed foie gras with poached fresh figs flown in from Sicily, drizzled with a Vin Santo reduction and garnished with a tiny bit of chopped mint from the greenhouse.

This would be followed by quenelles made with Dover sole and whole Nantucket bay scallops. For this course, it would be helpful to engage a kitchen maid who has had some experience in the court of Versailles, since the making of quenelles requires some facility with mincing, stuffing, poaching and conjugating the subjunctive. Quenelles are a blissful marriage of fish mousse with a sausage technique. The resulting dish has a sublime texture, like silk velvet or heavy satin. I would serve this with a light herbed veloute, garnished with a few barely quivering scallops. (The Nantucket bay scallop comes into season just in time to celebrate the birth of the little baby Jesus. Bay scallops have nothing in common with the large variety mercilessly dragged from the ocean floor. They are small, sweet and delicate and should be cooked for the shortest period of time combustibly possible.)

An intermezzo of cigarettes and sorbet would be appropriate at this time. I am partial to champagne sorbets, especially if a bit of lavender or rose is added, but other kinds would be suitable as well. I am not too fussy about sorbet, so long as it is not served too cold. If you are ever going to bother with a sorbet course, please don't serve it too cold. Sorbet is meant to be served only moderately chilled. A scoop of sorbet is not meant to be the doorbell for an igloo.

At this point, it would be appropriate to move on to the meat courses. How many meat courses depends upon whether you are dining with friends or with relatives. With friends, a three or four hour meal is a gift of the seraphin; with relatives, it may be a preview of purgatory. Regardless of consanguinity, the centerpiece must be a goose. If you can stand to bookend it with a terrine of venison with chanterelles, all the better.

Why goose? Is it not a tough and fatty bird? Indeed it is. Goose is not an easy animal to cook. It did not want to be in the barnyard to begin with, and it certainly did not take kindly to being killed. It is fowl with attitude. It usually begs the question, why did you bother to kill me and spend all this money? If you are going to make goose, be prepared. First, you must pick the goose carefully. Get a young one, not too big. Geese get sardonic as they age, making them harder to chew on. Then be kind to it; thank it for its sacrifice, shake it by the leg and wash it thoroughly. If you find that the joints have the pliability of, say, a Cirque du Soleil chorus girl, then you can proceed immediately to roasting; otherwise, brine it overnight and pray. When you are ready to roast it, make a stuffing of tart apples and goose liver. It is best roasted with a mire-poire, white wine and stock and covered for the first hour of cooking. Thereafter, cook it uncovered, baste often and keep praying.

At my ephemeral Christmas dinner, the roasted goose will be served with several side dishes: Spaetzle, peas with mushrooms and baby red onions, and sweet and sour red cabbage. (I have no objection to moving from France to Germany in the middle of a meal. The creation of the European Union freed the hostess from the ancient constraints of national allegiance. Be free! Be modern! Serve spaetzle after Champagne!)

After the goose, a short perambulation through the fields is a good idea: A lady slipper salad of sorrel, endive, frissee and mache, with a few slivers of Seckel pear. Alternatively, I might just bring in a box of cigars.

For dessert, I am not serving Buche de Noel. I don't like it. It reminds me of the cakes I ate at childhood birthday parties. Desserts made to resemble horticultural objects, like tree stumps and roses, are rarely pleasing. For dessert, I am serving a duo of Baba au Rhum and a version of Baked "Alaska," homemade French vanilla and mango ice creams, topped with meringue and flambeed with rhum vieux. There is always something festive about a bonfire, especially one that smells like rum.

And lastly, to end the meal, the butler will bring out some toothpicks, a dish of pineapple chunks and a plate of fortune cookies.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

-The Food Alien