of chestnuts and plenty

Happy New Year! The first day of the year is a good day for talking about a healthy start and new beginnings. It’s a day for fruit salads and resolutions. But we lived so much in every inch and corner of last year that it’s spilled over into this one. Resolutions will have to wait. Today, I’m still reflecting.

Last year was full—full of blessings. Of celebrations and new things. It was a year of grabbing each moment and living in it a little more richly—allowing space and time for doing or cooking or eating or learning something that grabbed my attention at a given time, a freer form of living I learned from my sweet husband. I spent more time luxuriating over details on the garden. I splurged a little on that fine stinky cheese or handmade chestnut raviolis at Eataly, despite the knowledge that I could make (the later) at home for half the cost.  I enjoyed the craft of crackly crust breads I dream of making myself, and not for a minute regretted that I haven’t gotten to that yet.

Last year, I read books, books like The Invisible Bridge and The Shoemaker's Wife, which let me travel far beyond our four walls, let my mind and soul soar to new places and times, like a tiny village of the Bergamo Alta in the Italian Alps at the turn of the last century.  It is there that I imagined this meal, and how it came to be in our table—a meal from the time of artisans, when handcrafted foods unassumingly filled our kitchens—a time of hand cut ravioli and Robiola that aged in the cellar of every family home. It left such an impression on my soul that when Gourmet asked me what my best meal of the year was, this one came immediately to mind. It’s now a part of their collection of the Best Things We Ate in 2012 on Gourmet Live, and one of dozens of memorable meals, moments, and riches I count among my own year's bests.

~

I always thought it odd that in our culture on New Years Eve, we party until the ball drops, and start the New Year pulling our pillows over our eyes. I’m much more inclined to want to sit around a table with good friends and a generous spread of food, as we did last night, giving thanks for the plenty in our lives—the friendships, our dear families, good health—and then, at home quietly in our beds, think about what we want to carry forward into 2013: meals like this one, the love of color and texture and intoxicating photography, the instinct to stop long enough and often enough to write down the amazing things our tiny girl is saying and learning, to savor the pink of her cheeks and lips when she first wakes up, to keep dreaming about making my own crackly crust breads, and when I can not, keep treating myself to those made by others.

More than anything else, I want to carry forward gratitude—gratitude to God for all the tremendous opportunities we’ve been given; Gratitude to our friends, our family, our communities for making life rich, and for believing in our little family; Gratitude to all of you who come here to read and be fed. I hope you’ll keep coming, and most importantly, I hope your new year is full of plenty. 

Photos and Recipes © Sarah Copeland 2013

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Soil Mates {A Valentine's Day Gift}

Research shows that steady relationships, like lifelong friendships or marriage, are good for our health. And people aren't the only living creatures that benefit from companionship. Many animals mate for life, and even veggies benefit from planting in pairs. Yes, your tomatoes need love too.

Vegetables planted together share health benefits like soil enrichment and natural pest control which translates to more flavor on your plate. Like human love, it's complicated. Enter Soil Mates, a design-savvy garden guide to what to plant together and why. Consider it the match.com for your garden, and the perfect gift for a gardener you love.

Sugar and Spice and Cocoa, so nice

Sure, I shop at the farmer's market and grow my own food. But since ingredients like sugar, cocoa and vanilla don't grow anywhere near our home, I don't feel guilty buying them at Costco, where the prices keep me in high-quality baking supplies even in the leanest times. I wouldn't buy just any old ingredient at a mega-discount store, but their fair-trade organic sugar, Dutch process cocoa and plump Madagascar vanilla beans won my approval this summer when I was developing recipes for my cookbook. They now command a prime spot on our pantry. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, they deserve a spot in yours too. Here's the scoop:

Wholesome Sweeteners Fair Trade Organic Sugar: It's not very often you can find "certified fair trade" and "organic" in the same product. Made from canes in South America, this is my all-purpose baking and sweetening sugar. Replace your refined white sugar one for one in cookies, cakes, icings and on top of your morning latte.

Rodelle Dutch Process Cocoa: Dutch process cocoa {think Valhrona} is deeper and darker than
natural cocoa {think Hershey's} which gives it what I like to call a grown-up cocoa flavor. Sourced "responsibly" {according to Rodelle's website} from West Africa,  this is my go-to deep-flavored cocoa, perfect for anything you want an intense chocolate flavor to shine in, like cakes, pudding and of course, hot cocoa. Be sure to check recipes that include leaveners {like baking soda or baking powder}.
Dutch process cocoa reacts differently than natural in these recipes {read more here}, so follow those recipes to a T.

Rodelle Vanilla Beans: Vanilla beans or pods come from an orchid plant indigenous to South Eastern Mexico, and later migrated to Madagascar where today's best beans are grown. These plump pods pack enough vanillin to scrape into sweets and stir into frostings for a vanilla flecked flavor that extracts rarely achieve. You can sometimes find vanilla beans in the baking aisle of the grocery store, but they are
often thin and dry and not worth the pretty penny they cost. {Sorry McCormick, your vanilla beans having nothing on these chubsters}.  If you've never used a vanilla bean before, check out Rodelle's how-to-video for how to split and scrape a bean {here}. Be sure to save your leftover beans to dry and store in a jar of sugar for DIY vanilla sugar.

Since not everyone {sorry mom!} has a Costco, I also found these goodies on Amazon for a
not-quite-Costco-cheap-but-fair price too. Here's a shortcut for you: sugar {click here} cocoa {click here} and vanilla beans {click here}.

No excuses now, time to bake something sweet for the one you love.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Grilled Cheese

~ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, 

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are 

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ~

u.s.a.

One Thursday in May, in a courthouse in Brooklyn, 240 people became American citizens. One of them was my husband András. He is among the one hundred million Americans that have become citizens by oath rather than birth since our nation began over 230 years ago. 

The story of András’ citizenship is not mine to tell. Most of it happened before I even knew him—the green card application process, the steep fees, the long waiting, lawyers, courts, exams, and the 5 long years where he could not travel home to see his family. By the time we met, András was a green-card carrying permanent resident who knew more about our country than I did. He studied and revered our founding fathers; he knew the names and spellings of most members of congress. 

I was only there to cheer him toward the finish line, to quiz him in preparation for his final citizenship exam, to pick out his tie for his last interview, and stand by him with an un-earned pride in his journey as he stood taking his Oath of Allegiance. I even cried a little. Then, we covered our hearts with our hands and spoke the Pledge of Allegiance to a flag and the liberty it stands for that I’d long since taken for granted.

When it was over, the judge addressed the audience.

“This oath signifies your confidence in the United States of America,” she said.

I hadn’t spent much time thinking about my own confidence in this nation, but this was a concept that András, who was born into an era of communism in Hungary, understood very well. It’s confidence that the nation will defend its borders, that no government including our own can come in and steel your land or your liberty. It means that you can travel freely beyond our borders and come home again any time you wish.

Unconsciously, I believe my confidence in this land is in its people, the diversity of our origins and the opportunities and tolerance that breeds. My confidence is in self-made men, like András, who continue to build the nation with their own two hands and who hold fast to the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Our own pursuit of happiness began with hamburgers {veggie for him, beef for me} and fries at Williamsburger directly following his naturalization. András took a hold of two catsup containers and assaulted his plate like only a true American could. I was proud.

It continued on as we celebrated for two weeks, with friends in New York and with my parents in Illinois over meal upon meal deeply rooted in American tradition. We had corndogs and watermelon and potato salad on endless stacks of star-spangled plates from Costo. We drank bottles of coca-cola and attacked mom's chocolate chip cookies and homemade chocolate cake. We ate grilled cheese and bad pie in a half dozen diners from San Francisco to New York and we loved every minute of it.

Though he has a deep love and reverence for his homeland, András was made to be an American. He loves tuna melts and potato chips, skateboards and baseball caps and can hover down a handful of M&Ms with the best of them. He pledges allegiance to Pearl Jam and Metallica and this morning he even woke up humming the national anthem. But still, after deep indoctrination into the fabric of this great nation, I felt something was missing, until last weekend, when András cooked his first meal on his very own American-made gas grill, my gift to honor his achievement.

This weekend we will celebrate our independence quietly, in a little house in the country where András can rock out on the grill and I can put my feet up, drink lemonade and give thanks for his confidence in the United States of America. 

Twelve Grapes {Nochevieja}

hunter, new york

In Spain, revelers bring in the New Year by stuffing 12 grapes into their mouth, one for each of the 12 chimes that sound at midnight from the bell in the town square as the next year begins. It’s folklore that either started as a way to boost grape sales in the bountiful harvest year of 1909, or a way to mock the nobles who consumed their grapes as cava. The gut-laughter it induces is followed by chubby cheeked kisses, bidding the previous year adios. The custom is topped only by the feasts of fish and seafood, capon or lamb for which a Spanish family will spare no expense to mark the year’s end.

In the village of Hunter, New York, two Spaniards, two Americans, one Hungarian and a baby {half Spanish, half American} brought in the New Year with 12 grapes, bad champagne and Martinelli’s sparkling cider around a roaring fireplace at the local inn. Our feast was a mix of Turrón blando {Spanish almond candy} and home-cured pork lomo, courtesy of the Spaniards’ abuela {grandmother}, and Peanut Butter Pandemonium ice cream picked up at the Stewart’s where we made a pit stop on our way into town.

In Spain, families dress to the nines in their own home, sparing no detail of their lavish celebration. At the Hunter Inn, where we hosted our fiesta after a roll in the snow and dunk in the hot tub, attire was pj’s and pearls, inspired by the last minute whimsy of one American who never travels without cocktail jewels and faux furs.

One day, I would love to spend New Year’s in Spain. Until I do, I want to spend every New Years from here to eternity in pearls and pajamas, drinking Martinelli’s cider, stuffing my face with grapes and getting ridiculous with friends whose love knows no pretense.

By the way, that is the baby, Lola, who only looks like her cheeks are stuffed with grapes. She was asleep for the grape stuffing, pjs and pearls, but I'm pretty sure she's cuter than the rest of us. Plus, András says my pj pictures are too skimpy to post here.

Guilt, Glee and Christmas Trees

I am one of those rare New Yorkers that absolutely loves going home for the Holidays. Although my siblings might disagree, the minute I get home, I loose all contact with my picky preferences and accept our holiday habits, meals, and mayhem as a temporary version of bliss.

For about a week, I revert to a pre-1999-state, when I left the Midwest for city slicker life, slip into bulky old sweaters and sit at my spot at the family table to eat whatever meal is placed before me. I forget that I once said the best meal I ever ate was linguine with caviar and sea urchin at Le Bernadin, and suddenly it’s Mom’s mashed potatoes, Mom’s turkey noodle soup, Mom’s shrimp cocktail and prime rib dinner on Christmas Eve.

Today, when I got back to the city, I listened as my friends and colleagues reported back about their visits to in-laws in the Midwest. There were storied back-of-the-soup-can green been casseroles, jiggly Jell-O molds with Cool Whip, sickly sweet sweet potatoes, blue-cheese balls with holiday cracker medleys – all the things we love to hate about our humble culinary beginnings. We all had a good laugh at these institutions of American culture, but I felt secretly grateful that my family had somehow escaped them. Sure, I had experienced all of these fine foods at some point in my upbringing, but rarely at home, and certainly not at the holiday table.

I hate to brag, but my mom makes a mighty fine Christmas meal. It’s not to say our family is above condensed canned soup casseroles. We had them on occasion. But our holiday table has always had some version of a fresh vegetable {this year, asparagus}, a wonderfully roast meat {turkey, plumped with plenty of real butter}, smashed sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry relish, Waldorf salad, pecan pie from scratch with real whipped cream…

I was having this thought, feeling rather proud of my mom, when it occurred to me that Waldorf salad has both mini marshmallows and mayonnaise. Just then the conversation turned to miniature Christmas villages, Christmas plates, tiny tree earrings, and {aghast!} Christmas salt-and-pepper shakers. My mind flashed to a mental snapshot I’d taken of our Christmas Eve table, complete with Christmas imprinted s & p shakers, and I felt both guilt and glee.

Although I may never have a set of Christmas dishes of my own, I have to admit I love, no adore, eating off of them exclusively from the minute we arrive home until the day we head back east. They speak to me of a time and place where the world revolves around the changing of seasons and holiday flourish, instead of stock prices. Like appliquéd Christmas sweaters, faded felt stockings and cream-of-mushroom casseroles, they serve as humility touchstones that insure that I shall never be too cool for a cup of Christmas cheer.

Drizzle & Dazzle

{Handmade Christmas, part xi}

If you've been struck with the post-gift-giving blues, fear not. Gift giving goes on until the stroke of midnight on January 31, giving you a perfect opportunity to bring something dazzling to new year's cocktail parties, like cranberry syrup for mixing up sophisticated kir royales.

the syrup: mix 2 cups water + 2 cups sugar + 1 cup cranberries in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook just until sugar dissolves. Turn off the heat, cover and let stand until cool. Cranberries will soften and color the syrup, but hold their shape.

the bottle: From our favorite raw tupelo honey, a Christmas past gift to us.

the ribbon: Thank You ribbon, by Midori, who also make personalized ribbon.

the cork: From the best bottle of red we drank this month.

Incidentally, this syrup is also lovely drizzled over waffles or pancakes, which would make a delicious post-Fête feast as well.

A Christmas Goose

{Handmade Christmas, part xi}

I can't imagine ever spending Christmas without my family, but one day, we'll spend Christmas in Hungary. When I think of that, I imagine a goose, big and fat, once covered in the white feathers that András grandmother taught me to use to dust flour off her strudel dough. The goose would taste like the one I ate at the Csárdás in Csopak on a cold October night after Andras asked me to be his wife. We {sans A., the Hungarian Vegetarian} would eat it with red cabbage and Olaszirizling and finish the night with Hungarian Rákóczy Cake, and Dios Beigli.

At the Copeland house, Christmas is a perfect repeat of Thanksgiving, Turkey and cranberry relish, mashed potatoes and pecan pie, but whatever the bird, a bundle of herbs from your garden, tied and ready to baste with butter, is the perfect way to whisper thanks to your hostess, and help her fill her bird with flavor.

Blue Ribbon Beans

{Handmade Christmas, part ix}

Before you put away your sewing machine, here's the perfect thing to put in a little bag made of scrap fabric. Since you were so clever to save your seeds from your summer garden, why not pass them on? Shared seeds are the gift that keep on giving, and keeping heirloom varieties growing in your community is a smart way to protect our seed supply. Plus, every successive season you save seeds, you're more likely grow veggies better suited to your garden's climate than they were the year before.

My favorite thing about seed saving is naming them. Experts like Mike McGrath, host of Public Radio's You Bet Your Garden, claim that if you save the seed of a specific variety for a decade and grow it in the same climate, you earn the right to give it a name. I took that liberty a little early, and am pretty proud to pass on my blue ribbon beans. I can't wait to see them spring up in my neighbor's garden when the snow thaws. Oh, don't forget to add the year of the upcoming season, to remind gardeners to put them in the ground.

P.S. I told you my sewing machine broke, so I cheated. This little satchel game with a gift card from Anthropologie. Recycled giving = green, and in a pinch is as good as handmade!

P.S.S. It's completely covered in white outside!

Spot of Tea

{Handmade Christmas, part viii}

Good morning! I like to start the day with tea. You?

Chances are someone you know does too, and they'd be delighted to get a little hand-sewn satchel of mint or lemon verbena leaves from your very own garden or windowsill. I clipped these bunches from mine just before the snow fell and plan to give them fresh for potent tea, but you can dry them out in a single layer on a lined tray overnight.

This satchel is inspired by The French General, one of my favorite stores for stickers, ribbons, aprons and linens, and the team behind my favorite sewing book, Home Sewn. They sell their signature fabrics here, but if you don't sew, or have a sick machine like me, a paper coffee bag will work just as well.

Tinsel Town

{Handmade Christmas, part vii}

Ready for S'more? How about a tin of sweet s'more fixins?

Tuck your new favorite gingerbread, baked in stars, into tins with your favorite chocolate and homemade marshmallows {I like smitten kitchen's version}. Tie with baker's twine and slip in a little silver sprig of spruce. Oh, I made my label with paper from Lee's Art Shop, and a paper hole punch.

I hope you're lucky enough to be there when your giftee opens his gift and roasts the marshmallows over the live fire, but if you're not, set aside a set for yourself. After you taste the gingerbread version of this favored treat, you'll never go back to grahams.

P.S. Don't tell, but I got this tin at the dollar store!

Glass Castle

{Handmade Christmas, part v}

An empty glass jam jar is the beginning of beautiful things when it comes to handmade giving. If you're a jam jar junkie like me, it's likely you have stash of beauties that just need a quick wash and referesh with a handmade label. I like fluff jars, with their fat belly's and bright red tops, but any old honey jar will do. Stuffed with homemade jams, pickles and preserves, you've got a perfect gift. It's past preserving season, which puts you in quite a pickle, but luckily most markets still have plenty of crispy crispins and plucky pippins for saucing. Name your applesauce something playful, like Pippin Pleasure, Jonagold Royale, or Empire State Sauce {if your apples happen to come from New York} to give away the apple's origins, wrap and give. Here's my recipe.

A Little Loaf

{Handmade Christmas, part i}

Let's start simple. Let's see, there is the little loaf.

1. Wrap lovingly in wax paper {check}, gardener's twine {check}, and a touch of color.

2. Say something sweet on a little label. Mine came from Cavallini & Co, but you could make one with construction paper and a paper hole punch.

3. Give.

Now that was easy!

Christmas Merrymaking

u.e.s., new york

On Tuesday of last week, I got this invitation in the mail from The Brothers Clark.

The Brothers Clark, who are these fine gentlemen, I wondered?

From the tone of their invite, I imaged a set something like the Mast Brothers, strikingly stylish and certainly suave entertainers. I set my calendar with the inscribed details: a Recession Reception in their finely appointed Upper East Side Apartment; attire of the black tie variety, "though we highly encourage you to explore your own variation of this theme, pocket watches, monocles, power ties, Park Avenue gold digger get ups and anything that says I couldn't care less about my neighbor's foreclosure."

And then it came to me, these are the devilish brothers, Frankie and Johnny, youngest of a brood of Clarks that began with my friend Katie, and worked its way through the Irish name book {Mary Katherine, Kelly Frances, and so on} until all six were birthed and baptised accordingly.

In past years, the Clarks have gathered in a wing of the Waldorf Astoria with Grandfather Clark {aka, Big Al} presiding over the bar, and opened their doors for friends one and all to join their festivities. After a few holiday cocktails, we would ensemble on foot to one of the city's fine steak houses and animate three or four table with raucous Irish cheer. On one such occasion, I found myself at the infamous Sparks, and as I followed my hosts through a doorway made narrow by rows of Paddys, I heard a priest call out every Clark by name, blessing us each in the sign of the cross as we crossed his path.

The Brothers Clark Recession Reception, in their post-collegiately appointed east midtown apartment, was a different variety of family fun {no 22-ounce steaks, creamed spinach or mashed poetaytoes, as ordered by the family patriarch; no blessings from the family priest} marking our time and age as our own. But as any clever hosts knows, when one is serving merriment with whit and charm, one needn't pomp and circumstance.

Slàinte!

Date Night: O Tannenbaum

In northern Illinois, where I grew up, parents pack their kids in the car on early winter weekends and trek to the countryside to ride horse-drawn carriages and cut down a tree. It’s a chance for fathers to show off their skills with a saw, for brothers to play like manly lumberjacks and for big sisters to assert their urge to rule the roost by insisting the tree they picked has the best posture and most prominent peak on which to adorn with the family star. It’s a tradition so beloved that my childhood friends got married at the Williams Tree Farm where our family tree came from for at least two decades.

In Hungary baby Jesus {and patient mothers} brings the tree, all lit up, on December 24, while the children are out at the afternoon matinees with their Papas. It’s a subtle reminder that all good things come from above, not from a bearded man with a big round belly. {Sweet St. Mikulás [St. Nicholas] comes on December 6 with his evil companion Krampusz, to bring goodies to the good girls and boys, and viragács [a bundle of twigs] to the naughty ones}

In New York City, we buy our trees on the corner at pop-up tree farms created by French-Canadians who gladly spend weeks in the big city in exchange for the hefty prices we pay for their silver pines. It’s an admittedly less established tradition, but like everything in New York, it comes with its own set of magic and joy.

Our magic and joy came in a package only three-feet tall, but filled our tiny home with an embracing luminance that gave me the instinct to set a pretty table, etch our initials into tiny tree stumps and make a meal for two, starting a tradition all our own.

Our menu:

~

Pickled Turnips

Swiss and Avocado Omelets with Pea Shoots

Pomegranite and Meyer Lemon Spritzers

Hand-wrapped Chocolates

~

Now, if we only had something to put under the tree….

Great Expectations

chelsea, new york

Tonight when I was leaving Chelsea Market on my way home from work, I spied this young man behind the glass at Dickson's Farmstand Meats carrying a giant roast beef with such a Flinstones meets Dickens quality about it that it stopped me dead in my tracks. Just as he hoisted it up on his shoulder, I popped my head in for a butchery tutorial and learned that this cut, made of a whole hind leg of a cow, is called a steamship round.

From the quick snap I shot, you can't really grasp its girth or why its name is so befitting, but its presence demanded my attention. The gents responsible for this fine butchery were happy to tell me how this cut goes from slaughterhouse to supper table by way of their smoker. When I asked exactly what it would cost me to have this as the centerpiece at my holiday party, they started calculating.

"There is the per pound rate, plus shrinkage, plus the magic that happens in the smoker...roughly $500.

It's not every day you can get magic by the pound at the butcher shop, crafted by noble artisans none-the-less, so it seems like a fair price. But for those of us whose budget is more Bob Crachit than Ebenezer Scrooge, they are slicing it up as roast beef and selling it by the pound all week in their shop. Just in time for a old Fezziwig's Christmas Feast.

{Relish}

l.i.c, new york

I have always wanted to do a Friendsgiving {a grown up gathering of friends on Thanksgiving, a la Ross, Rachael, Monica and gang}, but going home has too many pleasures to resist. Mom makes an incredible meal; we all pile on the couch and watch movies and dress up in our old prom dresses {seriously}; and Dad keeps the piano playing, the jokes going, and has us all feeling like we’re twelve again.

Staying in town for Thanksgiving, on the other hand, seems like the last right of passage in a long line of grown-up things I’ve been resisting for years. The first year András and I stayed here for Thanksgiving, I cried. Last year, barely a newlyweds, we hosted our own cozy Thanksgiving. This year, we decided to go for it, and gather a hodgepodge of people we love in one place, potluck- style.

It all feels very grown up, and I’m positively excited, particularly since our dear friend Kirsten, who is kind and crazy enough to host the 14 orphans who couldn’t make it home this year, told us that at this Friendsgiving, there will be paper crowns for all guests. Excellent! I feel quite at home amongst royalty.

But, I have to admit, when I talked to my baby brother last night, I got a little sad, particularly when he mentioned the cranberry relish. At home, thanksgiving starts with the relish. Actually it starts with Turkey, but we were never up early enough to see Mom pull out its parts, stuff it silly and put it in the oven. By the time we were up, the house already smelled of pie and melted butter, and Dad had the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade cranked up loudly on the Tele. Occasionally there’d be breakfast, and sometimes, during a chubby phase {usually mine}, Dad would take us kids on a bike ride or to the YMCA to play basketball and “burn some energy.”

One thing was always the same. Baby brother, whom on all other days was completely uninterested in the happenings of the kitchen, would put on his little blue apron, monogrammed with “Timmy,” and pull up a stool to the counter along side Grandma Pollock and her meat grinder. There he’d help her push raw cranberries, chopped apples and oranges with their skin on through the machine into a mess of ruby goodness in a bowl on the other side. They’d stir in some sugar to soften the bite, and watch as the colors melted together. The relish then took its proud place in Mom’s finest crystal bowl in the center of our holiday table.

In many families, cranberry relish, though very much present at the Thanksgiving meal, is mostly relegated to the periphery. For them, it is, to use my friend Klara’s phrase, the unremarkable extra in an otherwise exciting show. Perhaps their relish came from a can, and slid out in a solid mass with a thunk to be cut into ribbed rings. Or maybe their relish was cooked to a sticky sweet goo, bereft of its bracing vigor.

At our house, the relish is raw, and the relish is king. And rightly so. Let’s consider its meaning. First, there is the noun.

1rel·ish 1: characteristic flavor; especially : pleasing or zestful flavor
 4 a : something adding a zestful flavor; especially : a condiment (as of pickles or green tomatoes) eaten with other food to add flavor.

And then, the verb.

1 TO rel·ish. 
3: to eat or drink with pleasure
4: to appreciate with taste and discernment

A raw cranberry relish is befitting of every definition, and a perfect compliment to the buttery madness of the rest of the meal. It is its raw state, and the act of grinding it, releasing the apple, cranberry and orange juices all at once, that makes it so perfect a condiment. But having lived apart from my grandmother’s meat grinder for several years now {except the year my mother mailed it to me to, bless her heart}, I’ve learned to make Grandma’s relish the cheater’s way, chopped up in a food processor, which has turned relish making into a simple and almost weekly habit from the day organic cranberries first arrive in our CSA until well after the New Year.

Should you have the taste and discernment for raw relish, you may find yourself loving it just as much with a fine cheese, served over rich Greek yogurt, or spread on sandwiches as you do at the center of your table. And, should you ever be just a touch lonely for the flavors and family it is meant to be shared with, you may, like me, find yourself grinding up a batch a day early and dipping in directly with a spoon, which is sure to return your spirits to their zestful state.

footnote: Timmy and András would like you all to know that they do not partake in the dress-up portion of this holiday.