Eating Christmas in England

We spent Christmas with my parents in England while the country was wearily digging out from the tail end of a two-month snow emergency.





Though things were more or less back to normal, we were happy to embrace snowboundness and stay home, where there was a cozy fire and copious quantities of Christmas foodstuffs.

On Christmas Eve, The Boy and I made the traditional Puerto Rican dinner, more or less: roast pork (pernil), here in its "before" state:



and the coconut custard tembleque for dessert. We used this easy tembleque recipe, which was made more entertaining by the use of my mom's magic stirring gadget:



Christmas lunch, of course: roast beef, roast potatoes done in goose fat, Yorkshire puddings ditto, roast parsnips and carrots, Brussels sprouts and lovely cauliflower cheese.



And the very necessary Christmas pudding with custard:



Christmas pudding is one of my favorite things, possibly because I know there's only one serving a year. I love the sticky-sweetness of the fruit and the extra-hot custard. Actually, I'd still love it if I could eat it all year round.

The family came over on Boxing Day. We made sandwiches and chocolate cake, benne wafers and key lime pie. And there were quiches and cheeses and prosciutto and dates. And people brought more chocolate cake, and carrot cake, and my aunt's famous corned beef pie:



My dad did a ham, which means not pre-brined, pre-flavored meat, but raw fresh pork leg. This is also one of my favorite Christmas things.



So are mince pies, here served warm with Greek yogurt (okay, not traditional Christmas fare, but it works):



And not particularly related to Christmas, but certainly connected to fabulous pork products, black pudding.



Also, my mom makes an amazing fruited tea loaf.



And none of this includes our trip to York. Mayhap we found pork and pastries and cheese there too, hmmm?

Estragon, Boston: my new tapas addiction

On Friday I discovered a new talent: I can see into the future. Not very far, admittedly, but still, I had a vision that sometime around the beginning of 2009, I will be feasting on an entire pig's head.

The cause of my pignostication? The menu at Estragon, the South End's newest tapas place, which features the porcine cranium as one of its signature dishes. Apparently it comes with all the parts attached: tongue, eyes, ears (the bartender particularly recommends the muscles at the back of the neck). Sounds like the perfect way to spend a doubtless freezing January birthday, don'tcha think?

Friday night's dinner was not quite as decadent, but still lovely. We started out at the bar. As our dining companion Tim is a regular visitor to Estragon's adjoining deli, Las Ventas (he recommends their manchego-jamón serrano sandwich), we were treated to plates of thin, delicate jamón, an incredible tortilla española flavored with lemon (genius!), and a dish of fried, paprika-dusted chickpeas that the Boston Globe's review accurately refers to as "chickpea crack"--it took serious restraint to eat a dainty handful at a time, because my instinct was to grab an enormous fistful and shove them in my face.

We also got to watch the sangria machine:



The one downside to Estragon was the noise level; between the roomful of happy diners and the cranked-up music, it was hard to have a conversation. But just as we finished fighting over the last dustings of chickpea crack, our table on the sidewalk patio opened up and we were led outside to relative peacefulness.

And then we ate more: shrimp in garlic butter; a giant scallop finished with almond cream; tender cod cheeks; another plate of jamón serrano and manchego; veal sweetbreads; and a dish of peppery housemade sausage that was so good, we ordered an encore.

And then to dessert. There were only three choices, so we got one of each: a dense, moist chickpea poundcake with grilled peaches, a lovely version of traditional flan, and a trio of ice creams--honey-thyme, salted caramel, and turrón. I'm not usually a gelato girl, but once again, it was hard to share. Give me an unlimited supply of Estragon's fried chickpeas and this dessert, and I'd follow you into battle. (As long as you didn't mind that I'd weigh 300 lbs.)

And there were all kinds of tapas we didn't get around to trying: the calamari with blood sausage, the beef tongue, the frogs' legs, the roasted eggplant with chorizo, and of course the sea urchin and foie gras sliders.

It looks as though Estragon's menu is still evolving; a steak-and-quail egg dish Tim had tried previously was no longer listed, and the menu on Estragon's website is not quite the same as the one we saw. Which means we'll probably need to make a return visit sooner than January.

Oh well.

Hungry Mother

New to Cambridge: Hungry Mother, a restaurant that sounds like a '70s prog rock band but serves up lovely southern comfort food, courtesy of a Virginia-raised, French-trained chef.

It's on the site of the former Kendall Cafe, but any signs of that live-music venue are long gone, and the look is urban-rustic-moderne: dark wooden floors, white wood, muted colors.

Sounds like a million other bistros, it's true. At Hungry Mother, the differences are in the details, specifically:

• Water is served in Mason jars, giving a laid-back, down-home touch to an otherwise sophisticated setting.

• The restrooms are papered with cookbook pages: Julia Child's classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one, The Virginia Housewife in the other. Not only does this suggest someone at Hungry Mother has a fundamental passion for homestyle cooking (and a sense of humor), it also turns a trip to the loo into a chance to learn how to pickle walnuts.

(That could be a new euphemism: "'Scuse me a minute--I have to go learn how to pickle walnuts.")

• The whole place smells. Like. Ham. Not something you'd necessarily want in a Glade candle in your living room--you'd be gnawing on the sofa in no time--but when you're in a hammy zone, perusing a hammy menu, and the whole place is perfumed with sweet, smoky hamminess, it's heavenly.

The menu at Hungry Mother is small, which makes things easier (especially for those of us unable to make decisions). From the section of the menu titled "To tide you over ..." we chose beef tongue canapés, thinly sliced marinated meat with Gruyère and a dab of Dijon mustard, the tongue tender and intensely flavored.

Then The Boy went for the green salad, which featured both red and golden beets, roasted, as well as slices of blood orange. It looked like a plate of jewels, and the mild sweetness of the beets matched well with the sharp citrus and the vinaigrette dressing.

No salad for me, though: I took the pork sausage, which came in its own individual skillet (awww! Bless!) on a bed of black-eyed beans, and was topped with sweet chow-chow, a bright, tangy-fresh complement to the grilled sausage and smoky beans.

My entree was catfish; cornmeal-breaded and served with collards, it's a dish we often make ourselves. Except, of course, that Hungry Mother takes it up a notch, matching it with cauliflower and capers, and dressing the greens with a mustard vinaigrette. Fabulous.



The Boy went all-ham-out, opting for pork shoulder braised in bourbon, sweet and tender, on a bed of creamy grits. Amazingly--I could hardly believe it--he thought the pork rib that came with it was "almost too much meat" (what???); the dish would have been just fine with half the portion. (I'm not sure who he is or what he has done with my husband ...) Of course, he ate it anyway (okay, maybe it really is him).

No room for dessert, which was a shame, because I was intrigued by both the cardamom chocolate pot de crème and the sorghum ice-cream that accompanied the pecan sticky bun.

Next time, Hungry Mother. Next time.