Happy holidays, everyone! December’s Recipe of the Month is a special one because it was written by a new voice around here. Please meet Jake Michael Boynton Welch, who is a master’s student at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. Jake will be interning with me and collaborating on more than one cool project in the coming months. I think you’re going to really like what he has to say! xM
COOKBOOK OF THE MONTH
Hello, I'm Jake the Intern. a master’s student at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo where Maria taught a few months back. I'll be helping her out until March, and writing a few guest columns for the newsletter along the way. This column will be dedicated to my mother’s cookbook collection.
My mother will never have enough cookbooks and the rest of us have stopped keeping count. It might be 500, but it doesn’t matter, we just note their presence and reap the rewards. There is a corner of her kitchen dedicated to them, a bookcase in the guest room, a few stacks in the basement, and more scattered around the house, left to die and be revived when a certain recipe comes to mind. I’m not sure if this is common or not. I imagine in California it’s not uncommon, but still, my mother’s cookbooks are my mother’s cookbooks.
How do you find a single recipe out of what might be 50,000? (Maria tells me 100 recipes a book is standard.)
I don’t know how, but she does it. I’m having trouble just deciding what I can contribute to Christmas Eve dinner. This is my first Christmas back home in Oakland in a while, so it needs to be proper. I do my best cooking in my mother’s kitchen, where the pantry is fully stocked, the pans are seasoned, and she’s there to guide me.
How do you decide what to cook for Christmas dinner, anyway? Turkey, goose, ham, or what?
In my mother’s kitchen, it was always what. A lifelong gourmet and a lifelong Gourmet Magazine (R.I.P.) subscriber, she never had a shortage of ideas. She would pick a dish and compare recipes between books, inevitably picking the one that required the most manageable amount of work, balanced between three kids, a job, and company coming over.
I can’t recall ever eating turkey for Christmas, although I’m sure we did, and we will this year. I do remember having goose (The Way of Cooking by Julia Child) that was a touch too fatty, even for me. I’ve got very fond memories of Singapore Chili Crab (The Well-Seasoned Wok by Martin Yan), but mostly of playing with their claws and not the actual taste. The one dish that is imprinted on my palate is Fragrant, Crispy Duck (Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook by Ellen Schrecker) with steamed scallion buns dipped in salt and pepper. That was so good my mom had to run it back the next year and the year after that too.
And this year?
I spent my first morning at home pouring through cookbooks looking for Christmas recipes. Jane Grigson’s The Observer Guide to British Cookery grabbed me as soon as I grabbed it off the shelf. I love British meat pies, and sure enough she had recipes. The book is divided geographically and apparently in Yorkshire they love giant pies for Christmas. Traditionally they would use 4 pounds of butter in the crust with filling of, “a turkey, boned of course, enclosing a goose which enclosed a chicken which enclosed a partridge which had in it a squab pigeon, all bedded down with pieces of hare, boned woodcock, and other moorland game.”
Grigson’s more sensible recipe only requires deboning a goose, a chicken, and pickling two pounds of tongue. Daunting. I would order this pie at St. Johns, but I am not ready to tackle it myself, so let’s see what’s for Christmas dinner in the next book, Provence of Alain Ducasse. Oof. The tradition is thirteen consecutive desserts and three white tablecloths layered over each other, one for dinner on the 24th, one for lunch on the 25th, and one for lunch on the 26th. Pulling used dirty tablecloths off the table to reveal a clean slate underneath is appealing to me on a visceral level, the same way making thirteen separate desserts is viscerally not. I will settle for the first of the thirteen desserts, the simplest, but also the one Ducasse calls the most important, Gibbasier. Main courses differ from house to house in Provence, but this Christmas cake, named after its hunchback shape, is always there.
What follows is the recipe as it appears in Ducasse’s book, which is what I’m going to try on the 24th.
Happy holidays!
-Jake the Intern
Gibassier
2 lbs. (4 cups) basic bread dough
4 cups additional flour
2 cups sugar
1 ½ cups olive oil
Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C).
Dissolve the sugar in a little water and add oil.
Blend this mixture with the basic bread dough and add additional flour until the dough can be formed into a smooth, firm ball.
Place the balls on an oiled cookie sheet and bake for 12 to 15 minutes.
For extra flavor add orange zest to the dough.
Thank you so much, Jake! Doesn’t that cookbook collection look like a dream place to hang out? Can I move in? I am so grateful for this entire community of readers and eaters and cooks. Thanks for being here, for being part of Recipe of the Month. Wishing you all the best this holiday season. Here’s to a joyful and delicious 2024!
With love,
Maria