Bloggers’ Bites: Favorite Holiday Tradition
Bloggers’ Bites is a series of posts chronicling the foodie adventures of Penn Appétit’s blog staff. This time, we asked our bloggers, “What’s your favorite holiday tradition?” Read on to find out their responses (and some tasty recipes).
Chelsea Goldinger: When I come home for winter break, I bake in bulk for my family so that they have fresh, delicious, homemade goods while I’m away at school. My mom and I get to work and will make as many as 100 cookies at a time, plus multiple muffin and scone batters. We then freeze them so they can made as desired. The specific types we make vary, but we’re always sure to include chocolate chip (The NYT recipe is our go-to), and my mom and I always bake together (and sneak plenty of batter into our mouths as we do).
Carolyn Koh: One of my favorite holiday traditions comes from my roots as a Korean. Every New Years morning, we prepare “Dduk Gook,” a traditional Korean rice cake soup dish topped with colorful garnishes, along with a billion other side dishes that include steamed pork, vegetables, and scallion pancakes. We all help my mom in the kitchen through the process and come together at the dining table, starting the new year off in the best way with family and great food!
Katie Behrman: I’m a huge fan of cranberry sauce. Ever since I was a little girl, it was always my “job” to prepare the tangy sauce. At first, I followed the directions to a tee–carefully combining the water, sugar, and cranberries over medium heat for ten minutes. Over the years, though, my recipe has evolved: I’ve added dashes of orange peel and have even been known to discard of the measuring cups and the timer (I know, the horror!). We’ll see what happens this year!
Chase Matecun: Family members come and go and Thanksgiving dinner locations shift from state to state, but the one thing you’ll always see on my family’s holiday dinner table is canned cranberry sauce. Yes, I admit it—it’s my dad’s favorite. Each year he removes the cloyingly sweet cranberry cylinder from the can with a satisfying (and only slightly off-putting) slurp, and then delicately slices it on a silver platter. As inauthentic as it may be, the holidays wouldn’t be quite the same for me without the dish’s gelatinous presence on our table. Sure it’s not the tastiest part of the Thanksgiving feast (I mean, what could beat my mom’s homemade turkey and stuffing?) but my father’s eagerness to contribute to the family meal even in the smallest of ways is contagious. And so, year after year, that ruby-red, chemical-laced, cylinder finds its way back to our table—and more importantly, my stomach.
Arianna Ulloa: My favorite Holiday tradition originates from Peru, my homeland. In Peru, it is common to wait until the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Eve to open presents. Afterwards, we celebrate the arrival of Christmas day with homemade hot chocolate (made out of the real stuff, not hot cocoa) and Panettone slathered in butter.
Sophie Litwin: My favorite holiday tradition is eating the cappelletti that my grandma (Nonna in Italian) makes every year for Christmas. Cappelletti is a traditional Italian pasta that got its name because it is shaped like little hats (cappello means hat in Italian). My Nonna fills the cappelletti with meat, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, and herbs, and we eat them in broth as a soup. Since I am a vegetarian, she has graciously modified the traditional family recipe by making a different version with MorningStar Farms meatless ground crumbles. My Nonna spends days making the homemade pasta and individually stuffing each of the little “hats,” a true labor of love. It wouldn’t be Christmas without cappelletti.
Vera Krillov: Although we bake a Christmas turkey and I make sticky toffee pudding, my family’s Christmas dinner still usually revolves around Russian standbys like cured fish and caviar. My mom makes sure to stock up on good salmon caviar, which we pile on toasted rye bread smeared with butter. Foie gras is also a must during the holidays. We’ll typically open a can on Christmas and finish it a little after New Year’s.
Nicole Woon: My Christmas Eves have always revolved around tamale-making. It’s a party all day (and night) long from painstakingly joining masa, a spicy mixture of pork and beef, and olives into a neat little package to devouring the cooked pockets of labor and love in the afternoon to treating ourselves on sweets galore well into the evening. The full experience was previously detailed here on Penn Appétit’s site and may spark your own desire to start a new holiday tradition. If you ever find yourself in Pasadena, CA, on December 24, come join us for un evento festivo!