Christmas and the Crucible of Christmas

After getting back from our driving adventure we only had a few days to get ready for Christmas. Nothing terribly eventful happened in those days except the birth of a new Christmas tradition, which we later baptized “the Crucible of Christmas.”  We also had a few mildly interesting cooking adventures (which Kenny dutifully documented) and I started developing my strategy and recipes for the big competition. 

It’s no big secret that I love to cook. Kenny is also pretty proficient in the kitchen and I was trying to come up with a way to bridge our familys’ holiday rituals. The Wernly clan celebrates almost exclusively on Christmas Eve. We usually spend most of the day in the kitchen, serve a feast for dinner, count down to midnight, and toast with champagne before opening all of the presents. The Johnsons tend to open presents on Christmas morning and have their feast that day. The idea was to do both and since Kenny and I are constantly looking for ways to compete, we decided we would each pick a day to take over the kitchen, then be judged as to who did the meal real justice. Since it’s just the two of us, we had to come up with a relatively impartial way to judge the event. We came up with 5 categories: taste (for the savory and sweet course), presentation, cohesion, the event as a whole and creativity. The winner is announced at the bottom of the post…

Almost every store offers Glühwein-at-home kits!  Actually just a bottled portion, you have to provide your own chalice and heating.

adventures in supermarket hollandaise sauce

adventures in how to make terrible frozen cod edible

Commence day-before prep.  Time to get ready for Crucible of Christmas!  First shopping trip to Lidl: pretty good for €25.

At the Edeka for the second shopping trip.  More exciting items are available there.  There was a line like this up each aisle for each checkout line.

The booty.

Kenny’s bike light made a fine topper for our vertically-challenged tree

Mix a Käsekuche, thaw a lamb.

Käsekuche construction

I was tricked!  Pretty as they may be, these berries taste awful.  Also, they contain large seeds.  Do not judge a berry on looks alone.

after the rise and fall

our small Berlin fridge left us no other option but to butcher the work of art

after a vigorous selection process: the chosen Crucible of Christmas trophy (Day of!)

Christmas Eve setting… notice the trophy!

demonstrating how to correctly use a left handed vegetable peeler  Denise insisted that she also take the picture herself but I intervened.  For safety.

Mise en place!  French, loose translation: "Food for me"

committed to brown  Interesting fact: electric stoves in Berlin utilize "Purple Power" cooking technology.  That, or, something boring about infrared and quantum physics-it looks red to the eye just like boring ol' American stoves.

Glühwein break!

Denise owns the appetizer round.

Christmas set test: a half dressed Kenny is dedicated to setting up the perfect Christmas picture. Not sure what prompted the extreme facial expression...

Just excited by my ingenuity.  Getting around the apartment became a hazardous pursuit.

Mmmmmm.  Despite how it may look, it is not time to eat yet.  Find other things to do while the sauce is reducing...

Tend potatoes. Still reducing...

1st Christmas picture attempt (sans food)

2nd attempt… hard to stay serious (sans food) STILL reducing!

Stop the presses!  Reduction reduced!

salad! We are very health conscious.

3rd attempt. Winner! (avec food)

W00t!  The time has come!

doesn’t look so bad after all

All set for Christmas toast!  Weihnachtsmann lurks just beyond the left glass, damping the festive mood with threats of last-minute amendments to the naughty list.

See what that gets you, Weihnachtsmann??

I got a scarf from your parents!  I got a scarf from YOUR parents!

lazy Christmas breakfast. Not photographed: quark, leftover käsekuche, berry sauce, dulce de leche, whipped cream lots of coffee and Elf on the tv.

Kenny’s turn for a go at the pig trophy. “Amount of loving-care deployed in production” was initially proposed as a criterion of judgment in selecting the Crucible’s victor.  I took it to heart: begin with hand-strained egg yolks.

Pretty good mise en place (for gluten free bread pudding).  That is correct.  Consider the stakes on the rise.

bread action!

look ma! He even irons the tablecloths. Oh yes.  Play time has come and gone.

such a pretty thing. Kenny’s bringing more game than I anticipated... must up the ante for next year.

And for the main course, a Johnson Family Favorite:  Tuna Casserole!

bubbles!

The cheddar offered in Germany is not sharp at all.  I quickly devised ratio of gorgonzola and grana padano to compensate.

ok, now I’m excited!

Christmas day setting. Trophy still up for grabs.

“Elegant simplicity.  In White.”

holy yum.

Serve with whipped cream and a snort of burbon.

after a long deliberation period (everything was extravagantly delicious, if I may say so myself), we selected a victor! You’re welcome to enter again next year.