What I Did/Ate/Drank on My Christmas Vacation
Ramos Gin Fizzes, Crab Rangoon, Pizza Logs, Tapas and Stewed Hamburgers.
Like many Americans, my Christmas plans didn’t go quite according to plan this year. A scheduled trip to Wisconsin to enjoy the holiday with my extended family turned into a staycation in frigid New York City inside a slightly less frigid one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment. But we loaded up on firewood, hauled out the Tom & Jerry mix from the freezer and made the best of it. Forced circumstances and upturned plans can sometimes result in strong memories. And this past Christmas will certainly live on in my recollection as one of my most memorable, certainly in culinary terms.
I had fully expected to fly out of Newark with my son on December 23, so Mary Kate and I decided to celebrate our own personal Christmas the night before. Neither of us wanted to cook or spend more money than we already had on the holiday, so we combed through our cupboards to see what we could see. What we saw was a lot.
I have a habit of picking up interesting and unusual foodstuffs wherever I travel. These trophies then get stowed in the fridge or cupboard, saved for an unnamed “special occasion” in the future, a date that sometimes doesn’t arrive for months or years. My larder reads like a museum of regional food curiosities.
I traveled a lot this year. That meant my kitchen held edibles from multiple states and countries. We had just returned from a trip to Spain, so we looked upon our pantry cache with tapas-colored eyes. It would be a Christmas feast of small plates! There was summer sausage from Wisconsin; tinned fish balls bought at the Swedish Seaman’s Church in Manhattan; regional Middleswarth potato chips found in upper Pennsylvania; curried peanuts and duck pate ferried back from Casa Gispert, a purveyor of nuts, dried fruit and whatnot that’s done business in Barcelona since 1851; and Gildas made of olives, anchovies and guindilla peppers.
Mary Kate contributed a homemade aspect to the spread by frying up some pizza logs, a barroom delicacy popular in Buffalo, using egg roll wrappers and some bottled tomato sauce I picked up at a red sauce joint in Binghamton. Imagine an egg roll filled with pizza ingredients, which you then dip in marinara sauce; it’s that simple and that amazing. The recipe comes from The Buffalo New York Cookbook and let me tell you, Mary Kate’s pizza logs beat any I’ve eaten in Buffalo; they also annihilate memories of every Totino’s pizza roll I greedily devoured during childhood.
With my travel plans upended the next day (both Covid and weather, the twin villains of Christmas 2022, were involved; don’t ask), a depression-fueled urge to still not cook was strong. So Mary Kate, my stepson Richard and I decamped for the iconic Great N.Y. Noodletown in Chinatown. Richard ran late, so Mary Kate and I cooled our heels in Crown, a nearby rooftop hotel bar and the only bar open nearby. There was a DJ. There were swirling lights. We were the only people there. But there was a Negroni and a French 75, so it wasn’t all bad. Actually, it was kind of wonderful in a weird sort of way.
Great N.Y. Noodletown is a New York food institution and you’d be hard pressed to find a food writer or foodie who doesn’t cherish it. It’s one of those rare places—like Katz’s Deli and Keens Steak House—that bring everyone together. The food press nearly fainted from joy last September when the eatery reopened after a months-long renovation.
We nabbed a table at Noodletown before the inevitable line formed outside. Obviously, we weren’t the only people in New York craving Chinese food on Christmas Eve. The renovation is noticeable. The walls, once papered over with taped-up specials, are now pristine and clean, with just a few neat signs, and there are now two rather oddly fancy chandeliers. But the room remains a tight cluster of utilitarian tables.
The large menu is executed flawlessly. It’s almost impossible to eat poorly. We over-ordered, which seemed apt given the day. Every time I visit Noodletown, I say I’m not going to order a flowering chive dish; that I’m going to try something different. And I always order a flowering chive dish. (Unless soft shell crab is in season.) This time, it was the one with beef. Luckily, Mary Kate ordered a bunch of things I hadn’t tried, including shrimp wonton noodle soup; salt baked shrimp, squid and scallops; and roast duck lo mein.
At home, while watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” (with commercials; old school), I took the Tom & Jerry batter left over from our Christmas party out of the freezer, warmed up some milk on the stove and whipped up a round of festive steaming mugfuls. (It’s Audrey Saunders’ recipe.) This may be the first time I’ve made Tom & Jerrys twice in one holiday season. It felt good. It felt right. (Someone at the party, I forget who, had asked me if Tom & Jerry batter keeps in the freezer. I’m here to tell you it does, at least for a couple weeks.)
The next morning, I woke and walked straight to the bar to execute a longstanding personal tradition: the Christmas morning Ramos Gin Fizz. The Ramos has always struck me as a contender for a brunch drink on par with the Bloody Mary and Mimosa. It’s got cream it in and two kinds of juice. It’s light and fluffy. How is that not breakfast in a glass?
Because it was Christmas, and presents come in all shapes and sizes, I used some of the 47% abv Beefeater gin I had squirreled away months before. And I employed a tip I’d been given by bartender Don Lee to put the seltzer in the glass first before pouring in the cocktail, in order to ensure a fulsome head on the drink.
Before dinner (lasagna, steak, Caesar salad), Mary Kate surprised us with a bottomless batch of Crab Rangoon, frying up the bites a few at a time. Unlike those you’ll get in most Chinese restaurant and tiki bars, these were stuffed with plenty of crab. Let me give you a piece of advice: buy some wonton and egg roll wrappers and put them in your freezer. Those things come in handy in unexpected ways.
The lasagna was a pure product of Caputo’s Fine Foods, an old-school Italian grocery near me, where I stood in line Dec. 23 for an hour with twenty other Carroll Gardens diehard foodies. When I walked in they were serving customer No. 33. I held No. 52.
Caputo’s is the only place in Brownstone Brooklyn to provide one-stop shopping for homemade mozzarella and lasagna noodles, as well as imported San Marzano tomatoes, ricotta and parmesan. When my number was finally called, the clerk looked at my haul and deadpanned, “Looks like lasagna.”
Dessert on Christmas night was fruitcake made by our friend, bartender Sother Teague, who is as good a chef as he is a mixologist. Richard is one of the few people I know who not only tolerates fruitcake, but actively loves it, so the sweet bread had an appreciative audience that night.
Mary Kate had a rare day off the day after Christmas. Around this house, that usually means a day trip. We had read that a joint called Pete’s Hot Dog Shop, an 85-year-old institution in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was going to close by the end of the year. Mary Kate’s father was born in Bethlehem. And Bethlehem is, of course, “Christmas City USA.” (Supposedly the first decorated town Christmas tree in America was in Bethlehem in 1747).
The fates were telling us, “Go to Bethlehem, where you will find glad tidings of great hot dogs.”
Two hours later we were at Pete’s, a cheery wedge-shaped lunch counter. The hot dogs, made with Hatfield franks, were good—topped with chopped onion, mustard and chili sauce, the locals call them “Greekers”—but another item on the menu captured our imagination: Stewed hamburgers.
I’ve had grilled hamburgers, steamed hamburgers, broiled hamburgers. But stewed? Sounds awful, no? And, I admit, they’re not for everyone. But we loved them. The patties are flash fried on the grill and then finish cooking in a sea of sautéed onions. The resulting burger, which is topped with onions and the same chili sauce that goes on the dog, is soft and moist, like a large slider. The owner told us stewed hamburgers used to be a common treat in the area, but now only Pete’s makes them.
A little research revealed that, yes indeed, stewed hamburgers are a thing and have strong ties in Pennsylvania mining country. There were once particularly popular in Pottsville (there’s still a place there called the Coney Island Restaurant and Tavern that serves them) and were typically offered at Polish restaurants, alongside pierogis and kielbasa. Some recipes call for oatmeal to be mixed in with the meat, and for the burger to be stewed in tomato sauce or chili sauce for as long as an hour.
The owner said that today the stewed hamburgers are not particularly popular with the locals, who don’t understand the patties because they are unfamiliar in look and texture. I’ve got to hand it to Pete’s for sticking to its convictions.
Ramos Gin Fizz
PDT Cocktail Book
2 ounces gin
3/4 ounce heavy cream
3/4 ounce simple syrup
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce lime juice
5 drops orange flower water
1 egg white
1 ounce seltzer
Combine all ingredients except the seltzer in a cocktail shaker and dry shake without ice for 15 seconds. Add ice and shake again for 30 seconds. Pour seltzer in a small Collins glass and slowly pour in the mixture from the shaker so that a head rises slightly above the lip of the glass.
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Hi Robert, Audrey's recipe would not come up, it required a subscription to the Washington Post?
A joy to read. Happy 2023 to you and yours!