Nostalgic for the holiday foods of yesteryear? Me too. And amidst the contemporary menus for Chanukah, Christmas and New Year’s, look for comforting “back in the day” dishes to please your inner child.
Gayle’s Bakery has already started catering to our sense of tradition with a Chanukah dinner starting tonight (Dec. 1) that includes wine-braised brisket and indulgent potato latkes with sour cream. All week long you’ll be able to take home traditional latkes (with 24 hours’ notice), housemade applesauce, matzo ball soup, rugaleh, challah twist, poppyseed cake and honey cake with orange and almonds. Then it’s on to Christmas classics. Gayle’s co-owner Louisa Beers admits that she’s especially proud of the bakery’s holiday cocoanut snowballs, “with holly leaves and a real candle like you didn’t actually have as a child.” For New Year’s cocktail parties, Gayle’s can load your buffet tables with such shameless mementoes of yesteryear as Italian-style cocktail meatballs, stuffed mushroom caps and a trio of those massive cheeseballs like one of my mothers-in-law used to proudly serve, right after the gin and tonics and before the turkey and raviolis.
Lionel Le Morvan of Aptos’ proudly Gallic Ma Maison admits he’s already looking forward to his traditional Christmas menu. “Starting the second week of December,” he says, “we will begin offering filet mignon, rack of lamb, maybe some venison or lobster, depending on the market.” LeMorvan invokes the Christmas Eve custom of his native France by ceremoniously bringing an actual Yule log—whence “bûche de noël”–into the main dining room and placing it in the fireplace, “where it will burn through the night on Christmas Eve.” He will also whip up an edible dessert bûche, “the kind made with genoise,” he laughs.
Avanti will showcase a labor-intensive masterpiece for New Year’s. “We do a special cassoulet,” reveals chef Ben Sims, anticipating the prospect. “Most of our New Year’s clientele want comfort foods, and so we like to make the cassoulet using special bowls made just for this dish by Santa Cruz Pottery across the street.” Duck legs, sausages, a lamb shank and of course the white beans with lots of bread crumbs on top add plush comfort to Avanti’s holiday showpiece. Sims also plans to feature “a lot of crab dishes,” as well as a few luxury cuts of beef (think large ribeye for two to share).
Scott Cater, longtime chef and manager at the historic Casablanca Restaurant, will offer festive retro specialties such as prime rib and lobster throughout the holidays. For New Year’s Eve, Cater plans to reach back into his grandmother’s recipe book for authentic, richer-than-Bill-Gates egg nog. “I remember she always made it from scratch, with real whipped cream, lots of alcohol, some whiskey, rum and brandy, and then egg whites folded in. I’m thinking of running that,” he says. Sounds like dessert and sweet dreams all rolled into one.
La Posta’s chef Katherine Stern is dreaming up a holiday menu that will likely include authentic Italian specialties such as housemade torrone nougat. She’s also thinking about the much-loved pannetone Christmas bread (“This time of year Italian cooks use a lot of citrus,” she explains). Look for unusual seasonal sausages as well as tortellini in brodo on Stern’s December menu.
Up at Chaminade, chef Beverlie Terra plans to put her own retro family Christmas specialties—cracked crab and ravioli—on the menu for Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day brunch, along with cioppino. Chef Ross McKee of Aquarius, the Dream Inn’s oceanfront dining room, says his kitchen is planning a gala and very classic Christmas buffet and a prix-fixe New Year’s Eve menu as well. “We’ll have Tomales Bay oysters, smoked salmon, a variety of salames and cheeses, butternut squash soup, natural Diestel turkey, Corralitos hams, prime rib with Yorkshire pudding,” he says. Traditionalists will love Aquarius’ bûche de noël, pumpkin pie and eggnog cheesecake as well.
Tis the season to embrace the retro flavors of yesteryear. And with any luck you’ll be able to find red, green and white pozoles—the specialties of true feliz Oaxacan navidad—on the menu at your favorite Mexican restaurant. Buon natale und prosit Neujahr!
