After a joyous and fattening Thanksgiving I have waddled back into the kitchen to confront the next round of holidays which are headed toward us at an alarming pace. Our neighbors seemed to have put up their Christmas lights while still gnawing on turkey legs. I have not been quite so swift, but I have purchased a pungent evergreen wreath from a local civic group, decorated it with sprigs of holly and some spangly gold star ribbon, and hung it on the front door. I have also moved the unsightly, out-of-season-overnight mums to the back yard where I will transplant them if the weather cooperates this weekend.

Looking at the calendar is sobering. Hanukkah starts on the twenty-second, and Christmas arrives just three days later. I’ve got to start thinking about the annual rite of cookie baking. It seems early to contemplate holiday baking – especially when I am still eating leftover Thanksgiving turkey for lunch every day. But there is no denying facts; in three weeks we will be wondering how the time flew by so fast.

I am thinking about the cookies I need to mail to our far-flung friends and family, and even more to take around to the neighbors, not to mention those for personal consumption. I like to send cookies that will evoke memories, like Proust’s madeleines. Just before Thanksgiving I sent my brother a box of home-baked gingersnaps, which remind us of our mother. Store-bought gingersnaps are never as poignant, or as crisp and deelish. He said he sat down, poured a big glass of cold milk, and immediately scarfed down three cookies. When was the last time that you ate three cookies without guilt? Childhood, when calories were never considered. And as long as Mom kept pulling sheets of warm cookies out of the oven on cold winter afternoons, we would continue eating gingersnaps. Not delicate little ladylike nibbles. Full-throated, passionate chomps of warm molasses-infused, sugar-crusted, pliant discs of deliciousness. Dinosaur-sized bites. Yumsters.

Baltimore has its own Proustian trigger: the Berger cookie. I have included links to several recipes and histories of the Berger cookie. You need to work out the size and heft and the proportions for yourself, but I don’t care for the bitsy Oreo-sized versions. I am baking English muffin-sized Bergers. They will be epic and Brobdingnagian. The ratio of chocolate frosting to the cake-like cookie will be impressive. These are cookies we ate when we were college students. When a whole row of Oreos could be consumed in one sitting. When we laughed at calories. It is the time of the year to revisit our misspent youth.

So it that spirit – use the heavy cream, and not sour cream. Eschew the corn syrup. Layer on the chocolate, accept your plangent wisps of nostalgia, and bake some new, giddy memories. (And do not cheat and buy Bergers from Amazon. You have to have some standards!)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-berger-cookie-is-baltimores-gift-to-the-chocolate-world-6918029/

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/berger-cookie-baltimore-health-regulations

https://sweetlittlebluebird.com/copycat-recipe-baltimores-famous-berger_20/

https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/copycat-berger-cookies/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2019/12/02/if-a-brownie-and-a-sugar-cookie-had-a-baby-it-would-be-this-berger-cookie/

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/baltimore-berger-cookies-recipe

Peppermint variation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/chocolate-peppermint-cookies/10391/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/19/proust-madeleine-cakes-started-as-toast-in-search-of-lost-time-manuscripts-reveal

“I cannot go any further without mentioning my favourite biscuit of all time, now sadly, tragically, extinct. The oaty, crumbly, demerara notes of the long-forgotten Abbey Crunch will remain forever on my lips. I loved the biscuit as much as anything I have ever eaten, and often, in moments of solitude, I still think about its warm, buttery, sugary self.”
― Nigel Slater

Cooking with duck fat is a new concept for me. Call me a convert. In my quest for the most perfect and delicious, hot and crunchy potato dishes I have tried corn oil, vegetable oil, olive oil, peanut oil and bacon fat. I have finally discovered magic in a bottle. (Actually, magic in a jar, delivered courtesy of Amazon, but that is a superfluous detail.) With the Waterfowl Festival taking off this weekend in Easton, now seems like a good time to extoll the wizardry that is duck fat.

The other night I parboiled a peeled Russet potato, which I had cut into wedges. Once they were fork-tender, I drained them in a colander, and patted them dry with paper towels. In the large and heavy cast-iron skillet I melted two tablespoons of duck fat that I had scooped from a glass jar that the UPS guy had delivered that afternoon, in the dark, at 5:30 PM. (It is going to take us all a long time to get used to the clock change, we agreed.)

The fat melted quickly at a lower medium heat, and bubbled and began to fill the kitchen with an enchanted aroma. I dumped the potato wedges into the sizzle, and stood expectantly, watching the transformation begin. I turned the wedges carefully, after I saw the bottom edges turning golden sienna. And after a few more minutes of delicate and obsessive fussing, I scooped the potato wedges out of the fat, and onto another paper towel. A mere dusting of Maldon salt was the only seasoning. And I spooned the perfectly golden brown wedges onto the dinner plates alongside the sausages, peppers, onions and garlic bread. (There was a green salad already on the table as well as a couple of glasses of an inexpensive Cabernet.)

The duck-fried potato wedges were divinely light and crunchy, and absolutely deelish. And best of all, they stayed warm through the meal. They were the soothssayingly crisp foil to the soft and slick peppers and onions. They were magical fried potatoes. Not from a freezer bag, or a store, or a fast-food drive-through. They weren’t doused in chemical preservatives. They were adult fries, with spell-binding panache. (Though no truffles.) Go get some duck fat. Right now.

Through my extensive research into the perfect homemade fried potatoes I have experienced many failures, but I think using duck fat is going to ratchet up my game considerably. There is much pleasure to be derived from homemade culinary triumphs; simple pleasures are indeed the best.

This was the impetus for my duck fat experiment: https://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/how-to-cook-with-duck-fat which might give you more practical information than my anecdotal paean.

And because fries are delicious, and necessary for a fulfilled life, but aren’t very photographic, I tried them again for breakfast this morning, topped with beauteous eggs for this week’s illustration. Mr. Friday drove away with a smile on his face. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee3hWLMUvD8

Waterfowl Festival goers: you probably know how to do this already, but here is a short video about conjuring up your own duck fat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkWeKp-Elvw

You’ll have more time on the weekend for frying up bacon and tomatoes, and here is an impressive breakfast to prepare before a weekend filled with retriever demonstrations, waterfowl calling, diving dogs, decoy appreciation and beer tasting: https://www.food24.com/Recipes/duck-fat-egg-toastie-20170612

“It is easy to think of potatoes, and fortunately for men who have not much money it is easy to think of them with a certain safety. Potatoes are one of the last things to disappear, in times of war, which is probably why they should not be forgotten in times of peace.”
― M.F.K. Fisher

For all things Waterfowl Festival 2019: https://www.waterfowlfestival.org/

You might need light sweaters and extra calories this weekend if you are going to walk around Chestertown and enjoy the spectacle that is Downrigging Weekend. Your mother was right, and breakfast is still the most important meal of the day, so start it off with something tasty. Keep the pencil shavings and twigs for during the week, and gobble up some hearty apple-sultana cinnamon swirls.

Halloween is over, and you have managed to avoid eating too much chocolate, for which we in the Spy Test Kitchen salute you. I gave out more Snickers bars this year than I inhaled, for once. I think I am still conditioned by my otherwise pleasant childhood. My mother was the strange one on the block who handed out boxes of raisins. Can you imagine the shame? While Mom was imposing her sensible vision of order on the neighborhood, I was dancing from house to house, scarfing up as much exotic candy as I could get. Other households doled out wonderful candy bars unfamiliar in our house: Baby Ruths, Butterfingers, $10,000 bars, Dark Hersey bars, Clark bars, and Three Musketeers. Such loot! And I lived in a home where boxes of Sun-Maid raisins were the Halloween treat. My mother should have just handed out toothbrushes. If she were still alive, she probably would be enthusiastically giving out bags of organic kale chips to all the little ghosts and alligators and Hermione Grangers who would have come knocking on her door.

I do not mean to disparage raisins completely, but every once in a while, it seems perfectly reasonable to enjoy a kid holiday; something extraordinary and special. But Halloween was yesterday. And now it is November. It’s time to sail forward on the healthy and homebaked path to righteousness and good health. And to enjoy the Schooner Sultana and downrigging. http://downrigging.org There will be tall ships and blue grass music, and all that Chestertown has to offer.

I cannot find sultanas in our grocery store, so I substituted golden raisins, but you can use raisins, golden raisins, sultanas or currents in these recipes. https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-raisins-sultanas-and-currants-223285 Do not substitute those leftover Snickers bars. Pass them this way.

Your kitchen will smell wonderful and autumnal while you are baking apples, raisins and cinnamon. This is excellent preparation for Thanksgiving, which is just around the corner. http://www.pbs.org/food/recipes/apple-sultana-cinnamon-swirls/ Mary Berry will approve, and if you do a good job, you might even get to stay in the bakeoff tent for another week.

I just love the mechanics of rolling and cutting the dough for these cinnamon rolls. I scarred my children with store-bought Pillsbury cinnamon rolls that popped out of a canister. These are much more delicious, and haven’t been hermetically sealed and are not doused in preservatives. https://www.recipegirl.com/no-yeast-apple-cinnamon-rolls-with-maple-icing/ Mom might approve.

Of course, Food52 always has good ideas: https://food52.com/recipes/24943-grandma-bercher-s-cinnamon-rolls Have a couple of cinnamon rolls, don your sweater, and take to the Chestertown streets. Watch out for the geese.

“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came.”
-John F. Kennedy

At first I was going to put together my usual compendium of disgusting Halloween-themed cocktails that involved pumpkin flavored vodka, and chocolate martinis, olive and lychee eyeballs, and a lot of dry ice for special effects. Nonsense. I finally came to my senses. Instead I wondered about what we could offer to our favorite dead writers, should they come a-calling this Thursday night. This is a broad survey of some writers I think would be amusing at a ghostly Halloween cocktail party.

Noel Coward said that the perfect martini could be made by “filling a glass with gin then waving it in the general direction of Italy.” Fill your glasses and join me on our ghoulish visit to a moonlit cocktail party. No enchanted cocktail hour would be complete without Ernest Hemingway, who tops every dead-writer-cocktail-survey I encountered. His poor mother. I have been to his house in Key West and skritched some of his cats with their many toes. The house has some admirable verandahs, which shriek out for a séance and Coward’s Madame Arcati inviting our favorite roués and decorous dead to join us once more for some ocean breezes and Bloody Marys. http://www.hemingwayhome.com/

“To make a pitcher of Blood Marys (any smaller amount is worthless) take a good sized pitcher and put in it as big a lump of ice as it will hold. (This to prevent too rapid melting and watering of our product.) Mix a pint of good Russian vodka and an equal amount of chilled tomato juice.Add a tablespoon full of Worcestershire Sauce. Lea and Perrins is usual but you can use A1 or any good beef-steak sauce. Stir. (with two rs) Then add a jigger of fresh squeezed lime juice. Stir. Then add small amounts of celery salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper. Keep on stirring and taste to see how it is doing. If you get it too powerful weaken with more tomato juice. If it lacks authority add more vodka.” https://www.thrillist.com/vice/ernest-hemingway-s-favorite-drinks-with-quotes-whiskey-wine-absinthe-bloody-marys

Bob your hair, rouge your knees, and get out your ropes of pearls. Scott and Zelda have arrived in Key West. The Fitzgeralds were very fond of Gin Rickeys. We can swoop around the porches, imagining our own jazzy music, swaying with the palm tress, drinking these sweet concoctions: http://on.aol.com/video/f–scott-fitzgeralds-gin-rickey-recipe-and-bukowskis-boilermaker-517940317 Whatever gin they have not reserved for their infant daughter’s night time bottle, we can spirit away to make Gin Rickey cocktails.

John Cheever’s specter conjures up a solemn progression of cocktails. Avoid him, because he will want to go swimming. Instead, let’s look for Evelyn Waugh, who is merrily mixing some of his favorite stingers at the bar. I can summon up the image of the angelic Cary Grant, ordering a round of them for the flock of church ladies, crowding his tête-à-tête luncheon with Loretta Young in The Bishop’s Wife. Stingers are deadly. Trust me.

Evelyn Waugh’s Stinger
2 ounces brandy
¾ ounce crème de menthe
½ ounce dry vermouth or bourbon
Directions: Shake with ice. Pour into a chilled martini glass or Old Fashioned glass.
http://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/drink-like-hemingway-5-cocktails-famous-writers-loved.html/?

Sad wraith Carson McCullers has been hard at it since breakfast. Her tea packs a deadly punch:

Long Island Iced Tea Recipe
1⁄2 ounce gin
1⁄2 ounce vodka
1⁄2 ounce tequila
1⁄2 ounce. light rum
1⁄2 ounce Cointreau
3⁄4 ounce lemon juice
Top with cola
Lemon wedge
Pour all ingredients except cola and garnish into a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake, and then strain into a Collins glass filled with ice cubes. Add cola until color of tea. Garnish with lemon wedge. Serve with two straws.
http://www.npr.org/2006/12/15/6624971/great-american-writers-and-their-cocktails

Edna St. Vincent Millay was very fond of the Between the Sheets cocktail. This party could be getting interesting.

Between the Sheets
3/4 ounce brandy
3/4 ounce light rum
3/4 ounce triple sec
1/2 ounce lemon juice
Lemon twist for garnish
http://www.thekitchn.com/great-american-writers-and-their-cocktails-170969

Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin set are cackling over a hot Ouija board in the corner. Their Whiskey Sours have been evaporating by the pitcher-ful. “I wish I could drink like a lady. I can take one or two at the most. Three and I’m under the table. Four and I’m under the host.” http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/fresh-whiskey-sours-recipe.html

Rushing out from the eternal New Yorker magazine offices in the sky, Mr. E.B. White shares his favorite Martini recipe: “Equal parts lime juice, apricot brandy, honey, and dry vermouth. Stir this all together (you only need a tiny amount of the whole business), then add 4 times the amount of gin. Plenty of ice, stir, and serve.” Wowser. Three martini lunches, indeed! http://paperandsalt.org/2012/03/08/the-cocktail-hour-e-b-white/

There is a whole lot of gin going on at this imaginary party. Since Halloween falls on a Thursday this year, Mr. Friday and I will just have a couple of glasses of cheap white wine with dinner. I hope you are able to join up with the ghostly writers and their little shindig at the cemetery if you’d like to go out and meet them. They are just dying to see you.

“I began to think vodka was my drink at last. It didn’t taste like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallowers’ sword and made me feel powerful and godlike.”
― Sylvia Plath