Let's make it through December
The holidays will be here soon enough. The Friday Newsletter says you can relax.
There’s one week every December where it happens.
I’ll be plodding along with my day, getting through the things I need to get through, and then I’ll look up. I’ll spy the date on the corner of my computer screen, or perhaps on my rapidly-dwindling The Far Side page-a-day calendar. It’s at that moment that the gravity of where we are in time will suddenly, terrifyingly set in.
Oh, no. It’s December 8th??? There’s so much left to do!
Christmas is 17 days away. (It’s also Hanukkah right now! Chag sameach, friends.) The sheer immensity of the month ahead—shopping, decorating, planning, traveling and general merry-making—can feel overwhelming, even if it didn’t only a day before. There’s the finish-line-sprint at work—the things that absolutely positively need to get done by year’s end even though people critical to the effort are burning up their PTO.
It’s the smell of hospitals in winter and the sense that it’s all a lot of oysters but no pearls, things of that nature.
It’s worth remembering that you can, in fact, stop and take a breath. This weekend is a great time to do so, if only for a moment. Sit down for a minute. Make a pot of soup. Fix yourself a cocktail, if you’re so inclined. Put on some music, read a good book, or just take a nap.
The holidays will still be there when you get up.
Friends, it is once again Friday at The Action Cookbook Newsletter.
As with every Friday, I’ve got a fully-loaded slate of things meant to improve your weekend. Today’s collection includes a hearty soup that doesn’t worry too much about the details, a cocktail straight from the 1970s, some great tunes, a fun book, and a whole lot more.
Take a load off. It’s finally Friday.
7) Beet It
The day after Thanksgiving, I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to do new recipes in December. I was so overwhelmed from all of the cooking (and eating) on Thanksgiving that I simply couldn’t bear the thought of more, and so I cobbled together a plan for revisiting some of my past favorites from the ACBN’s deep recipes archives.
Well, just like many people threatening to quit social media, I was back before you even knew I was gone—and I was consumed by the overwhelming urge to make soup. This was largely a product of my having made a great-looking batch of stock from the remains of this year’s turkey, and said stock whispering to me from the freezer like Poe’s tell-tale heart.
[beating] Make soup. Make soup. Make soup.
I keep a list of things I want to cook in a big, messy spreadsheet, and I consulted it. One thing I’ve had in there forever—but not yet attempted—was borscht. I started researching a bit more—I knew what I was picturing, and have had an excellent version prepared by a Russian neighbor, but I wanted to get it right.
It turns out? There’s very little consensus!
First of all, I didn’t realize that the term “borscht” refers to a whole category of soups, and not just the beet-heavy version I was familiar with. Heck, there’s even disagreement as to whether it’s properly “borscht” or “borsch”.
This all works to my advantage, frankly. A lack of consensus means, practically, I can do whatever the heck I want.
Besides, “authenticity” in food is a fool’s trap.
Freed from that mental prison, I could work with whatever I had. Beef stock is most common; I had the turkey stock, so I used it. Many versions use kielbasa; I had andouille on hand, and they’re both smoked pork sausages, so I counted it. I love soup season for the comfort of it all, but I also love it for the ability to just wing it, and that’s what I did here.
Borscht, ish
olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup grated carrot
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 large russet potato, diced into 1/4” cubes
2 cups roasted beets, chopped small
2 quarts good stock
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
salt, to taste
1 pound smoked sausage (kielbasa, andouille, whatever)
Sour cream
Dill
*I used six beets, which sounds like a lot, but they were small, hence calling out the quantity this way
I had a small package of short ribs left in the freezer—not enough to make a meal out of, but enough to add some depth to my soup. I seared the two ribs, submerged them in my stock, and simmered it in a 300-degree oven for 2 hours. For the second hour of that oven time, I roasted my beets (scrubbed, trimmed, drizzled with oil and wrapped in foil). You could easily skip this double-stock step, and if doing so could roast the beets at a higher temperature for a shorter time.
In a fresh pot, I sauteed the onions, carrots and celery in oil for about 10 minutes, until nicely softened. In went the stock, followed by the potatoes, beets and sausage. (I unwrapped the foil around the beets over the pot, making sure not to lose any of the good beet juice produced during roasting).
This went up to a rolling simmer, and cooked for ~20 minutes, until the potatoes were softened to my liking. A hit of vinegar and salt to taste, and then ladled into bowls with sour cream and a ton of dill.
Was it authentic? [shrug] I dunno. It was really good, though.
6) An offer I can’t refuse
This time of year is perfect for dusty kitsch.
Plastic reindeer in the front yard. A Santa hat on a tollbooth operator. A string of multi-colored lights across the top of a dive bar while the Beach Boys’ “Little Saint Nick” plays at a low volume in the background. Tinsel, everywhere.
It’s a time of year that calls for dusting off a simple but delightful cocktail from the ‘70s: