Making Christmas

One of my greatest joys in life is working in the kitchen.  I think it takes a man to say that, unafraid of the social mores of ignoring football on Sunday.  I don’t give a rat’s ass what the San Diego Chargers are doing this weekend and will never care.  “How can you not care?!” scream the folks cramming a bar on Sunday at 10 am in their matching Chargers jerseys.  How can you not care about the Formula 1 leader bracket or the fact that the sport’s undisputed king is now only able to communicate with his eyes after a skiing accident in the Alps?  See, some sports matter to some people and not others and whatever the hell happens with “my” local sports team doesn’t affect my life even remotely.

So.  This Sunday I was in the kitchen like I was much of the last two weeks.  I made Christmas bread, lots of it.

 

I ended up with eight loaves, enough so that I could eat an immoderate amount and not deprive anyone.  The Greeks had it mostly right:  everything in moderation, including moderation.  Sometimes it’s good to have too much, if only to understand why normally you should NOT have too much.  And really, how could you resist the allure of sweet soft bread slathered with creamy butter?

 

The total bread count for the Christmas holiday was:

• 8 loaves of Christmas bread
• 4 loaves of Kalamata olive sourdough
• 4 loaves of golden oat bread 
• 12 Scottish shortbread cakes

And then there was English toffee.  And a gigantic pot of barley beef stew because, honestly, why make a small portion of something that involves seared meat and red wine deglazing and chopped onions and fresh rosemary and palmfuls of salt and heaps of fresh ground pepper?  Excess, that’s the reason for the season.  Why make a small fire in the fireplace, a little pile of twigs with a flaccid flame like a sputtering candle?  No, you need a Viking pyre, a tower of split logs and roaring heat that spews a jet of blue flame twenty feet out the top of your chimney like an afterburner.  EXCESS!

Same goes for beer.  Since I’ve moved up to three-gallon batches I think I’ve found the sweet spot for home consumption.  With only seven bottles you are constantly fretting.  But with two dozen you can share, drink with friends, distribute, and still have a little left over to enjoy as you are waiting for the next batch to carbonate and age.  Speaking of which, here’s the next batch all bottled up:

It’s the Bowler Bitter, a toasty English ale that is actually not bitter at all.  Why do the English do this?  It’s supper when you think it’s dinner and a nappy when it’s not a napkin and “h” is pronounced with a non-silent H as in “haitch”.

But I didn’t do all the making over Christmas, no, there were legions of workers in China staring dead-eyed across factory lines making decorations and toys for a holiday they didn’t wholly understand.  Which is probably how you end up with copy like this, seen on a car track child Number Two got from his Uncle:

 

Do what now?  Funny frame show the science charm?  We must all realize our limitations and with the billions of things made in China for the English-speaking world surely, surely, there is someone who can translate copy with a little more nuance and basic understanding of syntax.  Or you just throw a bunch of adjectives and keywords in there and hope the price tag trumps.  As I assembled this track for my son I thought maybe there was a toymaker, a Chinese Geppetto, who only wanted to entertain his children with a clever track with ramps and tight turns and a bridge that played a song and an elevator, by Confucius’ beard!  An elevator into which drove the car which then spun its wheels, turned gears, and lifted the truck up while playing another song and making an engine-revving noise that churned the children into squealing balls of excitement!  But no, there was likely a pudgy-faced Chinese businessman in a polyester suit and knockoff Gucci belt who barked orders at his factory team that the plastic must be twenty percent cheaper so, someday, a father will be on his knees building this track in San Diego and trying to snap together the bridge supports and one of the pieces of plastic will buckle and break like a wafer of soggy cardboard and the father will have to hide it before the children see and cry.  And the businessman with the heavy-lidded eyes and plastic shoes will be thinking of that new flatscreen TV he wants to buy for his young wife so she can watch her stories and stay at home instead of socializing with the wives and aunties and spending his money.  He will fire a dozen workers and tell the rest they have longer shifts and will switch from a second-tier to a third-tier battery manufacturer so when the father in San Diego turns on the truck to run it around on the track the battery will die after ten minutes and the fun will HAVE TO BE SUSPENDED UNTIL A NEW BATTERY IS FOUND.

But none of this matter when your cool uncle sends you an awesome track with a red truck with real headlights and taillights that you can also drive all over the house until naptime.  Wow!  This makes bring up baby imagination and operation ability!