Have you ever happened to walk outside alone on Christmas Eve? It’s something of a private tradition of mine. On some pretext I leave the gathered family… must get something from the car…. anyone checked the mail?…just a moment. In that moment I step outside, the cold and the silence are indistinguishable. The chill cuffs my nose and swipes at my fingers. (I am inevitably under dressed, mistaking the warmth of good company for warmth of weather.)  The silence thumps against my ears as the door closes behind me. Everything is muffled, from the boisterous sounds of family inside to the thrum of traffic. There aren’t even any summer insects to break the silence. It is still. And cold.

In that moment I am aware of the weight of tradition. I feel the presence of Christmases past, both those I’ve been a part of and those that aren’t mine to remember. So much expectation, merry-making, disappointment, loneliness, and hope bound to one night hangs heavy in the damp dark air.

I know the mysteriousness is mainly an invention of my own mind. Perhaps that the same stillness could be felt on other nights if only I were to take notice. But still.

This cake reminds me of that moment I seek out every year. It is combines the warm spice of gingerbread decorating, the stillness of dark chocolate melting on your tongue, and the malty tang of a stout drink enjoyed with friends. And it is most mysteriously dark. Because I used part coconut oil instead of all butter, this cake will stay moist for several days. I like it iced with a frothy whipped cream cheese icing. The cake seems to need it, just as we need to celebrate the light during the darkest time of year. However, neither the cake nor the frosting are extremely sweet. If you’d like a sweeter rather than tangy frosting, feel free to add more honey.  I made my cake in a angel food cake pan, but I’m sure this would be beautiful baked in a more decorative bunt mold or even a simple loaf pan. (Note that this recipe makes 2 loaf cakes. If you just want one, cut the recipe in half.) Though if you do use a decorative pan, you might want to consider leaving it unfrosted and instead dusting it with some powdered sugar or even finely shredded coconut.

While we heard tell that other departments had the usual spread of chips, cookies, and soda, we were favored with homemade focaccia baked by our beloved secretary Elizabeth Davis. While she usually tried to keep a low profile in meetings, there was no disguising the warm yeasty smell that accompanied her through the door. She and her bread were the center of everyone’s attention.  Even if we tried to politely finish listening to whomever was speaking, our minds and hearts were with her and the bread she was slicing.

Her focaccia stands in my memory as a culinary beacon of hope in an otherwise dreary foodscape of cafeteria food and boxed cereal. It was beguiling in its simplicity, managing to be both fluffy and crisp at the same time. The olive oil, warmed by the bread, pooled in the fingertip deep wells, dribbling over the sides when it was cut. The more refined among us ate with a napkin in hand to dab at the drips. Call me rustic, but I could never resist licking my fingers clean of the buttery oil mingled with the sharp bite of salt.

While plain and simple focaccia still heats my oven, I have recently been enamored with recipes using seasonal fruits, like this Grape and Rosemary Focaccia from Nourished Kitchen. Living in the South, I made it with muscadines rather than concord grapes, but the combination of peppery olive oil, sticky sweet grapes, and salty herbs worked its way into my blood. Sadly, muscadine season is painfully short. Nowhere near long enough to satisfy my craving. When cranberries started poking around the produce, I saw my way clear.

While this recipe is obviously evocative of Thanksgiving, I won’t lie and say I’m not stashing a few bags of cranberries in my freezer so I can enjoy this a few months down the line.

This post is participating in YeastSpotting, a “weekly showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient” hosted by Wild Yeast, though guest hosted this week by Hefe und mehr.

While it’s true that citrus isn’t necessarily local, unless you happen to live in Florida, California, or parts of Texas, it is a seasonal fruit, just like anything else. So, while most of us can’t buy citrus from one of our farmer friends, it is still possible to buy it at the peak of its season when it’s freshest, imported the least number of miles, and most importantly– tastiest. For me, that means taking advantage of the natural down time that winter gives us and chowing down on all the grapefruits, tangerines, oranges, clementines, lemons, limes, pomelos, and tangelos I can eat. Peggy Bourjaily wrote an excellent piece for NPR’s Kitchen Window series about this practical locavorism.

Citrus in winter is also a nostalgic thing for me. Truth be told, I would probably eat it in the winter even if it wasn’t in season then. (Conveniently enough though, I get to keep my moral high ground.) As kids, we would always get an orange in the toe of our stocking at Christmas. I don’t know how often we actually ate the orange, but it was of utmost importance that it was there. Since starting our own Christmas traditions, Mr. Quotidian and I have dispensed with the usual stockings filled with odds and ends that end up getting lost or broken in a few weeks. Instead, we leave a pad of paper and pencil by the stockings and write down memories of the other person, then put the memory in the other’s stocking. So, by Christmas morning, we have stockings stuffed with memories. I love the tradition, but obviously an orange would feel rather out of place in such a situation. However, a Christmas without citrus seemed hollow and dull. I realized the easiest way to solve the situation was to serve citrus at one of our Christmas meals. Since citrus doesn’t do well with a cheese fondue, Christmas Eve was out. However, when I remembered a recipe for a salad using oranges and cranberries, Christmas brunch seemed the ideal way to include this jolly, festive fruit. New Year’s brunch would be delicious too…paired with a mimosa perhaps?

I’ve adapted the original recipe by substituting the citrus I had on hand– grapefruit and tangerines. I think it would be delicious using just about any citrus. The addition of lemons and limes would be especially delightful. A note on the preparation of the citrus: This salad would be dressed to the nines if you took the time to supreme the citrus. However, I’ve never been good at such things; I end up too sticky to brush the hair out of my frustrated face and annoyed with the tiny bits of mangled fruit and juice running down the edges of the counter. It is on my list of skills to master as a cook, but alas, I’m not there yet. If you’d like to try your knife at supremeing (supreming?), here’s a good video to get you on your way. (Just promise me you won’t try it for the first time on Christmas morning…bad idea.) For the rest of us who don’t have our supreme legs, chopping the citrus into tiny pieces should enable you to pick out most of the seeds.

And then there are the nine different tins of Christmas cookies piled on the counter. Their colors a hodgepodge of cheery greens, wintery blues, rich reds, and ornate golds. Inside each tin is a different cookie– mixing of different cookies into the same tin is strictly forbidden. The cookies range from simple peanut clusters that take just minutes to make to Springerale cookies that get printed with a special rolling pin, cut apart, then left out to dry overnight. Chocolate pinwheels look fancy but are easy to make. Of course sugar cookies make their appearance, the amount of frosting and sprinkles adorning Rudolph’s antlers directly correlating to the age of the person who decorated them.

Somewhere in that pile of tins lies the gingerbread men. These always arrived with grandma’s return address on the box. There was exactly one gingerbread cookie per person. But we never thought we were getting jipped. These weren’t just any gingerbread cookies. As a child, they were as big as my face. I know this because I did it . . . holding the cookie up to my face and inhaling the sweet spicy scent.  And they were intricately decorated with all different colors of frosting. The gingerbread men had textured vests and pants. The gingerbread girls had striped skirts and braids that looked almost real. They were the kind of cookies that the children in “The Night Before Christmas” dreamed about. Because they were so big, these cookies were eaten piecemeal . . . an arm or a leg at a time. Each of of us had a different method of decimating our cookie. I worked in a clockwise pattern starting with the head.

Last Christmas marked the first year I was passed the cookie making torch. I started off small, making just the two cookies that really said “Christmas cheer” to me– springerales and pinwheels. My confidence sufficiently stoked, I was ready to take on the whole plethora this year. The real challenge was going to be the gingerbread. The recipe has come to me as an ingredient list only– no mixing intructions, baking times, or temperatures. I did at least have measurements. For that I am grateful.

For a trial run, they turned out quite well. A little crunchier around the edges than I remember, which is probably from my baking them too long.  And my mom and I both agree that they are not as dark as the cookies that sit in our memories. Perhaps there is a special extra-dark molasses somewhere out there that would contribute that dark, almost black hue that I remember? Also, I am not the decorator that my grandma was. So instead of a Coat of Many Colors, my gingerbread people got the Mostly Straight Outline. Other than those few aberrations from my memory, the cookies are perfect. They’re soft and chewy, full of the spicy sweet scent I remember. And big. I bought the cookie cutters especially for this, one of the few single purpose kitchen tools I own. Obviously any cutters would work, but I think there’s something especially merry about being presented with one huge gingerbread man.

• 2-3 heads of broccoli
• 1 lemon
• Parmesan (opt)
• 2 tbs olive oil
• salt

Preheat oven to 350° to 425°. Higher is better, but if you’re sharing the oven with other dishes, the lower temperature will still get the job done.

Cut broccoli into florets. Turn it upside down and hold the end of the stem. Starting at the bottom of the crown, slice diagonally through the florets.  If any pieces come off too big, cut them in half.  Don’t forget about the stem! If it looks tough, peel it first.  Then slice it into roughly the same size as your florets.

Place the broccoli in an even layer on a half sheet pan and drizzle olive oil over them. Zest the lemon over the top. Then roll it gently on the counter, cut in half and squeeze the juice over the broccoli, using your fingers to strain out the seeds. Grate cheese over the top.  Sprinkle a pinch of salt.

Roast for 20-25 minutes. Taste test. Add a little more lemon or cheese if you want.  Serve immediately.

• Yukon gold or russet potatoes (about 1 1/2 per person)
• 1/4- 1/2 cup milk
• 4-6 tbs butter
• salt

The Proper Method:

Peel the potatoes if you wish. Cut them into equally sized pieces. Same size = same cooking time = no lumpy potatoes. Add the chunks to a big pot of salted water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to a simmer.  Cook potatoes for 15- 20 minutes.  Smaller pieces will cook faster. After 15 minutes, start testing for doneness. They are done when you can crush them between tongs. Drain in a colander.

In the empty pot, place milk and butter.  Set over low heat.  When the butter has melted, add the potatoes and mash with a potato masher and hand blender. Serve immediately.

The Oh-No-I-Forgot-the-Potatoes-And-Dinner-Is-Ready Method

Cook potatoes as above, taking care to cut them into small pieces.

Drain potatoes and put back in pot.  Add milk and butter.  Mash as the butter melts. Throw pot onto table to serve.

*If you are worried your potatoes will get cold, cover the bowl with foil and put them in a low oven until ready to serve.