Every Christmas is different, but in many ways, things are the same. As our kids have gotten older and have families of their own, getting everyone together isn’t as easy. From a culinary perspective, there are a few things you can count on.
- The house will smell like garlic
- There will be seafood on Christmas Eve
- A roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding on Christmas day
- Plenty of red wine will be consumed
Note: A traditional Paul Kenny Christmas Plan
GARLIC
Our daughter Jennifer nailed it: “The kitchen smells like Christmas Eve at home.” She’s right—I use a lot of garlic in my cooking. When Christmas comes around, I always start by peeling a few heads of garlic for mise en place. Look back at the menu above and you’ll spot garlic throughout.
SEAFOOD
I grew up in Silver Lake, an Italian neighborhood in New York. Thirty-one of the thirty-five kids in my grammar school class were Italian—Tommy Palumbo, Danny Monteforte, Georgy Deleo, Patsy Frachetti, and my best friend Tony Ciafone, to name a few. A fixture of holidays in Silver Lake was the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. As an homage to my Silver Lake upbringing, there will be seafood on my Christmas Eve menu. My dad would say: “You can take the kid out of Silver Lake, but you can’t take the onion and garlic out of his cooking.”
I must confess I still have a little scar tissue from one particular Christmas. When the whole Kenny Clan came to Memphis, I published a menu featuring “The Feast of the Seven Fishes” for Christmas Eve. After dinner—which included clams, shrimp, scallops, and cod—my brother-in-law Brian asked why I called it seven fishes when there were only four. Now, Brian is a nuclear scientist and one of the smartest guys I know. So I told him I was careful to count and made sure he had at least three shrimp and four clams. Sales and marketing guys just look at the world differently than scientists do.
ROAST BEEF AND YORKSHIRE PUDDING
Note: The perfect medium rare
My family has a tradition of overcooking the holiday roast. We all like our beef medium rare, but we always used to end up with medium well. It wouldn’t be the holidays if the beef isn’t overcooked. The fact is, your roast continues to cook after you take it out of the oven—Mom’s roast beef pulled at 140 degrees would wind up at 150 degrees. That nasty gray color is never good, unless you’re one of the outliers who like their beef well done.
My mom can’t be blamed for this. We can blame the cookbook industry. Check out my notes in the Joy of Cooking. Instead of cooking to 140 degrees as the book says, I pull the roast out when my internal-read thermometer reads 120 degrees. Then I let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes, and the roast will temper out to a little over 130 degrees—a perfect medium rare.
Note: See my notes in my copy of the Joy of Cooking
I once worked with two great chefs who ran Memphis’s top white tablecloth restaurant. When I asked what percentage of their customers preferred their beef medium rare, they said 85% at higher-end restaurants do. Of course, some people grew up in households where mom overcooked everything and medium well was the standard. I believe people like what they grew up with, but I still have a problem killing a good piece of meat.
Note: Checkout the blog
https://impromptufridaynights.com/cookbooks-lie-experience-doesnt/
PLENTY OF RED WINE
We have a tradition of buying double magnums (3-liter bottles) of Joseph Phelps wine for each of our grandchildren in the vintage of their birth year. The plan is to open them at a party celebrating their 16th birthday.
Note: SEE THE FEATURE PHOTO WITH EACH OF THEIR DOUBLE MAGNUMS
My buddy Tom Julian started this tradition. Our daughter Jennifer was born in California in 1984. Tom came out to visit, and we toured Napa Valley together. The Phelps vineyard has always been one of our favorites—it sits in a small sub-valley and produces excellent wines. Tom bought Jennifer a 3-liter bottle, and we enjoyed it at a wonderful party in 2000.
We originally planned to celebrate her 18th birthday with it, but we got nervous about how well the wine would age. We stored it in the basement of Tom’s old house on Onondaga Street in Rye, New York—the perfect place for wine storage. Fortunately, the wine held up beautifully. When we first opened it, we were nervous. Older wines change color slightly, and this one had a reddish tint instead of the deep purple of newer wines. The taste was good at the start, and as the evening progressed, it got better and better. Funny how that works…
Note: Tom Julian, Jennifer, Paul and Susan Kenny getting ready to open a 16 year old bottle of Phelps
While we won’t be drinking those double magnums this Christmas, a fair share of red wine will be consumed. Every Christmas is different, but the wine consumption remains constant.
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