12 Days of Xmas in ’12! Day Eleven!

Happy Christmas Eve, friends!  What are you up to today?  Me?  Well, thanks for asking!  Double S and I are reunited.

We went to see the lights at Tilles Park last night.  Good stuff! There were Christmas unicorns!

And the 12 Days of Christmas!  The leapin’ lords were my fave.

I’m helping my dad smoke a turkey today, as getting a smoker and learning to smoke meat is on my 2013 agenda.  More about my 2013 agenda on my last of these 12 days of xmas posts.  He has an electric smoker.  I’m leaning toward a charcoal smoker, ya know so I can stand around the yard this summer dutifully watching and tending to charcoal whilst I drink beer.  In other words, for the street cred and mainly to say I did I guess.  Anyone have any thoughts about charcoal versus electric smokers?  And have you heard about our Cook the Books Challenge that my homey Meg and I are leading in 2013?  It is gonna be fun!  Send us an email and join us: cookthebookschallenge@gmail.com.  Later in the Spring, we’ll be cooking from the Mile End Cookbook, which is a lot about smoked meat.  There’s the act of smoking meat, like smoking a turkey or a chicken.  Then there is “smoked meat,” which is a Montreal Jewish specialty.  I’m excited to try my hand at both this spring.  So meanwhile today, I’m learning a bit more about smoking.

I won’t be making this model! Double S would say Don’t Give Ohbriggsy Any Ideas!

What else?  Well, tonight there’s xmas eve with the extended ohbriggsy family.  I already told you about our dips.  There will also be wreaths and other desserts.  There will be a ham.  And there will be bourbon slush!  Have you had bourbon slush?  Oh, you are gonna want this.  Maybe, just maybe, if you make this now and have a good freezer, you can be sippin’ on this by Christmas afternoon.

Here’s what you do:

Turn 4 cups of boiling or very hot water into tea by adding 4 regular tea bags.  Add about 1 cup of sugar to this so it dissolves.  Add more or less sugar depending on how sweet you like your drinks.  I added a little less than 1 cup.    Let steep for five minutes or so.  I like to make this tea early so I can add it to the rest of the mixture when its cooled down.

Get a large container that you will freeze this mixture in.  Add 2 large cans of lemonade concentrate, 1 large can of orange juice concentrate, and 10 cups of water.

That blue paper is the tattered recipe, dug out of the Garfield folder I showed you the other day!

Finally add 4 1/2 cups of bourbon of your choice.  Add more to taste!

Add the chilled tea mixture.  Stir well.

Put in the freezer.  This usually takes about 24 hours to freeze thoroughly.

This makes a lot, definitely enough for a party.  If you just want a bit, half the recipe, it’s fine!

For today’s xmas tune, here’s The Decemberists with “Please Daddy Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas.” This is a cover of the John Denver original.  The Decemberists were recently on the Simpsons.  But at this point, who hasn’t been on the Simpsons?

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 But you can go ahead and get drunk.  It’s xmas eve!  Big whoop!

Please Daddy Don’t Get Drunk (This Christmas)…The Decemberists

12 Days of Xmas in ’12! Day Eight!

I’m from St. Louis, friends.  And if you have ever followed along here at ohbriggsy, you might be saying to yourself right now something like this: No Shit, Sherlock.  And hey, it’s a highly underrated city.  Now, I’m not talking about Missouri or even Missourah here.  I’m talking about the Lou, as my man Nelly might call it, well him and now everyone else.

So the Lou is where I go for the holidays.  And incidentally, the Christmas song that for me most exemplifies the season is “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which of course is from the musical Meet Me in St. Louis.  Judy Garland’s character Esther sings it to her little sister Tootie to sooth them both after their father announces his intent to move them from their beloved St. Louis to stupid New York CIty.  And right before the 1904 World’s Fair even! Didn’t their pappy know that ice cream cones were going to be invented at the summbitch? I’ll just leave it to you to imagine a world pre ice cream cones.

This song sums up the feelings I have around the holiday.  At the end of the year we party, hoping that next year our troubles will finally be resolved, somehow.  This kind of attitude gives us an excuse to eat, drink. and be merry now, or to at least stop working so hard, stop working out at the gym for a few days, stop beating ourselves up over things.  We may talk about the past and its holidays nostalgically and yep, probably with some rose tinted glasses.  It’s ok to do that.  We anticipate seeing the loyal people in our lives who will travel the roads and the skies to be with us (or vice versa), often with hours long delays in Denver and terrible subs from Quiznos as their only sustenance (true story!).  We’re hopeful that we’ll be doing whatever it is that makes us feel the holiday again next year, but you never know.  I think this year that feeling is palpable.  That’s the holidays to me, some excess, some nostalgia, some travel, some hope.

Here’s a version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” that I like, by Paper Moon.

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And, hey, all you east and west coast bastards, St. Louis is not just flyover country!  St. Louis has had some pretty great stuff and some pretty cool people come out  of it.

Tina Turner!

Jon Hamm!

 

John Goodman!  You know I love him!

Marilyn vos Savant!  Whose smarts you may remember reading about in the back of your parents’ Parade magazine back in the 80s!  Or, hey, maybe you still do!  I don’t judge!

Maya Angelou!

Charles Eames!  You know, the designer of much of the mid-century modern furniture you (read: I) drool over.

Irma Rombauer!  Just a little German housewife from St. Louis who wrote the classic cookbook, The Joy Of Cooking.  Speaking of cookbooks, again I want to remind you that my pal Meg and I are leading a cookbook challenge for 2013!  We pick the books, you cook along with us and tell us what you did.  We’re just hashing out the final details, so stay tuned for more info re how to join and which cookbooks we’re using coming very soon! For more information, check it out here and here!

Julia Child, on The Joy of Cooking: “It is definitely number one on my list…the one book of all cookbooks …that I would have on my shelf if I could have but one.”

Jackie Joyner Kersee!

Three golds, one silver, two bronzes.

Redd Foxx!

Harry Caray!  Not always a Cubs fan!

Ok, that’s really Will Ferrell, but that’s pretty much how Harry is remembered now.

Andy Cohen!  That gay guy who runs Bravo and all of its terrifying housewives!  Sorry about that.

Kate Chopin!  Perhaps you read her in high school and became a feminist?

Miles Davis!

Ok, friends.  That’s it for the civic pride for today. Although there were many others I could have named: Kevin Kline, Nell Carter, TS Eliot, Jenna Fischer and Ellie Kemper and Phyllis Smith all from The Office (random!), Jonathan Franzen, Betty Grable, Jack Wagner, Maxine Waters, Tennessee Williams, and so.  St. Lpuis pride is a common topic for me.  Funny story: On the night I met Double S, on the Lower East side of Manhattan, she asked me where I was from, and I started up with this list.  Yep, I had a lot of these names on the tip of my tongue to impress the ladies.  It worked!  Well, that and my non nonsense order of a simple Budwesier on our first date.  Within the year, we’d be touring the brewery (Hey!  Free samples!) in St. Louis.

OK, get back to having yourself a merry little christmas, pals!

Paper Moon…Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas